James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon, Julie Phillips
Dang, what an incredible read. Many years back, somewhere before 2008, I remember finding a hardback copy of the longish short story Houston, Houston, Do You Read by James Tiptree, Jr., at the NE Broadway Goodwill, and having it rewire what I felt about science fiction in general. I picked this biography of that author up a few years ago, and have felt guilty about not reading it every time I looked at it on the shelf. Having now finally read it, I now want everybody to read it, in particular me, years ago.
Among the things I liked most about this book:
- The incredible portrait of a life lived largely through correspondence
- Some of the self-descriptions, which really made me think and feel
There's a few things I find powerful about the idea of spending a lot of time reading and writing (sending and receiving) letters (a major minor interest of mine, particularly in the person of C. Wright Mills). One came to me while I was jogging and listening to Rebecca, around the same time I finished this: think about the endorphin hit simple pleasure of a single like on Twitter, or an interesting reaction on your post to the friend Slack or in your fandom Discord; now imagine the rush of returning home ... to a month's worth of letters.
Another is the perspective Tiptree / Sheldon takes on his / her life. There's an interest in that life, but also an enthusiasm for it, that I found very inspiring—the tone Tiptree / Sheldon takes in describing that life is so unlike the tone I ever take here, or elsewhere, usually, describing my Vim projects, or my running, or my drawing, or whatever... I have a sense that this kind of enthusiasm is something that could be—my first thought was "fabricated", or "manufactured" but why not simply say "created"?
Another interesting aspect of writing a lot of letters that comes out in this book is honesty. Here's a couple quotes that hit me hard on this front:
[328, from "On Reading Other People's Thoughts"], "I am a peculiarly transparent person—perhaps 'flat,' lacking some dimension.
[329], ... I am gloomy—perfectly natural. 'Man is in love and loves what vanishes.' I will die, I age. Unpleasant. Man is a member of a species whose triumph is built on the disappointment of the individual. The individual's doomed drives. WE are not descended from the satisfied. Ergo, I hurt. No mystery.
[329, from a letter to Joanna Russ] It's odd, at my nearly-60 age—I feel everybody else, I mean everybody who counts, has Been Through Experience, has lived, while I have only, what, fumbled through unsuccessful apprenticeship, got ready to begin to start, and stand eagerly upon the brink of figuring out How to Live—just as hook from shadows is snaking out to yank me off scene.
(I also have moments of believing I am transparent, something that did not jell. Everyone else seems to have so much density, self-organization. Personality. If asked who they are, they know. I asked myself that the other day—could I write an autobiography just for my own amusement, Ok, who you? And all that formed in my throat was, uh, well, I guess just the something peering out from this totally random manifestation. Something small peering out. [...])
Clearly I don't compare myself with Sheldon / Tiptree, a genuinely great writer, but still, this book made me look at myself, and the little I do, the little I have done, and it made me feel the lack. I don't labor under ambitions, but I do labor under illusions: that I have something to say; that I should say it. Wonderful book.
trans girl suicide museum, hannah baer
Interesting, occasionally irritating account—part memoir, part polemic, part struggle session, part war story, part theory, part part part etc. etc. etc.—of one woman's living as a very dressed, upper-middle-class, political, ketamine-happy person who's had sex, by the way...
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