The Nail and the Oracle Read Online Free Page B
Author: Theodore Sturgeon
will not deliver. Go figure.
And so it went on with us for more than thirty years. Ted growing more ensnared by a received universe that was both too small to contain him while simultaneously telling him he was a titan. It is hideously bifurcating to go among one’s readers, many of whom look upon you as the mortal avatar of The Inviolable Chalice of Genius, having had to borrow the bus-fare to get cross-country to the convention. He grew more and more careless of what his actions and life-choices would do to those he left behind, yet to those who met him casually he was more charming than a cobra at a mongoose rally.
And we continued to watch each other; sometimes to watch
over
each other. I have a letter I’d like to insert here. It was written during that very tough time in 1966–67 I mentioned earlier in this jaunt.
Thought it may not seem so, this long in the wind, this exegesis is not about me. It is about the trails Ted and I cut with each other. The other guest introductions are variously great, good, okay and slight; but this one is the only one that minutely tries to codify the odd parameters of an odd friendship, a human liaison. So I’ll not go into particulars about the shitstorm under which I went to my kneesin ’67–’68, save to tell you true that I was neither feckless nor freshly kicked off the turnip truck.
Nonetheless, I got hit hard, and Ted wrote this to me, dated April 18, 1966:
Dear Harlan:
For two days I have not been able to get my mind off your predicament. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that your predicament is on my mind, a sharp-edged crumb of discomfort which won’t whisk away or dissolve or fall off, and when I move or think or swallow, it gigs me
.
I suppose the aspect that gigs me the most is “injustice.” Injustice is not an isolated homogeneous area any more than justice is. A law is a law and is either breached or not, but justice is reciprocal. That such a thing should have happened to you is a greater injustice than if it happened to most representatives of this exploding population
.
I know exactly why, too. It is an injustice because you are on the side of the angels (who, by the way, stand a little silent for you just now). You are in the small company of Good Guys. You are that, not by any process of intellectualization and decision, but reflexively, instantly, from the glands, whether it shows at the checkout in a supermarket where you confront the Birchers, or in a poolroom facing down a famous bully, or in pulling out gut by the hank and reeling it up on the platen of your typewriter
.
There is no lack of love in the world, but there is a profound shortage in places to put it. I don’t know why it is, but most people who, like yourself, have an inherent ability to claw their way up the sheerest rock faces around, have little of it or have so equipped themselves with spikes and steel hooks that you can’t see it. When it shows in such a man—like it does in you—when it lights him up, it should be revered and cared for. This is the very nub of the injustice done you. It should not happen at all, but if it must happen, it should not happen to you
.
You have cause for many feelings, Harlan: anger, indignation, regret, grief. Theodore Reik, who has done some brilliant anatomizations of love, declares that its ending is in none of these things: if it is, there is a good possibility that some or one or all of them were there all along. It is ended with
indifference—
really ended with a real indifference. This is one of the saddest things I know. And in all my life, I have found one writer, once, who was able to describe the exact moment when it came, and it is therefore the saddest writing I have ever read. I give it to you now in your sadness. The principle behind the gift is called ‘counter-irritation.’ Read it in good health—eventual
.
… and in case you think you misheard me over the phone, I would like you to know that if it helps and
And so it went on with us for more than thirty years. Ted growing more ensnared by a received universe that was both too small to contain him while simultaneously telling him he was a titan. It is hideously bifurcating to go among one’s readers, many of whom look upon you as the mortal avatar of The Inviolable Chalice of Genius, having had to borrow the bus-fare to get cross-country to the convention. He grew more and more careless of what his actions and life-choices would do to those he left behind, yet to those who met him casually he was more charming than a cobra at a mongoose rally.
And we continued to watch each other; sometimes to watch
over
each other. I have a letter I’d like to insert here. It was written during that very tough time in 1966–67 I mentioned earlier in this jaunt.
Thought it may not seem so, this long in the wind, this exegesis is not about me. It is about the trails Ted and I cut with each other. The other guest introductions are variously great, good, okay and slight; but this one is the only one that minutely tries to codify the odd parameters of an odd friendship, a human liaison. So I’ll not go into particulars about the shitstorm under which I went to my kneesin ’67–’68, save to tell you true that I was neither feckless nor freshly kicked off the turnip truck.
Nonetheless, I got hit hard, and Ted wrote this to me, dated April 18, 1966:
Dear Harlan:
For two days I have not been able to get my mind off your predicament. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that your predicament is on my mind, a sharp-edged crumb of discomfort which won’t whisk away or dissolve or fall off, and when I move or think or swallow, it gigs me
.
I suppose the aspect that gigs me the most is “injustice.” Injustice is not an isolated homogeneous area any more than justice is. A law is a law and is either breached or not, but justice is reciprocal. That such a thing should have happened to you is a greater injustice than if it happened to most representatives of this exploding population
.
I know exactly why, too. It is an injustice because you are on the side of the angels (who, by the way, stand a little silent for you just now). You are in the small company of Good Guys. You are that, not by any process of intellectualization and decision, but reflexively, instantly, from the glands, whether it shows at the checkout in a supermarket where you confront the Birchers, or in a poolroom facing down a famous bully, or in pulling out gut by the hank and reeling it up on the platen of your typewriter
.
There is no lack of love in the world, but there is a profound shortage in places to put it. I don’t know why it is, but most people who, like yourself, have an inherent ability to claw their way up the sheerest rock faces around, have little of it or have so equipped themselves with spikes and steel hooks that you can’t see it. When it shows in such a man—like it does in you—when it lights him up, it should be revered and cared for. This is the very nub of the injustice done you. It should not happen at all, but if it must happen, it should not happen to you
.
You have cause for many feelings, Harlan: anger, indignation, regret, grief. Theodore Reik, who has done some brilliant anatomizations of love, declares that its ending is in none of these things: if it is, there is a good possibility that some or one or all of them were there all along. It is ended with
indifference—
really ended with a real indifference. This is one of the saddest things I know. And in all my life, I have found one writer, once, who was able to describe the exact moment when it came, and it is therefore the saddest writing I have ever read. I give it to you now in your sadness. The principle behind the gift is called ‘counter-irritation.’ Read it in good health—eventual
.
… and in case you think you misheard me over the phone, I would like you to know that if it helps and
Readers choose
Al Sarrantonio
Candice Owen
CJ Bishop
Kris Fletcher
Allie Blocker
Kallista Dane
Audrina Cole
Holly Bennett
Abby L. Vandiver
Nora Roberts