My Human Nature Notes

p1 - they seem, in places, to address me so directly it's almost uncomfortable. Quotation is a favourite of the New Adventure authors, used since Timewyrm: Apocalypse, but often it seems like pretension and ornamentation. Cornell innovates here, incorporating this quote and two others as free-standing text within the body of the novel, unattributed and stripped of punctuation. It's as if he's trying to grow the novel from this seed, expand and explain the quote, or perhaps use the novel to show where the quote comes from. It will recur twice more within the text on p13 and p103. Ace has the experience it describes on p146 of Timewyrm: Revelation.

they seem, in places, to address me so directly it's almost uncomfortable. The first time I read the novel in 1995, I skimmed it quickly, by basically only reading the dialogue, and the leading quote certainly described the novel for me. The second time, shortly after, I read the novel properly and didn't like it, thinking the ideas and characters just didn't seem to be nailed down by the writing. I've just re-read the novel twice, so what do I think is going on now? Cornell isn't a prose stylist in the way that Aaronovitch or Orman are, he follows in the footsteps of Terrance Dicks. But his text has a very different content to that of Dicks, and his plain style is used to build up a dense mosaic or hypertext of themes. If you read a paragraph or scene, it seems very unassuming, but the more you read, and re-read, the more you see the connections. Embedded within this are dialogue, diary entries (p34), stories, and dreams, which use a heightened, direct form of address. This isn't pretentious, however, but passionate - and playful too, often incorporating misunderstanding and word games.

They seem, in places, to address me so directly it's almost uncomfortable. This is the original quote, from a fanzine article by David Darlington on Cornell's first three novels and their use of pop music references. The New Adventures weren't just written by fans, but part of the ongoing fan dialogue. Rock and electronica fans will recognise this process as feedback. It's also an apt way for a Doctor Who story to start given the original opening titles were based on visual feedback.

p1 - Benny's diary, a kind of palimpsest, was introduced in Love and War. This is the only novel that uses excerpts for anything other than lazy pseudo-first person narration when the author got bored of focalised third person perspective. So the New Adventures basically ignored something Cornell introduced way-back-when and now he's ignoring them right back. This kind of thing goes on all the time in the series, and I used to think it was a weakness, a failure of editing and continuity. Now I see it as a vital part of each author's vision of what Doctor Who is all about, part of the process of misprision in developing the Doctor Who tradition, that in the TV show is more in the hands of producers and script editors.

p1 - These words are not my own they only come when I'm alone. From 'Golden Green' (1989) by The Wonderstuff. The sort of thing the leading quote was talking about.

p1 - I met someone called Guy, he took on overwhelming odds and then he happened to die. Of course, where Love and War ignored the preceding Nightshade, Human Nature engages very strongly with Sanctuary. Amusingly, one of the smallest connections is the reference to Blackpool (p2), which Sanctuary mentions in its closing paragraphs, which is a reference to a line cut from the end of Season 22 because it was intended to lead into a Season 23 that never got made.

p4 - The Doctor deliberately threw away the TARDIS manual so that he could learn more thoroughly about her. This is a) a continuity reference to the steerability of the TARDIS, b) a revisionist interpretation of said steerability, making it more acceptable, c) helping to position Cornell's own vision of Doctor Who, with the Doctor shown in this instance as a kind of meddler.

p5 - to paraphrase a recent acquaintance, about which I may write a short monograph one day. This is a reference to Sherlock Holmes, a real person who Benny met in All-Consuming Fire. Later in the novel (p102), Holmes will be mentioned as a fictional character written by Doyle, and this is the final book in the cycle of stories which began with Timewyrm: Revelation, in which the Doctor states that Holmes is fictional. This is a continuity reference that is also a contradiction. Cornell recognises that All-Consuming Fire, as well as his own books, are canonical because they are good, not because they all agree. In Revelation (p15), the Doctor also says, "Just because someone isn't real, it doesn't mean you can't meet them." That and this novel are full of fictions given life.

p7 - It's hard to believe, but this predates Bridget Jones's Diary.

p15 - Don't Forget To Catch Me. The chapter title is from 'Hobart Paving' (1993) by Saint Etienne. I don't know if it specifically matches up to anything in the chapter, but it's a very evocative beginning, the sort of thing Darlington was talking about.

p17 - I quickly realised that I couldn't note down every political point made about class, sex, sexuality, race, nationality, etc, in this thoroughly structured novel. I do want to record the references to Ireland: "home rule" (p17), "risky at the moment" (p47), "Ulstermen" (p75), "Irish dictionary" (p171). This is important because it builds the background that makes Benny's accusation of Joan being a racist explicable. It's also important because Britain was still being bombed by the IRA when this was written.

p18/19 - come out. I understand what Benny understands and have no idea what Constance is on about here.

p21 - Hutchison is another version of Boyle from Timewyrm: Revelation, a kind of stereotypical bully. Here the bully is a) older, b) supported by his environment... c) on "our" side... and, interestingly, in a novel that is very concerned with cycles and depth psychology, d) not given any explanation or excuse... also, e) he is not saved.

p22 - Smith's tie is a hint that Smith is the Doctor, something that might not have been apparent if you aren't a fan. If you recognise the Doctor on the cover, then the link is made on p38. Otherwise the central plot point isn't explained till p44-50. Note that the Monk was threatened with being made human in No Future (p204).

p23/24 - It will go the worse for you. I know this is meant to be a factual statement, but it doesn't make sense as such. It just sounds like the kind of verbal abuse dished out by victims of physical bullying. A bad taste to have in your mouth.

p28 - Smith is made of continuity references. For the fan, the fun game of cryptic continuity spotting begins.

p31 - 'Are you a mystic, then?' 'No. Well, not in the romantic sense.' What on earth do you mean?

p31 - Oh, that man. He's a complete caricature. Joan seems to think of Roscastle like a prefiguring of Blimp, however I think he turns out to be the second best character in the novel, and one of the best characters in the New Adventures, more Clive Candy in - see: p117, p145, p176. While musing if he was, in fact, the best character in the novel, I realise I'd been taken in by the cryptic continuity.

p38-42 - Boudiccan destruction layer. One of the greatest scenes in the New Adventures. It is completely contradicted by Smith later (p118-119)

p49 - I was using the recollections of previous occupants to create Smith. In Revelation (p73) the Doctor equates Ace's memory with her soul, something Trelaw is wary of. Note that the metaphysical Doctor in this novel is not just memories in the biodatapod, but Verity as well, and probably Mr Woo the Owl too. In The Five Doctors, the Doctor says a man is the sum of his memories, something both Revelation and Human Nature are interrogating. In fact, both are radical revisions of that story, with Doctors in one, companions in the other. It's easy to forget, as the cast of this novel do at various points, that Smith isn't the Doctor. In fact, I've never heard this referred to as a Doctorless novel, even though he is absent for 85% of the page count (from p10 to p229, out of 255 pages), probably more so than Birthright or Eternity Weeps. The best New Adventures use Doctor Who not as a universe, but as myth, as literary history, that can be referenced and revised profitably, just the same as any novel might reference and revise Shakespeare or The Bible. Fans mislead themselves with the game of cryptic continuity and fail to see how the references are used to build an amazingly complex picture of the best character in the New Adventures.

p56 - Bit of a clumsy so and so. Which was odd, for a sailor. This could be taken by the sad fan as a jab at the character of Harry Sullivan, but the serious frock might consider the disparity between our image of the world and how it really is. Smith's mind is full of contradictions: this isn't a sign of his fictionality, but his reality. There's even a better-than-average Whitman invocation (p69) to go with this.

p66 - Carefully, he puckered his lips and touched them to the bark of the tree. This is so touchingly awkward. Followed closely by some of the sexiest writing in the New Adventures (p69-71).

p74 - Maybe I made it up? Going hand in hand with the theme of being able to meet fictions, is the theme of real things seeming made up. See also: p115/116, p156, p229, p236. This feels very important, but I can't articulate what it means any better than the novel.

p83 - I just want to be me and do that as well as I can. They seem, in places, to address me so directly it's almost uncomfortable. See also: p121, p177, p190, p232, and especially p243.

p86 - Unconscious? How can thoughts not be conscious? I just love this line from the time before Freud.

p94 - 'Does that mean I'm dead?' 'Don't ask that too loudly.' Could be paraphrased as "Does that mean you're Death?" "Don't make this symbol too concrete."

p104 - St Anthony's. Surely it's no coincidence, in this novel where Smith looks to God and even recites the Lord's Prayer (p203), that the town church bears the name of the saint used in the anti-religion New Adventure St Anthony's Fire.

p108 - How dare you allow me to know? Benny's accidental historical revelation to Alexander contrasts directly with Sanctuary (p264) where she crushes Guy's attacker with history. Both novels strongly sell the point that you can't change History with a capital Gun.

p129 - A cat pinned down on a table, its skull open to show its brain. Cornell rescues this image from the clumsy strand of Warlock and makes it the central connection between Smith and the Doctor. Also on: p165, p171. The Doctor is the "protector of cats" (p175).

p132 - This is for tribesmen... Let me just point out that these bullets are illegal under the Hague Convention of 1899.

p151 - Attractive, in a horsey sort of way. In Blood Harvest, Benny says that she "hates horsy women" (p46), meaning aristocrats with horses. I can't help wondering if Joan, who is never really described, looks like Lalla Ward.

p165 - Names that he didn't recognise. Smith reciting the names of the Doctor's companions, as the latter does in The Curse of Fenric. In some sense Smith is invoking his faith in himself - perhaps the Doctor is too.

p187 - After the last schoolboy had climbed the stairs, Mr Moffat, the bursar, staggered up out of the cellar behind him. The character named for Steven Moffat, patron saint of students, saves more more people than anyone else.

p210 - Smith thought about a dying flutterwing. He's thinking about Pain, as told in Set Piece.

p217/18 - Nobody else dies! As Guy's death scene from Sanctuary tries to play out again, this time with the villain in the central role, Benny breaks the cycle referred to by Smith (p209) and Serif (echoing Santayana, p213). This is the major theme of the novel: the point of having history as a subject is progress.

p247 - In June 1914, Archduke Ferdinand, the heir to the Austrian throne, was assassinated by Gavrilo Prinzip, a Serbian terrorist, while parading through Sarajevo. The entire novel has been riding the concave face of this wave and now the wave finally breaks. This follows the pattern of Sanctuary with the massacre of the Cathars. This feels like Book 15 of The Iliad, when Zeus lays out exactly how the rest of the action will unfold.

p253 - And when they took it off to be slaughtered with the other cows, it kicked and kicked and they had to force it to go in. In 1995, I think I missed this reference to Greeneye's attempted escape (see also p237: Morgaine's escape left her feeling sheepish). A vivid argument for vegetarianism. Also, a Fantastic Four reference.

p255 - And somewhere in the sky overhead, for an instant before they dissolved into mist, two snowflakes were the same. Taking us all the way back to the opening of Revelation. In 1995, I didn't like this ending, because I thought it referred to the Doctor and Benny, and I thought Cornell really wanted it for the Doctor and Ace. Benny even wishes Ace were there three times in the novel! Now I think it refers to the Doctor and Smith, the Doctor and Tim, the Doctor and Benny, the Doctor and the would-be Doctors, the Doctor and many of his companions including Ace... The cycle of novels are an interrogation of the Doctor and this one in particular is a manual on being the Doctor, how and why, with an executive summary on p228/229.

I always thought the "who" jokes in Doctor Who were simple self-reflexivity. This novel stacks up seven that I noticed (p82, 129, 155, 159, 201, 205, 255). I realise now that it's more than just a joke or a reference to a secret. It points to the title, which is a statement. Anyone could be the Doctor. Insert name there. Who is you.