138 lines
7.2 KiB
Plaintext
138 lines
7.2 KiB
Plaintext
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$0$0$0$0$0$0$0$0$0$0$0$$0$0$0$0$0$0$0$0$
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CHEAP TRUTH Special Unnumbered Edition
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$0$0$0$0$0$0$0$0$0$0$0$0$0$0$0$0$0$0$0$0
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STURGEON: MERCURY PLUS X
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Sturgeon? The name was magnetic. There it was, perpetually cropping
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up attached to the stories I most admired. Sturgeon: quite an ordinary
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Anglo-American word among exotics like A. E. Van Vogt, Isaac Asimov,
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Heinlein, Simak, and Kuttner. Yet - spikey, finny, ODD. And it was not his
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original name. Theodore Hamilton Sturgeon was born Edward Hamilton Waldo.
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To the usual boring undeserving parents. That was on Staten Island, the year
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the first World War ended.
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So there were two of him, as there are of many a good writer. A
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bright side, a dark side -- much like our old SF image of Mercury, remember,
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so much more interesting than banal reality. He had a mercurial temperament.
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The bright side was the side everyone loved. There was something so
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damned nice, charming, open, empathic, and ELUSIVE about Ted that women
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flocked to him. Men too. Maybe he was at the mercy of his own fey
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sexuality. If so, he was quizzical about it, as about everything. One of
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his more cutesy titles put it admirably: "If All Men Were Brothers, Would
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You Let One Marry Your Sister?" Not if it was Sturgeon, said a too-witty
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friend.
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He played his guitar. He sang. He shone. He spoke of his
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philosophy of love.
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Ted honestly brought people happiness. If he was funny, it was a
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genuine humor which sprang from seeing the world aslant. A true SF talent.
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Everyone recognized his strange quality -- "faunlike," some nut dubbed it;
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faunlike he certainly looked. Inexplicable, really.
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Unsympathetic stepfather, unsatisfactory adolescence. Funny jobs,
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and "Ether Breather" out in ASTOUNDING in 1939. So to an even funnier job,
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science fiction writer. It's flirting with disaster.
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I could not believe those early stories: curious subject matter,
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bizarre resolutions, glowing style. And about sexuality. You could hardly
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believe your luck when one of Ted's stories went singing through your head.
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"It," with Cartier illustrations, in UNKNOWN. Terrifying. "Derm
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Fool." Madness. The magnificent "Microcosmic God," read and re-read.
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"Killdozer," appearing after a long silence. There were to be other
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silences. "Baby is Three:" again the sense of utter incredibility with
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complete conviction, zinging across a reader's synapses. By a miracle, the
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blown-up version, "More Than Human," was no disappointment either. This was
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Sturgeon's caviar dish. Better even than "Venus Plus X," with its outre'
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sexuality in a hermaphrodite utopia.
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As for those silences. Something sank Sturgeon. His amazing early
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success, his popularity with fans and stardom at conventions -- they told
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against the writer. Success is a vampire. In the midst of life we are in
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definite trouble. They say Sturgeon was the first author in the field ever
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to sign a six-book contract. A six-book contract was a rare mark of
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distinction, like being crucified. A mark of extinction. Ted was no
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stakhanovite and the deal did for him; he was reduced to writing a
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novelization of a schlock TV series, "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea," to
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fulfill his norms.
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At one time, he was reduced further to writing TV pilot scripts for
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Hollywood. He lived in motels or trailers, between marriages, between lives.
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Those who read "The Dreaming Jewels" or "Venus Plus X" or the story
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collections forget that writing is secretly a heavy load, an endless battle
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against the disappointments which come from within as well as without -- and
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reputation a heavier load. Ted was fighting his way back to the light when
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night came on.
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About Ted's dark side.
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Well, he wrote that memorable novel, "Some of Your Blood," about this
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crazy psychotic who goes for drinking menstrual discharge. Actually, it does
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not taste as bad as Ted made out. That was his bid to escape the inescapable
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adulation.
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One small human thing he did. He and I, with James Gunn, were
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conducting the writers' workshop at the Conference of the Fantastic at Boca
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Raton, Florida. This was perhaps three years ago.
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Our would-be writers circulated their effusions around the table for
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everyone's comment. One would-be was a plump, pallid, unhappy lady. Her
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story was a fantasy about a guy who tried three times to commit suicide, only
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to be blocked each time by a green monster from Hell who wanted him to keep
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on suffering. Sounds promising, but the treatment was hopeless.
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Dumb comments around the table. I grew impatient with their
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unreality. When the story reached me, I asked the lady right out, "Have you
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ever tried to commit suicide?"
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Unexpected response. She stared at me in shock. Then she burst into
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a hailstorm of tears, collapsing onto the table... "Three times," she cried.
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Everyone looked fit to faint.
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"It's nothing to be ashamed of," I said. "I've tried it too."
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"So have I," said Sturgeon calmly.
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He needn't have come in like that. He just did it bravely,
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unostentatiously, to support me, to support her, to support everyone. And I
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would guess there was a lot of misery and disappointment in Ted's life, for
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all the affection he generated. Yet he remained kind, loving, giving. (The
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lady is improving by the way. We're still in touch. That's another story.)
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If that does not strike you as a positive story, I'm sorry. I'm not
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knocking suicide, either. Everyone should try it at least once.
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Ted was a real guy, not an idol, an effigy, as some try to paint him.
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He was brilliant, so he suffered. I know beyond doubt that he would be
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pleased to see me set down some of the bad times he had. He was not one to
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edit things out. Otherwise he would have been a less powerful writer.
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There are troves of lovely Sturgeon tales (as in the collection
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labelled "E Pluribus Unicorn"), like "Bianca's Hands," which a new generation
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would delight in. He wrote well, if sometimes over-lushly. In many ways,
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Ted was the direct opposite of the big technophile names of his generation,
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Doc Smith, Poul Anderson, Robert Heinlein, et al. His gaze was more closely
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fixed on people. For that we honor him, and still honor him. Good for him
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that he never ended up in that prick's junkyard where they pay you a million
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dollars advance for some crud that no sane man wants to read.
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Ted died early in May in Oregon, of pneumonia and other
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complications. Now he consorts with Sophocles, Dick, and the author of the
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Kama Sutra. He had returned from a holiday in Hawaii, taken in the hopes he
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might recover his health there. That holiday, incidentally, was paid for by
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another SF writer -- one who often gets publicity for the wrong things.
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Thank God, there are still some good guys left. We are also duly grateful
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for the one just departed.
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Brian Aldiss
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CHEAP TRUTH On-Line 809-C West 12th Street Austin, Texas 78701 U.S.A.
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SMOF-BBS (512)-UFO-SMOF. Special Unnumbered Edition. Vincent Omniaveritas,
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editing. Shiva the Destroyer, systems operation. "Ars Longa, Vita Brevis"
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