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dangerous and cannot permit. Baley wants to go about interviewing people in person. |
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Asimov's greatest delight, here at least, is in the social customs that have developed to reinforce the physical situation on Solaria. The language reflects the Solarians' personal contact taboo: terms relating to personal contact (affection, love, children, even touching) are obscene or scandalous, and films of people kissing are pornographic. Liberties may be taken while viewing; nudity is not uncommon, and the beautiful Gladia first appears to Baley like Venus fresh from her bath. Daneel, incidentally, interprets her action, perhaps correctly, as a ploy to gain Baley's sympathy, though Klorissa is equally ready to bare herself before the trimensional camera. Gladia excuses it as "only viewing." On the rare occasions when individuals meet, however, they are fully clothed down to gloves and stand far from each other. |
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This leads to one of the key scenes in the novel. Early in 1956 Asimov wrote to me that he had just written a pornographic scene that the postmaster could not touch. (This, of course, was 40 years ago when the postmaster was still declaring books obscene.) He was right. After Leebig commits suicide and just before Gladia is about to depart for Aurora, where she can lead a more "normal" life and her more affectionate nature can be expressed, she asks for one last interview with Baley and arrives in person, fully clothed, of course. As they are saying goodbye, she asks if she can touch him. Slowly, she removes her glove. Asimov has invested the act with such significance that it is more erotic than explicit sex. |
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The emotional content of the scene is heightened by the possibility of romance between Baley and Gladia. It is no more than a possibility. Baley is approaching middle age and is a man of honor. The two recognize the gulf between their cultures but they also recognize their mutual attraction. When Baley dreams about his wife, Jessie, she looks a lot like Gladia. He and Gladia have a meeting at which Gladia overcomes her Solarian neurosis to allow Baley to get closer and closer, even to sit on the same garden bench, and to hand him a flower, their fingers almost touching. And at their final meeting Gladia not only removes her glove but takes Baley's hand and then touches his cheek, and Baley feels a sense of loss as she leaves. |
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Finally, however, The Naked Sun is about Elijah Baley and his battle against agoraphobia. The Caves of Steel was concerned mostly with Baley's acceptance of friendship with a robot. Daneel plays a smaller part in The Naked Sun, however. For some chapters, after Baley exposes him as a robot in order to get freedom to act, Daneel is out of sight |
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