In the entertainment business, life is constant conflict. . . all tension and dynamics, which is why we consume so many Miltowns, Nembutals and head-doctors. But all life is conflict, tension and dynamics. You must go through what I go through; perhaps not so often, perhaps not continually, but it happens to you. The point I'm making is this: When I'm most at grips with dramatic reality, I have the least interest in science fiction. I suggest the same is true of yourselves. . . of everybody.
This doesn't hold for all literature. I don't mean that when one is closest to reality one gives up all reading entirely. On the contrary, some books become more necessary than Miltowns when one is deeply embroiled in conflicts. What I'm suggesting is this: that science fiction is a form of literature palatable only in our moments of leisure, calm, euphoria. It's not Escape Fiction; it's Arrest Fiction. I use the word "arrest" in the sense of arresting or striking attention . . . to excite, stimulate, enlarge. No one wants to read Arrest Fiction when he's already excited; we can only enjoy it when we're calm and euphoric.
Euphoria is a generalized feeling of well-being, not amounting to a definite effect of gladness. I use it here with particular reference to adults. To be blunt, only a man who's known adult troubles can know the meaning of euphoria. Young people—and I was a young people myself once—know all the agony of youth and experience moments of relief; but that isn't adult trouble or adult euphoria.
Young people often withdraw into unadulterated escape fiction, including science fiction. They also engulf science fiction along with everything else as a part of the omnivorous curiosity of youth. Arrested adults . . . that is, arrested in development, also withdraw into unadulterated escape fiction, including science fiction; but we're not discussing the youthful and/or withdrawn readers of science fiction here. We're discussing the mature fans who enjoy science fiction just as they enjoy hi-fi, art, politics, sports, escape fiction, serious reading, mischief and hard work . . . all in sensible proportions, depending upon opportunity, season and mood. I contend that science fiction is only for the euphoric mood.
I think the strongest support for my contention is the fact that women, as a rule, are not fond of science fiction. The reason for this is obvious . . . at least to me. Woman are basically realists; men are the romantics. The hard core of realism in women usually stifles the Cloud Nine condition necessary for the enjoyment of science fiction. When a woman dreams, she extrapolates reality; her fantasies are always based on fact. Women's magazines . . . and I speak as a McCall's writer . . . devote themselves to fantasies about love, marriage and the home, not contra-terrene matter. And the writers who appeal to them are those writers whose inwardness reflects an attitude about love, marriage and the home that is attractive to women.
What, then, is the inwardness of science fiction writers that appeals to fans when they are calm and euphoric? Let's immediately dismiss all notions of serious social criticism, valuable scientific speculation, important philosophic extrapolation, and so on. These are the pretences of science fiction and they're really worthless. But since I know you won't let me dismiss them as externals without an argument, I'll speak about them for a moment before I go on with euphoria.
So far as the philosophic contribution of science fiction is concerned, I cite the gag that made the rounds last fall about the couple that'd been married fifty years. You all know it, but I'll tell it anyway; I've got you trapped. They were interviewed and the husband was asked the secret of the happy marriage. He said: "When we got married we decided that my wife would make all the little decisions, and I'd make the big decisions." The interviewer asked: "What are the little decisions?" "Oh, what apartment to rent. How much rent to pay. Should I keep my job. Should I ask for a raise. What school to send the children to . . . Things like that." "And what are the big decisions?" "Oh . . . who to run for president. What to do about the Far East. Should we help Slobbovia."
Translating this into science fiction, it's my claim that when it comes to social criticism, philosophy and so on, science fiction is usually making the big decision. It knows little and cares less about the day-to-day working out of the details of reality; it's only interested in making the big decisions: Who to run for galactic president? What to do about Mars? Should we help Alpha Centauri?
So far as the scientific contribution of science fiction is concerned, I'm going to tell you the Pshush Story whether you like it or not. During the war, an Admiral was going through some personnel records and on one man's sheet he found the entry: Civilian Occupation-Pshush-Maker. In those days everybody was looking for a secret weapon, so the Admiral called the man in and said: "It says here you're a Pshush-Maker. What's a Pshush-Maker?" The man said: "I can't explain; I'll have to show you, sir." The Admiral said: "What d'you need?" The man said: "Fifty-seven men and a corvette."
So they gave him the fifty-seven men and the corvette, and he spent three months sailing around the world gathering rare materials. . . copper, silver, platinum, rock crystal, aluminum ore, and so on. Then he gave a top-secret demonstration up in Baffin Bay. The Admiral was there and more top brass, and they watched the fifty-seven men put all those materials together into a huge contraption on the stem of the corvette. Then they lit blow-torches and heated it white hot. And then they pushed it over the stern . . . and it went: PSHUSH!
The science in science fiction is usually Pshush-Making. We gather rare materials . . . the theories, ideas and speculations of genuine scientists. . . we put them together in strange contraptions . . . we heat them white hot with the talent and technique of the professional writer . . . and all for what? To make a huge Pshush! If the Admiral had gone into a serious conference with his top brass to discuss the military value of Pshush-Making, it would be no more ridiculous than discussing the serious scientific aspects of science fiction.
But there's a silver lining . . . or should I say a Pshush-Lining . . . to the cloud, because it's my contention that this is the essential charm of science fiction. I said before that men are the romantics. Unlike women, we can't find perpetual pleasure in the day-to-day details of living. A woman can come home ecstatic because she bought a three-dollar item reduced to two-eighty-seven, but a man needs more. Every so often, when we're temporarily freed from conflicts . . . euphoric, if you please . . . we like to settle down for a few hours and ask why we're living and where we're going. Life is enough for most women; most thinking men must ask why and whither.
In England men have the pub for this. You can spend a few hours in your local, talking up a storm with other men about why and whither. Alfred Doolittle, Bernard Shaw's dustman in Pygmalion is the supreme example. In France they quonk all day in the street cafes. In Italy they have the coffee bars, and in Vienna the weinstubes. Here in the States the thinking man has nothing. After the joys of the college bull-session (Is it still called bull-session?) there's nowhere to go. Nobody talks in American saloons; everybody's too busy trying to imitate Steve Allen or Arthur Godfrey. And anyway, too many American men are compulsives, too driven by their hysterias to be capable of euphoric talk. What other outlet does the thinking man have in his hours of reflection but science fiction?
No . . . If you love me and if you love science fiction, deliver us both from all implications of scientific significance. Deliver science fiction from any necessity to have purpose and value. Science fiction is far above the utilitarian yardsticks of the technical minds, the agency minds, the teaching minds. Science fiction is not for Squares. It's for the modern Renaissance Man . . . vigorous, versatile, zestful. . . full of romantic curiosity and impractical speculation.
Haven't I just drawn a picture of the inwardness of the science fiction writers who appeal to you? What have any of them contributed to modern science, philosophy, sociology, criticism? Nothing, thank God. They've been writing Arrest Fiction, which strikes your attention, excites, stimulates and enlarges you when you're in the mood to be excited and stimulated . . . when you're in the euphoric mood and eager to be excited, stimulated and enlarged
.
When I want an education, I don't go to Heinlein, Kuttner, van Vogt, Sturgeon, et alios. I go to grim texts by experts and learn while I work and suffer. But when I want the joy of communicating with other Renaissance Men, I abandon the Squares and go to Heinlein, Kuttner, van Vogt, et alios. These are the men I love to speculate with in my local pub, while my wife is home counting the laundry.
Let me be specific. I am, as I indicated, an amateur in science fiction. My real writing trade lies in other fields. I've only met a few of the leading science fiction writers, but their characters bear out my argument in their work. Bob Heinlein's extrapolation of the future of our civilization is ingenious, imaginative and worthless. But Bob has a dry, wry approach to life that is reflected in all his writing and is a joy to be with. You can say what you like about his science, but the fact remains that he's the Will Rogers of science fiction, and an ideal companion for a pub.
Ted Sturgeon is an imaginative, sensitive poet who can write about human emotions with so much power that he's wasted in science fiction. His science is plausibly makeshift; his fiction is unique. His understanding and approach to human beings. . . his CQ, if you please . . . makes him too touching to be endured. Like Heinlein, Sturgeon has within himself too much to be squandered on a form of fiction which, by its very framework, is dedicated solely to our hours of euphoria.
What about me? Alfie Bester. Now we get down to basics. What made The Demolished Man an appealing book, whereas the stories I'd written ten years before were appalling drivel? The answer is: Ten years. I was ten years older; ten years more experienced. Ten years of hard work at grips with hard reality crystallized something within me and gave me an attitude. I didn't realize it then, but ten years had turned me from a boy into a man.
I think I understand what you liked about The Demolished Man. Outside the tricks and gimmicks which any good craftsman can come up with . . . what you liked was what was within myself; my attitude toward people and life. It wasn't my thinking that you liked, no matter what you tell yourself. I can't think my way out of a telephone booth. It was my formed emotional attitude that communicated with you. I told you I was emotionally left of center in my politics; the same is true of my attitude toward people.
I believe that everyone is compelled, but no one is bad. I believe that everyone has greatness in him, but few of us have the opportunity to fulfill ourselves. I believe that everyone has love in him, but most of our loves are frustrated. I believe that man is the unique creation of nature, but am capable of believing in an even more perfect creation. I believe that every hope and aspiration, and every weakness and vice that I have, I share with all my brothers in the world . . . and all the world is my brother.
All this is emotional, without validity and without value to anyone looking for scientific data and rules to regulate his life. But I feel I'm the kind of guy you wouldn't mind spending a few hours with in a saloon, talking up a storm about anything . . . Exactly the way you'd like to spend time with a Heinlein or a Sturgeon. That's the appeal of The Demolished Man. Not what I say, but what compelled me to say the things I said.
I speak to you now as a brother in a rather unique position; I'm capable of honesty. The only things that stand between a man and honesty are the symbols of his youth which must be fulfilled and discharged. A hungry man can't be honest. I've been fortunate enough to have purged myself of most of my adolescent obsessions. I can afford to be honest today because I've been lucky enough to have had all those things that can only be obtained through dishonesty. I've had them and I'm through with them. Only integrity remains. Now then:
Should we take science fiction seriously?
No more or less than we take television seriously.
Why?
Because both are of limited framework; and any art form of limited framework calls to itself limited artists and is worth only limited consideration.
What is the purpose of art?
To entertain and/or move the audience.
Can science fiction entertain?
Yes, when we're in certain receptive moods.
Can it move us?
No.
Why?
I can only answer that question by committing the heinous crime of discussing your literary religion. And the best way to begin is to mention Ignatius Donnelly, the patron saint of American readers . . . although very few know his name. Donnelly wrote a book called The Great Cryptogram. Does that ring a bell? It was Mr. Donnelly who tried to prove that Bacon wrote Shakespeare.
He's the patron saint of American readers because few American readers really believe that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare. Few Americans can comprehend or understand artistic genius. Faced with unique achievement in the arts, Americans always poke around behind the scenes, looking for ghost writers, the unknown collaborator, the hidden power behind the throne. It never seems to occur to them that once they've found the hidden power, they'll come up against the same problem all over again, and have to poke around ad infinitum.
Now it's interesting that Americans never feel this way about science. No one has ever written a book trying to prove that somebody else invented Edison's inventions. Nobody ever digs up Morse's grave to see if he really invented Marconi's wireless. There's an ancient superstition that an unknown Negro writes Irving Berlin's music, but no one dreams that a Japanese invented the airplane for the Wright brothers. Oh, it's true that scientists sometimes get into priority hassles, but no American is ever incapable of comprehending scientific genius.
The reason is that we're a nation of amateur mechanics. We're simpatico to science and invention, and can identify with mechanical genius. Four Americans out of every five are nursing a secret invention, and take this dream quite seriously. I'm still convinced that da Vinci is a popular painter with us mainly because of the appeal of his beautiful mechanical drawings. I'm also convinced that photography became a passion with us because it made it possible to simulate creative results through purely mechanical means.
I hope you don't know the story about the two amateur photographers who met in a darkroom. One said to the other: "Gee, I saw a pathetic sight in the park today. It was an old beggar, with a long white beard and shaggy hair. His clothes were torn; he was dirty and starved; and the hand he held out to me looked like a claw." The second amateur said: "What'd you give him?" "Oh, a fiftieth of a second at f 3.5."
In a sense this is the American attitude toward the human scene. We're interested in aperture and shutter speed, time and temperature control. "We're interested in the mechanics of the human being . . . his anatomy, morphology and psychology; the statistics of his life, death and mating habits . . . but we're not really interested in human beings as humanity. . . as fellow creatures. It's this fact, by the way, that accounts for the perennial popularity of the so-called situation comedy in stage, screen and television. I don't have to point out that situation comedies concentrate on the mechanics of a situation rather than the human beings involved in it.
Since art, literature and poetry are concerned with the human being as a fellow creature . . . almost a part or reflection of ourselves . . . we're not very sympathetic to them or to their great craftsmen. This is why we find it difficult to understand the artistic genius. It is also why we prefer our science fiction to concentrate on the mechanics of life and leave human beings alone.
Science fiction rarely, if ever, deals with genuine human emotions and problems. Its science ranges from the 20th to the 50th century A.D. Its characters usually remain back in the 16th century A.D. They are drawn in the two-dimensional style of the Morality Plays, and they face problems of horse-opera depth. When science fiction attempts comedy .. . which is the essence of humanity . . . it only succeeds in belaboring itself with empty bladders.
Any art form which studiously avoids human reality as a subject can't hope to move its audience. Science fiction can entertain and intrigue us, stimulate and enlarge us with its novel ideas and ingenious extrapolations, but it can rarely move us to
pity and terror. There are exceptions, of course . . . but in general, science fiction suffers from high emotional vacuum.
You may argue: "Granting what you say is true, what difference does that make? Must literature move its readers to pity and terror to be respectable? Isn't there such a thing as escape, or arrest-fiction?"
I answer: "You're absolutely right. There is such a thing as escape fiction, and I'm not pretending to pass on the respectability of any form of literature. I'm merely trying to place science fiction in terms of authors, themes and readers, with emphasis at this point upon the reader."
A drama professor of mine once asked our class what we thought was the central fact, the essence of the theater. We suggested the stage itself. . . the actors . . . the author's script . . . He told us we were wrong. The essence of the theater is the audience. The audience shares a play in its making. The theater is never a living thing until it is shared. Anyone who's ever been to the theater or worked on stage knows this is true. You must have experienced that sharing communication between cast and audience that brings the theater to life. This sharing is the crucial reason why radio, television and motion pictures tire an audience, whereas the theater does not. You can't communicate with un-dead things, they exhaust you. Only communication can inspire and energize.
There is, alas, no such communication between novelist and reader, but there is a form of it existing between a school of literature and its followers. The school of science fiction and its fans do communicate with each other, influence each other, and even to some degree by telepathy, or diabolic possession . . . but I know it does happen.
I've had this in mind all the while I've been speaking so frankly about science fiction; not. . . so help me . . . in order to preach a message and turn you into crusaders for the betterment of the craft. I wouldn't know which direction was the direction myself. No. I've been quonking like this in hope that it will enable us to understand ourselves and share each other a little better .. . authors and readers alike.
Redemolished Page 34
