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Reader and Collector, v. 2, issue 3, September 1941
Page 6
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6. class. And none the less do I swear by more mundane but delightful personages such as Scattergood Baines, Mr. Tutt, Jeeves and the like. And full often I turn from all of these to imbue myself afresh with my favorites of the old classics of English and other literatures--Balzac, Scott, Victor Hugo, Dumas, Wilkie Collins, George Ebers, Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot, Hardy, Meredith, and a few dozen etc.'s. And this is fiction alone, in its strict sense, and doesn't touch my eager reading of Elizabethan and other drama and of the poetry of all ages, and leaves history, biography, science and all the other soberer branches out of mention. So I simply can't throw myself into the attitude of picking socalled science fiction as in a class by itself, and taking it so darned seriously. Most of it, however delightful reading for the moment, is distinctly ephemeral, here today and totally forgotten tomorrow. Just now and then do we have one that lives to be a year--such as The Moon Pool, The Girl of the Golden Atom, the first of the Skylark stories and mighty few others, not as many all together as the lasting classical stories of Jules Verne alone. Of course, I am not counting here the stories which are weird rather than science or super-science. If there is anything that seems wearisomely futile to me, it is the correspondence columns, by whatever name known, of the "science-fiction" magazines. Of course, practically all the "pulps" waste space on a low of this sort of junk; but the detective and others don't seem to be quite so horribly full of ridiculous pomposity. The writers do take themselves so blamed seriously, with their verdicts on the authors and the artists; and the pert impudence with which they give the editor their silly orders to "cut out this," and "give us more of that," because of their petty likes and dislikes, makes me want to vomit. Rarely do they condescend to give even the pretense of an analysis, and argument or a well worked-out criticism. It is all the usual drivel, simply "calling names." "This is the tops; give us more of it." "Whynell do you print such tripe as that?" Every line of this sort of stuff is dead waste, even if it does seem to the editor a paying proposition to feed the already over-gorged vanity of the poor fools who have no ambition except to see their worthless names in print, like the other jackasses who carve their names or initials on mountain rocks or public monuments or even on the walls of a jakes, rather than not have them seen by others. And the solemn way in which they put forth their callow and sophomoric verdicts on subjects which are approached with caution by the great minds that have been devoted for a lifetime to the study of science--Einstein, Millikan, Compton and their kind, who have a background of knowledge and training in research that gives them a right to be heard! And perhaps worst of all, the ghastly attempts to be flip and funny, by the use of what they childishly assume to be the slang of the space-ship era, some hundreds of years hence, constitute about the last straw; and this here camel refuses to endure such. Why not treat fantasy lightly, as its nature calls for, whether it labels itself future science or simply fairly tale stuff? It is all good in its way, some of it very fine; but it isn't an aim in life. Of course, it is jolly good business for the editors to promote all this fan business, including these conventions; they make money out of it; but why be a sucker for their little and absurdly transparent schemes? The fantasy magazines are to be bough and read, like any other magazines, for the transient relaxation and amusement which they bring. I enjoy them enormously myself; but I never dream of taking them seriously." So endeth another lesson, dear children.
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6. class. And none the less do I swear by more mundane but delightful personages such as Scattergood Baines, Mr. Tutt, Jeeves and the like. And full often I turn from all of these to imbue myself afresh with my favorites of the old classics of English and other literatures--Balzac, Scott, Victor Hugo, Dumas, Wilkie Collins, George Ebers, Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot, Hardy, Meredith, and a few dozen etc.'s. And this is fiction alone, in its strict sense, and doesn't touch my eager reading of Elizabethan and other drama and of the poetry of all ages, and leaves history, biography, science and all the other soberer branches out of mention. So I simply can't throw myself into the attitude of picking socalled science fiction as in a class by itself, and taking it so darned seriously. Most of it, however delightful reading for the moment, is distinctly ephemeral, here today and totally forgotten tomorrow. Just now and then do we have one that lives to be a year--such as The Moon Pool, The Girl of the Golden Atom, the first of the Skylark stories and mighty few others, not as many all together as the lasting classical stories of Jules Verne alone. Of course, I am not counting here the stories which are weird rather than science or super-science. If there is anything that seems wearisomely futile to me, it is the correspondence columns, by whatever name known, of the "science-fiction" magazines. Of course, practically all the "pulps" waste space on a low of this sort of junk; but the detective and others don't seem to be quite so horribly full of ridiculous pomposity. The writers do take themselves so blamed seriously, with their verdicts on the authors and the artists; and the pert impudence with which they give the editor their silly orders to "cut out this," and "give us more of that," because of their petty likes and dislikes, makes me want to vomit. Rarely do they condescend to give even the pretense of an analysis, and argument or a well worked-out criticism. It is all the usual drivel, simply "calling names." "This is the tops; give us more of it." "Whynell do you print such tripe as that?" Every line of this sort of stuff is dead waste, even if it does seem to the editor a paying proposition to feed the already over-gorged vanity of the poor fools who have no ambition except to see their worthless names in print, like the other jackasses who carve their names or initials on mountain rocks or public monuments or even on the walls of a jakes, rather than not have them seen by others. And the solemn way in which they put forth their callow and sophomoric verdicts on subjects which are approached with caution by the great minds that have been devoted for a lifetime to the study of science--Einstein, Millikan, Compton and their kind, who have a background of knowledge and training in research that gives them a right to be heard! And perhaps worst of all, the ghastly attempts to be flip and funny, by the use of what they childishly assume to be the slang of the space-ship era, some hundreds of years hence, constitute about the last straw; and this here camel refuses to endure such. Why not treat fantasy lightly, as its nature calls for, whether it labels itself future science or simply fairly tale stuff? It is all good in its way, some of it very fine; but it isn't an aim in life. Of course, it is jolly good business for the editors to promote all this fan business, including these conventions; they make money out of it; but why be a sucker for their little and absurdly transparent schemes? The fantasy magazines are to be bough and read, like any other magazines, for the transient relaxation and amusement which they bring. I enjoy them enormously myself; but I never dream of taking them seriously." So endeth another lesson, dear children.
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