What I didn't read was what the libraries of the 1920s and 1930s were poor in, and that was contemporary fiction. Or, if the libraries did have them, then I discovered them too late, after my literary tastes had solidified. Most twentieth-century serious fiction is beyond me.
Mysteries and humor are another matter, of course. Of all twentieth-century writers I should say the two I have read most carefully and thoroughly, and have reread most assiduously and with undiminished delight, are Agatha Christie and P. G. Wodehouse.
7
Even my library foraging was not enough for me back in 1929, and I kept studying the magazine racks in the candy store with steadily increasing desire. In that particular respect the spirit of rebellion was growing slowly higher within me.
The Nick Carters and Frank Merriwells had died out, and it was the pulps that now attracted my attention—the detective stories, the Westerns, the adventures, and so on. Even such magazines as Paris Nights or Spicy Romances (which were daring-for-the- 1920s forays into the realm of soft-core pornography) caught my eye and filled me with strange and uncertain emotions as I stared at feminine legs and breasts on the cover paintings. 4
What attracted me most, though, were the science-fiction magazines.
In the spring of 1926, the first magazine ever to be devoted to science fiction exclusively was placed on the newsstands for sale. It was entitled Amazing Stories, and the first issue was dated April 1926.
8 In fact, it all still remains with me and is still at my service. People frequently ask me how I do all the research needed to write my dozens of books on dozens of subjects, and it's hard to explain that at least some of the research was done when I was a youngster, and that it is filed away in accessible locations in my mind. As to how I manage to remember and recall, I can't tell you. I have always been able to do it, but I don't know how, except that it's easy and causes me no trouble. 4 Instinct told me, however, that paternal lightning would flash full force if I even let on that I knew that Paris Nights existed, let alone tried to get permission to look inside.
I never saw it. Perhaps my father did not get that particular magazine in the Sutter Avenue store; or perhaps my eyes weren't attuned to it yet. In the Essex Street store, however, I came across the magazine and began to long for it, and to sneak looks inside.
Unfortunately, my father was adamant about keeping me from reading any magazine. The pressures built, however, and everything conspired against him—even school.
In February 1929, I entered 5B1, and my teacher was a Miss Martin. She was the best teacher I had had since the first grade—and for many years afterward—and I loved her more than any other. She was unfailingly good-natured and never scolded shrewishly. She read to us from books and, in fact, introduced me to Hugh Lofting's books about Dr. Dolittle which, for some years to come, were nectar and ambrosia to me.
Furthermore, she was clearly fond of me and didn't mind that I was my usual disruptive self in her class. Her liking wasn't reflected in the marks I got. For two months running, I remember, I brought back my report card with an A in schoolwork and a D (in red, for failure) in deportment. Fortunately, my parents knew what deportment meant now, and merely lectured me.
But despite my deportmental villainy, Miss Martin liked me. For one thing, she gave me the chance to recover from a particularly painful setback I had had in 5A1.
Not long after I had joined PS 202, the school's semi-annual spelling bee came up. Every class within a certain range would send out its representative, and the bee would be held in the auditorium. The students all loved it because it was exciting. After all, you could root for your own class and laugh and hoot like fiends if anyone missed. (The old hand-on-the-shoulder, "Well played, old man," was totally foreign to us.)
Naturally, I was sent into the fray by 5A1. I hadn't been there long, but I had already proved that I was death on spelling. I could spell any word I had ever seen.
So there I was on the stage.
It wasn't as though I had never been on the stage before. Every schoolchild gets his chance, whether he wants to or not, because every class is bound to have a class play, and every youngster in the class is somehow involved. If he misses in one term, he gets it in another.
I, too, had been in plays. I had once played a Russian soldier in a play that was set in Russia. As I recall, the little heroine, a poor girl, was so unhappy with her lot that her fairy godmother told her she could change places with anyone, just by shaking hands with them. The little girl then met a series of other people, all of whom seemed to
be better off than she was, but she always found something about them that made her shrink away. The princess who enters is frightened of thieves, so the little girl thinks that if she were only a soldier she wouldn't be afraid of anyone.
That was my cue to enter (age seven, I think, at the time), with my woolen hat's earflaps coming down and buttoning under my chin to represent a soldier's helmet, and my arms crossed over my chest to indicate resolution and valor. I had but to appear and the entire audience did what they always seemed to do when I appeared—they burst into loud laughter. Fortunately I was used to it, and I delivered my lines with sang-froid. By the time I had detailed the hardships of a soldier's life, the heroine wouldn't shake hands with me.
But that was a play—in a familiar school before familiar fellow pupils.
Now, two years later, I was in a contest, facing strangers in a strange school. And it was a competition that was particularly unfair. Victory was only what I expected and would give me no great pleasure. Defeat, however, would be an unthinkable humiliation. I had nothing particularly to win; everything to lose; and there was no fun in it.
My teeth chattered, my body shook—not so much out of fear as out of tension. When it was my turn, I was asked to spell "weigh." I stood up and said, "Weigh, W-I-E-G-H, Weigh," and knew I was wrong the minute I transversed the two vowels.
I went down and walked back to my seat, with hoots and catcalls ringing in my ear. I had missed the first word.
Even if everyone at school had not made it their mission to remind me of this now and again, I would not have forgotten.
When the time came for the next term's spelling bee, I was in 5B1 and Miss Martin said, "Is there anyone in the class who would like to represent us in the spelling bee?"
Two or three hands went up; mine stayed firmly down. Once was enough for one lifetime.
Miss Martin looked at me. "Aren't you volunteering, Isaac?"
The class looked at me. I said, "I missed last term, Miss Martin. I don't think the class wants me."
Miss Martin said to the class, "Isaac has the best marks for spelling this term, and I think he can win. How many in the class want him?"
Once she expressed her preference, of course, all the little sycophants raised a cry on my behalf, and I was forced to be the 5B1 representative in a bee that included all the classes in the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades.
I was nervous again, but this time, at least, I had the comforting
knowledge that I could not do worse than the term before. As soon as I had spelled the first word correctly, I was ahead of the game. And once I was ahead, I calmed down and was certain I would win.
It wasn't quite that easy. By the time the period ended, another boy (from one of the sixth-grade classes) and myself were still on our feet. We had to fight it out in a tie-breaking session a few days later in the principal's office.
We were both shaking with tension and barely able to enunciate, and the principal kindly tried to ease the situation by telling us that we would have two tries at every word. When I spelled "customer" C-O-S-T-O-M-E-R, my face went into a spasm of unhappiness.
The principal said, 'Try it again, Isaac," and I got it right the next time.
After a few more words, the other boy spelled "disappointment" D-I-S-S-A-P-O-I-N-T-M-E-N-T. I tried to keep my face frozen. The principal gave him another chance and, after some hesitation, he spelled it the same way. I was astonished.<
br />
The principal said, "Can you spell the word, Isaac?" Of course I could, and did, and I won. I didn't really enjoy the victory, however, because I had been the first to miss, and if it had not been for the relaxation of the rules, the other boy would have won. I have never forgotten this. 5
I got a fountain pen as my prize, the first one I had ever owned. Till then the only pens I had were those with steel points that you fitted into a wooden holder and dipped into an inkwell. Every desk had an inkwell, which the teacher filled out of a tall ink bottle when necessary and which, sooner or later, got all over the clothes of every pupil in the class (sometimes accidentally, sometimes maliciously).
I don't recall that we had any spelling bees after that. I don't know why they were stopped, but I was tremendously relieved. I would certainly have been class representative if they had continued, and I didn't want to be. The second time out I had a failure to make up, but afterward I would merely have been defending champion with nothing to gain and everything to lose.
One final gift of Miss Martin's came when the class was over and the summer vacation had begun. In the final days of the class, she announced that she would take a few selected members of the class, those who had done very well in both work and deportment, on a visit to the Statue of Liberty.
5 There are disadvantages to a too-good memory. It is difficult for me to remember things to my own advantage, by adjusting details.
It was clear I wouldn't make it, for that pair of D's in deportment placed me out of the running under even the most liberal interpretation of what "good marks" might be.
That bothered me for several reasons.
First, I had never gone anywhere without my parents, except to the local library, and it would be thrilling to do so. Second, I wanted to see the Statue of Liberty. Third, when my parents found out (and somehow they would, I was sure) that selected members of the class had been chosen for this outing and that I hadn't qualified, I would be in for a sticky half hour.
So I sat there, looking disappointed, and Miss Martin, ever an Isaac enthusiast, said to the pupils, "Class, shall we make an exception for the brightest pupil in the class even if his deportment is bad?" Once again all the little sycophants cheered, and I got to go.
She was such a softhearted teacher. I saw her once or twice during the next year, but then I left PS 202 and I never saw her or heard from her again. Still—thank you, Miss Martin, wherever you are.
The outing was on July 2, 1929, something I cannot forget because I was 9V2 years old that day. The weather was perfect; the Statue of Liberty was impressive; we all went spiraling up endless stairs without feeling particularly tired, and of course there was the ferry ride before and after. It was a great success, but from that day to this, although I have seen the Statue of Liberty innumerable times from a distance, I have never actually been on Liberty Island (or Bedloe's Island, as it was called in 1929) again.
8
I returned from that trip with a heightened feeling of being grown up. I had had a most unaccustomed taste of freedom and I was in no mood to undergo tyrannical oppression, and I actually wanted to have a showdown with my father over the science-fiction magazines.
And I could now make out a good case for it. As long as I had only Amazing Stories to fight about, I was in trouble, for there was nothing in the name of the magazine that would impress my father. In 1929, however, Hugo Gernsback, the publisher of the magazine, had been forced out, and had immediately begun a competing magazine, which he named Science Wonder Stories. The first issue, August 1929, was on the stands when I came back from the trip to the Statue of Liberty.
As soon as I inspected it and found out that it, like Amazing Stories, was science fiction (the expression "science fiction" had not yet been invented, by the way, but was soon to be—by Gernsback), I saw
at once that I had an opening, for the new magazine had "science" in the title.
I had read enough about science to know that it was a mentally nourishing and spiritually wholesome study. What's more, I knew that my father thought so from our occasional talks about my schoolwork.
I picked up the magazine and, not without considerable qualms, approached my formidable sire. (It is hard for me to believe that at the time he was only thirty-two years old. I took it for granted that he was infinitely old—at least as old as Moses.)
I spoke rapidly, pointed out the word "science," showed him the paintings of futuristic machines inside as an indication of how advanced it was, and (I believe) made it plain that if he said "No," I had every intention of mounting a rebellion and introducing a resolute campaign of guerrilla warfare.
I have a feeling that even so I would not have won out over my father's incredible obstinacy. (I never knew my father to give in or compromise over any point in which he was wrong; he was sometimes willing to retreat a little if he happened, by accident, to be right.)
However, what I didn't know was that my mother was just about ready to have the new baby. My father had this on his mind and just lacked the patience to argue something that at the moment seemed unimportant. So, like Pharaoh after the tenth plague, he gave in.
I then collected other science-fiction magazines to read even though they didn't have the word "science" in the title. I planned to maintain with all the strength at my disposal the legal position that permission for one such magazine implied permission for all the others, regardless of title. No fight was needed, however; my harassed father conceded everything.
Well, not everything. For some years, my father held the line at science-fiction magazines, whereas I kept pushing for the "hero" magazines in particular. The magazine that was the center of the sharpest fight was The Shadow.
That magazine came out twice a month and featured a crime fighter who became a passion all over the nation. I would sneak peeks into the magazine when my father wasn't looking and I knew I wanted to read it, but he said "No," and that was that. Since I had my science-fiction magazines, I was not prepared for all-out war.
The thing was that my father liked The Shadow and would always take it upstairs with him during his afternoon nap. He would read it for the ten minutes or so it would take him to fall asleep, and just before he drifted off he would slip it under his pillow.
That's where I would come in. When my father slept, he slept
soundly, both figuratively and literally, for he snored, and while he snored you knew he slept. Under cover of the snoring, I would sneak in and filch the copy of The Shadow. I knew exactly when he was supposed to wake up (it was my job to wake him, remember), and there was no chance he would wake up before then, so five minutes before it was time, I replaced the magazine. Then I woke him up.
This went on for quite a time, and I read The Shadow under conditions of excitement and deadly peril for months, and, of course, that made it all the sweeter.
Once, I remember, my father got dressed and started down the stairs, leaving the magazine under his pillow. Usually he took it down to avoid exposing me to a temptation that would destroy my soul if I succumbed, but this one time he didn't. I waited breathlessly to make sure he would get all the way down, for once he got involved with store work, there was no chance he would remember the magazine. He was only halfway down, however, when Marcia called out, "Pappa, you forgot your magazine," and he came up to retrieve it.
I was never closer to sororicide than at that moment.
In the end, of course, I was caught, and as I looked up and found my father silently watching me, I prepared for battle. But my father gave me no chance. "Well, Isaac," he said, "rather than have you steal and learn to be a gangster, you can read the magazines."
That lost me about three quarters of my fun, but I kept on reading them on principle. My father would look at me sorrowfully whenever he caught me reading them, and those looks stabbed me to the soul, but principle was principle. I kept on reading.
Yet, as I look back on it, I think he was right. If he hadn't closed off that outlet and others, too, 6 I would
not have had to turn to the library.
Eventually my brother was old enough to become interested in what my father would consider trashy reading. By then my father had lost some of the verve of youth and, having expended himself on the battle with me, he let him read whatever he wanted. By then the comic books were on the newsstands, and my brother wasted enough time on them to appear less bright in school than I did, though Fm sure he is just as intelligent as I am.
6 We got our first radio after we bought the Essex Street store, but my father kept it on top of the telephone booth, where only he could reach the dials. I, in particular, was forbidden to stand on a chair and fiddle with them myself. Still, he liked "The Eddie Cantor Show" on Sunday nights, and I was always in the store to listen, praying that customers wouldn't come in.
Toward the end of July 1929, my mother went off to the hospital, and Marcia and I were told why. For a week or so, some neighbor fed us and I hated it, because my experience was entirely limited to my mother's cooking (except for those occasions at Siegel's place in Parks-ville, which I also hated).
Another neighbor went into the hospital at the same time for the same purpose, a neighbor with whom my mother was particular friends. They were delivered on the same day, July 25, 1929—my mother of a boy and the neighbor of a girl. My mother lived; the neighbor died.
We kept it from my mother. Even we children knew what had happened, but we were told by my father in unusually emphatic terms that we must not say a word about it. Indeed, when my mother came home from the hospital with the new baby, she was still ignorant of the tragedy.
When one of the neighbor's older children arrived to look at the baby, my mother asked, querulously, "Where is your mother? They wouldn't let me see her in the hospital."
In all innocence, the child said, "My mother died," and my mother proceeded to have fits of hysterics all over the place. I had never seen that happen before, and it was a very frightening thing.
In memory yet green : the autobiography of Isaac Asimov, 1920-1954 Page 12
