For Verne's Birthday

"Complaining doesn't have to do any good -- it's enough all by itself."

Did Jules Verne see to the heart of the American soul? He himself made no such assertion but had his plucky American character Ned Land say it.

In observing Jules Verne's birthday today I thought I would celebrate the statement, and try to live up to its spirit.

I read his novel Lighthouse at the End of the World earlier this week -- and enjoyed it. The dialogue sounded stilted and less naturally Vernesque than I thought it should, which made me think the translator might have little experience in writing fiction ... and made me wonder if perhaps he took out too many exclamation marks.

"What! Too few exclamation marks in a Verne novel!" you say.

My reaction exactly.

Something I thought completely and strangely awkward, however, I saw in the translator's introduction. On the first page, in all-capitals, the word "PLOT" appeared before me. The introduction begins thusly: "Lighthouse at the End of the World (1905) by Jules Verne (1828-1905) is not well known in the English-speaking world ... Before studying its composition, characters, and themes, it is useful to summarize the plot ... "

Can this translator have any sympathy for Verne at all? Or for Verne's readers? What provoked him to summarize the story at a point when the reader has barely opened the book? I had no choice but to skip the introduction as a whole and go on to the story. Later I went back to read the translator's words -- and promptly found a use for those missing exclamation marks: for I needed something to pencil into the margins. In this "plot" the translator seemed to be making things up. I can repeat the statement that most surprised me, since it is not quite a "spoiler," being at best a misleading statement of actions: "The pirates draw in an American ship, killing all on board except First Officer Davis." Does this sentence not suggest to you that the pirates killed a ship's worth of American sailors? Yet such an incident failed to appear in the novel I read. (Were the editors at University of Nebraska Press asleep already, on page two of text?)

The translator then ends his "plot" with this: "The climax involves much drama and bloodshed." I believe this puts things a little strongly. His exaggeration cheapens his subject, unfortunately -- for this reader. I believe other intractable Verneians might feel similar disgruntlement.

I think the problem here may have arisen because the translator feels on secure ground, as translator, without feeling quite on the same ground as a writer. (His footnotes, I should add, seems to reflect a genuine scholarly impulse.)

I rather like this novel and hope to do more thinking on it someday. In the meantime since it does have a symbolic dimension it comes in for a small reference in my current book, which I will here just call Wonder Tales.

Before diving into the book, when reading the back-cover matter, I took pleased notice that William Butcher published something called Jules Verne: The Definitive Biography. While the "definitive" claim seems foredoomed to inaccuracy and gives off an unpleasant scent of self-importance, I have been wanting to catch up on more of the Verne materials that have cropped up, here and there, in the last few decades. After seeing what Butcher does, however, in foisting a "plot" of Lighthouse onto readers before Verne himself has a chance to squeeze in edgewise one of his own exclamation marks, I feel a bit more inclined to look for non-definitive books.

The first "review" of my own C.M. Kornbluth, as it happens, said in effect that I had probably written the definitive life of Kornbluth. In everything he said about the book this reviewer showed he had failed to read it before making his knowing pronouncements -- an accidental oversight on his part, no doubt (the book is immense, after all, compared to his paragraph of comment); and after saying his bit on the subject the reviewer laid this deep-sea whopper on my platter, fished from who-knows-what depths of ignorance. Had I planned to write the definitive biography I would never have begun the book in 2008. In C.M. Kornbluth I undertook to re-introduce Cyril to the reading world and to inspire others to pursue studies of his life and works. To this day I offer the book as an invitation, an exploration, and an introduction -- albeit an introduction with well-documented detail and some, I hope, critical vigor. Do I offer or did I ever offer C.M. Kornbluth as the last word? You may answer that yourself.

The "reviews" written without knowledge of the book being reviewed do considerable damage, even when not appended to a sales site at that thrice-be-damned cultural imposter named Amazon. I rather wish this particular reviewer would take back his statements about C.M. Kornbluth, even though all of them are favorable -- but wish especially that he would take back the one suggesting my book might be definitive.

It does me no good to wish this, of course.

And this quite satisfies me, since I have resolved to take Ned Land's words to heart.

This Episode of Silence

Two years ago on this date began an unusual episode in my life — an episode that I marked largely by observing silence here and elsewhere on the Internet.

During this episode, one who wished to provoke me I left unanswered. This person's supporters then did what they could to discredit my March, 2010, book on Amazon; and they, too, I left unanswered. Amazon on its own pulled one supporter's comments, while leaving a few others there.

Since I was being demonized -- for such seemed the object of their efforts -- my book undoubtedly lost sales. Such is life. They made their attacks and I hope enjoyed their minor victories. For my part, I wrote my book not for the moment but for our time; and my book continues its existence just as our time does. What it said at time of publication it still says. Where it stood then, there it still stands.

A silence once set into place cannot be broken, in a real sense. Time passes; and when it passes it admits none of us back into its fold, and allows no alterations besides those of our thoughts and depictions.

All the same, I have it within my power to allow a different episode to begin. As perhaps I will.

Errors abound, in this brilliantly idiotic on-line world. Since I know more about the subject of my book than anyone else alive -- I say this not out of pride, but out of believing it to be the unfortunate truth -- I could mount a campaign to straighten matters, correct mistakes, point the way toward accuracy ...

Would such be possible? Would such be desirable? Is not part of the charm of this central edifice of our Age of the Masses, this over-arching monument to the Misinformation Age, the very fact of its nearly infinite potential for fallibility? As the Internet is, perhaps it must be. If ever it should suffer itself to be corrected, rebuilt and rehabilitated, to be spoon-fed the curative waters of Albion, to be given the therapeutic pocketbook-massages of the Holy Molar smiling televisionaries ... then likely the Internet would collapse in upon itself.

The world that I have changed, and that I believe I have changed for the better, is the world of the understanding. Some people now on Earth see some matters differently because of these efforts of mine -- just as I see some matters differently thanks to their efforts.

A tangled and intangible invisible world ... information-born, information-borne and information-bearing ... spotty, spontaneous, unpredictable ...

A fine place to be, this world of ours. I mean the world of the understanding.

I mean the world where I have not observed silence -- not at all, during this episode of silence.

Four Reasons for Silence

For quite some time it has been on my mind to make mild noises again in my quiescent blog.

A series of situations made it seem more appropriate to keep my thoughts unaired and publicly unshared, however.

Two years ago Martha and I were jointly leaving a job situation that had made the two of us a bit angry. Whatever reasons we may have had, why make uncomfortable protests that benefit no one?

During the same period, one of Cyril Kornbluth's collaborators started making unmeasured statements about my C.M. Kornbluth, and about me. The statements verged on the absurd. To avoid a fruitless war of meaningless pixels, even though observers were poised and eager to witness a war of words, electronic silence on the matter seemed my best option. I had devoted many years and had written hundreds of thousands of words in developing the picture offered by my book.

To have defended my book adequately would have meant repeating it, word for word, footnote by footnote.

Soon after this, "reviews" of my book began appearing on Amazon. The "reviewers" spoke in outrage or disgust about my book's contents while making it obvious they had not read it. In one case the reviewer stated outright that he had not read my book.

While one or two of these were expunged by the Amazon editors, I believe one or two remain.

A hallmark of these literary oddities, by these presuming "reviewers," is their insistence on trotting out the supposed facts of Kornbluth. They note that Kornbluth was a highly prolific writer, and that he drank a lot.

Readers of countless introductions to Kornbluth stories would gather these impressions. Those who gave my book a full reading, however, should feel considerable hesitation about standing behind either statement.

While Cyril was clearly capable of tossing off quality writing under pressure -- true of many among us -- his creative work reflected a studious and careful approach. He developed his capacity for careful literary work during his teen years. Later, in producing the works of his maturity, he labored and sometimes struggled; and he balanced his rough drafts, sometimes quickly produced, by subjecting them to intense and prolonged periods of consideration and revision.

His output per year, in the 1950s, was relatively low.

As to drinking ... Cyril does fall into the category of writers who drink. This category includes a huge group of us. Cyril seems not to fall into the category of writers who need to drink to write, however. His command of prose is durably precise, cogent and clear-headedly rational -- to an intimidating degree.

Worth noting, too, for those who have not read my book: Cyril went through several periods when the meager income that was coming in must have gone in its entirety to home and family expenses. For prolonged periods, drinking money must have been tough to come by. This seems especially, and painfully, to have been true near the end.

Those who trot out such "facts" about Cyril Kornbluth are drawing a picture of the poorly-known man from the image of a widely-known boy. In the small realm of late-1930s science fiction fandom, Cyril was a fairly famous teenager. Cyril's life as an adult, however, was almost entirely unknown until publication of my book.

I hope these "reviewers" are making that mistake. Otherwise they are being a bit too easy about insulting the man's memory.

Returning to silences ... early in 2011 I found that the judgeship for the World Fantasy Awards, which had been proposed to me the previous November, was becoming reality: so suddenly I was doing a great deal of reading which I felt I should not, as judge, be talking about in public. So, again, I felt encouraged to remain mum about matters on my mind.

In the same week that the WFA panel of judges was winding up its work, I accepted work at a vineyard -- eagerly, since between judging and maintaining house and garden I had almost zero income for a period of months.

This work offered perfect fodder for this blog.

The future of matters at the vineyard and winery, however, kept changing from week to week, sometimes day to day, due to the vagaries of the owner's changeable mind ... upsetting me considerably, at times ... making me feel uncomfortable writing about enough matters that I, again, felt ...

Cheers ...