This is Me, Jack Vance
Page 1
THIS IS ME, JACK VANCE
Or, More Properly, This Is I
Jack Vance
www.sfgateway.com
Enter the SF Gateway …
In the last years of the twentieth century (as Wells might have put it), Gollancz, Britain’s oldest and most distinguished science fiction imprint, created the SF and Fantasy Masterworks series. Dedicated to re-publishing the English language’s finest works of SF and Fantasy, most of which were languishing out of print at the time, they were – and remain – landmark lists, consummately fulfilling the original mission statement:
‘SF MASTERWORKS is a library of the greatest SF ever written, chosen with the help of today’s leading SF writers and editors. These books show that genuinely innovative SF is as exciting today as when it was first written.’
Now, as we move inexorably into the twenty-first century, we are delighted to be widening our remit even more. The realities of commercial publishing are such that vast troves of classic SF & Fantasy are almost certainly destined never again to see print. Until very recently, this meant that anyone interested in reading any of these books would have been confined to scouring second-hand bookshops. The advent of digital publishing has changed that paradigm for ever.
The technology now exists to enable us to make available, for the first time, the entire backlists of an incredibly wide range of classic and modern SF and fantasy authors. Our plan is, at its simplest, to use this technology to build on the success of the SF and Fantasy Masterworks series and to go even further.
Welcome to the new home of Science Fiction & Fantasy. Welcome to the most comprehensive electronic library of classic SFF titles ever assembled.
Welcome to the SF Gateway.
Contents
Title Page
Gateway Introduction
Contents
Preliminary Remarks
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Final Word
Website
Also By Jack Vance
Acknowledgements
Dedication
Author Bio
Copyright
Preliminary Remarks
Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
Keats
I use the above heading because other more usual designations seem rather too formal, and would indicate a literary structure which I doubt will be anywhere evident in the following. In the preparation of this memoir I have attempted a new and unfamiliar form of communication: namely dictation, which I find unpredictable and which calls for its own unique species of discipline. All the material in this book was recorded to tape, then transcribed by my friend Jeremy Cavaterra.
This autobiographical sketch is perhaps more of a landscape than a self-portrait—or at least a ramble across the landscape that has been my life. I recognize that my reputation, such as it is, derives from literary production; however, writing has not been the sole function of my life and I am bound to report that this book offers little on the subject in the way of shop-talk. Like any craft, writing is mastered by practice and patience, and if one has any “knack” for it at all, that very knack—paradoxically—can explicate everything under the sun but itself.
However, many remarkable persons have wandered in and out of my life, and I have been fortunate enough to live through what is certainly an interesting and eventful epoch. I have attempted to detail these persons and events, while at the same time perhaps conveying something of my attitudes toward life. The latter I have not done vehemently, nor even consciously; such is merely the inevitable by-product of telling one’s own story.
Chapter 1
On we rode, the others and I,
Over the mountains blue, and by
The Silver River, the sounding sea,
And the robber woods of Tartary.
Robert Louis Stevenson
I was born in San Francisco, in the district known as Pacific Heights, halfway up the hills along the northern side of the city overlooking the bay. At this time—the year was 1916—San Francisco was known everywhere for its grace, charm, dignity, and for its beautiful prospects, fine restaurants, even respectability.
I am the middle of five children, with two older brothers (Albert and Louis), a younger brother (David) and sister (Patricia). My mother, Edith Vance (née Hoefler), was prominent in the social life of San Francisco. She attended the exclusive Miss Hamlin School, along with Lurline Matson of the Matson shipping lines. When she and my father were married they held a grand reception in the Fairmont Hotel, and the society section of the Chronicle devoted an entire page to the event. My mother was happy-go-lucky, good-natured, generous, and all my life I have not only loved her but admired and respected her.
During these early years I saw very little of my father, who was stationed in France, connected with the Red Cross in some capacity. On the other hand, I saw a great deal of my maternal grandfather, Ludwig Matthias Hoefler. He lived across the city in a splendid old Victorian mansion equipped with a wine cellar, a billiard room, and a dining room paneled in rosewood. He was a successful lawyer, a dabbler in politics, and evidently prominent in city affairs. I marvel to this day when I think of the streetcars grinding up the Haight Street hill, loaded with people on their way home from work, stopping halfway up the hill in front of my grandfather’s house to let him off before proceeding up to Laguna Street.
In 1920 or ‘21—I don’t remember the exact date—my grandfather was sent over to Germany as part of the Dawes Committee, the function of which was to improve the German economic situation. While he was abroad he visited Rome, where he saw a pair of massive marble statues representing ancient Greek pugilists. He was so taken by these statues that he ordered copies made, and these he shipped back to San Francisco as a gift to the Olympic Club, of which he was Vice President. There they stand to this day, on Post Street in front of the Olympic Club.
My family lived in San Francisco until I was five years old, and I remember many episodes of these early years. One night up in the bedroom I shared with my two older brothers there was a big moth fluttering around the ceiling, and it terrified me. I remember my older brothers jumping around from bed to bed, bravely trying to capture the moth, which to my relief they finally did.
We had a cook named Alice McKittrick, whom I loved very much. One day I declared to her, who knows why, that I would like some creamed onions. So Alice cooked me some lovely creamed onions. I can still see them, as I looked down at my tray in front of me, waving my spoon over the top of them. Ultimately I decided that I really didn’t want them after all. Alice watched me with pure Irish scorn on her face.
My brother David is interested in the genealogy of our family, and has acquired considerable information in this field. In the lowlands of Scotland, Wigtownshire to be precise, there is a castle now inhabited by a gentleman about whom I know nothing except that he has done much research in regard to the Vance ancestry. His findings indicate that a pair of Norman brothers by the name of de Vaux came over with William the Conqueror in 1066. They settled in the north of England; later a cadet branch moved on into Scotland. In 1745 they espoused the wrong side of the Jacobite Rebellion and fled to Ireland, so that the family became Scotch-Irish. The Wigtown gentleman traces the family further back to Aquitaine, to nobility even, and ultimately to a Gallo-Roman family called de Vallibus. This all sounds a bit far-fetched, but when I come to thi
nk about it, all names must originate somewhere, and there is no real reason for skepticism. The name Vance, like every other, evolved from some source in antiquity—why not from de Vallibus?
I have learned that I am also descended from William Clark of the Lewis & Clark expedition. Up in Montana, so the story goes, Clark got in bed with an Indian lady, who subsequently gave birth to a boy. It was the custom of this tribe to name the child after the first thing the mother saw upon waking. The first thing she saw was a stocking, so the boy was called Stocking Clark. In due course, after a generation or two, one of Stocking Clark’s descendents married into a certain Case family, which later owned a drugstore in Copperopolis, a town in the middle of California. (Oddly enough, Copperopolis figures in my own life story, but more on that later.) Case enters on my grandmother’s family, giving me a streak of indigenous blood lurking around somewhere. Such, as far as I know, are my antecedents.
When I was five I started kindergarten, and there I performed a disgraceful act. In front of me sat a little girl, dark-haired and wearing a pretty green dress. For no particular reason, I picked up a pair of scissors and began cutting triangles out of the fabric of her dress. I cut away four or five such triangles before the girl noticed what I was doing. She wasn’t alarmed, just rather puzzled, wondering what I had in mind. Of course there was a great hullabaloo, and my mother in shame offered to buy another dress for this little girl; but her mother said, “Oh no, don’t worry about it, it’s just childhood foolishness.” Some of my detractors have tried to imply that this was an indication of what might be my later predilections, but this I stoutly deny. Never again have I used scissors to cut at a girl’s dress!
Fifty miles east of San Francisco is the delta region, where three rivers—the Sacramento, the San Joaquin, and the Mokelumne—come together. They are intersected by dozens of inlets called sloughs, which create numerous islands. The word “slough” is something of a misnomer, since these waterways are extremely picturesque, with weeping willows and cottonwoods along the banks. In 1921, my grandfather acquired a property alongside one of these waterways, known as Little Dutch Slough. On the north side of this property was a dairy—with a barn, a shed, all the equipment, and lots of cows—which my grandfather leased out. Across the fields, about half a mile away, was another house, which my grandfather used as a weekend retreat. This was Green Lodge Ranch, a rambling old house surrounded by locust and pepper trees, with a water tower beside it supporting a tank.
In the summer of 1922 it was decided that the family—my mother and we five kids—should move up to Green Lodge Ranch and spend the summer there. This met with our approval, since there was a barn on the premises, housing a little Shetland pony, another horse, and an old-fashioned buggy. There was even a well on the property, but the pump was out of commission, and so for a while we had to hitch up the horse and buggy, drive to our neighbors’ about a mile away, fill up some barrels with water and drive back to the ranch. This went on for several months until we finally restored the well to working order and filled the tank, which made things a lot more convenient.
So far I haven’t mentioned my aunt, Nellie Holbrook. Our house in San Francisco was 2660 Filbert Street, and she lived at 2664 Filbert Street, next door. Aunt Nellie was prim and prudish, to the degree that whenever I would play one of my records, she refused to use the word “jazz”, but instead referred to the music as “zazz”. I won’t go into further detail with regard to her, except to say that over the years, she caused my mother a great deal of trouble. She was my father’s sister, and had an almost unnatural devotion to him; she was wildly jealous of my mother. While we were up at Green Lodge Ranch, she took occasion to rent our house to some people who paid a very handsome rent. At the end of the summer, when we had been scheduled to move back to the city, my aunt urged us to stay where we were. It was very healthy for us children up at the ranch, she said, so why not stay put? The family would profit, she went on, by renting the house, and we children could go to school there and lead a wholesome country life. My mother, under pressure from my father, finally agreed to this situation.
About half a mile east of Green Lodge Ranch was a quaint old-fashioned two-room school, The Iron House School. It must have been at least fifty years old at the time. I started first grade there, and my brothers and sister took up their appropriate grades.
When I was in second grade, the teacher Miss Lawson formed a harmonica club. She taught us all how to play Marine Band harmonicas, which at the time cost 50¢. I still play the harmonica, thanks to Miss Lawson.
During these times my father resided at Green Lodge Ranch only occasionally, and was just more often elsewhere, on business ventures or in San Francisco at my aunt’s house. This did not bother us kids too much, because he was a rather bluff, boisterous, self-righteous chap, and, if I must say so, a bit of a bully. When my two older brothers graduated from Iron House, my father and my aunt persuaded them into moving to San Francisco to go to high school, where, so my aunt was convinced, they would enjoy social advantages unavailable in their rural environment. My mother disapproved strongly, but she was outvoted by my two brothers, my father and my aunt, and so the household became further divided.
As for me, I didn’t care much one way or the other. At the time, I was a weedy young fellow, rather bookish, with short dark hair, glasses—my eyes even in those days were bad—and not particularly gregarious. My grandfather used to call me Steinmetz, which did not please me especially, since Steinmetz was no Tom Mix or Douglas Fairbanks.
My grandfather used to drive up from the city every weekend, in a beautiful Twin Six Packard Saloon. He himself could not drive, so the car was driven by George Slade, his chauffeur. George had his quarters on the top floor of the house on Haight Street, where during his off-hours he could be heard practicing the saxophone.
Every Friday my brother David, my sister Pat and I were supposed to tidy up the front yard: rake it, make sure there weren’t any leaves in the driveway, and generally make the place look spruce. About three-o’-clock in the afternoon we would start looking up and down the road. Pretty soon we would see the Packard come trundling down, and with excitement, because out of the car would come first of all my grandfather, followed by his mother my great-grandmother, then my grandmother, and often guests that he would bring up to spend the weekend at the ranch. His guests were of all descriptions: sometimes a little flaky, sometimes business people. Regardless, we always enjoyed these weekends. On Saturday mornings, my grandmother and my mother would chop up kidneys for the kidney sauté; that was our usual Saturday breakfast. Sunday dinner was a three- or four-rib roast beef, or occasionally roast lamb or pork, but always a noteworthy occasion, after which my grandfather and his family and guests would climb aboard the Packard and return to San Francisco, and my mother would sigh with relief. Then life would proceed quietly until the next Friday afternoon, when it all began again.
On his trips to the country my grandfather was accustomed to stop by Johnny Heinhold’s saloon in Oakland, in what is now Jack London Square. Heinhold knew Jack London, and although this was the time of Prohibition, he and my grandfather would quietly enjoy a few belts of contraband. Then my grandfather would drive to the Hunt Hatch warehouse, in which he had a partial interest, and there would load the Packard with sacks of oranges, apples or other fruit, and bring these to the ranch.
I spent a very pleasant childhood, naturally with its ups and downs. The window of my bedroom commanded a beautiful view to the west, and it was especially beautiful at dusk. Far, far, far to the north, I could see the Coast Range starting up, which as it came down to the south got larger and larger and culminated in Mt. Diablo before dwindling away into the far, far south, so that you had to turn your head to take it all in. Every evening about the middle of dusk the Santa Fe train went past about two miles west, and whistled at the crossing—”Woo-wooooo, woo-wooooo!”—the most lonesome sound there is. It affects me even now as I remember it.
These were pleasan
t years, and I had much to keep me occupied. I rode the pony all around the countryside, and in summertime we would swim almost every day at the swimming hole. There was also a rowboat which we were privileged to use; on occasion we would take it out onto the beautiful sloughs among the islands and along the levees where the willows and cottonwoods grew. Occasionally, on the weekends, and at my grandfather’s instigation, the whole family would go out mushroom-hunting. We would range the nearby fields and would seldom fail to come home with a basketful. During one of these mushroom hunts one of my grandfather’s cronies, Adolph Schroeder, discovered an enormous mushroom measuring a foot across the cap. His find made the papers in San Francisco.
I became interested in kite-flying, and I used to make all manner of kites: box kites, airplane kites, plain old-fashioned diamond-shaped kites. I’d take these out into the alfalfa fields adjacent to our house, lie down and fly them. All afternoon, lying in the fragrant alfalfa, I’d watch my kite move across the sky.
Around this time I also took up stiltwalking. I started very modestly, on six-inch stilts, then grew bolder and went up to a foot, then two feet, and finally to the extreme of eight-foot stilts, which I could only mount by climbing a tree and getting aboard from there. As anyone who has walked on stilts knows, it’s not all that difficult as long as the stilts are kept moving.
The house at Green Lodge Ranch was full of books, which my mother had brought up with her from San Francisco. My mother had catholic tastes, and among these books were fantasy novels by Robert W. Chambers, such as Tracer of Lost Persons, The King In Yellow, Maker of The Moons. There were also works by Edgar Rice Burroughs. My mother described how, about 1915 in the magazine Blue Book, there appeared the first installment of a serial called Tarzan Of The Apes. She said that this story instantly had become a fad among all of her acquaintances. So at the ranch, we had not only Tarzan of The Apes, but also The Son of Tarzan and other Burroughs books, including the Barsoom books—John Carter of Mars, Princess of Mars, Warlord of Mars—all of which I read and re-read. We also had all the Oz books by L. Frank Baum, as well as several series of boys’ books, emanating from the Edward Stratemeyer fiction factory: Motor Boys, Dave Porter, Tom Swift, and the Roy Rockwood books—which I now perceive to be precursors of modern science fiction.