The Essential Ellison Part 1

THE ESSENTIAL ELLISON.

Ellison, Harlan.

In April of 1949, Harlan Ellison was a lonely little kid living in Painesville, Ohio. A time traveler, observing him from within an invisible bubble, would not have marked him as anything more interesting than an undersized fourteen-year-old, seemingly always in hot water. Lively blue eyes, but basically just another kid.

But something was stirring, something was wakening in that nexus of energy. And in The Cleveland News of June 7th, little more than a week after he turned fifteen, Harlan Ellison's first professional writing appeared in print: the initial installment of a five-part adventure serial (liberally cribbed from Sir Walter Scott) t.i.tled "The Sword of Parmagon."

By 1999, with the magazine publication of "Objects of Desire in the Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear," Harlan Ellison had become what The Washington Post called "one of the great living American short story writers."

Between those dates, the kid from Ohio produced 74 books, more than three dozen award winning motion picture and television scripts, over 1700 essays, reviews, articles, short stories and newspaper columns; he had won more awards for imaginative literature than any other living author; he had been involved in the pivotal social upheavals of his time; he had been nominated for Emmys and Grammys, and had won P.E.N.'s Silver Pen for journalism; and had established himself as a seminal influence in American letters, affecting the work of hundreds of writers who came after him.

Now, at last, in a ma.s.sive retrospective flanked by the two works mentioned above, 50 years of the best of Harlan Ellison has been a.s.sembled in a gorgeous volume exceeding 1200 pages, encompa.s.sing fiction, essays, personal reminiscences, reviews and (published for the first time anywhere) a complete teleplay. Eighty-six complete and (with one exception) unabridged examples of the nonpareil writings of the man The Los Angeles Times labels "the 20th Century Lewis Carroll."

Scrupulously reconstructed from original ma.n.u.scripts unseen for five decades (with slovenly editorial gaffes, perpetuated through years of inept reprint versions, corrected, and lost material reinstated), this is the record of a singular talent, codified for his millions of devoted fans, arranged by themes and dates as never before.

Edited with extensive introductory material by the distinguished Australian critic and author Terry Dowling (a.s.sisted by Richard Delap and Gil Lamont), this is the Essential Ellison; and without a familiarity with these essentials, no lover of modem American letters dare call him/herself living life to its fullest. And for the record, at age 67, the eyes are no less blue, the nexus no less filled with pa.s.sion.

Born in Jaipur, in the Indian province of northeast R.sj.sthan, HARLAN ELLISON is the son of a man who flew "Over the Hump" to Burma with Chennault's Flying Tigers just prior to WWII. Ellison, the air wing's mascot, spoke only Hindi and Urdu till the age of thirteen. Himself wounded twice in the battles of Provo and Needles, Ellison has been confined to a wheelchair since 1961; from his home in Erewhon, Colorado he has, since 1970, produced seventeen full-length poems of 50,000 words each. His favorite foods are curried monkey brains scooped steaming from the trepanned skull, and french fries, very crisp.

Prolegemenon: MILLENIAL MUSING.

It is nine days till the true advent of the real Millennium as I sit here writing this preface to the 50 years' doorstop that encapsulates the "essentiality" of me, Harlan, writer. Now much less left of my allotted span of capering and jackanapery than what I had in my pockets when I sat down to write the first of many entries in this volume. It has been one h.e.l.luva trip; and I am sanguine that I'm right where I'm supposed to be: no fall-back excuses as to luck or chance or "breaks" or cabals out to get me. I'm 100% responsible for me, and for this place in which I find me, 1:46 PM, Friday 22 December, year 2000.

Last Sunday, Susan and I went to Leonard Maltin's fiftieth birthday surprise party. Where I met d.i.c.kie Jones, who was the voice of Pinocchio in the 1940 Disney film. What a cool thing to happen. (See what I mean about a h.e.l.luva trip?) And at one point, Leonard was introducing me to some people and he said, "It's remarkable for Harlan to have been so pleasant for so many hours without snarling at anyone."

He didn't mean anything by the remark, but I suddenly felt a frisson of hurt. The remark made me feel badly. Others, many others, over the years, have made similar remarks. As if to say that I am some sort of feral creature not given to composed social congress. An acknowledged Nasty Person.

And there are those who have nothing better to do with their mingy little lives than to beat their conversational meat on the internet who extemporize endlessly wondering why I have such a mean streak.

If, in fact I have such a mean streak. A recent posting about my working with director David Twohy on a feature film version of my Demon With a Gla.s.s Hand brought forth a small hyenapack of dullards who had never met me, yet felt it inc.u.mbent on themselves to point out that I'm (in their choice of words) "Arrogant." To which I would respond in the words of the late great Oscar Levant: "I'm no more humble than my enormous talents require."

I was raised polite by my mother and father, but I confess to a very low bulls.h.i.t threshold for careless cruelty, rudeness, arrant stupidity, evidence of meanspiritedness, obscurantism and doltish acceptance of soph.o.m.oric beliefs (such as UFOs, crop circles, remembered instances of child abuse elicited under hypnosis, most uses of G.o.d as an explanation for having caught a good pa.s.s and running BO-yards upfield for a touchdown, yeti sightings, the chihuahua in the microwave, the internet as the icon of a new paradigm shift in human activity, and the suggestion that George W. Bush is anything but an empty suit galvanically mobile via prayers from the Religious Right).

I suppose if I'm brusque, if I'm abrupt if I growl and suffer fools not at all it is because, if you poke a sharp stick through the cage of the funny animal for six days, on the seventh day that funny animal is likely to bend apart the bars, leap out of the cage, rip off your left arm, and use it up your a.s.s to make a Schmucksicle of you.

And so, and quite properly, the affronted reader who has read and swallowed whole the postings of my far-acknowledged "arrogance" will quite properly, demand to know by what right I lay claim to the metaphor of stick-pokened animal. What the affronted reader will demand, produces in you this psychotic, sniveling, self-serving and undoc.u.mented belief that The World is Out To Get you? Proof, we demand, a little proof here!

Well, geezus, folks, even Dr. Richard Kimble had real enemies. Cut me some slack here, whaddaya think?

Okay, so here's a bone for you.

I was having a phone conversation the other day with Bob Silverberg, he up in Oakland, just back from Turkey, and I in Los Angeles, just back from the bathroom; and I told him about something that had just come to my attention that had transpired 'way back in 1956, that I had known nothing about till a couple of months ago-a thing I'll detail in a moment, be patient-and Bob made the point that even back in 1956-my first full year as a professional writer-that I was already a universal joke to the science fiction pros who were in their prime and dominating the genre. Bob recalled (in his most charming if-you-got-him-for-a-friend-you-need-never-indulge-in-self-abuse manner) something of which I had not the tiniest memory...a reminiscence Bob was able to recount in some detail, of a party that I'd held at my apartment in New York City soon after my first marriage-1956, at 150 West 82nd Street- attended by all the great and the near-great (including C.M. Kornbluth, and I don't know how I could've forgotten that) and how " upset" Bob says he was, how he went back to our former co-domicile at 611 West 114th Street, "upset" at how all these great stars of scientifiction had come to my home, had eaten my food, had drunk the wine, and had stood around in groups making fun of what an a.s.s and no-talent I was.

Apparently, blissfully, I'd drowned that memory. Can't thank Bob enough for reminding me that I was an object of ridicule as he put it, "up until you wrote "'Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman'."

But it got me to thinking about howl came to wear the persona I shrug into every day, a Harlan Ellison that seems to fit well enough, maybe a little loose under the arms, maybe a little too tight in the b.u.t.t, maybe a tot more impatience than one who wishes to be judged sane should manifest. Maybe alla that. And I wondered if my ongoing paranoia about all the Malevolent Forces arrayed against sweet li'l ole me might just be reason enough for those gibbering bottom-feeders on the web to a.s.sess me correctly as " arrogant" and, well, dare I say it...cranky?

So here's the bone.

This a page reproduced from the June 1956 issue of Writer's Digest. I never saw it at the time. It was sent to me just a few months ago, September 2000, by a fellow member of the Writers Guild of America, West. A casual acquaintance, but one who thought, out of kindness, that I might be able to use a copy of this magazine, part of a back issue stack that he was getting rid of. So after more than four decades, this thing finally hit my radar. Take a look at it.

If you're scratching your head, wondering what's the big deal, doesn't seem to be a problem here, why is Ellison even bringing this up after forty-four years, let me point out: This is a bogus letter.

I never wrote it.

It was sent to WD, a magazine that mostly caters to eager amateurs, to hopeful tyros, not to professionals save as an outlet for the occasional "how-to" essay. People who write these letters are usually just starting in the game. But this letter-written by an anonymous provocateur whose name I'll likely never unearth-was published at an early stage in my career with the clear intent to embarra.s.s and ridicule me. Because when this letter came into print, I had already sold more than 100 short stories and non-fiction pieces, I was 22 years old (not 16), and I was earning about ten grand per annum, which was very good wages in 1956.

Even back then, only a year into my career, I was a target. Bob Silverberg is no doubt accurate in his history lesson. I probably was a joke to all those gentle, kindly, helpful professionals, whose only intent was to urge me to heights of excellence. Perhaps there is no reason for surliness, after fifty years of work, arguably the best of it gathered here in one ma.s.sive tome.

I can handle that. For better or worse, fool or artist, young snotnose or old fart, I am precisely the person, precisely the artist, I have made of myself.

I am responsible. And one more thing: I'm still here, muthuhfugguh.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

No project of this size and scope could have been brought to term without the skill and dedication of archivists, artisans and aides who labored long, wearily and myopically Mention here cannot serve but minimally to thank them for their seemingly endless ch.o.r.es. This book has been a long time in coming, and many of those noted here have been at the oars from the outset. But at least they know, by these meager acknowledgments, that the subject of this book does not, for a moment, delude himself that he could have done it alone.

Though Alzheimer's hasn't yet claimed the n.o.ble Author, it has been years since the inception of this project, and if anyone who deserved to be thanked here has been omitted, the blame rests with no other than You Know Who.

Sharon BuckSarah CoattsJames CowanRichard de KoningRichard DelapLeo & Diane DillonTerry DowlingArnie FennerSharlet FosterJeff FraneTodd IlligSandy KambergerKen KellerGil LamontAndrea LevinJeff LevinJim MurrayKevin "Doc" ReamesKathy Roche-ZujkoJim SandersonJohn SnowdenDebra SpidellLeslie Kay SwigartSarah Wood Susan Ellison (wife person)

And to all the editors and anthologists, still working or no longer with us, who truly made this book possible-from Larry Shaw in 1955 to Keith Ferrell, Selby Bateman and Shawna McCarthy last week- by originally publishing the work of the creature whose true life is contained within these covers...many thanks.

Because they have always been there for me, as superlative spinners ofdreams, and as steadfast friends, this big one is for the Big Ones, ALFIE BESTERAndRAY BRADBURY -H.E.

To my parents Marie and Bill,who will never forget the afternoonHarlan dropped by.

-T.D.

Introduction: Sublime Rebel.

by Terry Dowling

In 1979, Wildwood House published REBEL IN THE SOUL, Bika Reed's inspired translation of the Berlin Papyrus 3024. In her reading of this tale from around Egypt's Intermediate Period, Reed revealed for the first time the true ident.i.ty of Iai, the donkey-headed G.o.d, a previously unknown aspect of the sun G.o.d Ra, and so was able to produce the first coherent translation of this marvelous initiatic text.

In Egyptian mythology, Iai is a fascinating character. He is the rebel, the tester, the stubborn resisting force of intellect and insight which donkey-like stands its ground, refusing to budge, and challenges what is accepted and valued and thought to be sensible and true. The same sort of honest irrepressible rebel, in fact, which surfaced in the child who pointed out that the Emperor wore no clothes and in the Fool who told King Lear that he was wrong. These dear precious rebels (for there are, and have been, many) not only dare to question but for their pains alienate themselves from those who haven't questioned, who didn't even think to question, who are now made to look stupid because they didn't.

The discomfiting rebels. Hypatia. Giordono Bruno. Lucy Stone. Susan B. Anthony. John T. Scopes. Oliver Wendell Holmes. Lenny Bruce. Ralph Nader. John Peter Zenger.

Harlan Ellison.

This book is a portrait of one artist as sublime Rebel.

Fortunately, it doesn't have to be just a "Best of" collection (though it does contain much of his finest work). We don't have to worry about that kind of distraction here. Rather, it is a sound representation, "warts and all," of the writing of someone who is perfectly, vigorously, cast as the Iai of his age (in response to its excesses and falterings and inertia). Through his early work, we can observe how he began, the paths he took toward his mature style, the way he conceived and pursued his task-to become a leading award-winning fantasist, a natural scholar and a more important man of letters than he'd probably care to admit.

By its nature, it is a look at process.

Though Harlan's work is widely known and applauded, not enough is made of the sense of social responsibility that is central to it. In fact, this dimension often seems to be deliberately overlooked and the major thrust of his fantasy trivialized. And when the Jester, the Trickster, the Clever Man in society is not heeded, then we have cause for real concern.

Many readers, I'm sure, wish that Harlan was just the gifted fantasist-merely a d.a.m.n good writer. Less of Iai. But Harlan's stories invariably have their leading edge of comment, as well as their prefaces and introductions; and there are the essays and columns. So there is nowhere to hide.

And consequently, Harlan becomes an enemy of the people in the sense that Ibsen meant it. He cannot-will not-suffer fools gladly. He hates stupidity, bigotry, prejudice, the torpor that will not allow healthy change-the gratuitous abuses committed through ignorance no less than the willful kind. He believes-and rightly, too-that everyone is ent.i.tled to an opinion only if it is an informed one, that we have an obligation to educate ourselves, to be the best version of ourselves that we can possibly be.

But then Harlan is determinedly on the side of civilization, of the sort of healing Jung antic.i.p.ated when he said: "As any change must begin somewhere, it is the single individual, who will experience it and carry it through."

Human society has not treated its Renaissance men and women well-its natural scholars, its trailblazers, its healers who surface as rebels. For, ironically, they are most often the mavericks, the loners, the free radicals, the ones who are innately drawn to challenge and extend and purge society, never just serve it. Little wonder that the ones who keep the wounds raw and the questions alive are neutralized by a conspiracy of indifference, effectively spayed by critical indignation. Envy, fear and guilt muddy up the clear waters of common sense where these catalysts and healers are concerned, and instead, due respect, due recognition come to take on the trappings of a witch hunt.

For lies, rumor and misunderstanding have always been weapons against the Rebel, the only way the exposed ones can retaliate; distorting the picture we get of Iai. The more precise and effective he becomes, the more distortion is used as a defense.

We mustn't let it happen with Harlan, though we should always remember why it does.

Jiminy Cricket and Zorro are Harlan's role models, not Torquemada, not Jack the Ripper, not Richard Nixon.

And since indifference is another time-hallowed weapon for neutralizing the Rebel, just look at the tools Harlan uses-has to use-to accomplish his task: shock, surprise and grotesquerie, violence and suffering, hard language, hard knocks and the even harder emotions of fear, anger, guilt, pain and love. He deals in ideas, sometimes so full of love and compa.s.sion that they stun with their simple honesty; sometimes set with barbs and hooks that catch and tear and make us gasp and make us feel.

And he deals in excitement. Even without the wonderful story notes Harlan provides (he is still one of the most self-revealed authors in the language today), we sense that most of all-an underlying excitement at observing and rendering life. Honestly.

Dr. Johnson would have been proud. Shakespeare (a great maker of Rebels and Fools) would have smiled fondly. Because that's the dimension of achievement occurring here. Ellison is as close to the pulse of his age as Chaucer and Shakespeare and d.i.c.kens ever came to theirs.

It's worth pointing out that, as with so many of the truly great, so many of the natural healers and civilizers, Harlan has no choice in this matter. He cannot stop being enraged, being provoked, being moved to speak; cannot help but stand up and be counted. He would have stood on the steps of the ancient library at Alexandria and fought against the mob with their torches, single-handedly if necessary, while the librarians used their arguments and lofty persuasions to achieve nothing.

Typical behavior of Iai, agent provocateur to civilization, bent on his dangerous and thankless task.

Yes, Harlan makes a lot of being civilized and committed and responsible. And while he has philosopher Allen Tate's words above his desk: "Civilization is an agreement to ignore the abyss"

the operative word "is" has become "should be." While the informed and responsible ones can agree to ignore the yawning gulf, this can only be possible if this civilization is bona fide, the genuine article, and not some cosmetic and self-deceiving subst.i.tute.

Otherwise we dare not ignore the abyss. To do so would be supreme folly, positively fatal for the race.

Harlan is mercilessly impatient with cosmetic civilization, with the self-congratulatory complacency that signals the breakthroughs in technology but forgets the appalling neglect in championing human rights, that praises the information revolution but tolerates growing illiteracy and indolence.

No, despite the optimum condition of Tate's words, it remains an ideal only, a reminder. Harlan's approach as writer has been closer to one contained in the words of Andre Breton in the MANIFESTOES OF SURREALISM, where he speaks of how the "tiny footbridge over the abyss, could not under any circ.u.mstances be flanked by hand rails."

For there is nothing surer than that Harlan Ellison has become, too, a tester of civilization, a quality control, a challenger, fully the Rebel in Bika Reed's sense, a fixer, determined not to let humanity ignore the abyss that produces Third Reichs and Vietnams and Senator Joseph McCarthys and Richard Nixons. He is committed, rather, to making us confront it in all its myriad forms, whatever its manifestations: racial prejudice, civil corruption, personal dishonesty, the mindless formula thinking of so much network television and popular literature. He wants us to remain no longer dupes, sand-headed ostriches, self-deceivers. He will not let us off that lightly.

In fact, Harlan builds bridges across the abyss for us-flimsy, delicate, exquisitely arching things made of the stuff of genuine civilization, precious but fragile, beautiful but not always enduring.

Many so-called civilized folk cannot bear to face the bridges Harlan makes. For one thing, the abyss-as Harlan reminds us-is right there, a terrible engulfing thing just under our feet. It makes our civilization look thin and fleeting; a flickering candle in a vast dark, not a blazing sun 'of enlightenment.

And second, the bridges have no hand rails; crossing them is not easy, and you do it on your own.

Which is fair enough. Most of us acknowledge so rarely that the abyss is there at all that there can be no half-measures once it is shown to us. Harlan's ploy has been to call us out on to such a bridge, using the beguilement of ideas and situations and characters that are totally real, using his great gift of language, and then say: "How's the view? What's doin'?"

Is it any wonder that so many rush back to the brink (or even complete the crossing, so thoroughly are they beguiled) and then scream abuse, ludicrous and self-revealing things like elitist, sicko and antichrist, or fumble as best they can for their weapon of indifference.

Know your Rebel then.

See him for what he really is, for what he cannot help but be.

At this writing, Harlan is nearing 50. Jiminy Cricket is 44. Zorro is 60.

Iai, as always, is timeless.

On page 79 of the Reed translation of Berlin Papyrus 3024, the Soul answers the Body and says: Brotheras long as you burnyou belong to life.

Harlan is here then, where Iai is, burning and belonging, casting his bridges across the abyss, standing on the steps of the Alexandrian library waiting for the mobs to come. Civilization is better for it.

-Los Angeles, California 10 December 1983

Lagniappe

by Terry Dowling

Words will do it. There's that wonderful, desperate moment in Harlan's 1972 story "On the Downhill Side" when Paul Ordahl, frantic at the thought of losing Lizette, cries the old Creole word they use in New Orleans when they want a little extra, a little more. "Lagniappe!" It's one of those perfect words that's always been there to discover and make your own, always known and cherished somehow once it's heard that first time.

Originally from Southern Louisiana and Southeast Texas, circa 1840, p.r.o.nounced lan yap, today it has come to mean a gratuity, a tip, the small gift or bonus added to a customer's purchase. But it was more streetwise then, richer, fuller, making a perfect cri de coeur for Paul Ordahl in Harlan's story and a fitting word now for this revision of THE ESSENTIAL ELLISON. Lagniappe. The little something extra.

It usually doesn't do for creative acts to be reworked too much. W.H. Auden and George Lucas notwithstanding, books, stories, paintings, movies, dramas, rock alb.u.ms and symphonies, like promises made and pure moments lived, mark points reached, events commemorated, stations on the way, and how many times does older self betray younger in the test of judgment, loyalty and, yes, friendship and fail to let things be.

But there's also such a thing as dutiful care, doing the appropriate housekeeping tasks of correcting typos, changing a word here and there that was stop-gap, make-do and improvisation then and never quite sang, even adding the lines or paragraphs that, for some hideous reason, were never added. It all comes down to knowing when to pull back, because there is the temptation to tidy it all up, even to tell it like it could have been, to go revisionist and reinvent the self. Fashionable words of late.