January meme, Cordwainer Smith
Jan. 15th, 2015 01:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahn(More meme slots available; comment here.)
snickfic asked me to talk about my experiences with Cordwainer Smith. I said a lot in this previous post; this will be a bit more meandering and personal.
I first must have encountered Cordwainer Smith (henceforth CS) when I was a middle-school/high-schooler (probably between the ages of 10 and 16) haunting the short-story stacks at my local library, which happened to have a fairly good science-fiction selection. (I'd previously haunted the SF section, but had read most of the novels that struck my fancy.) Pretty much my whole life, you could (can) always get me to read (or otherwise consume) something by sticking "Ballad" in the title or the description (hi, Ballad of Baby Doe!), and so I was pretty excited to find "The Ballad of Lost C'Mell." And the actual story — I was probably too young to read the actual story, but I liked it a lot. I read a couple more anthologized stories he had, like "Alpha Ralpha Boulevard," which I didn't particularly love. (In retrospect, I was definitely too young for it.)
Later — this was probably when I was in college — I read an essay by Ursula LeGuin where she talked about reading "Alpha Ralpha Boulevard" and being overwhelmed by it as her first experience of what science fiction could do, and thinking, huh, maybe I should give that another read. Around that time I bought the SF Masterworks collection of the best Instrumentality of Mankind short stories — The Rediscovery of Man — and I was hooked from then on.
I don't think I could tell you my favorite CS story. I have always had a soft spot for "Ballad of Lost C'Mell," of course. "The Dead Lady of Clown Town" is the one that probably inspires the greatest emotion in me. I also really love "The Crime and the Glory of Commander Suzdal," mostly because Suzdal himself is such a nice guy — and even though it is one of the stories that suffers being read from a twenty-first century viewpoint, because in the interim, other writers have done much more sophisticated and less offensive things with gender — well, he went there, he tried, and in his inimitable zany way he even succeeded; even if you don't buy klopt society as a gender concept, the refrain "And I mourn Man!" is… haunting. And it's such a short story, with so many ideas that are bursting out the seams of it, up to and including the end.
(Furthermore, it isn't true.)
One of the things that has always totally intrigued me about CS is the way his stories carry with them so many allusions. I'm pretty sure that I know fewer than half the allusions to which he refers, and often only because someone has told me what they were. Paul Linebarger (Cordwainer Smith's real name) was an East Asian scholar, and clearly into French literature as well; these are two areas I know nothing about. (I now know that "Alpha Ralpha Boulevard" is a retelling of Paul et Virginie, and that "Drunkboat" is related to Rimbaud, but, uh. That's about it. And that "The Dead Lady of Clown Town" is a retelling of Joan of Arc. And hey, Wikipedia informs me that An-fang Square, the Peace Square, where all things begin, is a Chinese-German bilingual pun. How about that.)
Another totally random thing I will bring up, Just Because: in my head I group Cordwainer Smith and James Tiptree, Jr. together. Not for any really obvious reason, as they are very different: Tiptree wrote gorgeously despairing stories about love and sex and death and biology, and investigating the linkages between them; CS wrote courageously hopeful stories about destiny (in the sense of creating a destiny) and meaning and life (and death; last reread I was surprised to find out how much death there was) and cats.
I think I group these writers together partially because I found both these authors at around the same time, quite frankly — but also because they are both really spectacular and pyrotechnic and thinky writers, two of the few writers I read as a child that I would unhesitatingly recommend as a grown adult. And writers who used pseudonyms to create an alternate personality for themselves, and writers who used allusions to the hilt. (I went on a bit of a quest to find the sources of Tiptree's titles, as a child… it was very good for me.)
(Oh, man. Is it kosher to ask for James Tiptree, Jr. fic for Yuletide?)
One more thing: I cannot write this post without once again pimping my incredible Cordwainer Smith Yuletide giftfic, The Peaceful Ghost of Old Repose, which is crazy and wonderful and has poetry in it and ALSO A STEALTH ALLUSION CROSSOVER using my Yuletide letter, which I. Just. Also check out the comments, where the author talks about all the stuff that went into it, and alludes to the different meanings of the title <3
snickfic asked me to talk about my experiences with Cordwainer Smith. I said a lot in this previous post; this will be a bit more meandering and personal.I first must have encountered Cordwainer Smith (henceforth CS) when I was a middle-school/high-schooler (probably between the ages of 10 and 16) haunting the short-story stacks at my local library, which happened to have a fairly good science-fiction selection. (I'd previously haunted the SF section, but had read most of the novels that struck my fancy.) Pretty much my whole life, you could (can) always get me to read (or otherwise consume) something by sticking "Ballad" in the title or the description (hi, Ballad of Baby Doe!), and so I was pretty excited to find "The Ballad of Lost C'Mell." And the actual story — I was probably too young to read the actual story, but I liked it a lot. I read a couple more anthologized stories he had, like "Alpha Ralpha Boulevard," which I didn't particularly love. (In retrospect, I was definitely too young for it.)
Later — this was probably when I was in college — I read an essay by Ursula LeGuin where she talked about reading "Alpha Ralpha Boulevard" and being overwhelmed by it as her first experience of what science fiction could do, and thinking, huh, maybe I should give that another read. Around that time I bought the SF Masterworks collection of the best Instrumentality of Mankind short stories — The Rediscovery of Man — and I was hooked from then on.
I don't think I could tell you my favorite CS story. I have always had a soft spot for "Ballad of Lost C'Mell," of course. "The Dead Lady of Clown Town" is the one that probably inspires the greatest emotion in me. I also really love "The Crime and the Glory of Commander Suzdal," mostly because Suzdal himself is such a nice guy — and even though it is one of the stories that suffers being read from a twenty-first century viewpoint, because in the interim, other writers have done much more sophisticated and less offensive things with gender — well, he went there, he tried, and in his inimitable zany way he even succeeded; even if you don't buy klopt society as a gender concept, the refrain "And I mourn Man!" is… haunting. And it's such a short story, with so many ideas that are bursting out the seams of it, up to and including the end.
(Furthermore, it isn't true.)
One of the things that has always totally intrigued me about CS is the way his stories carry with them so many allusions. I'm pretty sure that I know fewer than half the allusions to which he refers, and often only because someone has told me what they were. Paul Linebarger (Cordwainer Smith's real name) was an East Asian scholar, and clearly into French literature as well; these are two areas I know nothing about. (I now know that "Alpha Ralpha Boulevard" is a retelling of Paul et Virginie, and that "Drunkboat" is related to Rimbaud, but, uh. That's about it. And that "The Dead Lady of Clown Town" is a retelling of Joan of Arc. And hey, Wikipedia informs me that An-fang Square, the Peace Square, where all things begin, is a Chinese-German bilingual pun. How about that.)
Another totally random thing I will bring up, Just Because: in my head I group Cordwainer Smith and James Tiptree, Jr. together. Not for any really obvious reason, as they are very different: Tiptree wrote gorgeously despairing stories about love and sex and death and biology, and investigating the linkages between them; CS wrote courageously hopeful stories about destiny (in the sense of creating a destiny) and meaning and life (and death; last reread I was surprised to find out how much death there was) and cats.
I think I group these writers together partially because I found both these authors at around the same time, quite frankly — but also because they are both really spectacular and pyrotechnic and thinky writers, two of the few writers I read as a child that I would unhesitatingly recommend as a grown adult. And writers who used pseudonyms to create an alternate personality for themselves, and writers who used allusions to the hilt. (I went on a bit of a quest to find the sources of Tiptree's titles, as a child… it was very good for me.)
(Oh, man. Is it kosher to ask for James Tiptree, Jr. fic for Yuletide?)
One more thing: I cannot write this post without once again pimping my incredible Cordwainer Smith Yuletide giftfic, The Peaceful Ghost of Old Repose, which is crazy and wonderful and has poetry in it and ALSO A STEALTH ALLUSION CROSSOVER using my Yuletide letter, which I. Just. Also check out the comments, where the author talks about all the stuff that went into it, and alludes to the different meanings of the title <3
no subject
Date: 2015-01-15 10:40 pm (UTC)My discovery of CS was when I formulated that Cat People theory of SF (all SF with Cat People is bad SF) and my friend Alai offered The Ballad of Lost C'Mell as a counterexample, so I checked it out and then modified the theory with Larry Niven and Cordwainer Smith exceptions. At some point after that I found Scanners Live in Vain, which remains my favorite CS story, though I haven't read his work all that deeply. I make slow progress through one of his stories ever so often. They reward making slow progress.
no subject
Date: 2015-01-18 01:58 am (UTC)They absolutely do reward making slow progress. I tend towards more of the rereading and rereading, which is less optimal but works, more or less.
no subject
Date: 2015-01-15 10:59 pm (UTC)The titles of the stories you mention are all familiar, but I can't remember any details except the sheer joyful craziness. Rather like Dr.Seuss for grown-ups.
no subject
Date: 2015-01-18 02:02 am (UTC)"Dr. Seuss for grown-ups" is not at all a bad description, really. (I have been rereading Dr. Seuss lately and am rather impressed :) )
no subject
Date: 2015-01-16 08:21 am (UTC)Ooh. I have never done that, and now I want to. And of course you should ask for Tiptree fic for Yuletide!
no subject
Date: 2015-01-18 02:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-02-03 02:04 am (UTC)(In particular, I think it's a crying shame that everyone with even the slightest interest in body horror haven't read "A Planet Named Shayol," because wow.)
I have to tell you my story of how I discovered him. The first thing I read was "Mother Hitton's Littul Kittens," which I ran across in a short story anthology while I was in college. I hated it. It was so aggressively violent and too strange even for my tastes, and I decided I Did Not Like Cordwainer Smith. And then, maybe a year or two later, I found a battered book club copy of The Best of Cordwainer Smith in the free box at my library, and I figured why not, and I was enthralled. I just needed a few stories to really learn how to read him - to settle into his style and what kinds of stories he told.
Anyway, thanks so much for this! Sorry it took me so long to respond - it's been a really busy month, and I wanted to do the post justice with a proper response. :P
no subject
Date: 2015-02-05 04:18 pm (UTC)"Mother Hitton's Littul Kittens" -- ow, yeah, I can see that not being at all the best one to start off with. And yet, when situated in the sweep of the Instrumentality, it's still a great story -- but I'm glad it wasn't my first exposure :)