Well, what about _this_ name: Edgar Allan Poe?"
Mr. Bigelow shook his head.
"Of course." Stendahl snorted delicately, a combination
of dismay and contempt. "How could I expect you to know blessed
Mr. Poe? He died a long while ago, before Lincoln. All of his
books were burned in the Great Fire. That's thirty years
ago--1975."
"Ah," said Mr. Bigelow wisely. "One of _those!_"
"Yes, one of those, Bigelow. He and Lovecraft and
Hawthorne and Ambrose Bierce and all the tales of terror and
fantasy and horror and, for that matter, tales of the future
were burned. Heartlessly. They passed a law. Oh, it started
very small. In 1950 and '60 it was a grain of sand. They began
by controlling books of cartoons and then detective books and,
of course, films, one way or another, one group or another,
political bias, religions prejudice, union pressures; there
was always a minority afraid of something, and a great majority
afraid of the dark, afraid of the future, afraid of the past,
afraid of the present, afraid of themselves and shadows
of themselves."
"I see."
"Afraid of the word 'politics' (which eventually became
a synonym for Communism among the more reactionary elements, so
I hear, and it was worth your life to use the word!), and with
a screw tightened here, a bolt fastened there, a push, a pull,
a yank, art and literature were soon like a great twine of
taffy strung about, being twisted in braids and tied in knots
and thrown in all directions, until there was no more
resiliency and no more savor to it. Then the film cameras
chopped short and the theaters turned dark. and the print
presses trickled down from a great Niagara of reading matter to
a mere innocuous dripping of 'pure' material. Oh, the word
'escape' was radical, too, I tell you!"
"Was it?"
"It was! Every man, they said, must face reality. Must
face the Here and Now! Everything that was _not_ so must go.
All the beautiful literary lies and flights of fancy must be
shot in mid-air. So they lined them up against a library wall
one Sunday morning thirty years ago, in 1975; they lined them
up, St. Nicholas and the Headless Horseman and Snow White
and Rumpelstiltskin and Mother Goose--oh, what a wailing!--and
shot them down, and burned the paper castles and the fairy
frogs and old kings and the people who lived happily ever after
(for of course it was a fact that _nobody_ lived happily
ever after!), and Once Upon A Time became No More! And they
spread the ashes of the Phantom Rickshaw with the rubble of the
Land of Oz; they filleted the bones of Glinda the Good and Ozma
and shattered Polychrome in a spectroscope and served
Jack Pumpkinhead with meringue at the Biologists' Ball!
The Beanstalk died in a bramble of red tape! Sleeping Beauty
awoke at the kiss of a scientist and expired at the fatal
puncture of his syringe. And they made Alice drink something
from a bottle which reduced her to a size where she could no
longer cry 'Curiouser and curiouser,' and they gave the Looking
Glass one hammer blow to smash it and every Red King and Oyster
away!"
He clenched his fists. Lord, how immediate it was! His
face was red and he was gasping for breath.
As for Mr. Bigelow, he was astounded at this long
explosion. He blinked and at last said, "Sorry. Don't know
what you're talking about. Just names to me. From what I hear,
the Burning was a good thing."
"Get out!" screamed Stendahl.-------------------------
Poor impossible, defeated Pikes! How must it have felt,
Pikes, the night they seized your films, like entrails yanked
from the camera, out of your guts, dutching them in coils and
wads to stuff them up a stove to burn away! Did it feel as bad
as having some fifty thousand books annihilated with no
recompense? Yes. Yes. Stendahl felt his hands grow cold with
the senseless anger. So what more natural than they would one
day talk over endless coffeepots into innumerable midnights,
and out of all the talk and the bitter brewings would come--
the House of Usher.-----------------------
"Now you're supposed to say, 'For the love of God,
Montresor!'" said Stendahl. "And I will reply, 'Yes, for the
love of God.'
"Of course." Stendahl snorted delicately, a combination
of dismay and contempt. "How could I expect you to know blessed
Mr. Poe? He died a long while ago, before Lincoln. All of his
books were burned in the Great Fire. That's thirty years
ago--1975."
"Ah," said Mr. Bigelow wisely. "One of _those!_"
"Yes, one of those, Bigelow. He and Lovecraft and
Hawthorne and Ambrose Bierce and all the tales of terror and
fantasy and horror and, for that matter, tales of the future
were burned. Heartlessly. They passed a law. Oh, it started
very small. In 1950 and '60 it was a grain of sand. They began
by controlling books of cartoons and then detective books and,
of course, films, one way or another, one group or another,
political bias, religions prejudice, union pressures; there
was always a minority afraid of something, and a great majority
afraid of the dark, afraid of the future, afraid of the past,
afraid of the present, afraid of themselves and shadows
of themselves."
"I see."
"Afraid of the word 'politics' (which eventually became
a synonym for Communism among the more reactionary elements, so
I hear, and it was worth your life to use the word!), and with
a screw tightened here, a bolt fastened there, a push, a pull,
a yank, art and literature were soon like a great twine of
taffy strung about, being twisted in braids and tied in knots
and thrown in all directions, until there was no more
resiliency and no more savor to it. Then the film cameras
chopped short and the theaters turned dark. and the print
presses trickled down from a great Niagara of reading matter to
a mere innocuous dripping of 'pure' material. Oh, the word
'escape' was radical, too, I tell you!"
"Was it?"
"It was! Every man, they said, must face reality. Must
face the Here and Now! Everything that was _not_ so must go.
All the beautiful literary lies and flights of fancy must be
shot in mid-air. So they lined them up against a library wall
one Sunday morning thirty years ago, in 1975; they lined them
up, St. Nicholas and the Headless Horseman and Snow White
and Rumpelstiltskin and Mother Goose--oh, what a wailing!--and
shot them down, and burned the paper castles and the fairy
frogs and old kings and the people who lived happily ever after
(for of course it was a fact that _nobody_ lived happily
ever after!), and Once Upon A Time became No More! And they
spread the ashes of the Phantom Rickshaw with the rubble of the
Land of Oz; they filleted the bones of Glinda the Good and Ozma
and shattered Polychrome in a spectroscope and served
Jack Pumpkinhead with meringue at the Biologists' Ball!
The Beanstalk died in a bramble of red tape! Sleeping Beauty
awoke at the kiss of a scientist and expired at the fatal
puncture of his syringe. And they made Alice drink something
from a bottle which reduced her to a size where she could no
longer cry 'Curiouser and curiouser,' and they gave the Looking
Glass one hammer blow to smash it and every Red King and Oyster
away!"
He clenched his fists. Lord, how immediate it was! His
face was red and he was gasping for breath.
As for Mr. Bigelow, he was astounded at this long
explosion. He blinked and at last said, "Sorry. Don't know
what you're talking about. Just names to me. From what I hear,
the Burning was a good thing."
"Get out!" screamed Stendahl.-------------------------
Poor impossible, defeated Pikes! How must it have felt,
Pikes, the night they seized your films, like entrails yanked
from the camera, out of your guts, dutching them in coils and
wads to stuff them up a stove to burn away! Did it feel as bad
as having some fifty thousand books annihilated with no
recompense? Yes. Yes. Stendahl felt his hands grow cold with
the senseless anger. So what more natural than they would one
day talk over endless coffeepots into innumerable midnights,
and out of all the talk and the bitter brewings would come--
the House of Usher.-----------------------
"Now you're supposed to say, 'For the love of God,
Montresor!'" said Stendahl. "And I will reply, 'Yes, for the
love of God.'