Theodore Sturgeon
"A God in the Garden"
in The Ultimate Egoist:
Volume 1: The Complete Short Stories of Theodore Sturgeon
This tale strikes me as a variant of the Midas Touch. What appears to be good at first glance proves ultimately to be a curse.
Kenneth digs furiously in his garden, working on a lily pond. His ferocity comes from a recent flareup between him and his wife. She suspects he is lying to her. Unfortunately she is right, once again. He is an inveterate liar, whether it benefits him or not. It's just the way he is and she refuses to accept that.
Digging deeper he comes across a huge rock, and he calls a friend who has the necessary equipment to remove it from the hole. Once on the surface he realizes that it isn't just a rock, but a carved rock!
"Yes, it was an idol, that brown mass in the half-finished lily pool. And what a face! Hideous--and yet, was it? There was a certain tongue-in-cheek quality about it, a grim and likable humor. The planes of that face were craggy and aristocratic, and there was that about the cure of the nostril and the heavily lidded eyes that told Kenneth that he was looking at a realistic conception of a superiority complex. And yet--again, was it? Those heavy eyelids--each, it seemed, had been closed in the middle of a sly wink at some huge and subtle joke. And the deep lines around the mouth wee the lines of authority, but also the lines of laughter. It was the face of a very old little boy caught stealing jam, and it was also the face of a being who might have the power to stop the sun."
Kenneth is overjoyed. He had been looking for a statue to set off his garden and this seemed perfect. With help he sets the statue upright in a prominent place, overlooking his garden. It is then that Kenneth realizes that he has found something much more than he expected. The statue talks to him.
"'I"m a god,' said the idol. 'Name's 'Rakna. What's yours?'"
After demonstrating his powers, much to Kenneth's discomfort, Rakna relents.
"'Look, Kenneth, I've been a little hard on you. After all, you did give me a comfortable place to sit. Anything I could do for you?'"
Kenneth says that all is well, except that, well, there's this little problem with his wife and lying. The god's first offer to help is simple: he will "adjust" Kenneth so that he only tells the truth whenever he is asked a question. Kenneth cringes at that suggestion, especially when he thinks about being asked what he really thinks about his boss and having to answer truthfully. The god suggests another solution: whatever Kenneth answers will be the truth, for the god will make it so.
The god points to a chain on the ground and asks Kenneth to say it is in the shed when he is asked. Kenneth does so and the chain disappears. It is in the shed. Kenneth, a skeptic, is confused: is he crazy or hallucinating? He goes into the house and discovers she is preparing turnips for dinner. He doesn't like turnips and frowns slightly. His wife remembers and says that she forgot.
"'Don't be silly.' he lied gallantly. 'I love 'em.' No sooner had he said the words than the lowly turnips seemed to take on a glamour, a gustatory perfection. His mouth watered for them, his being cried out for them--turnips were the most delicious, the most nourishing and delightful food ever to be set on a man's table. He loved them."
Kenneth is now a believer.
At first it's party time. Kenneth tells his wife that there's $20,000 in their checking account, and it''s true. But then . . .
Think about it--suppose everything you said became the truth. Someone wonders how an incredibly rich person became so wealthy, and you cynically replied that that person must have stolen it. Regardless of the real situation, that person was now a thief. Or, someone asks you whatever happened to so-and-so, and you replied, "Oh, he or she probably died long ago." Well, once you said that, it had to be true.
It seems to me to be a frightful gift.
Showing posts with label STURGEON Theodore. Show all posts
Showing posts with label STURGEON Theodore. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 10, 2017
Saturday, March 5, 2016
Theodore Sturgeon: "Helix the Cat"
Theodore Sturgeon (1918--1985)
"Helix the Cat" a short story
from The Ultimate Egoist: Volume 1, The Complete Stories
This is one of Theodore Sturgeon's short stories, one that I hadn't read before. As usual, it's a bit quirky, as most of his tales are. It is an early story, written in 1939 and rejected at that time and finally published in 1979. Why? I don't know. I think it's a delightful little tale with an interesting cast.
It's a first person narrative, and it takes place in the home of Pete Tronti, the narrator. Pete has a small lab at his place, and that's the cause of what happens in the story. Most of the story happens there.
Another character in the cast is Helix. Pete tells us, "Ah, he was a cat. A big black tom, with a white throat and white mittens, and a tail twice as long as that of an ordinary cat. He carried it in a graceful spiral--three complete turns--and hence his name. He could sit on one end of that tail and take two turns around his head with the other. Ah, he was a cat."
The third character is a soul, the soul of a dead man, Wallace Gregory, and he, or actually his soul, turns up because he was trying to escape from Them, the Soul Eaters! This is why we find Pete in his lab, apparently talking to an empty bottle.
To be brief, Pete has invented a new type of glass and has just completed making a bottle of it. It is a flexible glass that bounces when dropped, and it has other properties, as Pete unfortunately discovers. Wallace, or his soul, explains that when a person dies, the soul leaves the body, and this is when They, the Soul Eaters, enter the scene. They eat the souls of dead humans, but not all dead humans. Something happens to the souls of people who know they are about to die. Wallace doesn't know what--maybe grow a protective cover or something. Any way, They don't go after the souls of those who had known they were about to die.
Wallace explains that he didn't know he was about to die, and therefore his soul didn't have enough time to get protected. They were about to grab him when he spotted Pete's latest invention and somehow realized that the glass bottle would protect him, so he dived into the bottle. As long as he stays inside the bottle, he will be safe from Them. Perhaps some time in the future, he will find a human who is willing to die and let Wallace occupy the now empty body.
All goes well until Wallace gets bored. The thought of spending an eternity in a bottle doesn't excite him any more than it excited the various djinn or genies we hear about in various tales. He is getting desperate trapped there. But, he has an idea. He tells Pete that by making some appropriate changes, he could occupy the body of a small animal, such as a dog or a . . . cat.
Pete looks at Helix and is horrified. " 'You 're being emotional,' said Wally scornfully. 'If you've got any sense of values at all, there'll be no choice. You can save my immortal soul by sacrificing the life of a cat. Not many men have that sort of an opportunity, especially at that price.' "
Pete makes his choice, and sadly, he makes the wrong one. He's somewhat appeased when Wally tells him that Helix's soul is in no danger from Them. His soul will just leave and go where animal souls go. And, since Wally's soul is in telepathic communication with Pete's soul, Helix is unaware of Wally's existence and therefore, Wally's plans for him.
Wally modifies Helix (souls can do all sorts of things that they can't do while in a live body), so that eventually Helix is able to talk and read and write, and now it's time for the Great Transformation.
But, things did not progress as planned, by anybody. This should have been expected since deception was a part of the plan and that never bodes well. In fact, everybody involved was deceiving somebody--the double-cross was SOP in the Great Transformation. Another complication is that several of the cast knew things that the other members didn't know that they knew, but they didn't know everything. The outcome, once again, disproved that old adage, because, let's face facts, "what you don't know CAN hurt you."
But it did show, as usual, that another old adage is true:
"The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men
(and cats and souls and Them)
Gang aft a-gley."
However, the situation ended, and contrary to Shakespeare, it did not end well.
"Helix the Cat" a short story
from The Ultimate Egoist: Volume 1, The Complete Stories
This is one of Theodore Sturgeon's short stories, one that I hadn't read before. As usual, it's a bit quirky, as most of his tales are. It is an early story, written in 1939 and rejected at that time and finally published in 1979. Why? I don't know. I think it's a delightful little tale with an interesting cast.
It's a first person narrative, and it takes place in the home of Pete Tronti, the narrator. Pete has a small lab at his place, and that's the cause of what happens in the story. Most of the story happens there.
Another character in the cast is Helix. Pete tells us, "Ah, he was a cat. A big black tom, with a white throat and white mittens, and a tail twice as long as that of an ordinary cat. He carried it in a graceful spiral--three complete turns--and hence his name. He could sit on one end of that tail and take two turns around his head with the other. Ah, he was a cat."
The third character is a soul, the soul of a dead man, Wallace Gregory, and he, or actually his soul, turns up because he was trying to escape from Them, the Soul Eaters! This is why we find Pete in his lab, apparently talking to an empty bottle.
To be brief, Pete has invented a new type of glass and has just completed making a bottle of it. It is a flexible glass that bounces when dropped, and it has other properties, as Pete unfortunately discovers. Wallace, or his soul, explains that when a person dies, the soul leaves the body, and this is when They, the Soul Eaters, enter the scene. They eat the souls of dead humans, but not all dead humans. Something happens to the souls of people who know they are about to die. Wallace doesn't know what--maybe grow a protective cover or something. Any way, They don't go after the souls of those who had known they were about to die.
Wallace explains that he didn't know he was about to die, and therefore his soul didn't have enough time to get protected. They were about to grab him when he spotted Pete's latest invention and somehow realized that the glass bottle would protect him, so he dived into the bottle. As long as he stays inside the bottle, he will be safe from Them. Perhaps some time in the future, he will find a human who is willing to die and let Wallace occupy the now empty body.
All goes well until Wallace gets bored. The thought of spending an eternity in a bottle doesn't excite him any more than it excited the various djinn or genies we hear about in various tales. He is getting desperate trapped there. But, he has an idea. He tells Pete that by making some appropriate changes, he could occupy the body of a small animal, such as a dog or a . . . cat.
Pete looks at Helix and is horrified. " 'You 're being emotional,' said Wally scornfully. 'If you've got any sense of values at all, there'll be no choice. You can save my immortal soul by sacrificing the life of a cat. Not many men have that sort of an opportunity, especially at that price.' "
Pete makes his choice, and sadly, he makes the wrong one. He's somewhat appeased when Wally tells him that Helix's soul is in no danger from Them. His soul will just leave and go where animal souls go. And, since Wally's soul is in telepathic communication with Pete's soul, Helix is unaware of Wally's existence and therefore, Wally's plans for him.
Wally modifies Helix (souls can do all sorts of things that they can't do while in a live body), so that eventually Helix is able to talk and read and write, and now it's time for the Great Transformation.
But, things did not progress as planned, by anybody. This should have been expected since deception was a part of the plan and that never bodes well. In fact, everybody involved was deceiving somebody--the double-cross was SOP in the Great Transformation. Another complication is that several of the cast knew things that the other members didn't know that they knew, but they didn't know everything. The outcome, once again, disproved that old adage, because, let's face facts, "what you don't know CAN hurt you."
But it did show, as usual, that another old adage is true:
"The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men
(and cats and souls and Them)
Gang aft a-gley."
However, the situation ended, and contrary to Shakespeare, it did not end well.
Monday, August 24, 2015
Theodore Sturgeon: "It," a short story
Theodore Sturgeon: "It"
As I began reading, I found myself doing something strange: I was pausing more often than I usually do when reading prose. The more I looked at it, the more it struck me as poetry: a poem about the birth of a monster. These are the first two paragraphs of the story, as I saw them. Below I have added the same two paragraphs as printed in the version I have.
It walked in the woods.
It was never born.
It existed.
Under the pine needles
the fires burn,
deep and smokeless in the mold.
In heat and darkness and decay
there is growth.
There is life
and there is growth.
It grew,
but it was not alive.
It walked unbreathing
through the woods.
and thought and saw
and was hideous and strong
and it was not born
and it did not live.
It grew
and moved about
without living.
It crawled out of the darkness
and hot damp mold
into the cool of a morning.
It was huge.
It was lumped and crusted
with its own hateful substances,
and pieces of it dropped off
as it went its way,
dropped off and lay writhing
and stilled, and sank putrescent
into the forest loam.
- - - - - -
Now, the prose version as Theodore Sturgeon wrote it:
It walked in the woods.
It was never born. It existed. Under the pine needles the fires burn, deep and smokeless in the mold. In heat and darkness and decay there is growth. There is life and there is growth. It grew, but it was not alive. It walked unbreathing through the woods. and thought and saw and was hideous and strong and it was not born and it did not live. It grew and moved about without living.
It crawled out of the darkness and hot damp mold into the cool of a morning. It was huge. It was lumped and crusted with its own hateful substances, and pieces of it dropped off as it went its way, dropped off and lay writhing and stilled, and sank putrescent into the forest loam.
What do you think? Is there a difference, aside from structure of course, between the two formats? What is that difference, if any?
Several commentators have remarked on possible sources for "It," one being Frankenstein's monster, in which there is a scene similar to one in Sturgeon's tale and the other being a golem. I think there might be a third source: Genesis.
"7. And the LORD GOD formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."
. . . . .
21. And the LORD GOD caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
22 And the rib, which the LORD GOD had taken from the man, made he a woman, and brought her to the man."
Genesis 2: 7, 21-22
Authorized King James Version
In Genesis, all the LORD required was a rib, whereas Sturgeon's creation of clay needed a complete skeleton.
The monster is a strange one, innocent and naive. In its innocence it is destructive, but it is neither deliberately evil nor cruel; it is not immoral, but amoral. It has no sense of right and wrong. And this, not so much its shape or appearance, is what makes it a monster.
SPOILER
As usual, Sturgeon provides a little surprise, an unexpected turn to the tale. And, in this story, it's the demise of the monster. What would be expected is a climactic struggle, with the monster resisting to the very end, perhaps even killing one or two more in its death throes. But Sturgeon goes a different route with a very different end for his monster. First is the "poetic" format, and at the end, the prose format of Sturgeon
The monster
lay in the water.
It neither liked
nor
disliked this new element.
It rested on the bottom,
its massive head
a foot beneath the surface,
and it curiously considered the facts
that it had garnered.
There was the little humming noise of Babe's voice
that sent the monster questing
into the cave.
There was the black material
of the brief case
that resisted so much more
than green things when he tore it.
There was the little two-legged one
who sang and brought him near,
and who screamed when he came.
There was this new cold moving thing
he had fallen into.
It was washing his body away.
That had never happened before.
That was interesting.
The monster decided
to stay
and observe this new thing.
It felt no urge to save itself;
it could only be curious.
The brook came laughing
down out of its spring,
ran down from its source
beckoning to the sunbeams
and embracing freshets and
helpful brooklets.
It shouted and played
with streaming little roots,
and nudged the minnows
and pollywogs about
in its tiny backwaters.
It was a happy brook.
When it came to the pool
by the cloven rock
it found the monster there,
and plucked at it.
It soaked the foul substances
and smoothed and melted the molds,
and the water below the thing
eddied darkly with its diluted matter.
It was a thorough brook.
It washed all it touched,
persistently.
Where it found filth,
it removed filth;
and if there were layer on layer of foulness,
then layer by foul layer it was removed.
It was a good brook.
It did not mind
the poison of the monster,
but took it up
and thinned it and spread it
in little rings
round rocks downstream,
and let it drift
to the rootlets
of water plants,
that they might grow
greener
and lovelier.
And the monster melted.
The monster lay in the water. It neither liked nor disliked this new element. It rested on the bottom, its massive head a foot beneath the surface, and it curiously considered the facts that it had garnered. There was the little humming noise of Babe's voice that sent the monster questing into the cave. There was the black material of the brief case that resisted so much more than green things when he tore it. There was the little two-legged one who sang and brought him near, and who screamed when he came. There was this new cold moving thing he had fallen into. It was washing his body away. That had never happened before. That was interesting. The monster decided to stay and observe this new thing. It felt no urge to save itself; it could only be curious.
The brook came laughing down out of its spring, ran down from its source beckoning to the sunbeams and embracing freshets and helpful brooklets. It shouted and played with streaming little roots, and nudged the minnows and pollywogs about in its tiny backwaters. It was a happy brook. When it came to the pool by the cloven rock it found the monster there, and plucked at it. It soaked the foul substances and smoothed and melted the molds, and the water below the thing eddied darkly with its diluted matter. It was a thorough brook. It washed all it touched, persistently. Where it found filth, it removed filth; and if there were layer on layer of foulness, then layer by foul layer it was removed. It was a good brook. It did not mind the poison of the monster, but took it up and thinned it and spread it in little rings round rocks downstream, and let it drift to the rootlets of water plants, that they might grow greener and lovelier. And the monster melted.
There is a little more after this, but I will leave that for you to discover, if you so choose to read this charming little horror tale.
As I began reading, I found myself doing something strange: I was pausing more often than I usually do when reading prose. The more I looked at it, the more it struck me as poetry: a poem about the birth of a monster. These are the first two paragraphs of the story, as I saw them. Below I have added the same two paragraphs as printed in the version I have.
It walked in the woods.
It was never born.
It existed.
Under the pine needles
the fires burn,
deep and smokeless in the mold.
In heat and darkness and decay
there is growth.
There is life
and there is growth.
It grew,
but it was not alive.
It walked unbreathing
through the woods.
and thought and saw
and was hideous and strong
and it was not born
and it did not live.
It grew
and moved about
without living.
It crawled out of the darkness
and hot damp mold
into the cool of a morning.
It was huge.
It was lumped and crusted
with its own hateful substances,
and pieces of it dropped off
as it went its way,
dropped off and lay writhing
and stilled, and sank putrescent
into the forest loam.
- - - - - -
Now, the prose version as Theodore Sturgeon wrote it:
It walked in the woods.
It was never born. It existed. Under the pine needles the fires burn, deep and smokeless in the mold. In heat and darkness and decay there is growth. There is life and there is growth. It grew, but it was not alive. It walked unbreathing through the woods. and thought and saw and was hideous and strong and it was not born and it did not live. It grew and moved about without living.
It crawled out of the darkness and hot damp mold into the cool of a morning. It was huge. It was lumped and crusted with its own hateful substances, and pieces of it dropped off as it went its way, dropped off and lay writhing and stilled, and sank putrescent into the forest loam.
What do you think? Is there a difference, aside from structure of course, between the two formats? What is that difference, if any?
Several commentators have remarked on possible sources for "It," one being Frankenstein's monster, in which there is a scene similar to one in Sturgeon's tale and the other being a golem. I think there might be a third source: Genesis.
"7. And the LORD GOD formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."
. . . . .
21. And the LORD GOD caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
22 And the rib, which the LORD GOD had taken from the man, made he a woman, and brought her to the man."
Genesis 2: 7, 21-22
Authorized King James Version
In Genesis, all the LORD required was a rib, whereas Sturgeon's creation of clay needed a complete skeleton.
The monster is a strange one, innocent and naive. In its innocence it is destructive, but it is neither deliberately evil nor cruel; it is not immoral, but amoral. It has no sense of right and wrong. And this, not so much its shape or appearance, is what makes it a monster.
SPOILER
As usual, Sturgeon provides a little surprise, an unexpected turn to the tale. And, in this story, it's the demise of the monster. What would be expected is a climactic struggle, with the monster resisting to the very end, perhaps even killing one or two more in its death throes. But Sturgeon goes a different route with a very different end for his monster. First is the "poetic" format, and at the end, the prose format of Sturgeon
The monster
lay in the water.
It neither liked
nor
disliked this new element.
It rested on the bottom,
its massive head
a foot beneath the surface,
and it curiously considered the facts
that it had garnered.
There was the little humming noise of Babe's voice
that sent the monster questing
into the cave.
There was the black material
of the brief case
that resisted so much more
than green things when he tore it.
There was the little two-legged one
who sang and brought him near,
and who screamed when he came.
There was this new cold moving thing
he had fallen into.
It was washing his body away.
That had never happened before.
That was interesting.
The monster decided
to stay
and observe this new thing.
It felt no urge to save itself;
it could only be curious.
The brook came laughing
down out of its spring,
ran down from its source
beckoning to the sunbeams
and embracing freshets and
helpful brooklets.
It shouted and played
with streaming little roots,
and nudged the minnows
and pollywogs about
in its tiny backwaters.
It was a happy brook.
When it came to the pool
by the cloven rock
it found the monster there,
and plucked at it.
It soaked the foul substances
and smoothed and melted the molds,
and the water below the thing
eddied darkly with its diluted matter.
It was a thorough brook.
It washed all it touched,
persistently.
Where it found filth,
it removed filth;
and if there were layer on layer of foulness,
then layer by foul layer it was removed.
It was a good brook.
It did not mind
the poison of the monster,
but took it up
and thinned it and spread it
in little rings
round rocks downstream,
and let it drift
to the rootlets
of water plants,
that they might grow
greener
and lovelier.
And the monster melted.
The monster lay in the water. It neither liked nor disliked this new element. It rested on the bottom, its massive head a foot beneath the surface, and it curiously considered the facts that it had garnered. There was the little humming noise of Babe's voice that sent the monster questing into the cave. There was the black material of the brief case that resisted so much more than green things when he tore it. There was the little two-legged one who sang and brought him near, and who screamed when he came. There was this new cold moving thing he had fallen into. It was washing his body away. That had never happened before. That was interesting. The monster decided to stay and observe this new thing. It felt no urge to save itself; it could only be curious.
The brook came laughing down out of its spring, ran down from its source beckoning to the sunbeams and embracing freshets and helpful brooklets. It shouted and played with streaming little roots, and nudged the minnows and pollywogs about in its tiny backwaters. It was a happy brook. When it came to the pool by the cloven rock it found the monster there, and plucked at it. It soaked the foul substances and smoothed and melted the molds, and the water below the thing eddied darkly with its diluted matter. It was a thorough brook. It washed all it touched, persistently. Where it found filth, it removed filth; and if there were layer on layer of foulness, then layer by foul layer it was removed. It was a good brook. It did not mind the poison of the monster, but took it up and thinned it and spread it in little rings round rocks downstream, and let it drift to the rootlets of water plants, that they might grow greener and lovelier. And the monster melted.
There is a little more after this, but I will leave that for you to discover, if you so choose to read this charming little horror tale.
Saturday, March 28, 2015
Theodore Sturgeon: "A Crime for Llewellyn"
Theodore Sturgeon: "A Crime for Llewellyn"
"He had a grey little job clerking in the free clinic at the hospital, doing what he'd done the day he started, and that was nineteen years back. His name was Llewellyn, and Ivy Shoots called him Lulu.
Ivy took care of him. He'd lived with Ivy ever since she was an owlish intellectual with an uncertain almost little girl look about her and he was a scared, mixed up adolescent wilting in the interim between high school and his first job. Ivy was in several senses his maiden experience--first date, first drink, first drunk, and first hangover in a strange hotel in a strange city accompanied by a strange girl. Strange or not--and she was--she was his Secret.
A man like Lulu needs a Secret. A sheltered background consisting of positive morality, tea-cosies, spinster aunts and the violent contrast of eighteen months as a public charge--after the aunts had burned to death, uninsured--had convinced him that he was totally incapable of coping with a world in which everybody else knew all the angles. So he fell joyfully into the arrangement with Ivy Shoots and the Secret that went with it.
He was small and he was pudgy, and he wasn't bright, and his eyes weren't too good, and the very idea of his stealing a nickel or crossing in the middle of the block was ridiculous. It seemed to him that all the men around him emanated the virtue of sin--the winks and whistles at the girls, the Monday tales (boy did I tie one on Saturday night), the legends of the easy conquests and looseness and casual infidelity, the dirty jokes, and the oaths and expletives--and because they seemed to have no scruples they kept their stature as men in a world of men.
In this, Lulu could easily have drowned. Only his Secret kept him afloat. He told it to no one, partly because he sensed instinctively that he would treasure it more if he kept it to himself, and partly because he knew he would not be believed even if he proved it. He could listen contentedly to the boasting of the men he envied, thinking if you only knew! and you think that's something! hugging to himself all the while the realization that no one among them had committed the enormity of living in sin as he was doing."
That was his Secret: He was living in sin!
Then, his world came tumbling down around him. Ivy, misunderstanding him, thought he felt guilty about living together. So, one night, after work, she confessed Her secret. She brought out their marriage license--they were married after all. That wild night when Llewellyn met Ivy and got drunk and woke up the next morning in bed with her was very hazy in his mind. He had blacked out during the evening and never knew that he and Ivy had gotten married. He was devastated.
But, Llewellyn had a stout heart and was more than ever determined to commit a crime. After all, it can't be that hard to do something illegal or immoral, could it? Somebody had once told Llewellyn that there were so many laws that it was hard for the average person to go through the day without committing some sort of crime. Only luck kept most of us out of jail. Lulu was confident--it should be easy. And, it really was important.
But, our destinies are not completely under our control. Fate plays a role in determining what happens to us, and Llewellyn was soon to learn this inescapable fact--that if some are destined to be criminals, regardless of what they do, then there may be others who are just the opposite--in spite of theft or bigamy or murder or . . .
Poor Llewellyn. We now follow Llewellyn as he fumbles his way around in his attempt to commit a crime, handicapped by Fate which seems determined that his destiny is to remain a good person.
"He had a grey little job clerking in the free clinic at the hospital, doing what he'd done the day he started, and that was nineteen years back. His name was Llewellyn, and Ivy Shoots called him Lulu.
Ivy took care of him. He'd lived with Ivy ever since she was an owlish intellectual with an uncertain almost little girl look about her and he was a scared, mixed up adolescent wilting in the interim between high school and his first job. Ivy was in several senses his maiden experience--first date, first drink, first drunk, and first hangover in a strange hotel in a strange city accompanied by a strange girl. Strange or not--and she was--she was his Secret.
A man like Lulu needs a Secret. A sheltered background consisting of positive morality, tea-cosies, spinster aunts and the violent contrast of eighteen months as a public charge--after the aunts had burned to death, uninsured--had convinced him that he was totally incapable of coping with a world in which everybody else knew all the angles. So he fell joyfully into the arrangement with Ivy Shoots and the Secret that went with it.
He was small and he was pudgy, and he wasn't bright, and his eyes weren't too good, and the very idea of his stealing a nickel or crossing in the middle of the block was ridiculous. It seemed to him that all the men around him emanated the virtue of sin--the winks and whistles at the girls, the Monday tales (boy did I tie one on Saturday night), the legends of the easy conquests and looseness and casual infidelity, the dirty jokes, and the oaths and expletives--and because they seemed to have no scruples they kept their stature as men in a world of men.
In this, Lulu could easily have drowned. Only his Secret kept him afloat. He told it to no one, partly because he sensed instinctively that he would treasure it more if he kept it to himself, and partly because he knew he would not be believed even if he proved it. He could listen contentedly to the boasting of the men he envied, thinking if you only knew! and you think that's something! hugging to himself all the while the realization that no one among them had committed the enormity of living in sin as he was doing."
That was his Secret: He was living in sin!
Then, his world came tumbling down around him. Ivy, misunderstanding him, thought he felt guilty about living together. So, one night, after work, she confessed Her secret. She brought out their marriage license--they were married after all. That wild night when Llewellyn met Ivy and got drunk and woke up the next morning in bed with her was very hazy in his mind. He had blacked out during the evening and never knew that he and Ivy had gotten married. He was devastated.
But, Llewellyn had a stout heart and was more than ever determined to commit a crime. After all, it can't be that hard to do something illegal or immoral, could it? Somebody had once told Llewellyn that there were so many laws that it was hard for the average person to go through the day without committing some sort of crime. Only luck kept most of us out of jail. Lulu was confident--it should be easy. And, it really was important.
But, our destinies are not completely under our control. Fate plays a role in determining what happens to us, and Llewellyn was soon to learn this inescapable fact--that if some are destined to be criminals, regardless of what they do, then there may be others who are just the opposite--in spite of theft or bigamy or murder or . . .
Poor Llewellyn. We now follow Llewellyn as he fumbles his way around in his attempt to commit a crime, handicapped by Fate which seems determined that his destiny is to remain a good person.
Thursday, May 22, 2014
Theodore Sturgeon: "The Heart"
Theodore Sturgeon
"The Heart"
The Ultimate Egoist
Volume I: The Complete Stories
"The Heart" is a quiet little shocker with a warning about getting what one wants. It's also an early tale about the power of hate.
The tale is a nested story-within-a-story. A writer is sitting at a bar when a woman comes up to him and says she knows he's a writer and that, for a drink or two, she will tell him her story.
She describes herself as a plain woman who buried herself in her job as a records clerk in the coroner's office. She meets a man who has serious heart problems (this was written prior to the development of heart transplants). They fall in love. Since he won't, she proposes to him. He says no because she would be a widow in a short time and he doesn't want to put her through that. He then leaves her, saying it is for the best.
She can't let it go like that, so she decides to do something about his problem, something unique and unexpected (at least to me). She tells the writer:
"Hate's a funny thing. I hope you don't ever know how--how big it can be. Use it right, and it's the most totally destructive thing in the universe. When I realized that, my mind stopped going round and round in those small circles, and it began to drive straight ahead. I got it all clear in my mind. Listen now--let me tell you what happened when I got going.
I found something to hate. Bill Llanyn's heart--the ruined, inefficient organ that was keeping us apart. No one can ever know the crazy concentration I put into it. No one has ever lived to describe the solidness of hate when it begins to form into something real. I needed a miracle to make over Bill's heart, and in hate I had a power to work it. My hate reached a greatness that nothing could withstand. I knew it just as surely as a murderer knows what he has done when he feels his knife sink into his victim's flesh. But I was no murderer. Death wasn't my purpose. I wanted my hatred to reach into his heart. sear out what was bad and let him take care of the rest. I was doing what no one else has ever done--hating constructively. If I hadn't been so insanely anxious to put my idea to work, I would have remembered that hate can build nothing that is not evil, cause nothing that is not evil."
In short, she attempts to use her hatred as a kind of a psychic laser which will burn out the diseased cells in his heart.
Spoiler: discussion of the ending
A short time later, the coroner hands her notes from several port mortums he recently conducted. One of them was for Bill Llanyn. The diagnosis was heart failure. The coroner tells her he can't be more specific than that. She should just put down heart failure. When she asks why, he replies that the man had no heart at all: there was nothing there and he wasn't going to put that on the official form.
Was it that her control over her hate powered psychic laser was insufficient to accurately distinguish between the diseased cells and the healthy cells in his heart? Or, were there no healthy cells at all left in his heart? Or, did she subconsciously hate him and therefore killed him? Perhaps she didn't know what was in her own heart at that time. Could this explain her actions after having told her story?
"The woman got up and looked at the clock.
'Where are you headed?' I (the writer) asked.
'I'm catching a train out of here,' she said. She went to the door. I said goodnight to her on the sidewalk. She went down toward the station. I headed uptown. When the police emergency wagon screamed by me a few minutes later I didn't have to go down to the tracks to see what happened."
Guilt? Grief? Both?
It is said that only a thin line separates love and hate.
"The Heart"
The Ultimate Egoist
Volume I: The Complete Stories
"The Heart" is a quiet little shocker with a warning about getting what one wants. It's also an early tale about the power of hate.
The tale is a nested story-within-a-story. A writer is sitting at a bar when a woman comes up to him and says she knows he's a writer and that, for a drink or two, she will tell him her story.
She describes herself as a plain woman who buried herself in her job as a records clerk in the coroner's office. She meets a man who has serious heart problems (this was written prior to the development of heart transplants). They fall in love. Since he won't, she proposes to him. He says no because she would be a widow in a short time and he doesn't want to put her through that. He then leaves her, saying it is for the best.
She can't let it go like that, so she decides to do something about his problem, something unique and unexpected (at least to me). She tells the writer:
"Hate's a funny thing. I hope you don't ever know how--how big it can be. Use it right, and it's the most totally destructive thing in the universe. When I realized that, my mind stopped going round and round in those small circles, and it began to drive straight ahead. I got it all clear in my mind. Listen now--let me tell you what happened when I got going.
I found something to hate. Bill Llanyn's heart--the ruined, inefficient organ that was keeping us apart. No one can ever know the crazy concentration I put into it. No one has ever lived to describe the solidness of hate when it begins to form into something real. I needed a miracle to make over Bill's heart, and in hate I had a power to work it. My hate reached a greatness that nothing could withstand. I knew it just as surely as a murderer knows what he has done when he feels his knife sink into his victim's flesh. But I was no murderer. Death wasn't my purpose. I wanted my hatred to reach into his heart. sear out what was bad and let him take care of the rest. I was doing what no one else has ever done--hating constructively. If I hadn't been so insanely anxious to put my idea to work, I would have remembered that hate can build nothing that is not evil, cause nothing that is not evil."
In short, she attempts to use her hatred as a kind of a psychic laser which will burn out the diseased cells in his heart.
Spoiler: discussion of the ending
A short time later, the coroner hands her notes from several port mortums he recently conducted. One of them was for Bill Llanyn. The diagnosis was heart failure. The coroner tells her he can't be more specific than that. She should just put down heart failure. When she asks why, he replies that the man had no heart at all: there was nothing there and he wasn't going to put that on the official form.
Was it that her control over her hate powered psychic laser was insufficient to accurately distinguish between the diseased cells and the healthy cells in his heart? Or, were there no healthy cells at all left in his heart? Or, did she subconsciously hate him and therefore killed him? Perhaps she didn't know what was in her own heart at that time. Could this explain her actions after having told her story?
"The woman got up and looked at the clock.
'Where are you headed?' I (the writer) asked.
'I'm catching a train out of here,' she said. She went to the door. I said goodnight to her on the sidewalk. She went down toward the station. I headed uptown. When the police emergency wagon screamed by me a few minutes later I didn't have to go down to the tracks to see what happened."
Guilt? Grief? Both?
It is said that only a thin line separates love and hate.
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Theodore Sturgeon: "The Other Celia"
This is one of those quiet little stories that Ted Sturgeon does so well. The horror is understated and relates not to Celia, be she an alien or another sentient species in hiding on earth. The only too human Slim is the source of the horror in this story. Slim is the type of person who would tear off the wings of insects or birds. But, he wouldn't do it to cause pain or suffering; he would do it out of curiosity to see how a flying creature would react once it had lost its wings. In fact, if someone told Slim he was hurting those creatures, he would be surprised. That would never have occurred to him, and he would probably stop.
As you can see, Slim is not a very likable person. He is a snoop and insensitive to the feelings of others. At times his behavior crosses the line between normal and pathological curiosity. When he was a child, his mother had to appear several times in Children's Court to explain that he wasn't dishonest, that he was just "curious." While curiosity may be a good thing, it can be dangerous if not kept within reasonable limits. In this story we see a Slim whose curiosity leads him to meddle in another person's life and that meddling results in tragedy.
Slim lives in a boarding house. At present he is on medical leave from his job. He was attacked by a fellow employee who tried to bury a fourteen-inch crescent wrench in his skull. Sturgeon does not tell us why the employee tried to do this, but I suspect he was upset by Slim's snooping. Since most of the other tenants of the boarding house are at work, he finds this an excellent opportunity to engage in his favorite pastime--snooping.
"His current situation was therefore a near-paradise. Flimsy doors stood in rows, barely sustaining vacuum upon aching vacuum of knowledge; and one by one they imploded at that nudge of the curiosity. He touched nothing (or if he did, he replaced it carefully) and removed nothing, and within a week he knew Mrs. Koyper's roomers far better than she could, or cared to. Each secret visit to the rooms gave him a starting point; subsequent ones taught him more. He knew not only what these people had, but what they did, where, how much, for how much, and how often. In almost every case, he knew why as well.
Almost every case. Celia Sarton came."
He waited a few days to see what her schedule was. Were there times he could enter her room and feel safe she would not return? He found that she invariably would leave in the morning and return in the evening, just like the rest of the roomers. Therefore he entered her room, but unexpectedly it was two days after he decided it was safe. He kept forgetting about her.
He found nothing in the room to make her an individual--no photos of family or friends, no keepsakes, nothing that would make her stand out in his mind. Several times he found himself leaving the room without looking around for anything: it was as if it was an empty room waiting for someone to enter it.
It was by accident that he discovered that there was something in the room that made her unique. It appeared to be a second skin. Slim had never seen anything like this before, and his curiosity was aroused as it had never been before. So, he acted, not to harm her, but out of curiosity to see what she would do. Thus the tragedy.
A great short story
As you can see, Slim is not a very likable person. He is a snoop and insensitive to the feelings of others. At times his behavior crosses the line between normal and pathological curiosity. When he was a child, his mother had to appear several times in Children's Court to explain that he wasn't dishonest, that he was just "curious." While curiosity may be a good thing, it can be dangerous if not kept within reasonable limits. In this story we see a Slim whose curiosity leads him to meddle in another person's life and that meddling results in tragedy.
Slim lives in a boarding house. At present he is on medical leave from his job. He was attacked by a fellow employee who tried to bury a fourteen-inch crescent wrench in his skull. Sturgeon does not tell us why the employee tried to do this, but I suspect he was upset by Slim's snooping. Since most of the other tenants of the boarding house are at work, he finds this an excellent opportunity to engage in his favorite pastime--snooping.
"His current situation was therefore a near-paradise. Flimsy doors stood in rows, barely sustaining vacuum upon aching vacuum of knowledge; and one by one they imploded at that nudge of the curiosity. He touched nothing (or if he did, he replaced it carefully) and removed nothing, and within a week he knew Mrs. Koyper's roomers far better than she could, or cared to. Each secret visit to the rooms gave him a starting point; subsequent ones taught him more. He knew not only what these people had, but what they did, where, how much, for how much, and how often. In almost every case, he knew why as well.
Almost every case. Celia Sarton came."
He waited a few days to see what her schedule was. Were there times he could enter her room and feel safe she would not return? He found that she invariably would leave in the morning and return in the evening, just like the rest of the roomers. Therefore he entered her room, but unexpectedly it was two days after he decided it was safe. He kept forgetting about her.
He found nothing in the room to make her an individual--no photos of family or friends, no keepsakes, nothing that would make her stand out in his mind. Several times he found himself leaving the room without looking around for anything: it was as if it was an empty room waiting for someone to enter it.
It was by accident that he discovered that there was something in the room that made her unique. It appeared to be a second skin. Slim had never seen anything like this before, and his curiosity was aroused as it had never been before. So, he acted, not to harm her, but out of curiosity to see what she would do. Thus the tragedy.
A great short story
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Theodore Sturgeon: "The World Well Lost"
Theodore Sturgeon's "The World Well Lost" is an SF short story. The title is taken from John Dryden's play, All For Love; or, The World Well Lost. The subject of Dryden's play is the same as Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, the love between them that cost one a kingdom and the other an empire. Love's price is high for them, but the title suggests love is worth it. Sturgeon's short story is about another love, a different type of love that at that time had to remain hidden, for the consequences of revealing it would result also in the loss of one's position, and very likely one's family and friends. This story was published in 1953, which makes it remarkable for being written and published at that time.
It is set far in the future when Terra (Earth) had spread its influence throughout the galaxy. However, there were a few holdouts and the planet Dirbanu was one of them. When the initial contact had been made by a Terran ship, Dirbanu had surrounded itself in impenetrable force fields, thus preventing any contact until an ambassador could be sent to Terra. Once there, in spite of numerous and obvious similarities, "the ambassador . . . showed a most uncommon disdain of Earth and all its work, curled his lip and went wordlessly home, and ever since then Dirbanu had locked itself tight away from the questing Terrans."
So it remained until the time when Dirbanu finally slipped from Terran concerns and memory.
Then the "loverbirds" arrived. They landed in a small spaceship, and after disembarking, the taller one of the two threw some powder on the ship, and it immediately dissolved into dust which blew away on the wind. It was clear they planned to stay on Terra, thus giving up their home planet, possibly forever.
They were so wrapped up in each other that the Earth folk were captivated. There were loverbird songs, trinkets, hats and pins, and jewelry. It took a computer, however, loaded with the accumulated knowledge of Terran space exploration to discover where they came from, for they never would say. It was Dirbanu. It was at this time that Dirbanu sent a message, the first one in ages, to Earth. The loverbirds were criminals and the Dirbanu would be most grateful if they were returned.
"So, from the depths of its enchantment, Terra was able to calculate a course of action. Here at last was an opportunity to consort with Dirbanu on a friendly basis--great Dirbanu which, since it had force fields which Earth could not duplicate, must of necessity, have many other things Earth could use; mighty Dirbanu before whom we could kneel in supplication (with purely-for-defense bombs hidden in our pockets) with lowered heads (making invisible the knife in our teeth) and ask for crumbs from their table (in order to extrapolate the location of their kitchens)."
Sturgeon does not paint a pleasing picture of the Terrans, or, at least, one that doesn't sound very pleasing to me. And later, one of the characters paints an even more dismal picture of Earth culture, which ostensibly is in the future but can be descriptive of many contemporary human cultures and groups.
"A filthy place, Terra. There is nothing, he thought, like the conservatism of license. Given a culture of sybaritics, with an endless choice of mechanical titillations, and you have a people of unbreakable and hidebound formality, a people with few but massive taboos, a shockable, narrow, prissy people obeying the rules--even the rules of their calculated depravities--and protecting their treasured, specialized pruderies. In such a group there are words one may not use for fear of their fanged laughter, colors one may not wear, gestures and intonations one must forego, on pain of being torn to pieces. The rules are complex and absolute, and in such a place one's heart may not sing lest, through its warm free joyousness, it betray one."
The subject, a taboo one when this story was written, and although more acceptable today, but still considered with loathing and fear by various groups for various reasons, is homosexual love. It is one of the first stories I read that portrayed homosexual love as being something other than a perversion or a defiance of natural law. Though it might be banned by various groups today, it still doesn't have the effect it had when it was first published in the early '50s.
Highly recommended: it is a story that makes its point without preaching.
It is set far in the future when Terra (Earth) had spread its influence throughout the galaxy. However, there were a few holdouts and the planet Dirbanu was one of them. When the initial contact had been made by a Terran ship, Dirbanu had surrounded itself in impenetrable force fields, thus preventing any contact until an ambassador could be sent to Terra. Once there, in spite of numerous and obvious similarities, "the ambassador . . . showed a most uncommon disdain of Earth and all its work, curled his lip and went wordlessly home, and ever since then Dirbanu had locked itself tight away from the questing Terrans."
So it remained until the time when Dirbanu finally slipped from Terran concerns and memory.
Then the "loverbirds" arrived. They landed in a small spaceship, and after disembarking, the taller one of the two threw some powder on the ship, and it immediately dissolved into dust which blew away on the wind. It was clear they planned to stay on Terra, thus giving up their home planet, possibly forever.
They were so wrapped up in each other that the Earth folk were captivated. There were loverbird songs, trinkets, hats and pins, and jewelry. It took a computer, however, loaded with the accumulated knowledge of Terran space exploration to discover where they came from, for they never would say. It was Dirbanu. It was at this time that Dirbanu sent a message, the first one in ages, to Earth. The loverbirds were criminals and the Dirbanu would be most grateful if they were returned.
"So, from the depths of its enchantment, Terra was able to calculate a course of action. Here at last was an opportunity to consort with Dirbanu on a friendly basis--great Dirbanu which, since it had force fields which Earth could not duplicate, must of necessity, have many other things Earth could use; mighty Dirbanu before whom we could kneel in supplication (with purely-for-defense bombs hidden in our pockets) with lowered heads (making invisible the knife in our teeth) and ask for crumbs from their table (in order to extrapolate the location of their kitchens)."
Sturgeon does not paint a pleasing picture of the Terrans, or, at least, one that doesn't sound very pleasing to me. And later, one of the characters paints an even more dismal picture of Earth culture, which ostensibly is in the future but can be descriptive of many contemporary human cultures and groups.
"A filthy place, Terra. There is nothing, he thought, like the conservatism of license. Given a culture of sybaritics, with an endless choice of mechanical titillations, and you have a people of unbreakable and hidebound formality, a people with few but massive taboos, a shockable, narrow, prissy people obeying the rules--even the rules of their calculated depravities--and protecting their treasured, specialized pruderies. In such a group there are words one may not use for fear of their fanged laughter, colors one may not wear, gestures and intonations one must forego, on pain of being torn to pieces. The rules are complex and absolute, and in such a place one's heart may not sing lest, through its warm free joyousness, it betray one."
The subject, a taboo one when this story was written, and although more acceptable today, but still considered with loathing and fear by various groups for various reasons, is homosexual love. It is one of the first stories I read that portrayed homosexual love as being something other than a perversion or a defiance of natural law. Though it might be banned by various groups today, it still doesn't have the effect it had when it was first published in the early '50s.
Highly recommended: it is a story that makes its point without preaching.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Theodore Sturgeon: February 26, 1918--May 8. 1985
I have just discovered great news for those who, like me, think Ted Sturgeon is one of the great American short story writers--regardless of genre. North Atlantic Books is finished with its monumental project--The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon--which will include all of the short stories of Ted Sturgeon, including a number of unpublished tales. What started out as a projected ten volume series is now complete--in thirteen volumes.
I have the first volume: The Ultimate Egoist: Volume 1. It contains over 40 short stories, plus forewords by Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, and Gene Wolfe, all of whom have a few great stories of their own out there. At the end of the volume are some thirty pages of story notes on many of the stories. In the "Editor's Note," Paul Williams writes, "The volumes and the stories within the volumes are organized chronologically by order of composition (in so far as it can be determined). The earliest volume (The Ultimate Egoist) contains stories written between the end of 1937 and the beginning of 1940. Some are being published here for the first time; many others are appearing for the first time in book form." The copyright date for Volume 1 is 1994, seventeen years ago; this clearly has not been a rushed assignment.
I am looking forward to spending a few years slowly working my way through the series, reacquainting myself with such favorites as "Bianca's Hands," "Thunder and Roses," "Killdozer," "The Microcosmic God," "A Saucer of Loneliness," "The Silken-Swift," and "A Way of Thinking," and becoming acquainted with many that I've never read or have read so long ago that it will be like reading them for the first time.
The web site for the publisher of the series is http://tinyurl.com/6hry854.
In addition, Vintage Books is bringing out Sturgeon's major novels.
A great feast is in store for us.
I have the first volume: The Ultimate Egoist: Volume 1. It contains over 40 short stories, plus forewords by Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, and Gene Wolfe, all of whom have a few great stories of their own out there. At the end of the volume are some thirty pages of story notes on many of the stories. In the "Editor's Note," Paul Williams writes, "The volumes and the stories within the volumes are organized chronologically by order of composition (in so far as it can be determined). The earliest volume (The Ultimate Egoist) contains stories written between the end of 1937 and the beginning of 1940. Some are being published here for the first time; many others are appearing for the first time in book form." The copyright date for Volume 1 is 1994, seventeen years ago; this clearly has not been a rushed assignment.
I am looking forward to spending a few years slowly working my way through the series, reacquainting myself with such favorites as "Bianca's Hands," "Thunder and Roses," "Killdozer," "The Microcosmic God," "A Saucer of Loneliness," "The Silken-Swift," and "A Way of Thinking," and becoming acquainted with many that I've never read or have read so long ago that it will be like reading them for the first time.
The web site for the publisher of the series is http://tinyurl.com/6hry854.
In addition, Vintage Books is bringing out Sturgeon's major novels.
A great feast is in store for us.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
THREE BY THEODORE STURGEON
Those who don't read SF and Fantasy probably have never had the chance to become acquainted with two of the finest short story writers in the English language: Ray Bradbury and Theodore Sturgeon. Their tales range from the outright fantastic to horror to everyday life. I've discussed some of Bradbury's tales already, mostly in conjunction with film versions, and there are many others which I want to bring up. Today, though, I want to discuss briefly three of Sturgeon's stories that are favorites of mine. One, not only is a favorite, but it forced me to think about some of my attitudes and eventually changed my way of thinking.
Warning: I will bring up significant plot elements and even the endings for some of the stories.
"Bianca's Hands"
This is a horror story, I think. It might even be a love story. Perhaps it's both. I'm not sure what to call it for it's one of the strangest stories I've ever read, and it has stayed with me ever since I first read it decades ago. See for yourself. I will quote the opening paragraphs and let it speak for itself.
"Bianca's mother was leading her when Ran saw her first. Bianca was squat and small, with dank hair and rotten teeth. Her mouth was crooked and it drooled. Either she was blind or she just didn't care about bumping into things. It didn't really matter because Bianca was an imbecile. Her hands . . ."
This is a strange way to begin a love story, the story of an overwhelming passion that eventually leads to a tragedy. At least, I think it's a tragedy. But it gets stranger when one reads the last words of the paragraph which leads into the second paragraph--"Her hands . . ."
"They were lovely hands, graceful hands, hands as soft and smooth and white as snowflakes, hands whose color was lightly tinged with pink like the glow of Mars on Snow. They lay on the counter side by side, looking at Ran. They lay there half closed and crouching, each pulsing with a movement like the the panting of a field creature, and they looked. Not watched. Later, they watched him. Now they looked. They did, because Ran felt their united gaze , and his heart beat strongly."
Ran rents a room and moves in with Bianca's mother and Bianca, or rather, to be realistic, Bianca's hands. He then begins to court, not Bianca, but her hands. Or, perhaps it was the reverse: they began to court? seduce? him.
"Bianca was alone in the room, and Ran went to her and sat beside her. She did not move, nor did her hands. They rested on a small table before her, preening themselves. This, then, was when they really began watching him. He felt it, right down to the depths of his enchanted heart. The hands kept stroking each other, and yet they knew he was there, they knew of his desire. They stretched themselves before him, archly, languorously, and his blood pounded hot. Before he could stay himself he reached and tried to grasp them. He was strong, and his move was sudden and clumsy. One of the hands seemed to disappear, so swiftly did it drop into Bianca's lap. But the other--"
As I read the story, I gradually realized that this tale could not, would not have a "happy ending"--or, at least an ending that I would call "happy." Ran couldn't see that something here was wrong. The horror increases as Ran becomes more and more infatuated with her hands. Finally, he seals his fate when he asks Bianca's mother for permission to marry Bianca (no, I will not give in and say he asks for her hand.)
Is there a moral here? Perhaps. It does point out the danger of focusing on only one aspect of the beloved and not the whole person.
What makes this story so memorable is Sturgeon's language. He manages to make those hands the real focus of the story. They are alive and independent; Bianca's body is simply the means of transporting those hands. He imbues them with a consciousness that is both real and grotesque at the same time.
Overall Rating: a quiet little horror tale that deserves far more attention than it gets.
---------------------------------------------
"The Silken-Swift"
I guess one could call this one a fantasy, mostly anyway. The title refers to a unicorn, a mythical beast, except that in this story it isn't mythical. This story looks at an obsession, sexual naturally, but one that seems more natural than in the previous tale. It's also the story of the eternal triangle: two women and one man. One woman uses him and abuses him, while the second woman is abused by him. It takes a unicorn to resolve the confusion. However, I'm not too sure about the ending. I have some problems with it, and it would be interesting to hear what others think about it.
Briefly, Rita is the daughter of the richest man in the village. She is beautiful and selfish and skilled in the use of potions that manipulate people's feelings. In this way, she has made fools of many men without ever giving them what they think she promises.
One night, she torments a new man, Del, in this way, and left him temporarily blinded by one of her drugs. Barbara, another woman from the village, one who has been quietly in love with him, finds him and attempts to help him. Del, still blind, thinks it's Rita and takes his revenge on her now that he has her within reach. Barbara never tells him of his mistake.
Rita, learning of the presence of the unicorn, has a golden bridle made and gets Barbara to lead them to the pond where the unicorn--the Silken-Swift-- comes to drink. Rita will prove that she is still a virgin for only virgins are able to catch a unicorn.
The pond, even though in the midst of a swamp, was special: "It was a place without hardness or hate, where the aspens trembled only for wonder, and where all contentment was rewarded. Every single rabbit there was the champion nose-twinkler, and every waterbird could stand on one leg the longest, and proud of it. Shelf-fungi hung to the willow-trunks, making that certain, single purple of which the sunset is incapable , and a tanager and a cardinal gravely granted one another his definition of 'red.'"
However, the unicorn ignores the myth and rejects Rita in front of a large crowd of villagers and comes to Barbara. But, there is a price to be paid as the unicorn flips Rita's golden bridle into the pond.
"And the instant it touched the water, the pond was a bog and the birds rose mourning from the trees.
. . .
Barbara said, 'For us, he lost his pool, his beautiful pool.'
And Del said 'He will get another. He must.' With difficulty he added, 'He couldn't be . . . punished . . . for being so gloriously Fair.'"
Strange ending: Rita wrongly is believed to not be a virgin. Del gets the girl whom he raped and the Unicorn loses its beautiful pond. Should Del be rewarded? Why did the Silken-Swift lose its pond? Was it really "for being so gloriously Fair."?
Overall Rating: well-written, as is typical of a Sturgeon tale, but it leaves some disquieting questions unanswered, for Sturgeon has taken a few liberties with the myth.
-------------------------------------------
"Thunder and Roses"
This is the story that caused me to reconsider some of my beliefs many years ago. It didn't change them immediately, but it stayed with me and influenced me so that I no longer think the way I did then. The story was published in 1947, at the beginning of the Cold War, when many people feared that a nuclear war was imminent. The two most strident reactions were generally all one heard: "Better Red than Dead" shouted one side, while the other side screamed "Better Dead than Red." Sturgeon's story suggested there were other options and other, better ways to think. One way was to see all of us as part of humanity.
In "Thunder and Roses," the horror has happened. A surprise nuclear attack has virtually destroyed the US, wiping out the government and military so quickly that no retaliation could be made. The story is set on a small obscure military post that escaped being wiped out. However, those there know their time is short, days for some, a week or two or maybe even a month for most. The North American continent is uninhabitable.
However, the enemy will not escape either, for the amount of radiation released by the attack is so great that within a year or two, it will blanket the northern hemisphere, and as one of he characters says, "They have killed us, and they have ruined themselves."
One of the survivors discovers that the post has a secret backup control system for launching a retaliatory strike, if the first line system has been knocked out. His immediate reaction is that he now has a chance to destroy those who have destroyed the US.
The issue is not that simple. In the story, there is a level of radiation that would eventually destroy all of humanity and almost all of the other species we share this planet with. It's the scenario set up in Nevil Shute's On the Beach. So far, that limit hasn't been reached, yet. It will be, though, if the US retaliates. This is the conflict: revenge vs a concern for all life.
Sturgeon has one of his characters tell us:
"A disease made other humans our enemies for a time, but as the generations march past, enemies become friends and friends enemies. The enmity of those who have killed us is such a tiny, temporary thing in the long sweep of history!'
. . .
'And even if this is the end of humankind, we dare not take away the chances some other life-form might have to succeed where we failed. If we retaliate, there will not be a dog, a deer, an ape, a bird or fish or lizard to carry the evolutionary torch. In the name of justice, if we must condemn and destroy ourselves, let us not condemn all other life along with us. Mankind is heavy enough with sins. If we must destroy, let us stop with destroying ourselves!'"
This was a philosophy that I hadn't heard before. It argues that we look beyond our family, our clan, our city, our nation, even beyond our own species. Of course, today, while this is not accepted by even a sizable minority, it is prevalent, even if only to be derided by the "wise" and the practical. In 1947, at least in my immediate universe, it was a radical thought, and one I had to struggle with. What's unfortunate is that I can't tell Theodore Sturgeon that he succeeded in convincing me and, possibly, many others also.
Who knows? Maybe in a century or two, someone will read this story and wonder why it was necessary to argue such an obvious way of thinking about our place here.
Any thoughts?
Warning: I will bring up significant plot elements and even the endings for some of the stories.
"Bianca's Hands"
This is a horror story, I think. It might even be a love story. Perhaps it's both. I'm not sure what to call it for it's one of the strangest stories I've ever read, and it has stayed with me ever since I first read it decades ago. See for yourself. I will quote the opening paragraphs and let it speak for itself.
"Bianca's mother was leading her when Ran saw her first. Bianca was squat and small, with dank hair and rotten teeth. Her mouth was crooked and it drooled. Either she was blind or she just didn't care about bumping into things. It didn't really matter because Bianca was an imbecile. Her hands . . ."
This is a strange way to begin a love story, the story of an overwhelming passion that eventually leads to a tragedy. At least, I think it's a tragedy. But it gets stranger when one reads the last words of the paragraph which leads into the second paragraph--"Her hands . . ."
"They were lovely hands, graceful hands, hands as soft and smooth and white as snowflakes, hands whose color was lightly tinged with pink like the glow of Mars on Snow. They lay on the counter side by side, looking at Ran. They lay there half closed and crouching, each pulsing with a movement like the the panting of a field creature, and they looked. Not watched. Later, they watched him. Now they looked. They did, because Ran felt their united gaze , and his heart beat strongly."
Ran rents a room and moves in with Bianca's mother and Bianca, or rather, to be realistic, Bianca's hands. He then begins to court, not Bianca, but her hands. Or, perhaps it was the reverse: they began to court? seduce? him.
"Bianca was alone in the room, and Ran went to her and sat beside her. She did not move, nor did her hands. They rested on a small table before her, preening themselves. This, then, was when they really began watching him. He felt it, right down to the depths of his enchanted heart. The hands kept stroking each other, and yet they knew he was there, they knew of his desire. They stretched themselves before him, archly, languorously, and his blood pounded hot. Before he could stay himself he reached and tried to grasp them. He was strong, and his move was sudden and clumsy. One of the hands seemed to disappear, so swiftly did it drop into Bianca's lap. But the other--"
As I read the story, I gradually realized that this tale could not, would not have a "happy ending"--or, at least an ending that I would call "happy." Ran couldn't see that something here was wrong. The horror increases as Ran becomes more and more infatuated with her hands. Finally, he seals his fate when he asks Bianca's mother for permission to marry Bianca (no, I will not give in and say he asks for her hand.)
Is there a moral here? Perhaps. It does point out the danger of focusing on only one aspect of the beloved and not the whole person.
What makes this story so memorable is Sturgeon's language. He manages to make those hands the real focus of the story. They are alive and independent; Bianca's body is simply the means of transporting those hands. He imbues them with a consciousness that is both real and grotesque at the same time.
Overall Rating: a quiet little horror tale that deserves far more attention than it gets.
---------------------------------------------
"The Silken-Swift"
I guess one could call this one a fantasy, mostly anyway. The title refers to a unicorn, a mythical beast, except that in this story it isn't mythical. This story looks at an obsession, sexual naturally, but one that seems more natural than in the previous tale. It's also the story of the eternal triangle: two women and one man. One woman uses him and abuses him, while the second woman is abused by him. It takes a unicorn to resolve the confusion. However, I'm not too sure about the ending. I have some problems with it, and it would be interesting to hear what others think about it.
Briefly, Rita is the daughter of the richest man in the village. She is beautiful and selfish and skilled in the use of potions that manipulate people's feelings. In this way, she has made fools of many men without ever giving them what they think she promises.
One night, she torments a new man, Del, in this way, and left him temporarily blinded by one of her drugs. Barbara, another woman from the village, one who has been quietly in love with him, finds him and attempts to help him. Del, still blind, thinks it's Rita and takes his revenge on her now that he has her within reach. Barbara never tells him of his mistake.
Rita, learning of the presence of the unicorn, has a golden bridle made and gets Barbara to lead them to the pond where the unicorn--the Silken-Swift-- comes to drink. Rita will prove that she is still a virgin for only virgins are able to catch a unicorn.
The pond, even though in the midst of a swamp, was special: "It was a place without hardness or hate, where the aspens trembled only for wonder, and where all contentment was rewarded. Every single rabbit there was the champion nose-twinkler, and every waterbird could stand on one leg the longest, and proud of it. Shelf-fungi hung to the willow-trunks, making that certain, single purple of which the sunset is incapable , and a tanager and a cardinal gravely granted one another his definition of 'red.'"
However, the unicorn ignores the myth and rejects Rita in front of a large crowd of villagers and comes to Barbara. But, there is a price to be paid as the unicorn flips Rita's golden bridle into the pond.
"And the instant it touched the water, the pond was a bog and the birds rose mourning from the trees.
. . .
Barbara said, 'For us, he lost his pool, his beautiful pool.'
And Del said 'He will get another. He must.' With difficulty he added, 'He couldn't be . . . punished . . . for being so gloriously Fair.'"
Strange ending: Rita wrongly is believed to not be a virgin. Del gets the girl whom he raped and the Unicorn loses its beautiful pond. Should Del be rewarded? Why did the Silken-Swift lose its pond? Was it really "for being so gloriously Fair."?
Overall Rating: well-written, as is typical of a Sturgeon tale, but it leaves some disquieting questions unanswered, for Sturgeon has taken a few liberties with the myth.
-------------------------------------------
"Thunder and Roses"
This is the story that caused me to reconsider some of my beliefs many years ago. It didn't change them immediately, but it stayed with me and influenced me so that I no longer think the way I did then. The story was published in 1947, at the beginning of the Cold War, when many people feared that a nuclear war was imminent. The two most strident reactions were generally all one heard: "Better Red than Dead" shouted one side, while the other side screamed "Better Dead than Red." Sturgeon's story suggested there were other options and other, better ways to think. One way was to see all of us as part of humanity.
In "Thunder and Roses," the horror has happened. A surprise nuclear attack has virtually destroyed the US, wiping out the government and military so quickly that no retaliation could be made. The story is set on a small obscure military post that escaped being wiped out. However, those there know their time is short, days for some, a week or two or maybe even a month for most. The North American continent is uninhabitable.
However, the enemy will not escape either, for the amount of radiation released by the attack is so great that within a year or two, it will blanket the northern hemisphere, and as one of he characters says, "They have killed us, and they have ruined themselves."
One of the survivors discovers that the post has a secret backup control system for launching a retaliatory strike, if the first line system has been knocked out. His immediate reaction is that he now has a chance to destroy those who have destroyed the US.
The issue is not that simple. In the story, there is a level of radiation that would eventually destroy all of humanity and almost all of the other species we share this planet with. It's the scenario set up in Nevil Shute's On the Beach. So far, that limit hasn't been reached, yet. It will be, though, if the US retaliates. This is the conflict: revenge vs a concern for all life.
Sturgeon has one of his characters tell us:
"A disease made other humans our enemies for a time, but as the generations march past, enemies become friends and friends enemies. The enmity of those who have killed us is such a tiny, temporary thing in the long sweep of history!'
. . .
'And even if this is the end of humankind, we dare not take away the chances some other life-form might have to succeed where we failed. If we retaliate, there will not be a dog, a deer, an ape, a bird or fish or lizard to carry the evolutionary torch. In the name of justice, if we must condemn and destroy ourselves, let us not condemn all other life along with us. Mankind is heavy enough with sins. If we must destroy, let us stop with destroying ourselves!'"
This was a philosophy that I hadn't heard before. It argues that we look beyond our family, our clan, our city, our nation, even beyond our own species. Of course, today, while this is not accepted by even a sizable minority, it is prevalent, even if only to be derided by the "wise" and the practical. In 1947, at least in my immediate universe, it was a radical thought, and one I had to struggle with. What's unfortunate is that I can't tell Theodore Sturgeon that he succeeded in convincing me and, possibly, many others also.
Who knows? Maybe in a century or two, someone will read this story and wonder why it was necessary to argue such an obvious way of thinking about our place here.
Any thoughts?
Sunday, October 19, 2008
The Greater Good
Democracies work, more or less, on the utilitarian principle that the good of the majority outweighs that of the minority--the greater good. In other words, some suffering is acceptable if the good outweighs the evil that might result from a particular action or law or process. For example, some people may lose their homes or jobs if it is determined that such losses will result in a greater good for the majority.
The question that bothers me is to what extent this may be carried out. At least three works that I'm aware of have either mentioned this point or based the story completely on this issue.
One of the first works that I can find that has brought up this issue is Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. Ivan, the skeptical brother, in a discussion with Alyosha, his younger brother who is a novice monk, brings up the issue in a discussion about justice--how could a just God have created a world so filled with evil in which good people suffer and evil people flourish?
At one point he poses the following hypothetical situation to Alyosha, "Tell me straight out, I call on you--answer me: imagine that you yourself are building the edifice of human destiny with the object of making people happy in the finale, of giving them peace and rest at least, but for that you must inevitably and unavoidably torture just one tiny creature, that same child who was beating her chest with her little fist, and raise your edifice on the foundation of her unrequited tears--would you agree to be the architect on such conditions? Tell me the truth."
Peace and happiness for the human race--but at the cost of one child's suffering. Is that going too far with the philosophy of the greater good?
A second work one might read is a short story by Ursula Le Guin, "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas." In this story, Le Guin posits such a perfect society and goes into considerable detail describing it. While some might not like this society, many would consider it an ideal world. However, there is a catch--as the old cliche goes, "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch." In the story, Le Guin describes the life of one small child that resembles horror stories that emerge in the news media about a dreadful example of child abuse--a child being locked in a dark room for years, with no sanitary facilities, physical and mental abuse alternating with complete isolation.
She continues: "They all come to know it is there, all the people of Omelas. Some of them have come to see it, others are content merely to know it is there. They all know that it has to be there. Some of them understand why, and some do not, but they all understand that their happiness, the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friendships, the health of their children, the wisdom of their scholars, the skill of their makers, even the abundance of their harvests and the kindly weathers of the skies, depend wholly on this child's abominable misery."
If that child were released, then "in that day and hour all the prosperity and beauty and delight of Omelas would wither and be destroyed. Those are the terms. To exchange all the goodness and grace of every life in Omelas for that single, small improvement: to throw away the happiness of thousands for the chance of the happiness of one..."
The title, of course, points out that there are some who cannot accept this situation and leave. But, most stay. Are they monsters?
A third version of this hypothetical situation is found in Theodore Sturgeon's Venus Plus X. This tale differs in that it isn't one child who suffers for the good of the whole, but each member unknowingly, as an infant, undergoes a procedure that produces an idyllic society. In one sense they are now less than they could be, but their lives appear to be happier and more satisfying and creative than any contemporary society today. In fact, it is quite similar to Omelas. In this case, the issue is that the members of this society do not have the chance to make a decision, for it is made for them as infants and most do not know the true situation. The question is therefore whether the authorities in this society are justified in their decision to not allow each member to decide whether to undergo the procedure. Could they fear that most might not agree?
These are all hypothetical or fictional situations, but the principles behind them are not. I wonder what I might say if I were really in an actual situation similar to ones posited in the three stories--to exchange the complete happiness and joy of thousands or more people for the suffering of one person. I wonder which is the greater good.
The question that bothers me is to what extent this may be carried out. At least three works that I'm aware of have either mentioned this point or based the story completely on this issue.
One of the first works that I can find that has brought up this issue is Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. Ivan, the skeptical brother, in a discussion with Alyosha, his younger brother who is a novice monk, brings up the issue in a discussion about justice--how could a just God have created a world so filled with evil in which good people suffer and evil people flourish?
At one point he poses the following hypothetical situation to Alyosha, "Tell me straight out, I call on you--answer me: imagine that you yourself are building the edifice of human destiny with the object of making people happy in the finale, of giving them peace and rest at least, but for that you must inevitably and unavoidably torture just one tiny creature, that same child who was beating her chest with her little fist, and raise your edifice on the foundation of her unrequited tears--would you agree to be the architect on such conditions? Tell me the truth."
Peace and happiness for the human race--but at the cost of one child's suffering. Is that going too far with the philosophy of the greater good?
A second work one might read is a short story by Ursula Le Guin, "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas." In this story, Le Guin posits such a perfect society and goes into considerable detail describing it. While some might not like this society, many would consider it an ideal world. However, there is a catch--as the old cliche goes, "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch." In the story, Le Guin describes the life of one small child that resembles horror stories that emerge in the news media about a dreadful example of child abuse--a child being locked in a dark room for years, with no sanitary facilities, physical and mental abuse alternating with complete isolation.
She continues: "They all come to know it is there, all the people of Omelas. Some of them have come to see it, others are content merely to know it is there. They all know that it has to be there. Some of them understand why, and some do not, but they all understand that their happiness, the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friendships, the health of their children, the wisdom of their scholars, the skill of their makers, even the abundance of their harvests and the kindly weathers of the skies, depend wholly on this child's abominable misery."
If that child were released, then "in that day and hour all the prosperity and beauty and delight of Omelas would wither and be destroyed. Those are the terms. To exchange all the goodness and grace of every life in Omelas for that single, small improvement: to throw away the happiness of thousands for the chance of the happiness of one..."
The title, of course, points out that there are some who cannot accept this situation and leave. But, most stay. Are they monsters?
A third version of this hypothetical situation is found in Theodore Sturgeon's Venus Plus X. This tale differs in that it isn't one child who suffers for the good of the whole, but each member unknowingly, as an infant, undergoes a procedure that produces an idyllic society. In one sense they are now less than they could be, but their lives appear to be happier and more satisfying and creative than any contemporary society today. In fact, it is quite similar to Omelas. In this case, the issue is that the members of this society do not have the chance to make a decision, for it is made for them as infants and most do not know the true situation. The question is therefore whether the authorities in this society are justified in their decision to not allow each member to decide whether to undergo the procedure. Could they fear that most might not agree?
These are all hypothetical or fictional situations, but the principles behind them are not. I wonder what I might say if I were really in an actual situation similar to ones posited in the three stories--to exchange the complete happiness and joy of thousands or more people for the suffering of one person. I wonder which is the greater good.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)