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

by Asimov, Isaac, 1920-1992

  My sharpest memory, though, is trying to get the word "one" across to a particular person. I held up my forefinger confidently and she said, "First word!" as a matter of course, because that is the recognized sign for the first word of a phrase. I shook my head vigorously, and held up first the forefinger, then the middle finger, too, and finally the ring finger as well, indicating each stage in exaggerated fashion, and she said, "One, two, three." I nodded with fatuous glee and held up one finger, signifying the first of these three words, and she said, "First word."

  My eyes grew bloodshot. I went through the same ritual. She said, "One, two, three," at which I pointed to the first finger and slowly curled down the other two. She said, "First word."

  I was jumping up and down in frenzy, unable to get out of the routine I had chosen for myself. I indicated one finger, two fingers, three fingers, then shook the first finger under her nose; I did it over and over and over, and finally left the finger there while performing an entrechat and split to emphasize it completely.

  Finally, a look of dawning comprehension permeated her entire being and she said, "Finger!!!!!"

  I don't know what happened after that. Everything went black and the next thing I knew it was morning.

  10

  I visited Columbia on December 27, 1949. Dawson had had a bad time with his ulcer and it was his first day back at work. Gerry Krueger, the beautiful redhead who had argued feminism with me, had just gotten her doctorate.

  The next day I had lunch with two gentlemen from Unicorn Press, who had taken Pebble in the Sky. One was Hans Stefan Santesson, fat, bottom-heavy, and very soft-spoken with the trace of a Swedish accent. The other was Clayton Rawson, tall and long-faced.

  Present also was Martin Greenberg, roughly my age and with a Brooklyn accent like mine, but with a mustache added. He had missed out on Pebble in the Sky, he admitted, but he was anxious to do a collection of my robot stories. I was eager to have him do it, since Bradbury had told me he was interested only in novels and not in short-story collections.

  On December 29, I had lunch with Bradbury. He had a preliminary copy of Pebble in the Sky with him and gave it to me, smiling his delight at my reaction.

  My first book!

  I held it in my hand as an actual existing entity four days before my thirtieth birthday, although it was not to be published officially for over three weeks.

  Brad was less than encouraging, however, concerning my new novel, The Stars, like Dust—. No contract. He would give me an option for $250 to keep me working, but he would have to see six or seven chapters now before a contract would be possible, and the six or seven would not include the first two chapters—which he was throwing out.

  I had apparently committed the customary sin of the sophomore novel. The first novel was fine since I was writing as a novice and had no reputation to uphold. Once it was accepted, however, I was a "novelist" and had to write the second novel while keeping that reputation secure, which meant I had to write deeply and poetically and wittily and so on.

  Bradbury got my error across to me very easily.

  He said, "Do you know how Hemingway says, 'The sun rose the next morning/ ? "

  Somerville ^jj

  I had never read Hemingway, but I had heard of him, of course. I said, "No. How does he say it?"

  He says, The sun rose the next morning/ "

  I got it. From that day to this, I labored to make my style a spare one. I eschewed all ornamentation for its own sake, and if ever my style seems to depart from the starkly straightforward and simple, it is only to achieve humor.

  11

  On December 30, I was at the most crowded and successful Hydra Club meeting I ever attended. Almost everyone I knew was there, from friends as old as Fred Pohl to those as new as Hans Stefan Santesson.

  Marty Greenberg was there and carried through on his promise. He had with him a contract, which I signed, and that meant that Gnome Press would do a collection of my robot stories. There I was, with my first book not yet officially published and with a second under contract and a third under option.

  John Clark was there with his wife, Mildred, who was a formidable woman, large, rather plump. Clark's friends apparently did not like her. In order to see him without her, Fletcher Pratt had the idea of starting a stag organization, whose only function was to have monthly dinners to which Clark could be invited sans wife. It was to be called "The Trapdoor Spiders," since the notion was that the husbands would get into a hole and pull the trapdoor shut behind them as protection from Mrs. Clark.

  The organization had already been in existence for some five years and was still flourishing.

  Bradbury was there and already had a review clipping from The Retail Bookseller that praised Pebble in the Sky.

  Harry Schwartz was there. He was a fellow Boys High student who had been in the class before me, and he was eventually to become a well-known writer for the New York Times in the field of economics and medicine. I remembered him only vaguely, but he remembered me quite well and seemed astonished that I had achieved anything but a ticket to the looney bin. I guess he didn't take the trouble to get past my effervescence.

  Sam Merwin and Leo Margulies were there, and though Sam had laryngitis, he managed to apologize over what had happened to "Grow Old with Me" 2^2 years before. I could now afford to shrug it off. Doubleday had found it more valuable because it had not been pub-

  lished and they might not have taken it if it had been. Since I wouldn't trade ten magazine appearances for that book, I now realized that Mer-win had, all unwittingly, done me an enormous favor by rejecting it.

  12

  On the night of December 31, 1949, as though to cap the pleasant events of the past few days, I had the best New Year's Eve party I had ever had. It was at Rosalind Wylie's. She was Dirk Wylie's wife and had been a Futurian in her own right.

  Roz was quite obese at that time (though pleasant, active and un-self-conscious) and had a sister and a mother who were even fatter. She had a younger sister, however, who was thin and attractive, and Roz said she was formed out of the scraps left over from the other women of the family.

  There were enormous quantities of food and I ate everything. I felt so hilarious over Pebble in the Sky 3 and the forthcoming robot story collection and The Stars, like Dust— that I had five whiskeys in a daredevil mood, with predictable results. I got high—and I mean stratospheric.

  Gertrude, who was as much a teetotaler as I was, also gave in to the temptation, and in the end, Fred Pohl had to drive us home and see that we managed to get safely through the Blugerman door.

  It was in this way that 1949 came to an end. It had seen me finish the Elderfield interlude, finish at last with Columbia, leave New York, and go to Boston.

  Most of all, it had seen my writing suddenly revive and bound to a new height. I had sold a short story, a serial, and a book. I had had two stories anthologized and I had options on two more books. My total writing earnings for the year 4 came to $1,695, wmcn finally surpassed the previous record year of 1944—and by half again as much.

  What's more, my earnings as a chemist, from Elderfield and from the Medical School, came to $4,800, so that my total income for the year 1949 came to just under $6,500. I was satisfied. That was twice the income of my Navy Yard days, and it represented an advance even if

  3 1 had obtained a copy for my parents, which I had autographed, and I could see that my father felt that I had fulfilled all his hopes at last. I think it was then he finally forgave me my failure to get into medical school ten years before. And after all, I was in medical school, wasn't I? And as a faculty member! 4 Up to this point I have carefully listed every check I received, but from here on it it would be far too complicated to do so. I will mention important ones if they play a role in my life, but otherwise not. I will, however, continue to give my annual income, since its ups and downs influenced the course of events.

  Somerville cnq

  one allowed for inflation. With books in th
e works I hoped to do still better in the coming year.

  *3

  On January 2, 1950, I celebrated my thirtieth birthday after returning to Somerville that day. Once again I had a birthday in a new place.

  Since this was a particularly significant birthday (I was thirty), I took the trouble to summarize my writing production in my diary. I had published forty-four stories in the magazines, of which six had been reprinted in anthologies (four hard-cover, two soft-cover). One more magazine story, "The Evitable Conflict," was in press, and two more of my already published stories were to be anthologized shortly. And, of course, there was my one book about to be published, and two more in preparation.

  It wasn't bad for a hobby, but I still didn't dream it could be my profession.

  As for my instructorship, which I then considered my real profession, the halcyon days of the first half year of the Medical School were drawing to a close.

  The biochemistry course was given to the freshman class in the second semester. In the first semester, the class took anatomy chiefly, and while that first semester endured, the biochemistry professors could engage in research and in all sorts of ancillary activities—and that's what I had been doing since I arrived.

  The last week in January, however, meant the beginning of the teaching semester, and I had never done any teaching. There came a time when Dr. Walker called a meeting of the department and divided the lectures among the various faculty members. I was awarded eleven of them, concentrating on the more chemical. My first lecture was scheduled for February 7, and it was to deal with simple lipids. (To this day, I can't hear the phrase "simple lipids" without being instantly back—in imagination—in the Somerville apartment, wondering how I would make out.)

  H

  By January 15, 1950, the option on The Stars, like Dust— was formalized and I started the novel a second time.

  I still had my outline. I had never tried to write any story, however long, with an outline. None of my Foundation stories had been

  outlined, though both "The Mule" and "—And Now You Don't" had been fearfully complex. Nor had I outlined Pebble in the Sky.

  I found out quickly enough that my instinct was correct. I could not follow the outline. The story evolved as it rolled out of the typewriter and moved in its own direction, quite outside my control. For a while, I kept trying to drag the story back on the rails and then I gave up and threw the outline away.

  I have never used an outline again for anything. In fact, I think it was my attempt to use an outline that is one of the reasons The Stars, like Dust— is the least favorite, to me, of my novels.

  I had a completely false idea, by the way, of what reviews were like. On January 19, when Pebble in the Sky was officially published, I bought up all available New York and Boston papers, thinking that each would carry a review.

  Then I thought there was some delay, and each day I would record my disappointment that nothing had appeared. However, Brad told me Doubleday got reviews from all over the country and he would save those that showed up for Pebble in the Sky and let me see them when I was next in New York.

  Just to make sure, I signed up with a clipping service.

  *5

  The Campbell era of science fiction ended with the decade of the 1940s.

  From 1938, when Campbell had first become editor of Astounding, through 1949, a period of twelve years which, by the purest coincidence, covered that portion of my writing career that preceded my first book, Astounding was the only science-fiction magazine that counted. Other magazines were all fringe operations designed to publish stories that Campbell found not good enough or that authors knew in advance he would not even look at.

  But then, with the new decade of the 1950s, new magazines appeared that were to rival Astounding. Campbell continued to be important but he would no longer be a lonely giant. He would have competitors.

  The first of these new magazines was The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (usually referred to as F 6 SF), edited by Anthony Boucher and J. Francis McComas. It began as a quarterly, and I picked up my first copy on January 24, 1950.

  There were signs of inflation. The science-fiction magazines, which

  used to be twenty cents an issue or less, had by now advanced to twenty-five cents, and F & SF was thirty-five cents.

  On January 29, the New York Times finally reviewed Pebble in the Sky y a review that ended with, "Mr. Asimov is an old hand at this sort of thing and this novel makes for fine reading." I was satisfied, especially since both Sprague and Bob Heinlein wrote to tell me how much they liked the book.

  l 7

  The next day the teaching semester started and I was sick—a cold had developed into laryngitis. I went around for a week, practicing the phrase, "Today we take up simple lipids" to check on how my voice was progressing, till Gertrude said that she had never grown so tired of a particular sentence in her whole life.

  Even before I gave my lecture, of course, I had to carry my weight in the biochemistry laboratory. The first session of the lab was held on January 31, 1950, and I stood there in my white lab coat feeling very superior and professorial with all the students deferentially calling me "Doctor."

  Then one student came over and with no trace of wise-guyishness at all, said, "Pardon me, Dr. Asimov, are you a Ph.D. or a real doctor?"

  It put me in my place. A Ph.D. is the highest academic degree there is, and is awarded only for original research. An M.D., on the contrary, is given out on satisfactory completion of schoolwork and is, academically, of no greater value than a Bachelor of Arts. Nevertheless, in a medical school, those with no more than a Ph.D. are second-class citizens. I knew that, but the student's question brought it home, and the value of my academic career in my own eyes, at least as long as I was in the Medical School, declined.

  Then, on February 7, I gave my first lecture—on simple lipids— and survived.

  Dr. Walker was surer of my talents in this direction than I was. He had been invited to give a talk at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. He couldn't go, but suggested they invite me, telling them I was "an interesting speaker" and "quite a colorful character." I was invited for the fourteenth.

  So it was that on February 14, 1950,1 took the train to Lewiston. It

  was the first time I had ever made a trip for the purpose of giving a talk, but like all my talks thus far (except the one to Pauline Bloom's group the preceding May) it was to an academic audience. And as in the case of all my talks, without exception, thus far, it was without fee.

  I was met at the station, taken to Lewiston's best hotel, and fed a turkey dinner before the talk. I spoke to perhaps sixty people, and they sufficed to fill the room. I don't remember what I talked about and I didn't note it in my diary, but I did speak extemporaneously, something I have done ever since. I did say in my diary that the talk "met with roaring approval. Applause! Laughter! I laid them in the aisles."

  I'm sure I did. I always have since (well, nearly always). Talking that successfully, off-the-cuff, to an audience of strangers, cured me of my panic at lecturing.

  Thus, on February 12, just before the Bates lecture, I had gone to Walker with a certain worry.

  "Dr. Walker," I said, "last night I dreamed I got up before the class to give my lecture and I couldn't think of a thing to say. Do you think there's something ominous in that?"

  "I think there's something normal in that," he said. "We all have dreams like that. Wait till you dream that you not only can't think of a thing to say but that you're standing there naked."

  After the Bates College talk, however, I no longer had dreams like that.

  18

  A more unusual event took place on February 5, 1950. In the company of three minor show-business people (one of whom had once corresponded with me), Gertrude and I went to the New College Inn, something that would now be referred to as a gay nightclub.

  The entertainment was by men who were heavily made up, or in women's clothes, or both. It was very good and the
men were very pretty. "Good heavens," I muttered to Gertrude, "I could almost believe I married the wrong sex."

  Once was enough, however. My curiosity was sated. I have nothing against gays—may they live long and prosper; but I have never sought out such entertainment again.

  *9

  Reviews of Pebble in the Sky kept trickling in, and by and large they were favorable. Roy Machlowitz wrote a long letter in which he

  pointed out numerous weaknesses in the book, and his wife, Eleanor, added a letter in which she mentioned weaknesses he had missed.

  I found out at once that I was not one of those authors who welcomed "constructive criticism." I replied with a letter that clearly revealed, I am afraid, that I was not in the least grateful for the help they were giving me, and our friendship trickled to an end.

  The Machlowitz letter came just as I was sending the first third of The Stars, like Dust— to Brad, and I didn't like having my confidence shaken in this way.

  20

  One of my Boston friends—a Gentile—dropped around on February 21, 1950. 5 He was apparently in a spot of financial trouble and needed $200.

  Well aware that one routinely asks twice as much as one needs, expecting it to be cut in half, I pulled out my checkbook and offered him one hundred. He accepted gladly.

  He paid it back a month later, and in full, and said, "You know, I went to all my Christian friends and they all turned me down. I went to you last because you were Jewish and I didn't think you would lend me the money—and you lent me the money at once."

  "Gee," I said dryly, "and without interest, too. I guess I forgot I was Jewish."

  Perhaps he had learned something.