I became a retired Catholic at age 16. I do not consider myself a Christian. (R. Zelazny “Walker March 18”)
He aspired to write poetry because he considered it to be the highest form of writing. And so when those 150+ rejection slips for his prose frustrated him at the end of high school, he switched to poetry. During 1956 through 1961 he wrote “nothing but poetry—incredible amounts of it, mostly bad, but improving somewhat as time went on” (Lindskold). And he had some successes, including that he won the Finley Foster Poetry Prize twice, for “Southern Cross” in 1957 and “Decade Plus One of Roses” in 1959. Noted poet H. Collister Hutchinson praised “Decade” and wrote “the author might amount to something as a writer one day if he applied himself” (R. Zelazny When Pussywillows Last in the Catyard Bloomed). Another poem and a short story were published in the 1958 issue of Skyline, a literary publication of Western Reserve University.
These efforts culminated in the 1961 manuscript Chisel in the Sky, a collection of more than 60 poems. He submitted it to the Yale Younger Poets Competition. Zelazny expected to win but didn’t, and this was the fatal blow to his poetic aspirations. His return to writing science fiction during the fall and winter of 1961–62 was sparked by his decision that he had failed as a poet. Moreover, he had soberly realized that he didn’t want the life of a starving poet:
Only Robert Frost and Carl Sandburg were making their livings writing poetry whereas numerous other authors were doing well under muses less comely. The writing was there on the washroom wall. (Lindskold)
He later described himself as “a disgruntled poet” for his failure to succeed in his preferred medium: “I had to strike a balance between the commercial and the artistic—that is why I settled on sf—but I wish I were a poet. Yes” (Westblom). And yet he never abandoned poetry, for its influence remained evident in his writing. His allusions, metaphors, and the rhythm in his word choices prompted many fans, colleagues, and critics to describe him as a “prose poet.” He also used several poems from Chisel in the Sky in his stories. [Publishing note: I received a copy of the Chisel in the Sky manuscript from Zelazny’s longtime friend Carl Yoke, and that enabled all of the poems to be published in the six-volume The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny (NESFA Press, 2009).]
And so what is the resemblance between Gallinger and Zelazny?
Gallinger is a successful poet renowned on Earth and now Mars, whereas Zelazny failed to become a professional poet. Gallinger is arrogant, prideful, intolerant of others, and has no friends (he rejects the love of colleague Betty because she is blonde, a reminder of Laura).
That’s the reason everyone is jealous—why they hate me. I always come through, and I can come through better than anyone else.
My perfect accent.... I’m all hell when it comes to picking up accents.
I was the Schliemann at this Troy, and there would be only one name on the Association report!
“You are undoubtably the most antagonistic bastard I’ve ever had to work with!” he bellowed, like a belly-stung buffalo. “Why the hell don’t you act like a human being sometime and surprise everybody?
“The man is as proud as Lucifer, and he’s a walking insult machine.”
He fulfills his “galling” surname by being irritating and exasperating to all others on the expedition. Gallinger’s weary self-deprecation at the end—“I’m not a holy man ... just a second-rate poet with a bad case of hybris”—doesn’t quite ring true given what we know about his resounding successes. In contrast, Zelazny was always described and demonstrated himself to be shy, self-deprecating, kind, friendly, relaxed, to have a wicked sense of humor and an appreciation for practical jokes and puns. Gallinger’s mother died in childbirth, leaving him to be raised by his fundamentalist, pulpit-preaching, over-zealous, and demanding “Voice of God” father, while Zelazny was raised in a traditional family as the only child of two Catholic parents. Gallinger suffered under an overbearing and indifferent father whereas by all accounts Zelazny had a good and close relationship with his parents. Gallinger’s father died suddenly, leaving him self-conscious about the absent father figure who never knew of his son’s successes and probably wouldn’t have approved of them, but Zelazny’s father was alive and in apparent good health at the time that this story was written and published (he did die unexpectedly from a heart attack on November 25, 1964). Gallinger attempted suicide but Zelazny did not —although he did have a fascination with contrasting themes of immortality and suicide in his writing.
All of these things suggest that Gallinger and Zelazny are opposites, but there are some ways in which Gallinger resembles Zelazny. They are both poets and smoke a lot. Gallinger admires William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, Hart Crane, and Wallace Stevens, and these are the same poets whose work Zelazny admired. They both trained in martial arts and used Shakespearean allusions. And as a clue toward a more personal level of meaning, they both spent crucial formative years in Greenwich Village. It is in Greenwich Village that Gallinger reinvents himself after his father’s death and studies Japanese, Hindi, and Buddhism; he later builds on these experiences when he writes his seminal Pipes of Krishna. During Zelazny’s time at Columbia and in Greenwich Village, he studied religions and myths and wrote Chisel in the Sky.
Overall Gallinger seems to be Zelazny’s mirror version, his opposite, enormously successful but brought down by his arrogance and inability to relate to his own people. His successes at poetry might represent the ideal that Zelazny aspired to and never achieved. Zelazny’s claim that Gallinger is him and that he hated him seems incompletely explained if Gallinger is simply his opposite or doppelgänger.
Level Three: a metaphor of his relationship with Hedy West
Additional insight into the Gallinger=Zelazny question came while I was researching the biography “...And Call Me Roger”: The Literary Life of Roger Zelazny, which was published in the six-volume The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny. During that time I exchanged correspondence with many of Zelazny’s friends and colleagues, including several with Carl Yoke.
Yoke told me about Zelazny’s romance with Hedy West. She was a folksinger who would become best known for composing the song “500 Miles”—later covered by The Kingston Trio; Peter, Paul and Mary; and The Highwaymen. Zelazny met her during his time at Columbia, when he spent a lot of time frequenting the clubs and coffeehouses of Greenwich Village, and listening to folk music. She was studying drama at Columbia and also performed in Greenwich Village and the “coffee house circuit.” They fell in love and were engaged for about six months. Zelazny brought her to Euclid to meet his parents. She performed a concert in the living room of Yoke’s parents in Willoughby Hills. In 1961 she gained more attention after appearances in a supporting role for Pete Seeger on a hootenanny bill at Carnegie Hall, and in May at the Indian Neck Folk Festival where Bob Dylan performed. She signed a contract with Vanguard Records and recorded her first album New Folks that same year.
Until Yoke told me about Hedy West, there had been no mention of her in any of the prior Zelazny biographies; conversely, there had been no mention of Zelazny in the very limited biographical information available about Hedy West (Wikipedia has since absorbed partially correct information from the biography that I wrote). Zelazny evidently chose not to discuss this part of his personal history. But Yoke reaffirmed that this had been a very serious relationship with a long engagement to be married. Trent Zelazny also confirmed to me by e-mail that his father had told him about his engagement to the folk singer.
But Zelazny and West had had a stormy break-up by the fall of 1961. Yoke told me that Josephine Zelazny didn’t approve of the relationship because she considered West to be “too fast” for her son, and he believed that pressure from Zelazny’s mother caused the relationship to end.
It was in the aftermath of their relationship ending that Zelazny wrote “A Rose for Ecclesiastes.” With these biographical details in mind, it seems inescapable that the relationship between Zelazny and West informed
the relationship between Gallinger and Braxa. Intense, fast, not approved of by others, and ending suddenly, unexpectedly, and in turmoil. In this sense Gallinger is Zelazny, who through his own arrogance and interpersonal problems contributes to the relationship ending. This may be why Zelazny hated the character. The writing of “A Rose for Ecclesiastes” may have been a catharsis through which Zelazny expressed his anguish and regret. The strong metaphors and tone likely reflect his emotional state at the time. So too his reluctance to submit the manuscript anywhere may have been because the story was too raw and personal.
But still, the parallels between Gallinger and Zelazny don’t quite seem complete, especially when additional comments from Zelazny are now considered in context.
Level Four: The unborn child
What I withheld from “... And Call Me Roger” was that Zelazny told Yoke why he broke up with Hedy West. She had become pregnant but had an abortion, and he was very upset about this. And so their engagement and relationship ended. Yoke wondered whether what Zelazny told him was completely true—Yoke said that Zelazny often told him what he referred to as “compassionate lies”—and so Yoke never knew for certain. He had lost contact with West and asked me to find her so that he could finally ask her himself, but she had died in 2005.
If what Zelazny told Yoke was true, what evidence is there that it informed the story of “A Rose for Ecclesiastes”?
After Gallinger’s triumph in the temple, in which he convinces the Martians to reject cultural suicide and embrace change and the fertility of Earthmen, the matriarch M’Cwyie reveals that his child with Braxa was supposed to have been aborted: “I voted not to carry out our original plan, and to let Braxa’s child live instead.”
Now seemingly cryptic comments from Zelazny may make sense. Earlier I cited Zelazny’s partial statement that Gallinger was Zelazny and that he hated him as a result. This is the full quote in which he explained it:
You ask me why I hated Gallinger so in “A Rose for Ecclesiastes.” The answer is that I hated him because he was me. Once in my life I let a beautiful thing die, and now it can never be. Details are not important, in that they would add nothing. The story says what it must and stands or falls on its own merits. But you’re right in your observation that it’s a sad story, despite the fact that you felt crushed and even cheated. Life is full of these things, and one of them motivated this tale. I didn’t want it to end that way, but it had to, because he was me. I felt pain along with him. He was a better linguist than I, and a better poet. He was a very good, misunderstood man. There is a sequel to the story which I will never write, where he goes back to Mars some years later. It is much sadder, believe me, and he doesn’t deserve to be put through those paces. He’s suffered enough. But sometimes things happen this way, and all that you can say is, “Look. This is the way things are.” That’s all. (R. Zelazny “Re: A Rose for Ecclesiastes”)
The phrase “once in my life I let a beautiful thing die, and now it can never be” and “life is full of these things, and one of them motivated this tale” may refer to the abortion. Admittedly, Zelazny could have been referring simply to his relationship with Hedy West or even to something else altogether. However, the timing of writing the story after the break-up, his declaration to Yoke that the relationship ended because of the abortion, his remarks that personal events inspired this story, and that the character of Gallinger was Zelazny, all seem consistent and congruent with this point.
And so “A Rose for Ecclesiastes” may be understood more completely as both reflection and refraction of Zelazny’s relationship with Hedy West. Gallinger falls in love with Braxa, she does not love him, but as a result of his efforts the child that they conceived together will be allowed to live. Zelazny falls in love with Hedy West, she loves him and they are engaged, but she aborts the child that they conceived together. The relationships end badly for both Gallinger-Braxa and Zelazny-West. In this sense “A Rose for Ecclesiastes” not only vents Zelazny’s anguish but may present his wish-fulfilling fantasy that their unborn child could have lived.
Modern-day readers may shrug off the potential significance of a fiancée’s abortion in Zelazny’s personal life and psyche. But this was the early 1960s when abortions were illegal, frowned upon, and difficult to obtain. Having an abortion could have been a lonely and dangerous back-alley or out-of-country experience. Zelazny’s small-town, Catholic upbringing and his parents being very much involved in his life may have magnified his difficulties in dealing with the situation. West’s musical career was burgeoning in 1961, and she may not have wanted to be burdened by a child, at least at that stage of her life.
Conclusions
It may be ironic that this reluctantly submitted novelette and novice work became one of Zelazny’s best known, beloved, and critically acclaimed pieces. It was the first prose piece that he wrote after his experiences in college, university, and Greenwich Village of the early 1960s. It appears that this emotionally charged and memorable novelette was inspired by the circumstances and anguish that prompted Zelazny’s breakup with Hedy West. Writing it may have represented a catharsis for him; he didn’t write another story until February 1962. And when he did resume, he wrote dozens of shorter and lesser works that no editor would buy until he broke through with “Passion Play.” Arguably none of his subsequent work achieved the emotional charge that characterized “A Rose for Ecclesiastes.”
In the end, what a story means is up to the reader and not the writer, in the same way that it doesn’t really matter what a visual artist intended with a painting. For many people, though, the details of what motivated the writer can add a deeper level of meaning, understanding, and appreciation of that work. And in so doing the apparent turmoil in Zelazny’s personal life may have contributed to the rich prose and pathos of his seminal “A Rose for Ecclesiastes.”
Christopher Kovacs toils in St. John’s but lives in Paradise, Newfoundland.
Works Cited
Apel, D. Scott, and Kevin C. Briggs. “Roger Zelazny.” Approaching Science Fiction Writers. Edited by Apel, D. Scott and Kevin C. Briggs. Privately bound thesis, 1980.
Brady, John. Writing Science Fiction: Roger Zelazny. Writer’s Voice #74A-14B (1973).
Conner, Bill. “Zelazny at Marcon ’72.” Cozine. 3 (March 30, 1972).
Davidson, Avram. “Letter to Roger Zelazny” July 7, 1962.
Kelly, Patrick. “How About This? Roger Zelazny.” Phantasmicom 2 (Winter 1970).
Krulik, Theodore. Roger Zelazny. New York: Ungar Publishing, 1986.
Lindskold, Jane M. Roger Zelazny. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1993.
Noël, Patrick. “Rencontre avec Roger Zelazny.” Galaxie. 96 (Mai 1972).
Sturgeon, Theodore. “Introduction.” Four for Tomorrow by . Roger Zelazny. New York: Ace, 1967.
Thompson, W.B. “Interview: Roger Zelazny.” Future Life 25 (March 1981).
Westblom, Ulf. “An Interview with Roger Zelazny.” Mentat 11 (May 1969).
Yoke, Carl B. “Email to Dr. Christopher Kovacs. ” October 27, 2007.
Zelazny, Roger. “Annotation to ‘A Rose for Ecclesiastes.’” Amber Dreams. Edited by Daniel J. H. Levack. San Francisco: Underwood-Miller, 1983.
——. “Letter to Paul Walker.” March 10, 1972.
——. “Letter to Paul Walker. ” March 18, 1972.
——. “Re: A Rose for Ecclesiastes.” No-Eyed Monster 14 (Summer 1968).
——. When Pussywillows Last in the Catyard Bloomed. Melbourne, Australia: Norstrilia Press, 1980.
Zelazny, Trent. “Email to Dr. Christopher Kovacs.” January 11, 2008.
Patrick L. McGuire
The Most Accurate Space Movie Before Destination Moon
In 1936—seven years after 1929’s Die Frau im Mond and fourteen years before 1950’s Destination Moon—the Soviet studio Mosfilm brought forth its own depiction of a first lunar voyage, Kosmicheskiy reys. (The most common English translation of the title seems to be Cosmic Voyage, but Claude Mettavan
t has identified seven other English renderings in use. I might myself have proposed Journey into Space, but it is a little late now to be adding still more alternative English titles.) Die Frau im Mond had enlisted rocketry pioneers Hermann Oberth and Willy Ley as science advisers. Destination Moon once again used Oberth and also drew on the technical expertise of co-scriptwriter, Robert Heinlein. On paper, Kosmicheskiy reys would seem to have equaled or surpassed the others by bringing in Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, but in fact, as I explain below, the Russian pioneer’s actual participation in the film was small. Despite this, the Soviet film turned out to be at least as realistic as Die Frau im Mond about the experience of space travel while presenting a picture of the Moon more nearly in keeping with the science of the day. It thus set a scientific standard unsurpassed until Destination Moon—and even in 1950 one could debate whether the unrealistically energetic chemical fuel posited in Kosmicheskiy reys had greater or lesser plausibility than the highly speculative nuclear drive used in the American film.
Kosmicheskiy reys may have come with an original music track (see below), but it has no spoken dialog, just a few, relatively brief, caption cards. The film depicts how, in the summer of 1946, the All-Union Institute for Interplanetary Travel attempts the first crewed Moon launch. The spaceship, Iosef Stalin, moves by unspecified means out from a hangar and starts down a long launching track before igniting its own engines. It is numbered ussr-1 (sssr-1 in Russian, which, in the Cyrillic of the film, looks like cccp-1). The ship is actually called a “rocket plane,” raketoplan. The first stage does not exactly have wings as we might expect from something called a plane, but it does have two large fins running its length—looking, if viewed from head-on, like clock hands at the 10- and 2-o’clock positions. Underneath, at 6 o’clock, is a long fin, presumably a horizontal stabilizer. (The launching track has a gap down the middle to make room for the bottom fin.) I have severe doubts about the aerodynamics of this spaceship design, but evidently the idea is that the canted fins will provide lift so that the rocket thrust does not need to support the entire weight of ship while it is in atmosphere. (If so, some nonobvious mechanism must prevent it from lifting off the launching track prematurely.) At the edge of space, where the sky is already black and the stars shine, the huge first stage drops away, leaving the much smaller second stage to continue on to the Moon. The second stage has very large fins or wings, possibly for use as landing struts and for gliding during reentry, since they seem to serve no purpose during launch.
Magazine - The New York Review of Science Fiction - 313 - 2014-09 Page 6