Wednesday, May 17, 1961 University Daily Kansan
Page 3
By James E. Gunn Administrative Assistant to the Chancellor for University Relations
THE WORLD THAT COULDN'T BE and 8 Other Novelettes from Galaxy, March, 1961. 35c.
What is the effect of an editor upon the magazine he edits?
To most lay readers the editor remains anonymous. Only a few attain fame by imprinting their personalities on publications, and these—the Menckens and the Rosses—have worked largely in the more concrete fields of non-fiction.
Gentle, clever Tony Boucher—tall, slim, dark, and relaxed, who nevertheless developed an ulcer that retired him—built The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction on an airy foundation of literary quality and catholicity of taste.
Three editors in the science-fiction field, however, have created magazines in their own image.
TALL, BRISTLE-HAIRED John W. Campbell Jr., a man whose eyes can fix an unwary fan or writer from behind thick lenses while his computerlike mind spins out disturbing data and amazing analogies, has acted as a clearing house for ideas, accepting them from his writers and passing them on to others, transmuted and sometimes transmogrified, and has been responsible for much of the shape of science-fiction's things to come. A man accused of propagating such fads and fancies as Dianetics, psionics, the Hieronymous machine, and the Dean Drive, he has, nevertheless, presided over one magazine for twenty-three years—seeing it through two metamorphoses, from Astounding Stories to Astounding Science Fiction to Analog Science Fact & Fiction, and over the development of the field itself, changing it from primary emphasis on adventure science fiction and gadget science fiction to "social" science fiction by encouraging, and sometimes developing, writers who could concern themselves significantly with what Isaac Asimov has defined as "the impact of scientific advance upon human beings."
IN 1950 CAME along short, electric, balding Horace L. Gold, a man of dynamic presence, sometimes charming, always more than a little saidonic, frequently cuttingly sarcastic, with a talent for asking the unanswerable question. From the beginning, Gold published only advanced social science fiction. One of his editorial advices to writers was to stand an accepted idea on its head and see how it looked from the other end; another was to look at the society from inside, not outside.
He has achieved—he has admitted candidly—a magazine better than the stories submitted to him. If the statement is accepted as fact, his methods may be described as the demanding of rewrites, editorial rewriting or retelling of stories, and biting rejection slips—all three anathema to writers. Many have been so alienated as to swear never again to send him a story.
How has he managed to keep publishing? Partly by being receptive to new writers, partly by good rates—for the field. When "Galaxy" began publication, the prevailing top rate was two cents a word (paid only by Astounding). Galaxy increased this immediately to three cents, with graduated increases up to four cents (since, I am informed, reduced).
GOLD HAS BEEN responsible for the development of a new style and new writers to produce it: Frederick Pohl (presently taking over Gold's duty while Gold is taking a sick leave), much praised by Kingsley Amis in New Maps of Hell, explored, sometimes with the late Cyril Kornbluth, a new vein of satire in stories and novels like "the Space Merchants." Alfred Bester developed methods of creating intellectual excitement with typography, complex characterization and plotting, and explosive ideas; others filled in the gaps with what came to be known as a Galaxy-type story, slick, often superficial, sometimes satirical, occasionally provocative.
Gold's mission, as he saw it, was to make science fiction palatable to a broader, discriminating audience, although scientifically unsophisticated.
"The World That Couldn't Be" provides nine good examples of Galaxy's content. The title story explores an alien sexless, world where, typically, a man fighting to protect his crops must hunt down an extraterrestrial creature that turns out to be a brood-creature collection of the alien fauna.
“Brightside Crossing” takes a band of adventurous men across the $770^{\circ}$ F. brightside of Mercury. “Mezzerow Loves Company” humorously points out the difficulties in getting something changed as minor as the name of a planet; “An Eye for a What?” presents the problem of finding an appropriate punishment for creature truly alien.
"A WOMAN'S PLACE" provides a new twist to the old theme of a man (in this case two men) and a woman cast hopelessly away on a desert planet. "A Gun for Dinosaur" shows how men will make money out of anything—including time travel; in this case hunting parties to the Mesozoic.
"One for the Books" will appeal to an academic community with its tale of a janitor who accumulates knowledge just by cleaning a room (the Latin office, the library)—and the problems it causes him. "The Music Master of Babylon" describes, poetically, a master pianist living in the ruins of a vast New York museum on a nearly depopulated Earth. And "Once a Greech" explores literal and physical transmigration of souls and its surprising highest plane.
It's a good collection for the science fiction fan—and a good introduction to the field for anyone who hasn't tried it before.
Three Dramas of American Realism:
By Walter J. Meserve Associate Professor of English
IDIOTS DELIGHT by Robert Sherwood;
STREET SCENE by Elmer L.
Rice;
THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE by William Saroyan.
Three Dramas of American Individualism:
GOLDEN BOY by Clifford
Odets;
HIGH TOR by Maxwell Anderson;
Both collections edited with introductions by Joseph E. Mersand, Published by the Washington Square Press, 1961.
THE MAGNIFICENT YANKEE by Emmet Lavery.
Among the numerous courses offered in a department of English, American literature as a subject for study has been a part of the graduate and undergraduate curriculum for only a relatively brief length of time.
In the 19th century one could study American oratory or British and American literature. With the rise of a nationalism during World War I universities began to offer the courses which a student may now enjoy: American poetry, novel, short story. Although Professor A. H. Quinn, one of the early scholars in American drama, taught American drama over forty years ago, courses devoted entirely to American drama have not been numerous in universities. And there have been good reasons. Much of the drama written before World War I has rather little literary value.
WILLIAM ARCHER, the English critic, wrote that one must look for the beginnings of American drama among "the sand dunes of Cape Cod"—hence, the work of the Provincetown Players, particularly that of Eugene O'Neill. Until recently scholarly criticism of American drama has been slight; and American play texts have been difficult to obtain in well edited collections. At present my last two points are being well met, and with added study opinions concerning my criticism of the literary value of earlier American drama may change.
These two volumes of the ANTA Series of Distinguished Plays, along with other such collections begin to answer the needs of those who find delight in reading good plays and those who want more American plays available in inexpensive editions. One might, of course, quarrel with the selection of plays. There are certainly far more realistic plays than "The Time of Your Life"—"Dead End" by Sidney Kingsley or "What Price Glory?" by Maxwell Anderson and Laurence Stallings or "Tobacco Road" by Jack Kirkland and so on. One might also select other examples of American individualism—George Kelly's "The Showoff" or "The Petrified Forest" by Robert Sherwood or the far richer field of American individuality in plays before World War I by Edward Sheldon or James A. Herne. The basic title of this second volume presents problems which the editor need not have assumed. Perhaps the always serious problem of securing copyright permission colored this selection.
ONE WOULD NOT quarrel, however, with the work of the editor of these volumes, Dr. Joseph E. Mersand, who has produced substantial scholarship in American drama for twenty years. For each play he has provided a varied introduction interestingly written for interested readers of American plays. With a brief sketch of the playwright's life and accomplishments, Dr. Mersand offers a criticism of each play reprinted and comments on other plays by the dramatist. He criticizes the plays both as literary drama and as theater productions, frequently including the comments of other dramatic critics. For each play, too, he gives a well selected bibliography.
... the classroom experience must pose a threat. The student must be threatened; he must be driven outside himself; he must be compelled to question himself and his values and the values of those among whom he lives. The classroom should undermine the security he feels in family, church, fraternity, or whatever the group of which he is most vitally a part. This is not to say that the classroom should breed insecurity; it means that the student should be thrown into a state of creative tension in which the foundations for the only valid security can be laid, that security which rests on individual thought.—N. F. Tennille
Our daughters must be taught that the ideal female is not a male, that a woman must find fulfillment within her own biological needs and that sacrifice and dedication are foundations of the home.—Dr. Morris Gross
Scratch a teacher, and I suppose you'll always find at least one extraordinary good teacher in his early background.—Harry T. Levin
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