Part V:The Events Leading Down to Biography: On Writing Kornbluth

For Don Wollheim's magazines, Cyril wrote from his youthful yet strangely world-matured heart. The two Futurians enjoyed a particularly close relationship for a time, with Wollheim sometimes a mentor-father figure, sometimes an equal. In his magazines, moreover, Wollheim proved to be Cyril's greatest early booster, giving "Cecil Corwin" the minor celebrity among science-fiction pulp readers that Cyril Kornbluth, or "Cy Kornbluth," already enjoyed in the small but international science-fiction fan community. An important result of their relationship took the form of collaborations, in which Don conceived a story line for Cyril to flesh out. Some among their collaborations may have escaped biographers because of the now-reigning assumption that the Martin Pearson penname refers primarily to Wollheim. I did uncover one definite instance of this. How many others there are remains to be discovered. Since one Wollheim-Kornbluth tale saw publication in John W. Campbell, Jr.,'s celebrated Astounding, these may well be Kornbluth's most significant early collaborations.

In one of my many failings in writing Kornbluth, I left the Wollheim angle less than fully explored. Similarly the Lowndes angle — and the Johnny Michel, Knight, Algis Budrys, Blish, Jane Roberts, Larry Shaw angles ... and so on. Despite my intention otherwise, I toiled so heavily on questions related to what Pohl was leaving out of his accounts that my attention inadvertently remained turned toward him, not away. Researching in Syracuse would have freed me of this, had that event fallen earlier in the process. Working on materials from Syracuse, DeKalb, the Eaton Collection, and the Oxford Bodleian so absorbed me in the spring of 2009, however, that precious little time, let alone means, remained to pursue the new research directions opening before me.

I was also facing the real problem of having arrived at this point — the point where I knew what questions to ask — too late. In the years before Lowndes' death, I failed to fully grasp how many pertinent subject areas his memory might have touched upon. By 2009, death had removed him from the scene, as it had Merril, Kidd, Knight, Budrys, and Robert Sheckley. All were alive when I offered the world my Kornblume round table. Infirmity had removed Pohl from the scene, too, by this time: for when I called to arrange an interview, I learned he was hospitalized for an unknown length of time. Whether he would have granted me an interview I have no idea. A few years before, at a convention, he had turned down my request for an interview on the subject of Cyril. More tellingly, as had taken me fifteen years to realize, from the outset he had met my question about archived Kornbluth correspondence with silence — a silence presumably not born of ignorance.

A few among Cyril's various colleagues and contemporaries remained, fortunately — such as Klass, Silverberg, Dave and Ruth Kyle, Carol Emshwiller, Bob Madle, and Kate MacLean — who helped me put pieces of the puzzle, small and large, into place. I felt and feel immensely grateful to these generous souls.

End, Part Five.

Puritan Planet, Part III

In the biography C.M. Kornbluth: The Life and Works of a Science Fiction Visionary, I discuss the elements in Kornbluth's stories "The Little Black Bag" and "The Silly Season" that allow them to be read as critiques of his chosen form, which was science fiction. Similarly, elements appear in Carol Emshwiller's "Puritan Planet" that allow it to be read as a critique of science-fiction, as a pulp genre.

A story that is emblematic of the masculine viewpoint in pulp science fiction is the famous Tom Godwin story "The Cold Equations," in which the feminine principle, the anima, the "girl," of the story is jettisoned to die in the vacuum of outer space, putatively because the action is necessary in order to save lives. The definite murder is justified by the indefinite possibility of preserving numbers of others.

Kornbluth's being a fiction of the divided individual, it interests me that this emblematic "hard science fiction" story is also symbolically a piece of fiction of the divided individual, with the anima separated and then rooted out from the masculine soul. (Interesting, too: Rick Bowes' story mentioned here recently, "Pining To Be Human," has a conflicted main character who "sees" his anima in an external manifestation. The word "anima" even appears from the lips of a character who is a woman of insight.)

In "Puritan Planet," the anima plays a redemptive role. The "she," who is called "girl" by Morgan, is a cat who simply by existing resolves the conflict of the story. The cat is named Cat -- which as Cat or Kat can be a shortened form of a woman's name. Cat's presence in the crash-landed ship calls into action Brotherhood's social organization named Animal Welfare. Cat is "a poor dumb animal" -- the defenseless, voiceless anima -- who nevertheless speaks and defends, in resolving the story's crisis; and she does so in a way outside the ability of the male aspect, as represented by Morgan. The soul's coherence, in other words, brings the story to closure. This stands in contrast to the sacrifice of coherence that brings "The Cold Equations" to closure.

It might be too much to call Carol's story brilliant -- the alert reader, for instance, knows from the beginning that Cat will prove a pivotal figure. Yet it rolls out some verbal felicities ("It was still and black and beautiful, and he wanted to stay in the soft, warm, dark forever ... "); and it offers ample reward when regarded from the historical perspective. It also suggests to me that Carol's works are of a piece -- that there is coherence to be found there, scattered across the course of decades.

Cheers ...

Puritan Planet, Part II

Carol Emshwiller's "Puritan Planet" is interesting additionally (see previous posting) in that it can be read as a commentary on the masculine hierarchy.

The hero, Morgan, in is a forced-landing situation -- with the landing complicated by the fact that the obviously inhabited world he is landing upon offers him no support for his landing there.

The planet is named Brotherhood.

Morgan reflects on the irony of this name in the face of its uninviting aspect. Later, when in contact with its representatives, he finds himself speaking with individuals who state their concern, first and foremost, for the children of their planet.

Morgan is seen by these inhabitants of Brotherhood as not a "brother" but as a threat to these children. He is seen in this negative light due to his displays of masculine coarseness. Because he is seen as a threat to the children's innocence, he is left to die in the place where he has crash-landed.

The Brotherhood representatives, in other words, give lip service to a maternally nurturing spirit. In their actions, or inaction, however, they demonstrate a brutal, perhaps violent, perhaps masculine character.

Brotherhood is isolationist and exclusionary, rather than open and receptive to outside influences and to possible change.

Cheers ...

Puritan Planet

Reading Carol Emshwiller's "Puritan Planet" has generated several thoughts. One is that Carol's distinctive contribution to the science fiction pulp genre reflects a mindset that echoes well with the current concerns of Wiscon attendees.

The central character of "Puritan Planet" is "a big, square man" whose name is Morgan. However big and square he may be, from the opening paragraph he is displaying elements in his character somewhat at odds with that big squareness. He is deeply and unquestioningly concerned for the welfare of others who cannot care for themselves, to the extent of placing himself at some risk when acting protectively; and in his manner he is freely expressive of his feelings.

In Carol's more recent fiction -- here I am speaking from general memory, not of a particular work --- a sort of character appears who may be described as male but who displays openness, curiosity, sympathetic feelings, and some amount of capricious logic -- none of which are necessarily feminine aspects but which resonate nicely with my understanding and experience of what it is that, at times, makes female personalities valuably different from male personalities.

This stands in contrast to some overtly feminist fiction, in which the female characters are strong, decisive, experience-hardened, and not at all capricious or outwardly emotive. They are emulations of an old masculine model -- one that saw heavy deployment in the pulps, including the science fiction pulps. (In speaking of "some overtly feminist fiction," I am again speaking from general memory, from my reading experiences of perhaps a decade ago -- so these impressions may, of course, be less than perfect.)

What Carol seems to have done from early in her career was to conform to the pulp model of the masculine hero (Morgan is big and square and, importantly to this story's proceedings, one who curses freely) while at the same time housing within this masculine outwardness a richness of character that seems in many ways to be female in its expression.

Her approach might be regarded as subversive, because of this. She was subverting the pulp hero to serve her own non-traditional artistic ends.

Yet this approach may have been a natural expression of Carol's personality, and not a conscious practice intended as subversive. The approach reflected her instinctive way of adapting to the given marketplace situation.

Cheers ...

On Missing Wiscon

Our normal activity for Memorial Day weekend has been, for many years, attending the feminist science fiction convention named Wiscon. It is held, these days, in the Madison Concourse. This year I made the decision to attend Wiscon countless times. despite lack of means.

I made the decision not to attend countless times plus one.

I had particularly wanted to go this year to see old friend and collaborator Richard Bowes, a fine novelist -- one of the finest, in truth, in my reading experience -- and to see again Carol Emshwiller, who came to my assistance during the writing of the Cyril Kornbluth biography.

But ...

The financial situation is in the process of changing, here in our household, because of my having taken on a job -- one that seems to be the kind of job best for me: one that saps less than the full energies that I should be putting into creative activities ... yet while the financial picture is changing, it has yet to actually change. I could not quite contemplate going two thousand dollars in debt to buy my author copies of the biography, and then adding atop that the hundreds required to spend time at the Madison Concourse. Moreover I have yet to prepare the promotional materials I need to have at hand, in any convention appearances ... so had I, this year, opted for Wiscon, I would have been making the drive down and spending the days and dollars without books to show and sell, and without materials to hand out. However much the value -- it is immense -- of seeing friends whom I dearly want to see, it seems far better to wait until I can attend conventions better equipped.

Staying home allowed us the pleasure of frittering away time, doing some Memorial-weekend rummaging. At one point in our wanderings we went into an antique shop in Centerville which usually we have seen closed and so never had investigated. A great many wonders awaited us inside. What I walked out with, though, for $2.50, was a copy of the January, 1960, issue of The Original Science Fiction Stories -- a magazine with which I had no familiarity. Its editor was Robert A.W. Lowndes, though -- the figure who, as Robert W. Lowndes, Bob Lowndes, or "Doc" Lowndes, has such prominence in the Cyril Kornbluth biography. What prompted my purchase, though, was the prominent notice on the cover:

"Puritan Planet," by Carol Emshwiller.

A perhaps stranger reminder of the Wiscon we were missing came for Martha at the Agricenter in Viroqua, where we stopped on Sunday to look at some plants. She was writing a check, so picked up the pen lying on the plant-nursery counter ... a pen from the Madison Concourse. The clerk said she had never seen the pen before.

Cheers ...