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Maturity: Three stories
144 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1979
18 people want to read
About the author
Theodore Sturgeon
722 books770 followersTheodore Sturgeon (1918–1985) is considered one of the godfathers of contemporary science fiction and dark fantasy. The author of numerous acclaimed short stories and novels, among them the classics More Than Human, Venus Plus X, and To Marry Medusa, Sturgeon also wrote for television and holds among his credits two episodes of the original 1960s Star Trek series, for which he created the Vulcan mating ritual and the expression "Live long and prosper." He is also credited as the inspiration for Kurt Vonnegut's recurring fictional character Kilgore Trout.
Sturgeon is the recipient of the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, and the International Fantasy Award. In 2000, he was posthumously honored with a World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement.
Sturgeon is the recipient of the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, and the International Fantasy Award. In 2000, he was posthumously honored with a World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement.
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February 28, 2020
This is a limited edition collection of three stories by Theodore Sturgeon. It was put out by the Minnesota Science Fiction Society when Sturgeon was Guest of Honor at a local science fiction convention, Minicon 15. There is an opening page called "Editor's Notes" (which I believe should have been "Editors' Notes," since it is attributed to two people, Scott Imes and Stuart W. Wells III). This explains what the book was originally intended to be and why that didn't happen.
There is also a brief "Introduction" written by Sturgeon with comments about each of the three stories included.
The stories follow. The first one, originally intended to appear here in an expanded version that Sturgeon ultimately decided not to use, is "Maturity." Sturgeon's introduction explains that this first appeared in Astounding Science Fiction (in the February, 1947 issue), that he was "profoundly dissatisfied" with it, and rewrote it when it appeared in a collection of his stories. And he should have been dissatisfied; that first version starts very well and then falls apart. That earlier version, as well as the rewritten one, appears in The Complete Short Stories of Theodore Sturgeon, Volume IV: Thunder and Roses.
"Maturity" has three main characters. The central one is Robin English, a brilliant, sparkling manchild, unable to concentrate on any one thing for long. He writes, invents, paints and sculpts, plays a variety of musical instruments; but what could he do, what could he be, if he truly worked at something?
He has aroused the interest of two physicians. Margaretta Wendell, sometimes known as "Peg," is an endocrinologist, whose interest in Robin has become love.
The other physician is Mel Warfield, who has a plan to adjust Robin's glandular levels chemically. This will shrink his thymus and change him from a "static precocity" to maturity. Mel is in love with Peg.
Much of the story is concerned with what maturity is, for animals and for people. This material is fascinating, even when presented in a long, unbelievable conversation of strangers meeting in a bar, two of them being Robin and Peg. Traveling salesmen and showgirls simply don't normally act this way, I think, and certainly don't use terms like "ontogenetic peak." This conversation has nothing to do with the plot, but everything to do with the story as a whole.
There are quite wonderful things in the story. Robin begins as someone who almost compulsively makes puns, and many of them are really funny.
And, as with most of Sturgeon's stories, there is some lovely prose. The following long quote is Robin's answer when asked by Peg near the beginning of the story what he thinks of her:
"You're a taffy-puller."
"I'm a what?"
"A taffy-puller. They hypnotize me. Didn't you ever see one?
" I don't think so," she breathed. " But - "
" You see them on the boardwalk. Beautifully machined little rigs, all chrome-plated eccentrics and cams. There are two cranks set near each other so that the 'handle' of each passes the axle of the other. They stick a big mass of taffy on one `handle' and start the machine. Before that sticky, homogeneous mass has a chance to droop and drip off, the other crank has swung up and taken most of it. As the crank handles move away from each other the taffy is pulled out, and then as they move together again it loops and sags; and at the last possible moment the loop is shoved together. The taffy welds itself and is pulled apart again." Robin's eyes were shining and his voice was rapt. "Underneath the taffy is a stainless steel tray. There isn't a speck of taffy on it, not a drop, not a smidgen. You stand there, and you look at it, and you wait for that lump of guff to slap itself all over those roller bearings and burnished cam rods, but it never does. You wait for it to get tired of that fantastic juggling, and it never does. Sometimes gooey little bubbles get in the taffy and get carried around and squashed flat, and when they break they do it slowly, leaving little soft craters that take a long time to fill up; and they're being mauled around the way the bubbles were." He sighed. "There's almost too much contrast - that competent, beautiful machinist's dream handling - what? Taffy - no definition, no boundaries, no predictable tensile strength. I feel somehow as if there ought to be an intermediate stage somewhere. I'd feel better if the machine handled one of Dali's limp watches, and the watch handled the mud. But that doesn't matter. How I feel, I mean. The taffy gets pulled. You're a taffy-puller. You've never done a wasteful or incompetent thing in your life, no matter what you were working with."
You will not, I think, find a better, more evocative description of a machine working - or a better, more evocative metaphor.
[I found when I was copying this passage that there were differences in the versions in this book and in the one in Thunder and Roses. The Thunder and Roses one, which was the one I was copying, says "con rods" rather than "cam rods." I thought that might be a mistake so I checked with the version here; not only does this book have "cam rods," it also has an entire sentence not in the other book, the one about "juggling."]
The first version of this story, the one that appeared in Astounding, had Robin battling against a "Napoleon of crime" figure. The notes in Thunder and Roses quote two famous fellow-writers of Sturgeon's, Ray Bradbury and Robert Heinlein, as praising the first version in letters to Sturgeon, and another author, Clifford Simak, decrying the ending in another letter. I think that Simak was clearly right.
"In 1952," Sturgeon wrote later, "I became father of my firstborn son, and so I named him Robin, after the protagonist of this story."
And one more comment about this story; I have never understood the last sentence.
The next story, "Bulkhead," was first published in the March, 1955 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction, under the title "Who?" It is, unusually, told in the second person.
A space academy cadet is going on the "Long Haul," a lengthy space voyage that is a final test of the cadet's ability to cope with the problems of space travel. The cadet is in a space with a viewport. On one side is a bulkhead. On the other side of the bulkhead, the cadet has been told, is another passenger, whose identity the cadet has not been given. The two passengers can communicate but only the first can initiate a conversation; he must press a button to allow the other person to speak.
The cadet waits for a long time before pressing the button, trying to hold out with no companionship. When he finally presses it, the person responding is a fifteen year old boy, a kid with no space training. It isn't fair; the cadet has worked so hard to prepare, and they have matched him up with some crying schoolboy.
But gradually they become friends, and by the time that the ship returns to Earth, the cadet is hoping that when he next goes into space on a real mission, the kid can come with him.
And now comes the spoiler:
It is noteworthy that as late as 1955, Sturgeon did not consider that there might be female cadets.
The third and final story is "The Graveyard Reader" from an anthology of the same name edited by Groff Conklin in 1958. Conklin was one of the most important anthologists of the 1950s. He asked Sturgeon for a story for an anthology to be titled The Graveyard Reader. Sturgeon wrote a story with the same name as the anthology.
The narrator is a man whose wife had recently died. He had always felt that during her life much of her was hidden from him. He meets a man who tells him that it is possible to read graves - not gravestones, but the graves themselves - and thus learn everything about the deceased occupant of the grave. The man he meets teaches the widower how to read graves. Then the widower makes a surprising (and quite moving) decision.
Sturgeon follows the stories with a very brief commentary.
The rest of the book is an excellent bibliography of Sturgeon's fiction assembled by Dennis Lien and Jayne Sturgeon.
There are a few illustrations in the book by James R. Odbert. These include a very nice frontispiece portrait of Theodore Sturgeon. The cover artwork is by Rick Sternbach, the Artist Guest of Honor at Minicon 15; it illustrates the story "Maturity."
There were 750 copies printed of the book, 700 numbered and sold and 50 "reserved for presentation."
All of these stories are available elsewhere, but this book is a fine tribute to Theodore Sturgeon.
There is also a brief "Introduction" written by Sturgeon with comments about each of the three stories included.
The stories follow. The first one, originally intended to appear here in an expanded version that Sturgeon ultimately decided not to use, is "Maturity." Sturgeon's introduction explains that this first appeared in Astounding Science Fiction (in the February, 1947 issue), that he was "profoundly dissatisfied" with it, and rewrote it when it appeared in a collection of his stories. And he should have been dissatisfied; that first version starts very well and then falls apart. That earlier version, as well as the rewritten one, appears in The Complete Short Stories of Theodore Sturgeon, Volume IV: Thunder and Roses.
"Maturity" has three main characters. The central one is Robin English, a brilliant, sparkling manchild, unable to concentrate on any one thing for long. He writes, invents, paints and sculpts, plays a variety of musical instruments; but what could he do, what could he be, if he truly worked at something?
He has aroused the interest of two physicians. Margaretta Wendell, sometimes known as "Peg," is an endocrinologist, whose interest in Robin has become love.
The other physician is Mel Warfield, who has a plan to adjust Robin's glandular levels chemically. This will shrink his thymus and change him from a "static precocity" to maturity. Mel is in love with Peg.
Much of the story is concerned with what maturity is, for animals and for people. This material is fascinating, even when presented in a long, unbelievable conversation of strangers meeting in a bar, two of them being Robin and Peg. Traveling salesmen and showgirls simply don't normally act this way, I think, and certainly don't use terms like "ontogenetic peak." This conversation has nothing to do with the plot, but everything to do with the story as a whole.
There are quite wonderful things in the story. Robin begins as someone who almost compulsively makes puns, and many of them are really funny.
And, as with most of Sturgeon's stories, there is some lovely prose. The following long quote is Robin's answer when asked by Peg near the beginning of the story what he thinks of her:
"You're a taffy-puller."
"I'm a what?"
"A taffy-puller. They hypnotize me. Didn't you ever see one?
" I don't think so," she breathed. " But - "
" You see them on the boardwalk. Beautifully machined little rigs, all chrome-plated eccentrics and cams. There are two cranks set near each other so that the 'handle' of each passes the axle of the other. They stick a big mass of taffy on one `handle' and start the machine. Before that sticky, homogeneous mass has a chance to droop and drip off, the other crank has swung up and taken most of it. As the crank handles move away from each other the taffy is pulled out, and then as they move together again it loops and sags; and at the last possible moment the loop is shoved together. The taffy welds itself and is pulled apart again." Robin's eyes were shining and his voice was rapt. "Underneath the taffy is a stainless steel tray. There isn't a speck of taffy on it, not a drop, not a smidgen. You stand there, and you look at it, and you wait for that lump of guff to slap itself all over those roller bearings and burnished cam rods, but it never does. You wait for it to get tired of that fantastic juggling, and it never does. Sometimes gooey little bubbles get in the taffy and get carried around and squashed flat, and when they break they do it slowly, leaving little soft craters that take a long time to fill up; and they're being mauled around the way the bubbles were." He sighed. "There's almost too much contrast - that competent, beautiful machinist's dream handling - what? Taffy - no definition, no boundaries, no predictable tensile strength. I feel somehow as if there ought to be an intermediate stage somewhere. I'd feel better if the machine handled one of Dali's limp watches, and the watch handled the mud. But that doesn't matter. How I feel, I mean. The taffy gets pulled. You're a taffy-puller. You've never done a wasteful or incompetent thing in your life, no matter what you were working with."
You will not, I think, find a better, more evocative description of a machine working - or a better, more evocative metaphor.
[I found when I was copying this passage that there were differences in the versions in this book and in the one in Thunder and Roses. The Thunder and Roses one, which was the one I was copying, says "con rods" rather than "cam rods." I thought that might be a mistake so I checked with the version here; not only does this book have "cam rods," it also has an entire sentence not in the other book, the one about "juggling."]
The first version of this story, the one that appeared in Astounding, had Robin battling against a "Napoleon of crime" figure. The notes in Thunder and Roses quote two famous fellow-writers of Sturgeon's, Ray Bradbury and Robert Heinlein, as praising the first version in letters to Sturgeon, and another author, Clifford Simak, decrying the ending in another letter. I think that Simak was clearly right.
"In 1952," Sturgeon wrote later, "I became father of my firstborn son, and so I named him Robin, after the protagonist of this story."
And one more comment about this story; I have never understood the last sentence.
The next story, "Bulkhead," was first published in the March, 1955 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction, under the title "Who?" It is, unusually, told in the second person.
A space academy cadet is going on the "Long Haul," a lengthy space voyage that is a final test of the cadet's ability to cope with the problems of space travel. The cadet is in a space with a viewport. On one side is a bulkhead. On the other side of the bulkhead, the cadet has been told, is another passenger, whose identity the cadet has not been given. The two passengers can communicate but only the first can initiate a conversation; he must press a button to allow the other person to speak.
The cadet waits for a long time before pressing the button, trying to hold out with no companionship. When he finally presses it, the person responding is a fifteen year old boy, a kid with no space training. It isn't fair; the cadet has worked so hard to prepare, and they have matched him up with some crying schoolboy.
But gradually they become friends, and by the time that the ship returns to Earth, the cadet is hoping that when he next goes into space on a real mission, the kid can come with him.
And now comes the spoiler:
It is noteworthy that as late as 1955, Sturgeon did not consider that there might be female cadets.
The third and final story is "The Graveyard Reader" from an anthology of the same name edited by Groff Conklin in 1958. Conklin was one of the most important anthologists of the 1950s. He asked Sturgeon for a story for an anthology to be titled The Graveyard Reader. Sturgeon wrote a story with the same name as the anthology.
The narrator is a man whose wife had recently died. He had always felt that during her life much of her was hidden from him. He meets a man who tells him that it is possible to read graves - not gravestones, but the graves themselves - and thus learn everything about the deceased occupant of the grave. The man he meets teaches the widower how to read graves. Then the widower makes a surprising (and quite moving) decision.
Sturgeon follows the stories with a very brief commentary.
The rest of the book is an excellent bibliography of Sturgeon's fiction assembled by Dennis Lien and Jayne Sturgeon.
There are a few illustrations in the book by James R. Odbert. These include a very nice frontispiece portrait of Theodore Sturgeon. The cover artwork is by Rick Sternbach, the Artist Guest of Honor at Minicon 15; it illustrates the story "Maturity."
There were 750 copies printed of the book, 700 numbered and sold and 50 "reserved for presentation."
All of these stories are available elsewhere, but this book is a fine tribute to Theodore Sturgeon.
Displaying 1 of 1 review