Frances Hodgson Burnett and Isaac Asimov: feeling different and getting angry

The previous article about Frances Hodgson Burnett mentions the low return on investment in terms of the time and effort that I spent investigating her life and works and the small amount of article-inspiring material that I found.

Since then, I have followed up a few more leads and read a biography or two. I have found enough material for a few short articles, which just about makes the exercise worthwhile.

This article highlights some comments in Gretchen Gerzina's biography Frances Hodgson Burnett (2004) that remind me of material in the autobiography of a very different writer.

Feeling different
Frances Hodgson Burnett's sister Edith said something very significant about her:

“I always knew that my sister Frances was different, even when we were children, though, of course, at the time I could not have told you why...there was something about her that set her apart from other people.”

This applies to most of the other writes featured on here. Isaac Asimov for example said this in his autobiography In Memory Yet Green:

”I had begun to suspect that I was not as other children were even before I went to school. Once I was in school, there was no way in which I could avoid the knowledge.“

This is not the only element that Frances Hodgson Burnett had in common with Isaac Asimov.

Jean Rhys, Isaac Asimov, and some nightmare scenarios

Carole Angier's biography Jean Rhys: Life and Work mentions two incidents in one of Jean Rhys's novels that could be classed as small-scale nightmare scenarios.

I was reminded of this recently by something I read about tunnels in Isaac Asimov's memoirs; I decided to follow up Carole Angier's leads and look at the novel; the material I found has inspired a few comments.

Sasha's first nightmare 
Carole Angier refers to a horrible dream that Sasha, the main character in Jean Rhys's very depressing autobiographical novel Good Morning Midnight (1939), has on her return to Paris. This is the relevant extract from the novel:

“I am in the passage of a tube station in London. Many people are in front of me; many people are behind me. Everywhere there are placards printed in red letters: This Way to the Exhibition, This Way to the Exhibition. But I don't want the way to the exhibition -I want the way out. There are passages to the right and passages to the left, but no exit sign. Everywhere the fingers point and the placards read: This Way to the Exhibition...The steel finger points along a long stone passage. This Way - This Way - This Way to the Exhibition....”

This is uncannily similar to my own experiences in one or two huge tube stations in London. I still remember the crowds of people in the underground passages walking along like zombies, the long tunnel-like corridors, the flights of stairs, the inadequate and misleading signage and how it all became more and more stressful.

I followed the signs up some steps, along some corridors, round some corners and ended up where I started! I remember thinking to myself, “I don't want the Northern Line, I want the way out”! 

Being unable to find the exit can easily turn into a nightmare. It can feel like being trapped in Hell with no way out. I think that Jean Rhys was remembering her own experience of the London tube system when she described Sasha's bad dream.

Sasha's second nightmare 
The second nightmare incident that Carole Angier mentions happens when Sasha's boss asks her to take a letter to a certain place in the building where she works. She doesn't understand where she has to go but accepts the errand anyway. 

Sasha immediately does the wrong thing:

“I turn and walk blindly through a door. It is a lavatory. They look sarcastic as they watch me going out by the right door.“

Isaac Asimov, public libraries, and National Science Fiction Day

This article for January 2nd is the last in a string of lighter posts for the holiday season. It will soon be time to get back to the depressing biographies and other heavy topics!

January 2nd is the official birthday of the great - if not the greatest - science fiction writer Isaac Asimov, who was featured in an article that marked the 25th anniversary of his death. There is also an article about a never forgiven or forgotten brushing-off experience that he had in common with Noel Streatfeild.

Isaac Asimov and public libraries 
Just like many other writers, Terry Pratchett for example, Isaac Asimov was a great user of public libraries as a boy. He learned far more from library books than he did at school, as did I and many other self-educators.

His autobiography In Memory Yet Green contains some details of his early dealings with public libraries, which he first joined at the age of six. Just as I did, he managed to wangle cards from two different libraries so got twice the normal ration of books; just I did, Asimov was soon able to get access to the adult section.

Isaac Asimov read voraciously to satisfy his craving for knowledge, but he was not indiscriminate. I could have written this myself:

“I wanted excitement and action in my stories rather than introspection, soul-searching, and unpleasant people. So if I did reach for fiction in the library it was likely to be a historical novel by Rafael Sabatini...(Usually, when I discovered one book by a prolific author I found I liked I would methodically go through all the others by him I could find.)“

Isaac Asimov remembers public libraries 
Even though he moved on to academic and other professional libraries and eventually established a reference library of his own at home, Isaac Asimov never forgot the huge debt that he owed to public libraries.

The great and positive influence of public libraries

This post was inspired by a quotation from Terry Pratchett that I found recently. He said this in his introduction to Dragons at Crumbling Castle: And Other Stories:

“... I taught myself how to write by reading as many books as I could carry home from the library.“

Many people do indeed learn to write by extensive reading, although obviously not all voracious readers go on to become published writers. Who knows what wonderful works might never have existed if their authors had not had access to large numbers of good-quality library books as children! 

Isaac Asimov is another writer to acknowledge his debt:

"I received the fundamentals of my education in school, but that was not enough. My real education, the superstructure, the details, the true architecture, I got out of the public library."

From his memoir I, Asimov

I like to see people giving credit where it is due! 

These quotations have given me the idea of creating a series of articles about public libraries, covering both my personal experiences and those of some of the writers mentioned on here. There will also be some background and general material. 

This exercise will help to pay off the huge debt that I owe to the library books that educated, inspired and entertained me as a child – and still do.

I hope that this dragon doesn't drop his book in the bath!

Stella Benson's diaries

I came across this quotation from L. M. Montgomery recently:

“Only lonely people keep diaries.”

She kept a diary from the age of nine, and this is where she wrote the above words. I think that they are probably true in some cases but definitely not in all.

Sometimes diaries are kept primarily for record keeping purposes, to be used for reference in the future if necessary. Isaac Asimov for example kept detailed but mainly factual diaries for much of his life.

Journalling is a possible outlet for creative people who must write. It provides a way of exercising writing skills and keeping them honed; it keeps the channel of inspiration open.

The quotation made me think of Stella Benson, who kept a diary from the age of ten until shortly before she died. It is certainly applicable to her. In Stella’s own words:

“To set down a record of my contact with people...is most necessary to me. Because my most continuous sensation is a feeling of terrifying slipping-away from people - a most devastating loneliness - I have to place on record the fact that I was human and that even I had my human adventures.”

Today is the 25th anniversary of Isaac Asimov's death

Isaac Asimov died at the age of 72 on 6th April 1992. His death was a great loss to the world.

I enjoyed reading his Science Fiction novels and stories very much; I bought an old 2-volume pack of his autobiography at a big discount a while back, and found In Memory Yet Green and In Joy Still Felt just as good.

I like information, and these books are packed with it. He describes his early life so well that reading about it made me feel as though I had grown up in a poor area in 1930s New York myself.

I like the way he puts his life into the context of the times; he comes to realise that while his family were poor, they were not destitute like others in the Depression era. He also puts his life and personality into the context of other people's; he is balanced and objective when interpreting his earlier behaviour and explaining himself to his readers.

I like the way he uses these books to pay off his old debts – of both kinds. Better late than never. He thanks a teacher who let him go on the school outing even though he hadn't qualified, and he thanks a professor who had shown favouritism towards him. He also pays back a few people he had grudges against!

I like the way he makes the small stuff, the petty details of his life, seem fascinating. I enjoyed reading about the food that he ate and the books that he read.

I like his honesty when he says that a lot of people couldn't stand him, and that he failed to get into medical school because of the offensive way he behaved at the interviews. Of course, he wrote this as a rich, famous, adored and successful author who had moved on and could afford to look back with amusement at his past failures and deficiencies; he could offset the bad with the good.

What do Noel Streatfeild and Isaac Asimov have in common?

Many years ago, I read about two very similar incidents in the autobiographies of two very different people.

The first incident was recounted by Noel Streatfeild in her autobiographical work A Vicarage Family. It comes from her school days.

The glamorous, exotic Russian Ballet visited London in the summer of 1911; everyone was talking about them; everyone longed to see them. A teacher took those older girls who could afford it to London for three nights to see some performances. 

Noel (Victoria in the book) was not in the party, despite being obsessed with ballet. She was enthralled by what she heard about the company and was desperate to learn, even if it was only at second hand, all she could about the dancers and the ballets. She listened eagerly when she heard some of the starry-eyed girls discussing the outing with the teacher on their return, trying to catch some of the magic from what they said. 

Noel meant only to listen, but there was so much she wanted to know. She asked some questions that, she later realised, might well have sounded puerile to a teacher who had actually seen the Russians and who was probably tired after the exhausting trip. The teacher reacted strongly and negatively, telling her that if she had nothing more sensible to ask she should say nothing at all. 

Noel felt snubbed and deeply hurt.  Tears came into her eyes. How could anyone be so mean after three lovely days of seeing ballets in London as to refuse to describe them to someone who was too poor to go and see them for herself?

Noel decided that she was not going to forgive her teacher.