Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue With His Century
Page 71
20. Out and About: The Long, Strange Trip (pages 252–270)
C. L. Moore is confusingly referred to as “Catherine,” “Cat,” and “Kat” in Heinlein’s correspondence, apparently because Henry Kuttner also used different forms of the name. It appears that C. L. Moore did not often write letters to the Heinleins, more often than not passing comments and so forth through Kuttner. There are only a few letters written by her in Heinlein’s archived correspondence.
To make matters even more confusing, Grace (Dugan) Sang, whom the Heinleins met in Philadelphia, was known as “Cats.”
Virginia Heinlein, taped interview by Leon Stover (1988), Tape 1, Side B.
Virginia Heinlein, letter to author, 05/12/2000.
RAH, letter to John W. Campbell, Jr., 05/10/41.
Annette McComas, ed., The Eureka Years: Boucher and McComas’s Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction 1949–1954 (New York: Bantam Books, 1982), xiv.
Jack Williamson, Wonder’s Child: My Life in Science Fiction (New York: Blue Jay Books, 1985), 127.
RAH, quoted in Michael J. Patritch, “One Hundred and Fifty Minutes into Forever: A Meeting with Robert A. Heinlein,” Thrust XXXIII (Spring 1989), 10. Bradbury is not named directly, but the inference is clear.
Ray Bradbury, “Ray Bradbury Takes the Stage,” The Heinlein Journal, No. 8 (January 2001), 6.
Ray Bradbury, “It’s Not the Heat, It’s the Hu—,” Rob Wagner’s Script (November 2, 1940), 6.
RAH, letter to Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, 06/20/73.
I have elected not to write much in the way of critical commentary here, but it seems inappropriate to allow “Coventry” to pass without remark. “Coventry” is surely one of the most unusual stories ever published in science fiction—so unusual, in fact, that the existing commentary on it is somewhat incoherent. The story is unusually stuffed with literary references, explicit, oblique, and incorporated into story structure. For example, in addition to explicit references to Emerson Hough, Jack London, and Zane Gray (among many others), the story is structurally intertextual with A Tale of Two Cities and The Tempest—as well as H. G. Wells’s A Modern Utopia, both directly and by way of a reference to an Edmond Hamilton story drawn from A Modern Utopia.
The story is structurally unusual, as well: It superficially presents as a romance, with MacKinnon the romance protagonist. But Heinlein has doubled the romance story structure, giving the descent into the nightmare world (and subsequent recognition and restoration) to another character, Fader Magee, so that Magee is actually the romance protagonist; the point of view character has what looks like a romance descent—but it is instead him being granted his heart’s desire, only to discover (as Cabell insisted before Heinlein) that contentment is somewhere else, if anywhere.
Instead of a romance recognition scene, MacKinnon’s recognition is a Dark Night of the Soul. The story is built around MacKinnon’s self-healing—the “other road” that the protagonist of For Us, the Living might have taken but did not. The relationship of MacKinnon to Magee is intersubjective—in 1940!—MacKinnon’s restoration outlining the nature of what is not so much a restoration for Magee as the birth of a new man—as the baptism symbolism of the traverse of the river separating Coventry from Covenant suggests.
Most remarkable of all, the end of the story incorporates what is clearly a Brechtian Verfremdungseffekt, throwing the commercial romance completely off its tracks so that comic catharsis cannot proceed.
From the very beginning of his writing career, Heinlein has experimented and wrestled with form and structure in a way quite foreign and antagonistic to pulp formula, a way never paralleled by any of his science-fiction colleagues—in a way, in fact, which has been completely and mystifyingly invisible to them.
RAH, letter to John W. Campbell, Jr., 01/20/40.
John W. Campbell, Jr., letter to RAH, 02/16/40. No copy of the poem is known to have survived.
The mortgage-burning thermometer still exists in the Opus 0 file of the RAH Archive, UCSC.
Joseph Gilbert, letter in the “Brass Tacks” letter column of Astounding Science-Fiction (April 1940), 160.
RAH, letter to Hubert Rogers, 02/03/40.
See, for example, a letter of comment Heinlein wrote at about this time for Sweetness and Light, Spring 1940 issue.
The installment series began in EPIC News III: 20 (October 10, 1936), but the archive consulted did not have many subsequent issues, and I was not able to discover how many installments ran.
Phyllis White (widow of William A. P. White), letter to author, 03/13/1997.
RAH, letter to John W. Campbell, Jr., 02/17/41; the earlier discussion is not preserved with the correspondence, and Heinlein may have been referring to in-person discussions about Heinlein’s up-or-out personal policy.
RAH, letter to Arthur Leo Zagat, 07/16/41.
RAH, letter to John W. Campbell, Jr., 09/06/41.
Virginia Heinlein, letter to Leon Stover, 03/29/89.
In fact, the few discussions of this “gadget” that appeared in correspondence with Campbell and in a brief, passing mention in a later essay are so vague that Dr. Ed Wysocki has spent more than a decade trying to identify it. The story Heinlein is referring to might not even be “If This Goes On—”. His work has been based on a study of the naval technology of the time and the naval careers of Heinlein’s Academy classmates, as well as an analysis of the stories themselves. Dr. Wysocki set out the problem in an article for Shipmate, the Naval Academy Alumni Association magazine, in 1995. The results of his research are to be presented in a forthcoming book.
It is very unfortunate that Heinlein and Campbell were not exchanging letters during the time they were visiting together, as these meetings with interesting individuals were not documented or memorialized at the time, except for several short pen portraits of Heinlein and his circle written by John Campbell to his friend Robert Swisher and published in the first two volumes of The John W. Campbell Letters, published by Perry Chapdelaine. The second volume contains correspondence with A. E. van Vogt, as well. The third volume, to be issued in conjunction with the Virginia Edition, will contain both sides of the Heinlein and Campbell correspondence.
RAH, letter to John W. Campbell, Jr., 11/09/46.
See, for example, Heinlein’s Introduction to de Camp’s The Glory That Was and Other Stories, written in 1952.
RAH, letter to John W. Campbell, Jr., 05/04/40.
RAH, letter to John S. Arwine, 01/28/45.
Moskowitz memorialized the occasion in a late essay, “Heinlein and Me,” published in Ed Meskys’s fanzine, Niekas XXXIII (1985).
Heinlein’s motivation is set forth in the invitation, quoted below.
I have not been able to identify this Johnson; histories of the Technocracy movement rarely identify anyone not on the very top levels of the hierarchy and tend in any case to be more interested in goings-on in New York. Moreover, although it has a chapter devoted to Technocracy in Los Angeles in 1935, Glory Roads, by Luther Whiteman and a friend of Heinlein’s, Samuel L. Lewis (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1936), mentions no Johnson. Perhaps, being a “west coast organizer,” Johnson was not sufficiently oriented to Southern California to fall within their subject matter.
RAH, letter to Robert A. W. Lowndes, 06/07/40.
RAH, letter to Robert A. W. Lowndes, 03/15/56.
No actual memoir of the occasion was written down or survives; the only fact known about it, from a mention of the occasion in a letter Leslyn (Heinlein) Mocabee wrote to Frederik Pohl in 1953, is that Leslyn made and served her very Californian culinary specialty: tamale pie with green salad and red-winevinegar dressing.
Heinlein’s memo of the circumstances is contained in his story notes, in the “They” manuscript file at the RAH Archive, UCSC, and available for online download through the Heinlein Prize Trust’s Web site.
Pass dated 06/05/40 in the RAH Archive, UCSC; these members’ passes have no significance as “influence.”
Heinlein related th
is anecdote in Expanded Universe, at page 93, and again in his Accession Notes for the “Sixth Column” working papers for the RAH Archive, UCSC.
RAH, letter to Ralph Gould, 11/19/73.
RAH, letter to Ralph Gould, 11/19/73.
RAH’s Accession Notes for “Sixth Column” in the RAH Archive, UCSC.
The quoted information is taken from the Heinleins’ applications for this seminar, preserved in the records of the Institute of General Semantics. Copies of Heinlein’s applications were reproduced in Kate Gladstone’s article “Words, Words, Words: Robert Heinlein and General Semantics,” and Leslyn’s were reproduced in “More Regarding Leslyn,” both in The Heinlein Journal, No. 11 (July 2002), 4–8 and 11–13, respectively.
RAH, letter to John W. Campbell, Jr., 07/29/40.
RAH, letter addressed to “Mr. McLean,” 11/06/73.
Dorothy Martin Heinlein, “Relatively Speaking” (unpublished paper written ca. March 2006).
John W. Campbell, Jr., letter to RAH, 07/25/40.
RAH, letter to John W. Campbell, Jr., 07/19/40.
John W. Campbell, Jr., letter to RAH, 07/25/40.
Oeuvres Complètes de Saint-Simon et Enfantin (Paris, 1865–76), Vol. 19, 30.
Poul Anderson made this remark at a memorial panel held at the World Science Fiction Convention in 1972, shortly after Campbell’s death.
Barry Malzberg, Breakfast in the Ruins: Science Fiction in the Last Millennium (Riverdale, NY: Baen Pub., 2007).
RAH, letter to Alice Dalgliesh, 02/17/59.
Dorothy Martin Heinlein, “Relatively Speaking” (unpublished paper written ca. March 2006), 9.
RAH, letter to John W. Campbell, Jr., 07/19/40.
RAH, letter to John W. Campbell, Jr., 07/25/40.
RAH, letter to Cal Laning, 10/25/40.
RAH, letter to John W. Campbell, Jr., 07/29/40. The passage that is cited was added as a postscript on August 1.
The Heinleins’ application for the 1940 seminar indicates the seminar was to start on July 8, but there is no mention of attending the seminar in the correspondence written before July 15, while there is a mention in a letter Heinlein wrote to John Campbell on July 29 that the seminar is “almost over.” Perhaps there was a preliminary or registration session on July 8, which was the date of the applications.
Videotape of a 1985 interview of Hayakawa in the possession of Steve Stockdale, IGS Dallas/Ft. Worth office.
RAH, letter to John W. Campbell, Jr., 09/06/41; see also RAH, letter to Robert A. W. Lowndes, 07/18/41, in which he speaks of his desire to get out of fiction writing immediately, and also RAH, letter to Arthur Leo Zagat of the Authors Guild Pulp Writers’ Section, 07/16/41, in which he says he intends to get out of pulp writing if and when his remuneration drops to the base rate the PWS is advocating.
RAH, letter to John W. Campbell, Jr., 08/11/40.
RAH, letter to John W. Campbell, Jr., 08/11/40.
Harry Warner, Jr., All Our Yesterdays (Chicago: Advent Publishers, 1969), 113.
RAH, letter to John W. Campbell, Jr., 09/27/40.
John W. Campbell, Jr., letter to RAH, 08/14/40.
RAH, letter to Ralph Gould, 11/19/73.
RAH, “Larger than Life: A Memoir in Tribute to Dr. Edward E. Smith,” Expanded Universe, 494.
RAH, letter to Jack Williamson, 03/20/76.
RAH, letter to John W. Campbell, Jr., 09/14/40.
RAH, letter to John W. Campbell, Jr., 09/14/40.
RAH, letter to John W. Campbell, Jr., 09/14/40.
RAH, letter to John W. Campbell, Jr., 11/02/40.
RAH, letter to John W. Campbell, Jr., 09/27/40.
Leon Stover, who received the book as a personal bequest from Heinlein, is under the impression this incident took place in 1937, but Heinlein’s letter to Doc Smith dated 10/24/40 says that they were planning to go see Wells “next week” and that he had never seen him in person before.
Harry Warner, Jr., letter to RAH, 09/10/40.
RAH, letter to Harry Warner, Jr., 10/22/40.
Frederik Pohl, letter to RAH, 10/07/40.
RAH, letter to Frederik Pohl, 11/25/40.
Raymond A. Palmer was then editor of Amazing Stories and was well known for making such caustic remarks about writers in his editorials. He went on to become a professional embarrassment when he published Richard Shaver’s Dero stories after World War II and argued people should take the Shaver Mystery seriously. Heinlein’s opinion of Palmer was actually more emphatic than has been rendered here, as this shoptalk with E. E. Smith dated October 24, 1940, indicates:
I don’t like Palmer. I don’t like the way he does business. I don’t like his habit of discussing in print the fact that he has rejected stories of writers named by name. I don’t like the moronic level to which he has lowered the once-dignified and serious business of speculative fiction. I don’t like the arrogant contempt with which he treats anyone who does not share his own cheap tastes.
RAH, letter to John W. Campbell, Jr., 11/02/40. Portions of this letter are reprinted in Grumbles from the Grave.
RAH, letter to John W. Campbell, Jr., 12/01/40.
RAH, letter to John W. Campbell, Jr., 12/01/40.
RAH, letter to Robert A. W. Lowndes, 07/18/41.
RAH, letter to Robert A. W. Lowndes, 07/18/41.
RAH, letter to Bruce Yerke, 12/09/40.
The Damn Thing, no. 2, is carried in the Eaton Collection of Science Fiction at the University of California, Riverside. It must have been published some days at least before Heinlein’s letter to Yerke dated 12/09/40, as Heinlein mentions a remark about it made the previous Wednesday at an LASFS meeting.
RAH, letter to Bruce Yerke, 12/09/40.
RAH, letter to John W. Campbell, Jr., 12/27/40.
RAH, letter to John W. Campbell, Jr., 12/27/40.
RAH, letter to John W. Campbell, Jr., 01/15/41.
21. Expanding Horizons (pages 271–292)
John W. Campbell, Jr., letter to RAH, 12/30/40.
Heinlein began receiving circulars from the Navy in September 13, 1940, offering active duty postings in desk jobs (that first one sought instructors at Great Lakes), but preferred, as he told John W. Campbell, Jr., (09/18/41), to wait until called—or until offered something closer to his training and interests (say, in propaganda, which he requested as his preferred assignment in his 12/13/41 Request to BuNav to be returned to active duty).
Both signs are described in RAH’s letter to Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore, 09/11/41.
John W. Campbell, Jr., letter to RAH, 12/27/40.
RAH, letter to John W. Campbell, Jr., 06/21/41.
Forrest J. Ackerman, interview by Robert James, Ph. D., 06/09/2000.
RAH, letter to A. D. (Doc) Kleyhauer, Jr., 08/15/41.
RAH, letter to John Kean, 09/20/45.
RAH, letter to Jack Williamson, 03/20/76.
RAH, letter to John W. Campbell, Jr., 03/26/41.
John W. Campbell, Jr., letter to RAH, 03/28/41.
RAH, letter to Henry Kuttner, 03/29/41.
RAH, letter to Robert Moore Williams, 03/31/41.
John W. Campbell, Jr., letter to RAH, 04/08/41.
RAH, letter to John W. Campbell, Jr., 04/17/41.
RAH, letter to John W. Campbell, Jr., 05/29/41.
RAH, letter to John W. Campbell, Jr., 12/01/40.
The title was changed again by Heinlein to the more aptly suggestive “Elsewhen” for collection into Assignment in Eternity in 1953.
RAH, letter to Theodore Sturgeon, 02/11/55.
RAH, letter to A. D. (Doc) Kleyhauer, 12/03/41.
RAH, letter to John W. Campbell, Jr., 05/21/41.
RAH, letter to John W. Campbell, Jr., 06/21/40.
RAH, letter to John W. Campbell, Jr., 07/14/41.
Leslyn Heinlein, letter to Jack Williamson, 06/22/41. The June 21 date quoted was the date in America when the news broke for the Heinleins; the local date of the invasion was June 22, 1941.
RAH, letter to John W. Campbell, Jr., 07/14/41.