Well, one of my quests is over. Not for the North Pole, the perfect relationship, the truth. A simple one that goes back a long way to my youth and one that resurfaced when I started writing about seventeen years ago at age 60 – when I suppose/believe most of us are moving on to something else (or trying to).
I had reflected then upon what had made me the person I am. What were the influences of my youth that had shaped my view of the world, of people and of myself; that had led me into the military; had led me to behave as I did and to perform as I did.
There were influences. My parents met at RCAF Station Dartmouth during WWII. From their stories (laced with the tragic loss of friends) I believed that WWII was the best thing that ever happened to them. Later reading and experiences somewhat modified that belief.
I was aware that outside of the prescribed school curriculum of literature consisting primarily of Shakespeare, Dickens, Hardy and a host of others of the classical period(s), the most influential reading material of my youth had been ‘Juvenile Sci-fi’, read at home. Asimov (as Paul French), van Vogt, Clarke (to a lesser degree), Lester del Rey, Eric Frank Russell and most often, Robert Heinlein, had been read by me, exhaustively, from age 10 to 16. Formative years for me; a loner, a reader, a small insignificant speck, lost among greater specks.
It was somewhat unsettling though to recently read in a Wiki article re Heinlein that:
“…. used his science fiction as a way to explore provocative social and political ideas, and to speculate how progress in science and engineering might shape the future of politics, race, religion, and sex. Within the framework of his science-fiction stories, Heinlein repeatedly addressed certain social themes: the importance of individual liberty and self-reliance, the nature of sexual relationships, the obligation individuals owe to their societies, the influence of organized religion on culture and government, and the tendency of society to repress nonconformist thought.”
Who knew? Particularly at age twelve? Well, I might be assuming too much here.
Looking back on my life, I wondered about the influence of these writers upon me. By the time I started writing I had come to feel that I had been manipulated in my youth by him and the media of the time (… the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite), and Wil Shakespeare. Not everything I read of Heinlein’s during my formative years lies so clearly under this heavy mantle; some of it was just plain old fun to read.
I have re-read many of the Sci-Fi books of my youth at least twice. It’s odd how you can become a different character and see a different point of view in the same in the story when it is read decades and life phases apart. In particular, George R Stewart’s masterful Earth Abides, published in 1949 and based upon that time, allowed me this. Very enlightening it is to have seen young Ish coming down out of the hills to an empty Earth, been middle-aged Ish struggling to teach his distracted and uninterested kids to write and finally, to be old man Ish, near death, being poked with sharp sticks by the hungry young warriors to get their god (Him!) to reveal the location of the deer herds. And Poul Anderson’s Virgin Planet? Very interesting to re-read that, fifty-five years later, I can tell you. Ha’h!
My quest to know in particular Robert Heinlein’s influence on my life, my military career (spanning 28 years and work I was still much engaged in for the last 30 through my work), ended today.
Yesterday evening I went to a used book store looking for a copy of Clarke’s Songs of Distant Earth for a friend and lo and behold, there was a collection of Heinlein’s books sitting there: Podkayne of Mars (1963), kids with guns!; Starship Troopers (1959), Juvenile Sci-fi? Challenging, but not very funny; Beyond this Horizon (1948), definitely not Juvenile Sci-fi); Glory Road (1963), Juvenile Sci-fi? Sex!!! Oh yeah. And swords; Space Cadet (1948), not quite modern infantry but…close; Tunnel in the Sky (1955), definitely Juvenile Sci-fi) and Starman Jones (1953), Juvenile Sci-fi, last read twenty-five or thirty years ago, maybe? I bought them all. Last night I picked each one up randomly and started in, putting them down in a few moments, finally going in and on with Starman Jones. I fell asleep reading it and picked up on it today.
I’d forgotten pretty well everything in it but as I read I recalled a young Max fleeing an abusive home, having a close call with a passenger train propelled at supersonic speed, and through planned deception of ‘the system’ pursuing his goal of going into space. He started at the bottom rung and for a number of reasons – mostly because of a ‘specialist guild’ awarding him ‘privilege’ because of a family connection – worked his way quickly onto the Bridge of the ‘Asgard’ as a novice ‘Astrogator.’ The Chief Astrogator studies him and puzzled at his unexpected competence (given a complete lack of training) pulls him into a private meeting where he discusses Max’s extraordinary talent for numbers (Max has an eidetic memory containing the astrogation tables, etc). So far all was in keeping with what Heinlein had earlier referred to in the book as “the three ways to get ahead: sweat and genius, getting born into the right family, or marrying the boss’s daughter.”
It was then my Heinlein quest ended.
The Astrogator went on, largely dismissing the eidetic memory gift as a thing quite secondary to Max’s future success on the Bridge. Instead he said: “the virtues needed are those Kelly (aka the Chief Computerman) has - unflagging attention to duty, thorough knowledge of his tools, meticulous care for details, deep loyalty to his job and his crew and his ship and to those placed over him professionally….. good memory combined with intelligence and integrity are what the job takes.”
How do I know I got this from Heinlein, this brief diversion in an otherwise exciting and technical novel?
Well, I didn’t need to read it. I knew what it said before I got halfway through. I had followed it since that day I had first read it. I still follow it today. The realisation of this filled my eyes with tears. It still does.
Quest over.
Thank you, Robert.
Damn you!