Bones in Outer Space: Narrative and the Cosmos in 2001: A Space

Odyssey and Its Remediations

Marco Caracciolo

Abstract
Several million years ago, one of our ape-like ancestors throws a bone into the air; as it falls
down, the bone turns into an artificial satellite orbiting around the Earth. In this essay, I argue
that this celebrated match cut from Stanley Kubricks 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) tackles a
major problem for any narrative dealing with cosmic realities: namely, capturing in narrative
form a temporal and spatial scale that far exceeds what human beings can normally experience.
Using as case study Kubricks film and two of its remediations (Arthur C. Clarkes 1968
novelwritten in collaboration with Kubrickand Jack Kirbys 1976 comic book adaptation),
this essay seeks to theorize how the representation of cosmic phenomena may pose a formal
challenge to narrative across different media. I build on contemporary approaches to the study
of metaphor and embodiment to argue that metaphorical blends and the involvement of
audiences bodily experience may be used by storytellers to bridge the imaginative gap between
the human-scale world and the cosmos. Further, I explore how in my tutor texts the authors
narrative strategies may become entangled with interpretive meanings concerning humanitys
position in the universe.

Rsum
Il y a quelques millions dannes, un des anctres simiesques de lHomo sapiens jette un os
dans lair ; en tombant, los devient un satellite artificiel en orbite autour de la Terre. Lessai
prsent propose que dans cette clbre squence de 2001 : A Space Odyssey (1968) Stanley
Kubrick se mesure avec une problmatique centrale pour toutes les narratives qui traitent des
ralits cosmiques : cest dire, saisir en forme de rcit une chelle temporelle et spatiale qui
dpasse les confins de lexistence humaine. Grce trois tudes de cas (le film de Kubrick, le
roman homonyme de Arthur C. Clarke [1968]crit en collaboration avec Kubricket
ladaptation en bande dessine de Jack Kirby [1976]), lessai examine comment la
reprsentation des phnomnes cosmiques pose un dfi formel au rcit dans plusieurs mdia.
Je mappuie sur des thorisations contemporaines de la mtaphore et de l embodiment pour
montrer que les blends mtaphoriques et limplication de lexprience corporelle des
lecteurs ou spectateurs peuvent tre utilises dans les rcits cosmiques pour combler lcart
entre le monde lchelle humaine et le cosmos. En plus, lessai soutient que dans les textes
considrs les stratgies narratives des auteurs mettent en jeuau niveau interprtatifla
position de lhumanit dans le cosmos.

Keywords
blending, Clarke (Arthur C.), embodiment, Kirby (Jack), Kubrick (Stanley), metaphor,
narratology, remediation

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Introduction

Whether in the form of orally transmitted creation myths or all-encompassing theogonies,

storytelling has always concerned itself with cosmic phenomenawhere cosmic, here and
throughout this essay, refers to realities that transcend the spatial and temporal confines of
individual human existence. In literary studies, the interplay between literature and
cosmological models has been investigated in relation to a wide array of periods and genres,
from Dantes Commedia (Freccero) to 17th century French literature (At-Touati), Victorian
England (Henchman), and postmodernism (McGurl). But to date no systematic account exists
of how storytelling is affected by its engagement with cosmic realities. Narrative, it is often
assumed, is biased towards the representation of human-scale phenomena, since it presupposes
a human (or at least anthropomorphic) experientiality, in Monika Fluderniks term. In a seminal
article, Porter Abbott argued that phenomena occurring over long time spans and involving no
clear agencysuch as the evolution of life on Earth according to Charles Darwins theory of
natural selectioncannot be accurately represented in narrative form. Because of narratives
inherent reliance on character, intentionality, and teleology, Abbotts argument applies not just
to prose narrative but to any storytelling medium. Hence, the rise of interest in storytelling
across the media (Ryan; Ryan and Thon) affords an excellent opportunity to think of narratives
engagement with the cosmos as a transmedial phenomenon. This essay begins to theorize how
narrative may strive to sidestep these limitations through a gamut of stylistic devices and
effects.

I have chosen as a case study one of the quintessential cosmic narratives of the 20th century,
Stanley Kubricks film 2001: A Space Odyssey and its remediations in prose fiction (Arthur C.
Clarkes novel by the same title) and comics (Jack Kirbys adaptation for Marvel Comics).
Exploring three renditions of the same plot will offer a wealth of insights into the strategies and
effects of these different media when facing cosmic realities. Although, of course, I cannot
make any claim as to the comprehensiveness of these insights, the centrality of 2001 within the
science fiction canon (see Nicholls et al.) turns these texts into an intriguingand perhaps
unavoidablepoint of departure for a broader investigation.

I use generic terms such as remediations or renditions because Clarkes 2001, unlike
Kirbys comic book, cannot be called a straightforward adaptation or novelization of Kubricks
film. Clarke reconstructed the complex genesis of 2001 in a companion piece to the novel (The
Lost Worlds): in 1964 he received a letter from Kubrick, who was hoping to enlist him as
screenwriter for a new film project. The two started working together on the script, but soon
realized that the script format was too limiting; they thus decided to try out their ideas in a novel
instead. The script developed from the early drafts of the novel, thoughas Clarke points out
toward the end, both novel and screenplay were being written simultaneously, with feedback
in both directions (The Lost Worlds 31). Eventually, when the film was released in 1968 the
credits attributed the script to both Kubrick and Clarke. The novel came out shortly after the
film, in the same year, with Clarke as the only author.

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A few years later, in 1976, Marvel Comics published a comic book adaptation of Kubricks
film, in an oversize treasury format. The comic book was drawn and written by Jack Kirby,
an influential figure in the history of comic books in the United States, and the co-creator
with Marvel editor Stan Leeof well-known superheroes such as the X-Men, Hulk, and the
Fantastic Four. After the adaptation of 2001, Kirby drew ten issues of a series where he
expanded on Kubricks film while maintaining its cosmic template. Kirbys 2001 works are
considered a minor product of the artists career, coming after his long-lasting contributions to
the comics medium in the 1960s. Yetdespite the major differences in style between Kubricks
stately masterpiece and Kirbys flamboyant drawingsthe cosmic narrative of 2001 spoke to
Kirbys interest in the wide-ranging mode of the epic. Commenting on Kirbys earlier work,
Charles Hatfield argues that Marvel under Kirby introduced an epic approach to the superhero
genre that was mythic both in its scale and in its pantheonic complications (138). It should
come as no surprise, then, that Kirby found grist for his mill in Kubricks space odyssey.

By examining and comparing these versions of 2001, this essay can be considered a pilot study
in a larger project on narrative and the cosmos in the 20th century. Advances in physics and
astronomy have led to a drastic revision of cosmological models in the 20th century: discovering
that the universe is in expansion, or that there are billions of galaxies beyond the Milky Way,
has had an enormous impact on cosmological theories (see Longair). We may expect this
increasing realization of the temporal development and size of the universe to have left a mark
on the narrative representation of the cosmos as well. In exploring this hypothesis, I will take
my cue from the first part of 2001, set in Africa millions of years ago, because it tackles a
narrative problem that seems crucial to the present investigation: namely, how to bring together
a sweeping temporal arc (from our evolutionary ancestors to the space age) with an equally
vast, interplanetary spatial scale. Well see that metaphorical blendswhether verbal, visual,
or bothare key to reconciling these dimensions, and that this process may take on a distinctly
somatic quality, as in Kubricks match cut between a bone (thrown into the air by one of our
ape-like ancestors) and an orbital satellite. This stylistic device calls for an embodied mode of
engagement, thus dovetailing with arguments about the embodied nature of audiences
interactions with representational media (see Esrock; Caracciolo, Tell-Tale Rhythms;
Cognarts and Kravanja).

To fully understand the relevance and scope of the approach I am proposing here, I would like
to draw on recent debates surrounding the notion of the post-human (see Miah). The center
of gravity of these debates is the reconfiguration of the boundaries of the human in light of work
in fields such as disability studies, critical animal studies, and ecocriticism. Cary Wolfe, for
example, contends that, in post-Enlightenment culture, the human is achieved by escaping
or repressing not just its animal origins in nature, the biological, and the evolutionary, but more
generally by transcending the bonds of materiality and embodiment altogether (xv). Thinking
with animals, or disabled individuals, or the environment helps us unmask the ideology behind
this historically bound conception of the human, and of the human subject in particular.

My proposition is that taking into account the cosmic perspectivethe perspective inherent in
realities that far surpass the human scaleis the logical next step in this discussion. As already
implicit in the quotation from Wolfe, the post-human turn forces us to revisit the centrality of

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human embodiment as a biological and existential condition. The cosmos can be instrumental
to this decentering of the human, insofar as its scale dwarfs the human body and reveals its
extreme limitations and fragility. At the same time, our imagination of cosmic phenomena may
leverage aspects of our embodied interaction with the world. Over the last twenty years
cognitive scientists have been building a powerful case for the embodiment of mind, arguing
that a wide gamut of cognitive schemata and processes reflect patterns derived from our
embodied experience (see Gibbs). Even abstract concepts are grounded in the body. There is
growing evidence, for instance, that linguistic understanding leverages mnemonic traces of
our past embodied interactions with the world (Fischer and Zwaan). If we build on this
assumption, then, the body will play a pivotal role in our attempts at conceptualizing the cosmos
and acknowledging its incommensurability with our embodied being. Paradoxically, the body
becomes a necessary means towards the recognition of its own limits. But this is, of course, not
the only available option: the body can also be put to other uses, such as confirming the
anthropocentric worldviews critiqued by post-humanism. If my line of interpretation is correct,
the tension between embodied experience and cosmic phenomena is at the core of narratives
such as the three versions of 2001 Ill examine here, though each of them negotiates this tension
through the affordances of its own medium, and with significantly different effects.

Cosmic Transitions
The preamble of 2001 seeks to capture the first spark of human creativitythe moment when
our ancestors realized that natural objects could be used as tools. Except that, the narrative
suggests, this leap was made possible by the intervention of extraterrestrial intelligence, in
the form of a mysterious monolith. Interestingly, in all three versions of 2001 this cognitive
leap forward is followed soon by another kind of leapa narrative one. In what can be regarded
as an ellipsis (in the film and comic book) or an extreme case of summary (in the novel), the
whole of cultural history is glossed over, and were transported from our remote evolutionary
past to the space age. This transition is rich in ideological implications, which play out
differently across the case studies. But it is also, as well see, a transition that leverages two
kinds of cognitive processes in the audience: metaphorical blends and embodied involvement.
Lets begin by considering the relevant passage in Clarkes novel, which occurs at the end of
Part One:

When the ice [age] had passed, so had much of the planets early life
including the man-apes. But, unlike so many others, they had left
descendants; they had not merely become extinctthey had been
transformed. The toolmakers had been remade by their own tools.

For in using clubs and flints, their hands had developed a dexterity found
nowhere else in the animal kingdom, permitting them to make still better
tools, which in turn had developed their limbs and brains yet further. It was
an accelerating, cumulative process; and at its end was Man. . . .

Unlike the animals, who knew only the present, Man had acquired a past [by
mastering language]; and he was beginning to grope toward a future.

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 He was also learning to harness the forces of nature; with the taming of fire,
he had laid the foundations of technology and left his animal origins far
behind. Stone gave way to bronze, and then to iron. Hunting was succeeded
by agriculture. The tribe grew into the village, the village into the town.
Speech became eternal, thanks to certain marks on stone and clay and
papyrus. Presently he invented philosophy, and religion. And he peopled the
sky, not altogether inaccurately, with gods.

As his body became more and more defenseless, so his means of offense
became steadily more frightful. With stone and bronze and iron and steel he
had run the gamut of everything that could pierce and slash, and quite early
in time he had learned how to strike down his victims from a distance. The
spear, the bow, the gun, and finally the guided missile had given him weapons
of infinite range and all but infinite power. (Clarke, 2001 3538)

The hominidand later humanbody takes center stage in this passage: the narrator calls
attention to how the body is not just augmented by tools, as in recent theories of extended
cognition (Clark and Chalmers), but shaped, over the course of evolutionary history, by the
tools themselves. The passage also makes clear that this is a cumulative process, which is
rendered through a combination of metonymies and metaphors.

For all their apparent straightforwardness, the mental operations that underlie readers
comprehension of these tropes are quite complex. When Clarke writes Stone gave way to
bronze, and then to iron, he is notof coursesaying that these materials somehow turned
into one another. He is using them metonymically, to refer to the three-age periodization of
prehistorya model whose literary pedigree goes all the way back to Lucretiuss De rerum
natura (V, 9251457). Further, he is mapping (metaphorically) a concrete scenario where these
materials follow one another onto the much more abstract idea thatas time progressed
stone, bronze, and iron became increasingly central in human practices. The sentence The tribe
grew into the village, the village into the town works in a similar way. Both passages are
examples of what cognitive linguists Fauconnier and Turner call conceptual blending, or the
metaphorical integration of two domainsone of which is concrete (the changing materials,
the growing tribe) while the other involves more abstract conceptual structures (a certain
conception of prehistory, the triumph of urbanization over more archaic hunter-gatherer
societies, and so on). The evolution of human technologies and culture is thus compressed into
a single scenariothe blend, in Fauconnier and Turners termin order to outline changes
over an extremely long time span.

Something similar happens in the sentence The spear, the bow, the gun, and finally the guided
missile in the penultimate paragraph. These weapons, considered here individually, capture
the evolution of human technology from prehistory to the cold war. Their juxtaposition is less
explicitly metaphorical than in the case of the [stone giving] way to bronze, but we still realize
that these objects fall on a continuum, and we project them onto an imaginary timeline. While
these blends lend a certain concreteness to the processes described by this passage, none of
them directly involves the human body. Earlier on, the metaphor of humanity [groping] toward

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a future seemed to hint at an embodied parallel between the history of humankind and physical
interaction with an environment, but Clarke decides not to develop this scenario, falling back
on more conventional imagery based on material culture. Put otherwise, the body figures
thematically in Clarkes passage, but it plays a relatively minor role in the metaphorical imagery
he conjures up in trying to capture the eons of natural and cultural evolution. Instead, what
dominates this end of Part One is a process of temporal compression: the pace accelerates until
only a few symbols of humanitys progression are left behind, along with the narrators stage
directions.

In Kubricks 2001, by contrast, the history of humanity is subsumed under a spatial trajectory
that explicitly calls for an embodied, kinesthetic mode of engagement. In a scene that doesnt
appear in the novel, we see one of the hominids, Moon-Watcher, throw a bone into the air after
his group has gained control of a small pond and killed their rivals leader thanks to their new
weapons. The next shot follows the bones upward movement against the backdrop of a few
clouds and a light blue sky. This lasts a few seconds; after a cut, were shown the bone falling
down. Unexpectedly, Kubricks editing swaps the bone with a satellite whose orbit appears to
continue the bones downward trajectory (see Fig. 1)though now the background has the
blackness of outer space, and Earth soon becomes visible on the right-hand side of the frame.
This famous match cut works on a number of levels. First, it edits out of the film the long series
of technological advances that brought humanity from using bones as weapons to building
artificial satellites (this was initially intended as a nuclear weapons platform, but Kubrick later
decided to leave the nature of the spacecraft ambiguous). In this way, Kubrick favors ellipsis
over the summary of Clarkes novel; what this transition subsumes, however, will be
immediately clear to the films audience. The cognitive leap accomplished by our ape-like
ancestors under the monoliths influence is thus translated into an instantaneous temporaland
narrativeleap. Secondly, the editing combines temporal discontinuity with spatial continuity,
both in terms of the satellites shape (which is closely reminiscent of the bone) and in terms of
the two objects downward motion. This double match helps convey the sense thatdespite
the dizzying temporal scale of the omissionthe bone and the nuclear weapon are part of the
same, human history of domestication and exploitation of the physical world. As in Clarkes
novel, the process is one of conceptual integration: the bone and the satellite are blended with
a set of abstract ideastechnology as augmenting the human body and representing an
important factor in our species evolutionary success. Yet Kubricks cut is much more
surprising because of the conceptual and temporal leap it implies.

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 Fig. 1 Bone-satellite match cut in Kubricks 2001 (from
http://www.muenster.org/filmwerkstatt/filmfestival/15/english/match-cut.jpg).

But there is another reason for the effectiveness of Kubricks device, and this brings me to the
third level Id like to explore in this analysis. Contrast the match cut with Clarkes The spear,
the bow, the gun, and finally the guided missile. What is missing in this enumeration is the
kinesthetic dimension of our engagement with the films sequence. Psychological and
neuroscientific research suggests that motor resonance processes are key to our understanding
of physical actions, whether they are directly perceived (Rizzolatti, Fogassi, and Gallese) or
verbally represented (Zwaan et al.): looking at other peoples bodily actions involves part of
the same neural resources that we would use to perform similar actions (hence the resonance).
Film can leverage this embodied tendency with varying degrees of conscious awareness on the
audiences part (Gallese and Guerra): when we are maximally conscious of our embodied
simulations we connect to characters through a mechanism known as kinesthetic empathy
(see Reynolds and Reason).

Thus, when we see Moon-Watcher casting the bone in slow motion (see Fig. 2), with an
exaggerated gesture, we are encouraged to participate in his action and follow the bones
trajectory almost as if we had thrown it ourselves. This is hardly surprising in a film that, in
Annette Michelsons words, takes for its very subject, theme and dynamicsboth narrative
and formalmovement itself (58). Our propensity to engage with Moon-Watchers gesture at
this level explains perhaps why the transition from bone to satellite is so effective, much more
so than Clarkes verbal progression from spear to guided missile: far from being a mere witness
of the match cut, the audience is implicated in it (at least potentially) at the embodied and
kinesthetic level, and finds it surprising because it challenges their expectations about the
continuity in space of a thrown object. Such expectations are at the core of a set of skills known
in psychology as nave physics (see Spelke et al.). Here the motion of the object is preserved,
but not its identity. This embodied involvement, I submit, heightens the effect of Kubricks
conceptual blending of material entities and abstract processes. I will have more to say about
the significance of this blend in the next section. For now, however, let us turn to Kirbys comic
book and examine his solution to this narrative problem of conjoining two distant moments in
humanitys evolution.

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 Fig. 2 Moon-Watcher throws a bone into the air (from Kubricks 2001).

Marketed as the official adaptation of the MGM/Stanley Kubrick production (as stated on the
cover), Kirbys 2001 tends to follow the film closely, with minor but sometimes significant
differences. Consider the sequence where Moonwatcher (here spelled without a hyphen) casts
the bone into the air (see Fig. 3). The drawings are clearly inspired by the films match cut, but
they introduce some new elements, both stylistically and thematically, through Kirbys layout
and captions. Visually, the page is divided into three panels of unequal size. In the first we see
Moonwatcher throwing the bonewith both his swinging body and the bones upward
trajectory being signaled by white motion lines. The upper portion of the bone is invisible,
however. The second, smaller panel shows only this portion: the bone continues its upward
flight and seems to leave the Earths atmosphere, as indicated by the transition between a light
blue sky and a darker, starry sky. In the third panel the bone has become a Space Shuttle-like
spacecraft, which preserves the bones color, elongated shape, and inclination. The panel is set
outside of the Earths atmosphere, with the spacecraft flying between our planet and a space
station; stars appear as black dots against a colorful (mainly pink) background. The page marks
an obvious attempt at translating into the comics medium Kubricks striking match cutbut
the differences from that model are equally striking. In the film the bone was seen moving up
and down; the cut to the satellite occurred during the fall. Here, by distinct contrast, the
spaceship continues the bones upward motiona directionality rich in ideological meanings,
as the caption makes clear. The continuity between the bone and spaceship is highlighted by
their spatial arrangement, which guides the readers gaze along a diagonal, from the upper left
corner to the bottom right, thus serving as a visual counterpoint to the bones imagined upward
flight: the readers eyes fall along the page while the bone-ship climbs into outer space.

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 Fig. 3 Moonwatcher throws a bone into space (from Kirby 12).

This strategy seems quite successful at involving the audience in bodily terms, through the
combined action of narrated events (Moonwatcher throws the bone) and stylistic cues, which
foreground the readers own moving gaze. Karin Kukkonen (4955) has explored the embodied
nature of the mise-en-page in comics, in an analysis that is largely consistent with what Im
proposing here. Yet the narrators commentary in the captions frames the audiences embodied
involvement in a significantly different way from Kubricks 2001. In the film, the match cut
tends to work as an ellipsis, subsuming the entire evolutionary and cultural history of
humankind. The conceptual blend created by Kubricks editing reveals the role of tools
whether rudimental, like the bone, or advanced, like the satellitein the extension of our
physical and cognitive capacities. In Kirbys adaptation, the emphasis seems to fall elsewhere.
First, the narrator presents the apes gesture as an expression of a certain feeling: the elation of
victory, of being master of the world. The following captions reinforce this reading, since the
bones upward motion is put into the service of an anthropocentric view of the cosmos: the stars
are said to be waiting for the coming of man, who only has to follow the destiny bequeathed
to him by the monolith. Interestingly, the teleological nature of this narrative makes us
forgetor, at least, backgroundsthe ellipsis contained in the transition from bone to
spaceship: the three panels convey not the cognitive leap of humankind but its uninterrupted
ascent, to be continued into outer space. No doubt, the conventions and target audience of comic
books constrain Kirbys creativity in this connection. But it is nevertheless remarkable how the
same episode, framed in different ways, can become bound up with profoundly divergent
conceptions of the relationship between human beings and the cosmos.

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Divergent Conceptions
To understand the implications of Kirbys representational and stylistic choices, we need to
consider another area where the comic book departs from the film. In Kubricks 2001, the
prehistoric episode is preceded and followed by shots showing the grandiose beauty of the
Earth, the Sun, and the Moon (an effect heightened by the films soundtrack, as is well known).
These images serve as cosmic backdrop to the first part of the film, which depicts the apes
discovery of the monolith and its impact on their cognitive capacities. The comparison between
the sublimity of the cosmos and the primitiveness of these apes behavior is inevitable: the
universe seems to towerphysically and morallyover the biological beings populating our
planets surface. The contrast is, no doubt, ironic, and draws attention to what is known in
cosmology as the mediocrity principle, or the littleness of the human compared to the cosmic
forces and realities that surround us. Stephen Hawking famously explained this principle as
follows: The human race is just a chemical scum on a moderate-sized planet, orbiting around
a very average star in the outer suburb of one among a hundred billion galaxies (quoted in
Deutsch 177178). More than Clarkes novel or (especially) Kirbys comics adaptation of 2001,
Kubricks film manages to drive home this point through its focus on the grandeur of the
cosmos.

Crucially for our purposes, the notion of the apes mediocrity complicates our interpretation of
the match cut between the bone and the satellite. Again, embodiment is likely to play a role in
this interpretive dynamic: the throwing of the bone is the quintessential example of a small-
scale action that reflects the size and affordances (or interaction potentials, in J. J. Gibsons
ecological psychology) of the human body. But the satellite doesnt work in this way. When
Kubricks camera shows us the satellite, and later the spaceship flying between the Earth and
the Moon, we realize that we cannot interact with these objects in the same, embodied way as
we would with the bone. The motion of the spaceship may appear to continue the bones
trajectory, but this continuity is illusory, because it involves a shift from a human-scale to a
cosmic world to which the human body is necessarily maladapted. In other words, in Kubricks
2001 the match cut, and the implied transition from the African habitat of our ancestors to outer
space, expose the incommensurability between the terrestrial environment where our species
evolved and the inhospitable space where humans have made their first, tentative steps. The
match cut is so surprising because, despite the visual similarity between the bone and the
satellite, it doesnt trace a linear progression (as Clarkes spear, bow, gun, and guided missile)
but juxtaposes worlds that, we realize, have little in common. Kubricks exploration of the
discrepancy between the human body and the cosmos begins here, but it will become even more
salient later in the film (for instance, in an unsettling sequence where we see one of the
astronauts drifting in outer spacehis body completely immersed in, and even eroded by, the
pitch darkness surrounding him). This acknowledgment of the mediocrity of the human,
however implicit, undercuts celebratory narratives of the kind embraced by Kirby in rendering
Kubricks match cut. Moreover, the body is not just the thematic focus of this realization but
at least potentiallyits vehicle, for it is through motor resonance and kinesthetic empathy that
we are invited to engage with the match cut.

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Contrast this with what happens in the same episode of Kirbys comic book. Visually, the ape,
the bone, and the spaceship occupy most of the page: the human figure and human-made
artifacts are kept in proportion with the Earth itself, so that the universe is confined to the role
of mere backdrop to humanitys accomplishments. Thus, when we relate to the apes throwing
gesture in the comic book, our embodied involvement is associated with the exhilarating ascent
of humankind, not with a discrepancy between cosmic phenomena and our human-scale world.
In this way, the beginning of Kirbys adaptation tends to present the cosmos as a human
playground, rather than as a domain whose scale far surpasses what can be experienced and
understood by humans. There are episodes in Kirbys comic book where this anthropocentric
conception of the universe seems to give way to a worldview closer to Kubricks: an example
would be the visually stunning dimension trip in the last part of the book, where the space
pod seems to swim in an ocean of loud colors and abstract shapes. Perhaps this should be read
as a tribute to Kubrick, or perhaps there is a contradiction at the heart of Kirbys stance towards
the universe. But even in this cosmic fireworks display the human body takes center stage: in
the last page of this sequence, the protagonists face is projected onto the cosmos itself, as if
this unsettling landscape could be anthropomorphized, and the gap between the human and the
cosmic bridged (see Fig. 4). Tellingly, the protagonists final transformation into a new being
and possibly a new speciesis presented in a caption as another great step . . . in the odyssey
of man, thus tying in with the anthropocentric narrative of the beginning.

Fig. 4 A splash page from the dimension trip (Kirby 66).

Finally, we may ask how the tension between human embodiment and the cosmos plays out in
Clarkes novel. Something that is commonly said of Clarkes text in relation to Kubricks 2001
is that, while the film leaves so much unexplained, the novel conveys a clear-cut narrative,

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attempting to shed light on or contextualizeoften by recourse to scientific or pseudo-scientific
theoriesevery aspects of the plot. The result is that the novel has to walk an uneasy path
between a rationalizing worldview and the exploration of realities that challenge human
existence in deeply unsettling ways. In the second half of the novel, this leads to a somewhat
clichd insistence on how protagonist David Bowman sees stars on which human beings had
never laid eyes (In all history, he was the only man to have seen this sight [2001 251]). The
narrator keeps reminding us of the protagonists isolation, of his being millions of miles away
from any other human, but such statements tend to remain matter-of-fact: they stop short of
turning the incommensurability of the cosmos into a concrete, embodied experience.

A good example of this hesitation between affirming the human and acknowledging the
universes more-than-human scale is Clarkes use of figurative language. Throughout the novel
we find a number of metaphors and similes attempting to render the vastness of outer space, in
comparison to which the Earth and Bowmans spacecraft look like toys. Consider, for instance,
the following passages: Like a ball on a cosmic pool table, Discovery had bounced off the
moving gravitational field of Jupiter (2001 142); the whole planet Earth, if set down [on
Saturns rings], would look like a ball bearing rolling round the rim of a dinner plate (2001
231); as [Saturns moon, Japetus] loomed menacingly above him, it seemed enormousa
cosmic hammer (2001 240). In principle, these metaphorical phrases seek to capture the
disproportion between the human-scale world and the outer reaches of the solar system.
Paradoxically, however, this is achieved by drawing on domains of experience (the pool table,
the dinner plate, the hammer) whose effect is to familiarize, rather than defamiliarize, the
perception of the corresponding cosmic entities. In other words, by being put side by side with
household objects, the universe is made more parochial, its scale adjusted to the criteria of
human perception even as its magnitude is being highlighted. The dynamic of the conceptual
blend seems opposite to that of Kubricks match cut: while Kubricks strategy is, as I pointed
out above, ironic in that it calls attention to the mediocrity of the human, Clarkes figurative
language seeks to appropriate the cosmos by metaphorically turning it into a collection of
human-scale (and human-made) entities. This tendency can be seen at work even in the section
of the novel where Clarke demands the most from his readers imaginationnamely, the last
part, entitled Through the Star Gate and corresponding to Kirbys dimension trip. Clarke
does his best to describe the terrifying cosmic spectacle laid out in front of the protagonist, and
indeed there are some powerful passages here, but the narrator periodically resorts to reassuring
(if not downright bathetic) metaphors such as he was flying over a gigantic orbital parking lot
(2001 270), it was like being inside a ping-pong ball (2001 262), and so on.

Given these metaphorical mappings, it is only fitting that in the novels last chapter the
protagonistnow become a Star-Childshould see the Earth as a glittering toy (2001
297). For this post-human subject, the cosmos itself becomes a playgroundand while Clarkes
anthropocentrism is perhaps less blunt than Kirbys, the two worldviews seem fundamentally
compatible insofar as they tend to narrow the divide between the human and the non-human.
Moreover, Clarkes metaphors and similes, while being grounded in a human-scale
environment that reflects the affordances and make-up of the human body, do not directly
appeal to readers bodily experience in the same way as Kubricks match cut. Embodiment is

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taken for granted, but it is not leveraged in order to put readers in touch with realities that
transcend their everyday world. In this way, different representational and stylistic choices
across versions of the same plot can become bound up with potentially contrasting conceptions
of humanitys position in the cosmos.

Conclusion
The goal of this essay was to use three versions of 2001 to outline a research program on the
interplay between cosmological models and storytelling in the 20th century context. I chose a
transmedial approach because the representation of cosmic phenomena appears to destabilize
the conceptual underpinnings of narrative at a very fundamental level, raising a challenge that
is likely to be felt across different media: while stories typically involve a human-scale
temporality and spatial setting, anthropomorphic agency, and teleology, all these basic
elements of narrativein David Hermans phraseare at least potentially undercut by
realities that transcend individual human existence. As a thematic focus with clear formal
implications, the cosmos is thus an extremely productive test bed for a transmedial narratology,
and one that may shed light on the nature of narrative media by putting pressure on established
representational and stylistic strategies.

In attempting to render cosmic phenomena, narrative has to negotiate a middle way between
two opposing tendencies: on the one hand, the human desire to experience the cosmos
imaginatively as well as analytically, to quote Kathryn Humes (48) characterization of the
project undertaken by Italo Calvino with his Cosmicomics. On the other hand, this translation
of scientific knowledge into concrete experiences has to work through the difficulty of
imagining processes occurring over the vast temporal and spatial scales posited by
contemporary cosmological theories. My case studies suggestin a preliminary waythat
cosmic narratives may reconcile these tendencies through two strategies, which may be adopted
either individually (as in Clarkes novel) or in combination (in Kubrick and Kirby). These
strategies are metaphorical blends and bodily involvement. Metaphor, as argued by theorists
working in the wake of Lakoff and Johnsons influential Metaphors We Live By, is a powerful
tool for presenting abstract phenomena in a convenient, human-scale package. Fauconnier and
Turners blending theory aims to shed light on this metaphorical process: relevant knowledge
from two separate conceptual domains is integrated into a single, concretely imaginable
scenario known as the blend. This is, on my hypothesis, the cognitive dynamic underlying
Kubricks metaphorical match cut between the bone and the satellite, or Clarkes frequent
comparisons between cosmic entities and household objects.

The same translation of cosmic realities into human-scale terms may be attempted by leveraging
the audiences bodily experience: when Kubrick or Kirby involve us in the apes throwing
gesture, we are asked to enact a narrative ellipsis of a few million years in an embodied way.
This process is a defamiliarizing one, insofar as it challenges our expectations regarding the
continuity of moving objects: the bone cast into the air (in Kubrick) or into outer space (in
Kirby) becomes a spacecraft, in a surprising twist that tends to heighten the audiences
embodied involvement. The same happens whenever Kubrick foregrounds the strange
mechanics of human bodies moving in the absence of gravity. The upshot is that the body plays
an important role in imaginatively experiencing realities that are far removed from our everyday

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world, andmore generallyfrom the terrestrial environment where our species evolved.
Kirby and Kubrick make more frequent use of these embodied strategies than Clarke, thus
demonstrating the considerable potential of both film and comics for eliciting embodied
responses. This doesnt mean that prose narrative is an inherently disembodied medium,
however: as shown by recent research in psycholinguistics (Fischer and Zwaan), our
understanding of verbal cues is, in itself, an embodied activity, and writers may build on this to
create forms of somatic involvement fundamentally similar to those weve seen at work in
Kirby and Kubrick. Clarke exploits this embodied basis of language only to a limited extent,
but other authorsincluding authors dealing with cosmic phenomena (see Caracciolo, Nave
Physics)may place a stronger emphasis on embodiment.

Weve seen that these narrative strategies for capturing cosmic realities may become bound up
with different, and potentially conflicting, conceptions of humanitys position in the universe.
Cosmic narratives may be complicit with anthropocentric worldviews, subscribing more or less
implicitly to master plots about humans technological exploration and domination of space. At
the other end of the spectrum, cosmic narratives may serve as a mirror of the mediocrity of our
species, ironically revealing our cognitive and physical limitations and facing us with the
unsettling parochialism of our own lifeworld. Where each narrative falls on this interpretive
continuum depends on audiences concerns and predispositions as well as on individual
authors choices. Keeping this in mind, it is still possible to venture hypotheses about how
textual strategies may orient the audiences meaning-making. Thus, I have argued in this essay
that Kirby leans towards a teleological narrative about humans dominion over space, while
Kubricks project seems to go in the opposite, anti-anthropocentric direction, with Clarke
falling in between those poles, and possibly closer to Kirby.

A broader investigation into narrative and the cosmos would complicate this picture at two
levels: it would offer a more systematic mapping of the stylistic and narrative strategies capable
of conveying cosmic phenomena, and it would enrich our understanding of these narratives
experiential effects and interpretive ramifications. Crucially, however, this larger project would
have to look beyond fictional texts, taking into account the role of storytelling in framing our
relationship with the cosmos in many socio-cultural practicesincluding science itself.
Studying the two-way dialogue between fictional representations and non-fictional discourse is
key to understanding the cultural impact and import of cosmic narratives.

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Marco Caracciolo is a postdoctoral researcher at the English Department of the University of
Freiburg (Germany) and at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies. He is mainly interested
in phenomenological approaches to literature and cognitive narrative theory. His work has been
published in journals such as Poetics Today, Narrative, Modern Fiction Studies, and
Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences. He is the author of The Experientiality of
Narrative: An Enactivist Approach (De Gruyter, 2014).

Email: marco.caracciolo84@gmail.com

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