Toys in the Age of Wonder

My new book has been published.

I am here announcing it . . . about a month late. Am I laggard in my affections? (Where in the world does that line come from?) Actually, I rather like this book. I have lived with it for ten years, and have struggled over its myriad subjects, facts, and ideas for many more. It has its flaws, but sits all the same among my most important efforts, in the arts.

Toys in the Age of Wonder: Science Fiction, Society, and the Symbolism of Play brings together many things. My personally favored title, Wonder Tales, Toys, and the World that Swallowed Itself, I believe does convey some of the book's breadth. In it, I am talking much less about science fiction than the wonder tale; I am thinking about toys whether they were dimestore baubles or Emerson's "toys that infatuate men and which they play for;" and I am exploring the West's efforts to technically envelope the human sphere — a "consolidated civilization scheme," as I recall a character saying, in one story I discuss. I speak about toy history, history of science, novels, poetry, comic strips, lexical changes, and cultural changes. I draw in works by Poe and Verne, in particular, and by many other authors along the way — with "the way" moving mainly along a time-line from 1859 to 1957-8. My method is cultural criticism, on model of Lewis Mumford, with further guidance taken from the writings of Northrup Frye and Van Wyck Brooks — among, again, many others.

The book's illustrations, all in black and white, make it other than the glossy and colorful affairs which some among my earlier ones were. The items pictured, however, show what sorts of things fascinate me: illustrations from both children's and older-reader books; photographs of children with toys; catalog pages; postcards; World's Fair images and memorabilia; and the toys themselves, children's and adult — anything, in other words, that conveys the symbolic reality that prevails, to my point of view, over the concrete, in culture.

I should note that my announcement's delay comes from concern and circumstance. I did and do wonder: should I, indeed, make a quiet noise about this, and act as though the book's publication might rank in any way against the troubles of our time — the pandemic, the criminal political "leadership," the bought-and-sold legislatures, the bestial police actions, the wildfires, the extinctions, the dying of the only economy that truly matters, which is the economy of life on Earth?

The book does rank, in a way, and not only because it happened to become a fact in this particular time. It ranks, in its small way, because, for the patient few who read it, it will help elucidate how it is that we placed ourselves into these times which encompass our lives. Moreover, it discusses the process by which our present conditions came into being.

A circumstance working into this announcement's delay came about from my having an "outdated" computer system which my blog's host decided to stop recognizing or allowing, a few months ago. Having limited means, limited technical savvy, and a will-to-succeed that often ends up absorbed in soup-makings, dishwater, and garden dirt, it took me quite a while to reach that point in which I could not only pencil these words but also publish them electronically here.

My sympathy for those poorer than I am has grown quite keen. So much activity has shifted on-line during the pandemic that ever more individuals are, literally, being virtually excluded from society. While a part of society is reflected off and conducted by the shell of satellites circling Earth, another part goes unreflected.

Now myself enabled, until that point when I am granted obsolescence once again by our technological shell, I propose to make some quiet noise in relation to my book — with the hope that people will understand that if I make myself a nuisance — oh, if only! — I do so not to advance my fortunes, which will grow by little more than nothing from this effort, but to advance my society's, in however microscopic a manner.

Cheers . . .

P.S. The book has a higher price-tag than I might wish. When your nearest library reopens, please make a request for it.

An SFRA Review of Kornbluth

I have only now stumbled upon a review of C.M. Kornbluth that appeared in the Summer 2012 SFRA Review, No. 301, written by Patrick Casey. This and another academic review by Joe Sanders both spend quite a bit of space objecting to my depiction of Frederik Pohl——perhaps understandably, since Pohl and academia have what seems a friendly relationship. These objections seem more important for these reviewers to discuss, in their brief comments, than the many other aspects and narrative strands that make up my book, to the point that I do find myself wondering how carefully they read what I wrote——a thirty-four chapter, 240,000-word study, with 439 pages to the end of the index.

As my first major effort at writing cultural criticism, my book does have flaws, inevitably. The book is, however, so unlike other works focusing upon science fiction that I imagine some reviewers might find that it lies too far outside their own academic specialties to fully appreciate: for cultural criticism is the blending, as Barzun noted, of history, biography and criticism.

Is Casey being a bit condescending in his opening? "Picture if you can the caricature of the science fiction fan. Not the science fiction reader browsing the science fiction aisle, but the “fan”: the person as passionate about the writers’ lives as he or she is about the works themselves. If you can picture that caricature’s tone in a debate about his favorite author, you’ll have a good idea of what makes Mark Rich’s biography of Cyril Kornbluth ... so frustrating. ... Rich writes as a true fan." If Bob Madle said these words of me, I would regard it as a compliment: for Madle was, indeed, a fan, and remains one; and he possesses a memory for names and facts, and a desire for precision, that any of us might envy. Casey, it strikes me, means something less than complimentary, however. So be it. If he means to demean someone like Madle, then I feel honored to be likewise looked down upon. I hope never to be regarded as a science-fiction academic myself if it means I must then condescend to the fan.

A few notes about minor points——such as this line: "Rich's apparent dislike of Pohl constantly threatens to undermine what could have been a wonderful biography of one of the Golden Age's greatest talents." Either it "threatens to undermine a wonderful biography" or it "undermines what could have been a wonderful biography"——one or the other. Interestingly, the review misspells Pohl's first name two different ways.

Casey did like a few pages of the book: the ones about Mars Child. (Thank you, Judy!) His last paragraph begins, "In the end, too much of the story remains untold and Rich, despite his enthusiasm and years of research, doesn't reveal enough to satisfy those looking for an understanding of the man and his works." Casey apparently missed my note on the third page of text, about C.M. Kornbluth opening up new avenues for research. As I have said before, the book establishes a documented basis for additional work, presumably by others. I was, in fact, astonished that I ended up being able to tell as much of the story as I did. When I began writing it, as far as I knew, and as far as anyone would tell me, the documentation I needed simply did not exist.

Casey seems unastonished by this accomplishment, in addition to being unsatisfied. I will indulge myself, though, by remaining astonished at how the book did finally come together.

And I do think the literary biographer should be as passionately engaged with the life as with the works themselves. Do we place months and years of our lives on alters that means nothing to us?

I pity the unpassionate.

Cheers ...