In memory yet green : the autobiography of Isaac Asimov, 1920-1954

by Asimov, Isaac, 1920-1992

  "What is he going to tell me?" he would demand when we urged him to see to some malaise from which he suffered. "He's going to tell me to take a rest and go down to Florida for a vacation. I can't take a vacation and I can't rest. I have to work in the store."

  The same went for teeth, of course. Only for a bad toothache did you see a dentist, and by that time the easiest treatment was a yank. Anything less drastic (such as root-canal work, something I had never so much as heard of in my youth) was too expensive.

  The result was that both my father and my mother ailed and aged before my eyes. The change in hair added to the aging process in each case.

  I remember my father in Van Siclen Avenue in his late twenties, with hair that was already retreating from a widow's peak and the beginning of a bald spot behind. By the time we were in Windsor Place, he had only a fringe of graying hair around a vast expanse of baldness. Furthermore, by 1938, he weighed 230 pounds.

  As for my mother, her hair was graying in Van Siclen. 3 By Windsor Place, her hair was pure white and she had full dentures. My father had lost many teeth, but not all of them.

  I was usually in excellent health and saw a doctor or dentist as infrequently as anyone else in the family. When younger, I had had some experience with a dentist and I didn't want to repeat it. One of my baby molars was extracted without anesthetic. The dentist, a faceless, nameless figure I remember with hatred, may have thought it would come out easily, but it did not. It was firmly fixed and he had to use his full strength. The pain was indescribable.

  This was not exactly a see-your-dentist-regularly advertisement, but I did go now and then to have a twinge looked to and a filling inserted.

  On October 11, 1938, I went to the dentist for a general inspection. He found a small cavity but then insisted on taking X rays—the first time I was ever exposed to them. On October 13, when I went back for the results, he informed me that hidden between my teeth, where casual examination would not uncover them, were eight cavities, and that to flush them to their lair and deal with them would cost me the unheard-of sum of fifty dollars.

  3 1 remember that when I was five I once asked why her hair was turning gray and she said it meant she would die soon. She was just teasing but I began to cry bitterly and was inconsolable for a while. This was another memory of mine that my mother insistently denied in later years, but believe me, it happened.

  I staggered home and there was a dismal gathering to decide what to do. The cavity that had been easily found could be dealt with, but the cavities between my teeth would have to wait. Even the check from Amazing didn't solve the problem, since that would have to be earmarked for school expenses.

  What I did do was to get a second opinion from another dentist who, in my opinion, was incompetent. He found only one cavity between my teeth and I was only too glad to believe it. He remained my dentist, working very cheaply, for a few years, and I paid dearly for that "very cheaply" later on.

  3

  My father kept complaining of chest pains and aching shoulders. My mother clung firmly to the opinion he had indigestion, but by November 7, he had had indigestion too long, especially in the chest and shoulders, where indigestion rarely lingered.

  The doctor was sent for (three dollars for a house call those days), a specialist was consulted (an incredible fifteen dollars), and the diagnosis was clear: My father had angina pectoris.

  It turned out to be a relatively mild case, but it was a bad blow for a man who was, as yet, not quite forty-two years old. Uncle Joe and Aunt Pauline came the next day to commiserate and the atmosphere was rather like that of a funeral.

  My father, however, went about things firmly. He had orders to lose weight, and this he did. Overnight he changed his habits. He abandoned cigarettes and adopted a rigid dietary regimen from which he never departed, so that within a year he lost seventy pounds. He took whatever medication he had been given dutifully and followed all orders, and lived out a normal life-span.

  My own reaction, once the immediate panic had settled down, was that it was now clearly impossible for me to go to medical school. I was in my senior year, and Sidney and I were already filling out applications for various medical schools, but how on Earth could I go? How could I find the money or the time if my father was going to be disabled and placed on the sidelines? I was going to have to run the store.

  I told my father this and he told me to stop talking nonsense. He was not going to be disabled and I was going to go to medical school.

  He had to do considerable arguing, for when I decided that I could not go to medical school, I was relieved—clearly relieved.

  As I passed my college years and approached the time when I would have to enter medical school, I grew steadily less enthusiastic

  about it. By my senior year I was, in fact, enthusiastic about not going to medical school.

  The trouble was that first, I could not possibly say this to my father, and second, I had no alternate course of action to suggest.

  So things went on.

  Within limits, of course. I could scarcely apply to medical schools outside the city. It was clear to me that I would have to continue to commute and work in the store, all the more so now that my father had a bad heart. Furthermore—I must be truthful—I didn't dare leave the city. I might have been going on nineteen, but in my whole life I could never remember having spent a night away from my parents and family —and I was scared at the prospect. I would have to someday, I knew, but I was not yet ready.

  There were five medical schools in New York City—Columbia, Cornell, New York University, Long Island University, and Flower— and before the year had come to its end, I had applied to all five. So did Sidney Cohen. He, however, was far less unsophisticated than I was, and he had applied to a number of medical schools outside the city. He did not fear leaving town.

  4

  If my father's condition was bad news, if the prospect of medical school was turning me sick with apprehension, I could not turn with relief to my science-fiction writing. The sale to Amazing could not cast a golden glow over the world forever. The fact was that it had not altered the world. I had not suddenly been converted into a steady winner. In fact, as far as Campbell was concerned, nothing seemed to change.

  I continued my monthly visits—there were visits on October 28 and November 22, for instance. I continued my monthly submissions, and he continued his monthly rejections. I told him of course, of my sale, and he always asked with interest if I had made any additional sales, but he would not buy any stories himself unless they met with his approval. What other, lesser magazines did was irrelevant.

  In fact, on November 4, I received back my seventh story, "Paths of Destiny," with a comparatively curt note to the effect that it was "hackneyed." It was the unkindest rejection I had yet received, and I was horrified. I wrote Campbell a letter of apology and said I would try to do better.

  On November 12, Amazing rejected my sixth story, "The Weapon." Even the fact that they had already taken a story of mine obviously didn't mean that they would automatically buy anything I

  sent them. (I had thought, just possibly, that it might indeed mean that.)

  When I saw Campbell on November 22, he was as friendly as ever. His curt rejection of a hackneyed story had not soured him on me. However, the story I then submitted, my eighth, "Knossos in Its Glory," came back in four days. This time, however, as though to make up for his roughness before, he said my work "was definitely improving, especially where you are not straining for effect."

  Neither "Paths of Destiny" nor "Knossos in Its Glory" ever sold, and both were gone forever. I remember nothing at all about the former, but "Knossos in Its Glory" was an ambitious attempt to retell the Theseus myth in science-fiction terms. The minotaur was an extraterrestrial who landed in ancient Crete with only the kindliest of intentions, and I remember writing terribly stilted prose in an attempt to make my Cretans sound as I imagined characters in Homer ought to sound.

  There was no
question but that my morale was slipping. By December 3 I had written another story, "Ammonium," and having reread it after completion, I decided "it is definitely the rottenest story I have ever written. Therefore my enthusiasm for writing is at its lowest ebb since last June."

  Nevertheless, I started another story that day, which I called "Ad Astra." Looking back on that day now, I can see that this, more than anything else, was what made it certain I would make it in the end. Depression is inevitable at times, self-doubts cannot help but arise—but these must not be allowed to translate into writer's block. Every story is a new ball game.

  On December 21, 1938 (which happened to be my father's forty-second birthday—but we never celebrated birthdays in my family, and I gave it no particular thought), I visited Campbell for the seventh time and submitted "Ad Astra."

  Campbell was as genial as ever, said I could handle words and had good ideas, but lacked "umph." That didn't help me because I did not know what "umph" was. Campbell told me I would get it in time whether I knew what it was or not.

  "Ad Astra" is the first story for which I remember the exact circumstances of the initiating inspiration. I was working for Bernhard J. Stern for a second year at NY A, and since he was writing a book on social resistance to technological change, he had me reading a great many books that might conceivably be of use to him. My orders were to take note of any passages that dealt with the subject and to copy them down.

  It was a liberal education for me and I was particularly struck by a

  whole series of articles by astronomer Simon Newcomb, which I read at Stern's direction. Newcomb advanced arguments that demonstrated the impossibility of heavier-than-air flying machines, and maintained that one could not be built that would carry a man. While these articles were appearing, the Wright brothers flew their plane. Newcomb countered with an article that said, essentially, "Very well, one man, but not two."

  Every significant social advance roused opposition on the part of many, it seemed. Well, then, shouldn't space flight, which involved technological advances, arouse opposition too?

  Yet I had never read a science-fiction story in which such opposition was described. Either the public role did not enter into the story at all or, if it was there, it was described as wildly approving—rather on the line of the public reaction to Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927, eleven years before (which I just barely remembered).

  I determined therefore to write a story about the first attempts to reach the moon, and to have opposition to space flight play an important role. It was because of that that I used "Ad Astra" as the title. This was from the Latin proverb "Per aspera ad astra" ("through difficulties to the stars").

  I had no great hopes for the story, to be sure. I was not expecting that my present difficulties would carry me to the stars.

  In fact, when the February issue of Amazing came out on December 9, it carried the announcement that "Marooned off Vesta" would appear in the next issue, and yet I said in my diary, "It ought to thrill me but it doesn't. Somehow, the story only gives me a heartache when I think that I have made no sales since."

  As 1938 drew to a close—my first year as a professional writer—my score was as follows:

  I had written ten stories, of which I had submitted nine to Campbell and had gotten eight rejections, with the ninth pending. From magazines other than Astounding, I had received a total of seven rejections. Total score: fifteen rejections, one sale. Total earnings for the year: $64.

  That one sale kept looking smaller and smaller.

  5

  My monthly visits with the Futurians did not cheer me either. One and all, the Futurians had writing ambitions, and one and all had been writing. Almost all of them were going to make it in time; but they had not yet done so.

  My own sale was the first, and I had been gleeful over it—a tactical error. Furthermore, most of the Futurians were school dropouts, and I was forging steadily ahead toward my degrees—another tactical error. At any rate, my happy relationship with them faded a bit.

  Nor was there much triumph to be found in the medical-school situation (assuming I would consider acceptance a triumph rather than a disaster). Of the five local medical schools to which I had applied, it was clear that Columbia and Cornell were hopeless, for the word was that they would take only a few Jewish students in each class, and that none of these would be from New York City.

  Indeed, only Long Island University seemed a likely target. My premedical adviser strongly urged me to apply to half a dozen or so medical schools outside the city. He offered to recommend those which would offer the most likely chances. I refused, however. I did not wish to leave New York City, and I didn't want to put myself in a position to be tempted to do so. Besides, I rather gloomily assumed that Long Island University would take me.

  And, to be sure, I got a call for an interview, and on December 14 I was there with a haircut, with my pants pressed, with my shoes shined.

  My father was enthusiastic, assuming that a call to an interview was as good as an acceptance. I was not. I remembered the fiasco of my Columbia interview nearly four years before, and I felt that if I were to be accepted, it would have to be in spite of the first impression I was bound to make.

  I was right. I found myself one of a party of ten (one of whom was a woman). I waited while several were interviewed for over ten minutes apiece. Then I was called, and my interview took only five minutes. It was quite clear to me that they didn't have to take a very searching look at me to see that a pimply faced, not-yet-nineteen-year-old, with no charisma or self-possession, did not offer them much prospect.

  My only chance was that my grades might more than compensate for my interview impression, but they did not. Long Island University rejected me. I was later interviewed by New York University and by Flower and I thought I did better there, but I was fooling myself. Both rejected me, and so did Columbia and Cornell, who did not even require an interview to be convinced of my unsuitability.

  My father was terribly upset at all this, but I explained that this was but a set of preliminary applications in the middle of the senior year, when one didn't really expect to get accepted. There would be another chance toward the end of the senior year and then it would be another story. I didn't really believe this, but it cheered him up.

  By December 29, I had waited eight days to hear from Campbell concerning "Ad Astra" and now a letter arrived—clearly one that was not large enough to hold the manuscript.

  The first pang of ecstasy faded quickly, however, for it didn't contain a letter of acceptance. Campbell simply asked me to come to the office after January 4 for a conference over the story. I didn't know whether that meant he wanted to take it, after getting a few things straightened out, or whether he simply wanted to discuss it in detail before giving it back. That latter possibility didn't seem to make sense, but I did not dare let myself believe the former without qualification.

  I couldn't help but hope, however, and I finally talked myself into such a pitch of excitement that when, the next day, "Ammonium" was rejected by Marvel Science Fiction (another one of the new science-fiction magazines that were now springing up), I dismissed it airily. To be sure, Marvel was a rotten magazine and a rejection from it was a disgrace, but I knew "Ammonium" was a poor story and I was concentrating on "Ad Astra."

  I was at Campbell's office on Thursday, January 5, 1939, the first permissible day, having had to work through a full week of uncertainty and, as I suppose was inevitable, what I encountered was neither the best I could hope for nor the worst I could fear.

  Campbell was not rejecting the story, but he was not accepting it after a small discussion, either. What happened was that he liked the business of opposition to space travel, which he had never encountered before in a story any more than I had. He wanted me to rewrite the story entirely, making that central.

  It was rather frightening. I had never had to rewrite a story before to meet an editorial request and I found it much hard
er to do that than to write the story in the first place. If you write an original story, each word must please you; no more than that. If you rewrite, each word must not only please you but somehow do what an editor told you he wants done.

  Nevertheless, it was exciting. It took me nearly three weeks to fulfill the assignment, but in all that time I felt as though I had half sold a story to Campbell.

  For one thing, it meant that on January 10, 1939, when the March Amazing Stories hit the stands, I greeted "Marooned off Vesta" 4 in

  4 See Asimov's Mysteries (1968). Incidentally, just because I tell you in what book you can find each of my stories, doesn't mean that you are required to look them up and read them. But you may if you want to, you know.

  print without a feeling of disappointment and anticlimax. I could enjoy it for I had made a half sale since.

  My father ordered ten copies so he could send them out to various people, with Uncle Joe on top of the list. I, myself, was no better. I took a copy to school and showed it to everyone, and was openly disappointed that my name was not on the cover. It was my first appearance as a professional writer—eight days after my nineteenth birthday.

  For a long time I saved the March 1939 Amazing, along with other magazines in which my stories appeared. With the years, however, the space required for such souvenirs became larger than the space available. Eventually, therefore, I simply excised the stories from the magazines and discarded the non-Asimov portion. It was a difficult thing to do, but I try to pride myself on my businesslike lack of sentimentality.

  Then, still more years later, I regretted, in print, my failure to save at least that very first issue of a science-fiction magazine containing a story of mine in it. Even a nonsentimentalist should have done that. The well-known science-fiction fan, Forrest J. Ackerman, discovered the regret and kindly sent me a copy in excellent condition as a birthday present. I still have it and I intend to keep it until it disintegrates—or until I do.