John,
I went through an attempt to read some of the old SF magazines and bid on a few
lots on eBay – I now have a bunch but have read very few. I subsequently
discovered that one can purchase or acquire for free the downloads of virtually
all the old SF magazines of the era we are talking about, and I did that, but
once again my mind rebelled at spending as much time with them as I thought I
might.
Being a fan of Asimov, I subscribed to Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine, but .
. . I probably won’t keep the subscription. On the current subject, however
(sort of), I read the Foundation Trilogy more than once. Asimov then degraded
the subject by publishing additions to it – very poor quality imo – don’t know
why he did it (but the Wikipedia doesn’t hold them against him – as I do).
Foundation was published in 1951. I was in the 11th grade then. I tried to
join the Marine Corps, but they found out how old I was and told me to come
back when I was 17 if I could talk my mother into signing for me. It turned
out I could. Perhaps I read Foundation during that time. Foundation and
Empire was published in 1952. I may have read it if it was published before
July 3rd or 5th (the enlistment office was closed on July 4th) when I did
manage to enlist in the Marine Corps. The Second Foundation was published in
1953 and by that time I was in Korea. We didn’t have a library over there,
but there were a lot of books lying around. I probably read some of those but
can’t remember any titles.
Lawrence
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On ;
Behalf Of John McCreery
Sent: Tuesday, March 10, 2020 8:05 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: On reading at a young age....
The most important present my parents arranged for my 13th birthday was a week
with my mother’s cousin Caroline who was living and working in Washington, D.C.
Caroline gave me a place to stay and fed be breakfast. After that I was on my
own, free to wande around the city, visit the Armed Forces Medical Museum as
well as the Smithsonian and discover the old Astrounding (later Analog) Science
Fiction magazine, edited by John R. Campbell. The one with all the fascinating
pseudo-scientific speculation about psionic powers, anti-gravity and
faster-than-light space travel.
John
Sent from my iPad
On Mar 11, 2020, at 10:27, Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
John,
The only one on your daughter’s list that I read was STARSHIP TROOPERS. I
wasn’t a tween though when it was published in 1959. I was just graduating
from college and starting work at Douglas Aircraft Company, but I loved the
book. Being a former Marine I didn’t at all mind his society where only
veterans were constitutionally franchised. J The movie shouldn’t have been
given Heinlein’s title: Verhoeven stated in 1997 that the first scene of the
film—an advertisement for the Mobile Infantry—was adapted shot-for-shot from a
scene in Leni Riefenstahl <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leni_Riefenstahl> ’s
Triumph of the Will <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triumph_of_the_Will>
(1935), specifically an outdoor rally for the Reichsarbeitsdienst
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichsarbeitsdienst> . Other references to
Nazism <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism> in the movie include the
Wehrmacht-inspired uniforms
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniforms_of_the_German_Army_(1935%E2%80%931945)>
and insignia of field grade officers, M.I. working uniforms reminiscent of
Mussolini's Blackshirts <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackshirts> , Albert
Speer <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Speer> 's style of architecture,
and its propagandistic dialogue ("Violence is the supreme authority!" [from
Wikipedia]
But I did develop an interest in Science Fiction at some point. I have a
memory of climbing up to my favorite spot on our landlord’s garage and reading
and being powerfully impressed by When World’s Collide and then After World’s
Collide. The novels were published in 1932 and 1934 respectively and I
acquired them from the library to read; but I don’t recall how old I was when
that happened. I read a lot of Science Fiction. There were several magazines
that published SF stories and serialized novels. There was a book store in
Wilmington that carried used copies of a lot of them. I remember the old man
who ran the store telling me that I was the only boy he liked because I was the
only one who ever bought anything. The others wanted to read them a bit and
then leave; something he hated.
I knew about Tom Swift and Tom Corbett but I was never attracted to them –
don’t recall why.
I do recall that I read just about everything by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the
Tarzan, Martian, Venusian, Center of the Earth series and probably some I can’t
recall at the moment. I tried to reread some of these in later years, and
couldn’t manage to. Probably, what I read and appreciate in college, being a
much superior class of literature, spoiled me from nostalgically revisiting
some of the novels I appreciated as a boy.
Lawrence
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On ;
Behalf Of John McCreery
Sent: Tuesday, March 10, 2020 3:32 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: On reading at a young age....
Ursula,
Very interesting questions about those books we chose for ourselves. One of my
great pleasures as a tween was having my mother drop me off at a public library
while she went shopping and did other errands. Started out by reading a lot of
what would now be called Young Adult fiction, then, around the age of 12 or 13,
slipped into the Adult stacks, where I discovered my first bodice-rippers, a
series of wonderful trashy novels by F. Van Wyck Mason, mostly nautical
adventures with pirates, battles, and, yes, bodice-ripping. Very exciting to a
pubescent boy.
Also, if I may, another category to add to your list, books given to us. On my
thirteenth birthday, my maternal grandfather gave me complete sets of the Tom
Swift boy inventor and Tom Corbett Space Cadet series. What madly optimistic
pictures of the future they contained. Still lots of villains, but also
intrepid heroes who got them in the end.
Turning to Lawrence and Oz. My musings about the effects of what we read as
children is shaped by an intersection between what was read to and later read
by my daughter and my career in advertising, where I learned how little of what
we happen to see or read has any effect at all. Our daughter grew up in a home
full of books and started reading very early. She certainly recalls Mother
Goose and The Wind in the Willows, but also Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild
Things Are and Leon Leonni’s Frederick, about the mouse who was a poet and “I
know it.” Then came Shel Silverstein and science fiction like Heinlein’s
Starship Troopers and Orson Scott Card’s Enders Game. And this barely scratches
the surface. That makes trying to understand which threads from these and
multiple other sources were influential on her parental guesswork at best.
John
Sent from my iPad
On Mar 10, 2020, at 6:03, Ursula Stange <Ursula@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
My background is in philosophy and history (more of the same eventually, but
never piled higher and deeper). I didn’t start teaching until almost my 50th
year.
English is my second language (I was six when my parents dragged me across the
ocean and deposited me in Chicago) and I had difficulty reading in 1st grade.
My mother, who had trained as a teacher in Germany, undertook to teach me
phonics and I became a voracious reader. Interestingly, my four brothers and
sisters had no such trouble and so they did not get the individual phonics
treatment. For years after, I was the only one in the family who read anything
not assigned in school....almost all the charm, all the insight, all the
adventure was in that outside-of-school realm. If there was nothing else, I
read cereal boxes (a habit which served me well when I came to Canada and tried
to learn French).
John thinks we overestimate the influence of the books we happen to
read....somewhere here lies my point: I was questioning whether, in fact, we
merely ‘happen’ to read them. I’m thinking not of the books our parents choose
and read to us, but of the books we seek out ourselves in our early and mid
teens. How do we and they find each other?
David, when you’re done with the theses (or you break free for a walk around
the yard), query the chickens....they may have thoughts on this.
Ursula,
Far from any virus at the moment,
But with an extra can of tuna or two just in case.
On Mar 9, 2020, at 2:02 PM, david ritchie <profdritchie@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Mar 9, 2020, at 10:34 AM, Ursula Stange <Ursula@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Safe travels, John (on your way to Oz)....
On Mar 9, 2020, at 12:40 AM, John McCreery <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Coming late to the party, grabbing a few minutes from preparations for a
flight from Japan to Australia tonight.
[snip]
The daughter wound up a US Naval Academy graduate married to a very large and
masculine Marine Corps jet fighter jock. I have long felt that people with
literary tastes overestimate the influence of the books they happen to read.
John
Good one, Ursula.
Overestimate and underestimate imply a norm. My experience of college students
suggests that reading as a pastime is waning. Perhaps it will wax again, but
at present they seem little influenced by books.
My first degree was in Literature; my second was in History. One reason for
the switch is that I felt less passion than others about, say, “The Divine
Comedy.” First World War poets engaged me, but the war itself seemed more
interesting as a puzzle.
I have long since brought the two subjects into a balance that works for me.
David Ritchie,
off to read two hundred pages of theses in
Portland, Oregon
