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Jeffty Is Five
Die schönste Zeit des Lebens
Erinnern Sie sich noch daran, wie es war, als Sie fünf Jahre alt waren? Im Radio liefen noch richtige Programme, nicht ständig dieses Gedudel, das einem in den Ohren wehtut. Süßigkeiten waren noch billig und aus richtiger Schokolade, die Comics noch mit viel Liebe zum Detail gezeichnet und die Filme viel spannender. Wünschen Sie sich nicht manchmal, wieder in diese Zeit zurückkehren zu können, in der die ganze Welt noch groß und bunt und aufregend war? Jeffty ist fünf und spielt gerne mit seinem Freund Donny. Doch während Donny älter wird, eine Ausbildung macht und sein eigenes Geschäft eröffnet, bleibt Jeffty fünf Jahre alt. Mehr Er scheint in seiner eigenen Zeit zu leben, in der die alten Radiosendungen und Filme immer weiterlaufen … Die Kurzgeschichte „Jeffty ist fünf“ erscheint als exklusives E-Book Only bei Heyne und ist zusammen mit weiteren Stories von Harlan Ellison auch in dem Sammelband „Ich muss schreien und habe keinen Mund“ enthalten. Sie umfasst ca. 31 Buchseiten.
Erinnern Sie sich noch daran, wie es war, als Sie fünf Jahre alt waren? Im Radio liefen noch richtige Programme, nicht ständig dieses Gedudel, das einem in den Ohren wehtut. Süßigkeiten waren noch billig und aus richtiger Schokolade, die Comics noch mit viel Liebe zum Detail gezeichnet und die Filme viel spannender. Wünschen Sie sich nicht manchmal, wieder in diese Zeit zurückkehren zu können, in der die ganze Welt noch groß und bunt und aufregend war? Jeffty ist fünf und spielt gerne mit seinem Freund Donny. Doch während Donny älter wird, eine Ausbildung macht und sein eigenes Geschäft eröffnet, bleibt Jeffty fünf Jahre alt. Mehr Er scheint in seiner eigenen Zeit zu leben, in der die alten Radiosendungen und Filme immer weiterlaufen … Die Kurzgeschichte „Jeffty ist fünf“ erscheint als exklusives E-Book Only bei Heyne und ist zusammen mit weiteren Stories von Harlan Ellison auch in dem Sammelband „Ich muss schreien und habe keinen Mund“ enthalten. Sie umfasst ca. 31 Buchseiten.
16 pages, Unknown Binding
First published January 1, 1977
3 people are currently reading
262 people want to read
About the author
Harlan Ellison
1,080 books2,801 followersHarlan Jay Ellison (1934-2018) was a prolific American writer of short stories, novellas, teleplays, essays, and criticism.
His literary and television work has received many awards. He wrote for the original series of both The Outer Limits and Star Trek as well as The Alfred Hitchcock Hour; edited the multiple-award-winning short story anthology series Dangerous Visions; and served as creative consultant/writer to the science fiction TV series The New Twilight Zone and Babylon 5.
Several of his short fiction pieces have been made into movies, such as the classic "The Boy and His Dog".
His literary and television work has received many awards. He wrote for the original series of both The Outer Limits and Star Trek as well as The Alfred Hitchcock Hour; edited the multiple-award-winning short story anthology series Dangerous Visions; and served as creative consultant/writer to the science fiction TV series The New Twilight Zone and Babylon 5.
Several of his short fiction pieces have been made into movies, such as the classic "The Boy and His Dog".
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 42 reviews
October 13, 2020
The start was a bit boring.
Then it just exploded.
Until the climax.
And the end... pure horror.
Amazing.
I had the privilege of hearing it read by Harlan Ellison himself.
Then it just exploded.
Until the climax.
And the end... pure horror.
Amazing.
I had the privilege of hearing it read by Harlan Ellison himself.
July 31, 2014
A reread - previously read in the 'Locus Awards' collection, as well as in 'The Very Best of F&SF'.
A classic, and impressively well-done. I actually disagree with the content of the story: I object to the nostalgia for 'good old days' that it rests on - but it doesn't matter. It's still incredibly moving.
Two boys are best friends. One of them grows up and does all the normal things a young man does. One of them stays five years old, both mentally and physically. They stay friends, even though their dynamic changes... and one realizes that his friend is quite literally tuned in to another time.
A classic, and impressively well-done. I actually disagree with the content of the story: I object to the nostalgia for 'good old days' that it rests on - but it doesn't matter. It's still incredibly moving.
Two boys are best friends. One of them grows up and does all the normal things a young man does. One of them stays five years old, both mentally and physically. They stay friends, even though their dynamic changes... and one realizes that his friend is quite literally tuned in to another time.
August 12, 2019
Jeffty is stuck permanently as a five year old. Odd enough, but it get's odder. Turns out that when he turns on the radio or goes to the movies he channels programs from the past, only they are new. The protagonist of the story is Jeffty's best friend from childhood. He laments that progress had created some good, but longs for the past, a past he experiences through Jeffty. Unfortunately, he realizes only too late that the present does not like the past. You can't cross the thin membrane. So, when he allows himself to be distracted by the modern adult impulse to sell television sets he exposes Jeffty to modern TV which throws him off kelter. When he gets beat up his mother who wishes he had been stillborn takes him upstairs to clean him up. There is tragedy as the radio is now playing modern rock music, but no explanation. Did he die? Did his mother kill him? Did he grow up?
Neat idea here is that "the present begrudges the existence of the past....the Present lies in wait for What-Was, waiting for it to become Now-This-Moment so it can shred it with its merciless jaws."
Ellison found five to be a time of magic. "Five is a wonderful time of life for a little kid... or it can be, if the child is relatively free of the monstrous beastliness other children indulge in. It is a time when the eyes are wide open and the patterns are not yet set; a time when one has not yet been hammered into accepting everything as immutable and hopeless; a time when the hands can not do enough, the mind can not learn enough, the world is infinite and colorful and filled with mysteries. Five is a special time before they take the questing, unquenchable, quixotic soul of the young dreamer and thrust it into dreary schoolroom boxes. A time before they take the trembling hands that want to hold everything, touch everything, figure everything out, and make them lie still on desktops. A time before people begin saying "act your age" and "grow up" or "you’re behaving like a baby." It is a time when a child who acts adolescent is still cute and responsive and everyone’s pet. A time of delight, of wonder, of innocence."
I find myself quoting Ellison because he had a fascinating narrative voice.
Neat idea here is that "the present begrudges the existence of the past....the Present lies in wait for What-Was, waiting for it to become Now-This-Moment so it can shred it with its merciless jaws."
Ellison found five to be a time of magic. "Five is a wonderful time of life for a little kid... or it can be, if the child is relatively free of the monstrous beastliness other children indulge in. It is a time when the eyes are wide open and the patterns are not yet set; a time when one has not yet been hammered into accepting everything as immutable and hopeless; a time when the hands can not do enough, the mind can not learn enough, the world is infinite and colorful and filled with mysteries. Five is a special time before they take the questing, unquenchable, quixotic soul of the young dreamer and thrust it into dreary schoolroom boxes. A time before they take the trembling hands that want to hold everything, touch everything, figure everything out, and make them lie still on desktops. A time before people begin saying "act your age" and "grow up" or "you’re behaving like a baby." It is a time when a child who acts adolescent is still cute and responsive and everyone’s pet. A time of delight, of wonder, of innocence."
I find myself quoting Ellison because he had a fascinating narrative voice.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 11, 2018
Loved this creepy short story from Harlan Ellison. The present is the enemy of the past indeed.
June 10, 2024
this i got. not dense or confusing. simple, easy to understand. very ray bradbury-ish. long for a short story, but it breezed by with no issue.
maybe i will like ellison after all.
maybe i will like ellison after all.
April 3, 2025
The sci fi authors of this era (and perhaps some of the 20s as well), all have the same issue: they write so much about everything they know that they lead the reader into uncertainty and confusion, jumping from topic to topic, from different areas of knowledge. For this reason, the story structure is lacking and one may find oneself wondering among social and science related messages.
The beauty in this short story is that it shows us (pop?) culture of the given periods.
The story didn't satisfy me much tbh. It's just a story of metaphors about past-present-future.
The beauty in this short story is that it shows us (pop?) culture of the given periods.
The story didn't satisfy me much tbh. It's just a story of metaphors about past-present-future.
June 17, 2025
2.5 or 3 stars idk. It’s not bad but it was kind of boring? Still really interesting though and I get the whole metaphorical loss of childhood and innocence stuff. The ending was pretty good though, well written.
March 20, 2025
I don't really believe that this argues for the good olds, but my god, I admit I did cry when the main character cried as Jeffty showed him his Captain badge. I miss being so earnestly into something without feeling anxious wasting time not being 'productive'.
I do put on rose glasses when looking back at my childhood but I don't want to be like Jeffty's parents. And I do agree with the narrator, you can't blame the mother. Having nothing to look forward to is purgatory hell.
I do put on rose glasses when looking back at my childhood but I don't want to be like Jeffty's parents. And I do agree with the narrator, you can't blame the mother. Having nothing to look forward to is purgatory hell.
August 30, 2017
What an incredible story. A remarkable friendship. A sad ending. I feel sorry for Jeffty, but the world doesn't deserve him. He's such a genuine soul. At first, when I saw the title I thought this tale is like a reminiscent of Kaspar Hauser. But I was proved wrong. The story has much more depth in it that what it seems like. Harlan Ellison did a fantastic job!
October 11, 2020
https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3493524.html
Jeffty was the narrator's best friend as a child; but almost twenty years later, Jeffty is still five (like Oskar in The Tin Drum) and everyone else has grown up. However, Jeffty is still getting comics, hearing radio shows and even seeing films which are updates from the 1940s (the story is pretty clearly set in the early 1960s). His parents are in despair. One day Jeffty gets beaten up by older boys when he magicks their radio to only play the shows from his timeline, and his parents take the opportunity of his injuries to drown him in the bath, and the present day returns to their household. As stories go, it's much closer to horror than to science fiction; but the shock ending is told well, and perhaps this bit of talecraft, along with the community's affection for Ellison, helped the story over the line for the awards (and he was a Guest of Honor at the Worldcon).
Ellison was generally seen (not least by himself) as a firebrand radical leftie, but this is a very conservative story, unapologetically wishing for the old days:
“Things are better in a lot of ways. People don’t die from some of the old diseases any more. Cars go faster and get you there more quickly on better roads. Shirts are softer and silkier. We have paperback books even though they cost as much as a good hardcover used to. When I’m running short in the bank I can live off credit cards till things even out. But I still think we’ve lost a lot of good stuff. Did you know you can’t buy linoleum any more, only vinyl floor covering? There’s no such thing as oilcloth any more; you’ll never again smell that special, sweet smell from your grandmother’s kitchen. Furniture isn’t made to last thirty years or longer because they took a survey and found that young homemakers like to throw their furniture out and bring in all new, color-coded borax every seven years. Records don’t feel right; they’re not thick and solid like the old ones, they’re thin and you can bend them... that doesn’t seem right to me. Restaurants don’t serve cream in pitchers any more, just that artificial glop in little plastic tubs, and one is never enough to get coffee the right color. You can make a dent in a car fender with only a sneaker. Everywhere you go, all the towns look the same with Burger Kings and McDonald’s and 7-Elevens and Taco Bells and motels and shopping centers. Things may be better, but why do I keep thinking about the past?”
It's also striking that the story is clearly set before the Sixties really took off, but was published in the late Seventies; a gap between setting and writing that is almost the same as the gap between the narrator's childhood friendship with Jeffty and the main part of the story. I found it curiously backward-looking for an award-winner.
Jeffty was the narrator's best friend as a child; but almost twenty years later, Jeffty is still five (like Oskar in The Tin Drum) and everyone else has grown up. However, Jeffty is still getting comics, hearing radio shows and even seeing films which are updates from the 1940s (the story is pretty clearly set in the early 1960s). His parents are in despair. One day Jeffty gets beaten up by older boys when he magicks their radio to only play the shows from his timeline, and his parents take the opportunity of his injuries to drown him in the bath, and the present day returns to their household. As stories go, it's much closer to horror than to science fiction; but the shock ending is told well, and perhaps this bit of talecraft, along with the community's affection for Ellison, helped the story over the line for the awards (and he was a Guest of Honor at the Worldcon).
Ellison was generally seen (not least by himself) as a firebrand radical leftie, but this is a very conservative story, unapologetically wishing for the old days:
“Things are better in a lot of ways. People don’t die from some of the old diseases any more. Cars go faster and get you there more quickly on better roads. Shirts are softer and silkier. We have paperback books even though they cost as much as a good hardcover used to. When I’m running short in the bank I can live off credit cards till things even out. But I still think we’ve lost a lot of good stuff. Did you know you can’t buy linoleum any more, only vinyl floor covering? There’s no such thing as oilcloth any more; you’ll never again smell that special, sweet smell from your grandmother’s kitchen. Furniture isn’t made to last thirty years or longer because they took a survey and found that young homemakers like to throw their furniture out and bring in all new, color-coded borax every seven years. Records don’t feel right; they’re not thick and solid like the old ones, they’re thin and you can bend them... that doesn’t seem right to me. Restaurants don’t serve cream in pitchers any more, just that artificial glop in little plastic tubs, and one is never enough to get coffee the right color. You can make a dent in a car fender with only a sneaker. Everywhere you go, all the towns look the same with Burger Kings and McDonald’s and 7-Elevens and Taco Bells and motels and shopping centers. Things may be better, but why do I keep thinking about the past?”
It's also striking that the story is clearly set before the Sixties really took off, but was published in the late Seventies; a gap between setting and writing that is almost the same as the gap between the narrator's childhood friendship with Jeffty and the main part of the story. I found it curiously backward-looking for an award-winner.
December 17, 2024
Was listening to a podcast (geek's guide to the galaxy) where they discuss how great this story is, after such praise (apparently this was the greatest scifi short story according to some panel?), needed to read it.
Apparently I've already read it, had no memory of it, in Ellison's Shatterday short collection.
Again, totally underwhelmed.
A childhood friend for some reason is in his own bubble where he doesn't age and lives in a parallel universe where authors create art that has never existed in this dimension. Then he gets into the regular dimension where he is beaten up by little children and that's it. The end.
Nostalgia. Loss of innocence. Erm. Other themes? Man I do not get the praise of this story.
Apparently I've already read it, had no memory of it, in Ellison's Shatterday short collection.
Again, totally underwhelmed.
A childhood friend for some reason is in his own bubble where he doesn't age and lives in a parallel universe where authors create art that has never existed in this dimension. Then he gets into the regular dimension where he is beaten up by little children and that's it. The end.
Nostalgia. Loss of innocence. Erm. Other themes? Man I do not get the praise of this story.
March 24, 2020
Short story about Jeffty who never ages past the age of 5.
Beyond that Jeffty has the ability to manipulate the present so how bringing the past into now.
The story is told really well but it is ultimately a very sad story.
In some ways it reminds me of the short story by Ray Bradbury "The Veldt". It has a similar feeling. It short and was a fun read.
Beyond that Jeffty has the ability to manipulate the present so how bringing the past into now.
The story is told really well but it is ultimately a very sad story.
In some ways it reminds me of the short story by Ray Bradbury "The Veldt". It has a similar feeling. It short and was a fun read.
May 15, 2023
Słuchałem audiobook tego opowiadania i pomyslalem „damn ale dobry lektor to czyta” po czym okazało się ze to sam autor. Bardzo fajne opowiadanie, trochę myślałem ze pójdzie w „urrrrwa kiedyś to było” ale jednak twist jest zupełnie inny. Rozumiem totalnie zamysł i myśle ze potrzebujemy więcej takich utworów
July 2, 2025
The beginning was just so “Oh, US thing! I don’t get it” So it was somehow boring for me but the more I read, the more it involved me. Near the end, I thought the older friend had dug up the younger, and that’s why the latter’s parents hadn’t reacted. The younger was dead, that is why he did it aged.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 23, 2017
At one point voted the greatest science fiction short story ever (Locus) this wonderful exploration of nostalgia, the loss of the past by the onrush of the present, and the simultaneous gain and sorrow of the ever new is worth repeated reads and discussion. Ellison's finest.
March 27, 2020
Heard this read by Seth of The thinking Atheist’ extremely moving and thought provoking. I had expected one of the two protagonists to be dead/ haunting the other but it turned out more sci fi than than ( hence the 4 instead of5 stars)
February 2, 2021
This story is very cinematic, you can actually imagine the colour, looks and taste of the things that the characters talk about, it's the perfect example of 'we will not talk about it but we know something it's going on'.
October 21, 2025
Εξαιρετικό διήγημα επιστημονικής φαντασίας από έναν πολυβραβευμένο συγγραφέα του είδους. Κάπως αλληγορικό με κεντρική ιδέα την ωραιοποίηση και την νοσταλγία του παρελθόντος σε ένα σκοτεινό φόντο που έρχεται σε σύγκρουση με το σήμερα.
October 23, 2025
one of my most favorite of Ellison. the moment of realization that it wasn't Jeffty but him who couldn't move past the phase of his childhood and when Jeffty did change after getting hit, he couldn't accept that the only way for him to be five is gone and will never be the same again.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 22, 2018
Remarkable story. Nothing like I've ever read before.
July 23, 2018
Good.
June 9, 2019
Quick short story, well paced and a bit mysterious
April 2, 2020
I thought this was an excellent tale of friendship, love, and sadness.
December 17, 2021
A solid short work. The themes of the past vs the present are still thought provoking, but I just feel there is lost potential.
March 25, 2024
Some say this is a horror story, i think its rather sweet to be stuck in the past. It was entertaining more than amything else. The ending I found a bit lacking though.
May 3, 2024
Really quite moving. My favorite Ellison story.
November 24, 2024
I think his best story. I had to get the 1977 magazine it was first published in.
February 19, 2025
Heartbreaking on a second read
May 9, 2025
a metaphor for the past intersecting with the present. it's been on my TBR for ages - turns out some short stories are free online! thanks sketchy website.
August 17, 2025
destroy your life for a 30c mcdonalds soft serve…
Displaying 1 - 30 of 42 reviews