Harlan Ellison, thoughts?

[Extollager]

Dale: That explains it. I thought that might be the case. The hyphen there (if in the middle of a line) is accidental; it should simply be "caretakership"

Oh, that is funny! I don't have the book at hand to confirm this absolutely, but yes, I think that is what happened in the anthology in which I read the story -- there was the line break you indicated.

Good thing Harlan didn't see my remark, though... hate to think what cascades of vituperation he might have served up for me! (But then maybe he's mellowed.)

 

[Extollager]

I read "The Beast That Shouted Love" but my attention was distracted, so it wasn't a good enough reading to make me confident of the merits of my impressions. Perhaps something to read again eventually.

But of the Ellison stories I've read these past few days, I'd say several seemed quite good to me and I am sure I will read more of his work. My two favorites were "One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty" and "With Virgil Oddum at the East Pole."

JD will be amused to read that, now that my brief tour of Ellison's writing is over, I have started reading Moorcock's Stealer of Souls.

 

[j d worthington]

Hard to say how he would have reacted, really. He certainly has the reputation of being prickly, but a lot of that is, as Neil Gaiman has pointed out, almost "a piece of performance art called 'Harlan Ellison'". I have seen him drop all that when a member of an audience or person posing a question rather expected him to take that approach, become very quiet and either invite the person up to the stage or step down to where they were standing, and very seriously let them know that, despite his hyperbolic approach, he really doesn't think such people are stupid, that they are likely much smarter than he is, and proceed to have a very gentlemanly, courteous conversation with them before proceeding to answer their question.

So... who knows? My own experiences (admittedly very few) with Ellison have shown him to be quite kind and courteous, even overly patient in one instance (when I was quite young and, looking back on it later, overstepping boundaries just from sheer youth and callowness)... but I have also seen him read people the riot act on occasion....

And yes, I do find that amusing.... I can't help but wonder what you'd think of some of Moorcock's non-s&s work, such as The Blood Red Game (a.k.a. The Sundered Worlds), Mother London, etc., either early or late....

As for "The Beast..."; yes, I would suggest rereading it at some point, as the structure is not particularly amenable to distracted or light reading....

 

[Extollager]

It's been good to take time out for a mini-course of Ellison. I'm convinced that he can be an author worth reading despite an off-putting reputation for which he is largely responsible.

Some of his fiction is written in a mannered or "experimental" style. This usually raises questions in my mind. Is this way of presenting the story truly the best way to convey its meaning, engage the reader's imagination and emotions, etc.? It's a recognized bit of psychology that people often value highly, even excessively highly, what they have invested more work or money in -- the more my telescope cost me, the harder it may be for me to admit that I paid too much for it, etc. So, if "The Deathbird" features satirical "essay tests" and so on, are these truly in the service of an artistic achievement that could not have been attained had the story been written in a more conventional way? Or is Ellison being gimmicky or self-indulgent or self-consciously bratty in some of his stories?

And: Is Ellison's writing of the Sixties overvalued on account of being from "the Sixties"? Suppose some of his notable stories published then were only now published -- would they receive the same acclaim? Or were they (often unconsciously) hyped a bit because people felt themselves to be, or wanted to be, caught up in an exciting time, and Ellison was riding that wave a bit? The historical significance of Ellison's writing may be a legitimate topic for discussion, but it should be distinguished from the matter of the inherent literary quality of the fiction -- or, if you prefer, we should acknowledge that, when we read Ellison, part of the pleasure we experience is that of the writing's association with its time.

For many of us, our thoughts on works of fantasy and science fiction are wrapped up with memories of our earlier years. The golden age of science fiction is 12, etc. I don't think there's something inherently wrong with enjoying these associations, but to keep our reading real we do need to be able to make the distinction. By the way, when we do sometimes we may see new greatness in a favorite literary work! When I reread The Lord of the Rings, yes, I do remember early times with the book, back in the late 1960s when I first absorbed Tolkien. But it would be a pity of reading Tolkien had become, for me, largely a nostalgic pleasure. In fact it's as I've spaced off that aspect that I've become aware of new literary excellences. (For example, that the book is a "spiritual retreat" that refreshes our awareness of the Four Loves -- affection, friendship, romantic love, and charity or self-giving love.) This is not really an issue for me as regards Ellison except that I knew for a long time that he wrote a couple of my very favorite TV sf screenplays, etc. It could be an issue for some of y'all, though.

 

[Fried Egg]

Well, I've just finished the "Deathbird Stories" collection, the final story being the title story.

I have to say that I really enjoyed "Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans", what a fascinating tale that was.

And thanks J.D. for your recommendations, I shall consider my options and see where to go from here as far as further Ellison reading is concerned.

 

[j d worthington]

It may be that, as with the original Modernist movement, some of the enjoyment of such writing is its "experimental" (I think I might substitute "unconventional") nature. Certainly, the Sixties brought to sff a movement quite similar in various respects; and, while there is a lot of that which fell to the wayside (deservedly), there is also a substantial amount which has retained its vitality today. Much of this also remains challenging, such as Disch's 334, Delaney's Dhalgren, Russ's The Female Man, the writings of Pamela Zoline and Josephine Saxton, David R. Bunch's Moderan... and no few of Ellison's work of the period.

Part of Ellison's experimentalism, too (as he explains elsewhere) is his impatience as a young writer with the limitations of, as he put it, QWERTYUIOP, and an attempt to make more immediate a visual, even visceral, impression on the reader -- something connected to his work in the visual media of film, television, and comics (as well as his experience as a performer and writer of material for other performers)... and his intense love of radio as well. He has said many times that he does not want to write things which the reader reads and analyzes (at least on first reading), but experiences; something which grips the reader in an almost relentless grip. This often gives his writing a melodramatic rhetorical flourish, a feeling of extremes, which is usually at odds with genuinely good literature and associated historically with pure sesationalism; yet Ellison quite often combines the two in ways that, while they may not be unique to him, are rather scarce.

He has written his share of fluff; he uses Vonnegut's term of "foma", harmless untruths; entertainments meant (at least primarily) only to entertain... but his genuine concerns quite often creep into even the least of these. (An exception is in his earliest work, such as "Gnomebody", which is an amusing bit of archaic writing in itself, as the gnome in question is a hipster using the long-defunct patois of the Beats.) And even in his most serious work, he isn't always entirely successful.

But I would say that it is seldom truly self-indulgence so much as a desire to expand the parameters of the medium, both as a writer learning how far he can stretch his medium* and one desiring to both entertain and challenge his readers. He later ceased to do such obvious experimentation (at least visually), though he has continued to use prose in unconventional ways where he felt it was best in order to convey the impressions he wished to get across as precisely and immediately as possible. (Moorcock once made the wry comment that Ellison "speaks seventeen languages -- all of them English". There is considerable truth to that quip.)

I think we are going through a reactionary period which largely dismisses the achievements of the Modernist and Post-Modernist movements, toward an extreme form of textual conservatism which is often, in its own way, as sterile as the worst excesses of the experimentalists, and it is best to be wary of any reaction against such experiment just because it is an experiment, or even an extreme experiment; just as it is important to not fall into the equally tempting stance of being enamoured of such experiments for their own sake. To my mind, at least, there was more to cummings' rejection of capitalization than whim or self-indulgence, and his work, printed in conventional terms, would not carry nearly the impact on the reader which it does as it stands. Ditto with Ellison. The experiments aren't always unqualified successes, but they almost always have a point, and a vital one in connection with the work so written.

*"The Region Between" is a very good example of this, as it is, like Danielewski's House of Leaves, arresting visually -- that is, in the way the text is used on the page as a form of graphic art, something allied in some ways to "concrete poetry" -- as well as in what that text says. It shouild also be noted that Ellison had attempted something similar in his early "fix-up" novel, The Man With Nine Lives -- which he has always referred to as The Sound of the Scythe -- though at that point his experiments were in a much less extreme form.)

 

[Extollager]

What are signs of this "reaction" that you perceive? Are you talking about sf/fantasy or literature in general?

Ellison seems to have had a more conflicted relationship with readers than most authors, including "challenging" authors, do -- is that a fair comment, do you think?


Many readers, such as yours truly, aren't impressed by ... if I may use the term... excessive excess.

I'll give you a non-Ellison example. I was very impressed by Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge. This is, of course, a tragic story and a good expression of Hardy's famous pessimism. But a while back, when I began to reread it, I quickly came upon a passage in which Hardy refers to a bird singing its "trite" song, or something like that; and I nearly threw the book. That seemed to betray just a willful determination to be a mope. Life can be hard; but when that isn't good enough and one tries to make even the pleasant things repulsive, then something illegitimate is likely to be going on. It's the reverse of gilding the lily.

Well, I wondered if Ellison sometimes was, in his own different way, prone to excessive excess.

But I can see that even if that's true with some stories, it's not always the case.

A while back I started a thread on "The Good Bradbury Stories." I won't, I think, start one on "The Good Ellison Stories" -- ! But over the years I may compile a personal list of stories by him that did not disappoint.

The list might end up including some grim stories -- but these will be ones in which he handles the material without marring it with excessive excess, or with other annoyances.

I have one of his books coming on interlibrary loan, so I might be reporting back here before too long. Other reading beckons for now, though.

 

[j d worthington]

What are signs of this "reaction" that you perceive? Are you talking about sf/fantasy or literature in general?

Literature (or rather readers) in general. I am seeing an emerging reaction against William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound, e. e. cummings, T. S. Eliot (to a lesser degree), Joyce (again, to a slightly lesser degree), et al. (and particularly Gertrude Stein), both from general readers and, it seems to me, even some in the critical field.

Ellison seems to have had a more conflicted relationship with readers than most authors, including "challenging" authors, do -- is that a fair comment, do you think?

Oh, yes, I think that would be a fair assessment. I would also agree that he has tended to exacerbate, rather than ameliorate, that. But again, I don't think it is an easy thing to categorize, especially the more one learns about him and sees his interactions with others. Even he himself has remarked at times that he frequently indulges in that sort of verbal excess simply because it is something he enjoys (the deliberate overkill), but also because it has been expected of him for a very, very long time now. It is, unfortunately, a thing which many identify with the writing itself, which is a pity; but that, too, is something for which Ellison must bear a fair share of the blame.

Many readers, such as yours truly, aren't impressed by ... if I may use the term... excessive excess.

I'll give you a non-Ellison example. I was very impressed by Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge. This is, of course, a tragic story and a good expression of Hardy's famous pessimism. But a while back, when I began to reread it, I quickly came upon a passage in which Hardy refers to a bird singing its "trite" song, or something like that; and I nearly threw the book. That seemed to betray just a willful determination to be a mope. Life can be hard; but when that isn't good enough and one tries to make even the pleasant things repulsive, then something illegitimate is likely to be going on. It's the reverse of gilding the lily.

Well, I wondered if Ellison sometimes was, in his own different way, prone to excessive excess.

Certainly this is true in some cases, I would agree. There is also the question of such terms being chosen not so much to influence the reader as to develop character or set a tone, as one would in music. There is nothing necessarily wrong with choosing to set a somber, brooding tone where even the pleasant things are made, in your terms, repulsive, as long as it serves a larger purpose within the work itself. If it is strictly gratuitous, that is another thing. If it is part of the tone structure, that can be something else again. It may be disagreeable to this or that reader, but it is not, in such a case, necessarily flawed.

In Ellison's case, it is sometimes one, sometimes the other. For example, the opening of his first novel, Web of the City, characterizes, even anthropomorphizes, buildings and other non-human elements in such a way, reminiscent of the hardboiled pulps; but it does so to create a mood which reflects the feelings of the characters; it presents a milieu from their perspective and allows the reader to immediately have that connection with their world, before proceeding with the story itself. In one sense, it is overkill, excess verbiage, and certainly excessive emotionalism... yet in another it is vital to the heart of understanding these people and the world they live in. (It also, to me, has some quite striking images along the way.)

But I can see that even if that's true with some stories, it's not always the case.

A while back I started a thread on "The Good Bradbury Stories." I won't, I think, start one on "The Good Ellison Stories" -- ! But over the years I may compile a personal list of stories by him that did not disappoint.

The list might end up including some grim stories -- but these will be ones in which he handles the material without marring it with excessive excess, or with other annoyances.

I have one of his books coming on interlibrary loan, so I might be reporting back here before too long. Other reading beckons for now, though.

Would you mind my asking which one this is? And... I'd like to hear your views on some of his less grim tales, or tales where the final result is less "pessimistic", shall we say, than those you've tended to encounter so far....

 

[Extollager]

Would you mind my asking which one this is? And... I'd like to hear your views on some of his less grim tales, or tales where the final result is less "pessimistic", shall we say, than those you've tended to encounter so far....

Well actually I have Strange Wine, I Robot, and something else -- I think it has the "City on the Edge of Forever" script -- coming on interlibrary loan; so it seems I won't be waiting very long to read more of Ellison.

I take your point about the trite birdsong in Hardy, etc., but that time the author's effort backfired, so far as I was concerned.

 

[j d worthington]

On the Hardy... it has been such a long time since I read The Mayor of Casterbridge that I can't recall the context; if I looked it up, I might agree with you. I was simply raising a possible objection to the general idea expressed with that as an example.

Again, with the I, Robot script, you may wish to skip Ellison's forematter and go directly to the screenplay, if you wish to avoid much of his own personal commentary. On the other hand, if you enjoy looking at such a context, it is certainly a lively enough entry.....

Strange Wine, on the other hand, has at least a handful of humorous entries, from "Working with the Little People" to "Mom" to "The New York Review of Bird"... and, if memory serves, several pieces in that odd little collection "From A to Z, in the Chocolate Alphabet"... though in at least one of these instances, it also has a serious point....

 

[Extollager]

I don't have a Lithuanian grandmother of a Russian uncle or a Polish grandfather or anyone else who went through the horror of World War II in Europe to ask, so would someone explain "The Boulevard of Broken Dreams" to me? The protagonist sees the ghosts of Nazi war criminals passing along the NYC streets. Then he approaches them. He's wearing a star that marks him as a Jew. "Changed at Ellis Island! I had nothing to do with it!" he cries, a purple glow forms around him, and night falls. I don't get whatever it is that I'm supposed to get. I also don't quite get what's going on with the lost Roanoke colony in "Croatoan." We are to infer that the colonists decamped and set up in tunnels that eventually became part of the NYC sewer system? This is a very Lovecraftian tale -- it's more Lovecraftian than you think it is.

 

[clovis-man]

Re the I, Robot screenplay: I just tried (and failed) to find my copy. I don't remember much about any verbiage leading into the text. But I have to say that I can't imagine anyone better suited to make a script out of a series of short stories. Too bad nobody in the film industry was willing to take it seriously.

 

[j d worthington]

On the I, Robot screenplay book... it is Harlan's introduction, which goes into the story of his experience with the head of the studio, which led to the rejection of the script. It's a hilarious story, and from what I gather from other sources, pertty much spot on... but it might be off-putting to some.

"The Boulevard of Broken Dreams" -- name-changing for immigrants. The question here is whether it was done to him (as so often happened, the people who processed the immigrants not having the patience to deal with those "foreign" names"), or whether it was done voluntarily, to rid himself of his ethnic heritage for the various advantages, and thus further betraying those who went through that particular hell.

"Croatoan"... to me, the title is more symbolic, chosen for its resonances and the mysteries connected with it, not meant to be resolved here, but more associative for the "shadow" side of a new nation, aborted possibilities.... It is, essentially, a tale about choice, and the repercussions of what we choose.

 

[Triceratops]

I can remember some of the Golden Age writers speaking of him waaaay back. A few said, as a young dandelion weed, he used to run around the conventions/conferences, making an insufferable twit out of himself, but he had that spark--that enthusiasm in his demeanor--a witness to a persona that would be great some day.

I haven't read any of Harlan's work. But plan to.

chris

 

[Extollager]

"The Boulevard of Broken Dreams" -- name-changing for immigrants. ....

"Croatoan"... It is, essentially, a tale about choice, and the repercussions of what we choose.

Thanks, JD.

 

[Extollager]

Re: "Croatoan" -- just btw.

http://www.cbc.ca/m/rich/news/story/2012/05/04/lost-colony-virginia.html

 

[j d worthington]

Very interesting, Dale. Thanks for that. It is also interesting that with such historical instances -- those which have taken on something of a mythical status, as it were -- actually settling the questions involved doesn't seem to affect that mythical status very much.

 

[Extollager]

I read Ellison's original "City on the Edge of Forever" screenplay (just skimmed the prefatory material with his gripes about Gene Roddenberry et al.

Offhand, overall I think the final version is better; for example, it is more interesting and ultimately more poignant to have McCoy cause the trouble than the Beckwith character; the filmed speaking "arch" is probably more interesting and appropriate than the statue-like guardians of the original screenplay. I'm inclined to stand by my hunch that Ellison sometimes benefits from having to adjust his work to the requirements of others. But what an outstanding TV teleplay that original is.

One can only imagine how Ellison might have responded if he'd written a screenplay for The Prisoner, although given Patrick McGoohan's relatively high degree of artistic control for the series, the combination of McGoohan and the touchy Ellison might have been explosive! Had they managed to bring the teleplay to completion, though, one expects it would have been a standout. Now here's a thought for you: Ellison as the screenplay writer for the final episode. McGoohan wanted something over the top. I find that final episode to have some splendid moments, and yet quite a bit of it isn't really all that great-seeming to me; the "trial scene" doesn't quite work. What might Ellison have come up with?

 

[MaxSpender]

I haven’t read much of Harlan Ellison’s writing. Apart from watching the film adaptation of A Boy and His Dog, my only knowledge of Ellison was from his excellent introduction to Dan Simmons’s short story collection, Prayers to Broken Stones and Stephen King’s praise of his work in Danse Macabre.

Whilst looking for some post-apocalyptic fiction to read, I came across a recommendation for I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream. The title alone conjured up all sorts of horrific images in my mind, so naturally I had to check it out.

I’ve just finished reading I Have No Mouth… online and despite liking the premise, I have to admit I was somewhat disappointed. The flow of the writing is very good throughout. No one can deny that Harlan Ellison hears the beat as he writes, but I have several problems with the story itself. Now bear in mind I’ve only read it once and that may not be sufficient.

SPOILER ALERT for anyone who has yet to read this story.

Firstly, I don’t think writing the story in the first person, past tense was a very clever idea. Given what happens to the protagonist at the end, how is he able to tell anyone his story? He has no mouth and no way of writing it down. So I can only assume we are reading his thoughts, but there’s nobody left to tell, (apart from AM, who already knows the story), as Ted is the last human being alive. So is he telling the story to himself, in an attempt to retain his sanity? And to what end? I really think writing it in the third person would have made more sense, but maybe I’m missing something here?

Secondly, there is only one woman amongst the last five humans left alive and she takes it in turns to have sex with the men, but she only really enjoys it with the man who has been altered by AM to have oversized genitalia. It sounds like Ellison has an axe to grind here. Had he recently been rejected by a woman for not being sufficiently endowed? If Ellen is the last woman, then she represents them & it suggests that all women are whores who crave a really big dick, which is not only demeaning to women, but also inaccurate. I remember hearing a porn actress being asked what size she preferred and she said that she didn’t like a guy to be too big, because it hurt. That’s coming from someone who has sex for a living. Does Ellison really think that all women enjoy painful sex? I don’t know what age Ellison was when he wrote this, but it seems like he’s making an ill-informed, adolescent assumption about women.

Thirdly, why does AM allow them to have sex at all? If the machine hates humans so much, surely it would have castrated the remaining ones to deny them that pleasure? People have mentioned how evil AM is, but in some ways it’s not evil enough.

Fourthly, apparently AM is taken by surprise near the end of the story when the last humans start killing each other and doesn’t act to prevent it. But AM is a machine. Machines don’t get taken by surprise in the same way that humans do. It doesn’t make any sense that AM doesn’t intervene to stop the killing.

Lastly, although I love the story’s title, I think it gives away the ending a bit too much. Given that much of the story is about torturing humans, the reader can see it coming and I couldn’t help but wish for a more optimistic conclusion. Perhaps if the humans had somehow found a way to disable the machine, despite AM’s superiority, and the words, ‘I have no mouth. And I must scream.’ were actually spoken by AM, moments before being shut down for good?

I guess I’m going to get a fair amount of backlash, especially from fans of Ellison, for writing this. I expect criticism, but I hope to be told in a constructive way where you think I’m incorrect or have missed the point. Thanks.

 

[Extollager]

I’ve just finished reading I Have No Mouth…

I too wasn't much impressed by this one, as perhaps you've seen in discussion above. I persisted with Ellison and have liked several other stories quite a lot, and have every expectation of reading further.