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Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Stanislaw Lem, RIP

I have seen this query regarding Lem's opinion of the movie versions of Solaris:

>> According to the Washington Post's obit he disliked them both. But
>> then, according to that obit he disliked a lot of things. It says
>> he was given an honorary membership in SFWA, but "he was soon
>> expelled after denigrating many members for writing 'pure
>> fantasy.'" Is that right? Expelled?

with this reply: http://www.sfwa.org/faq/lem.htm

I can add this:

The story is a bit longer than is given in the FAQ, but the FAQ is correct as far as it goes.

LEM was made an honorary member through George Zebrowski's efforts, and I think George told Lem that it was an "honor", although the bylaws were very clear that it was not. George told Poul Anderson that Lem couldn't join because of some kind of currency transfer laws. I succeeded Poul as President of SFWA so much of this happened in my term of office.

Shortly after being admitted to honorary membership, Lem published a letter in Forum inviting readers to send works to his Krakow publisher. Several did. Some of the works were published, rather quickly, including works by Phil Dick and Phil Farmer. No payment was ever offered, no contract was ever signed, and the two Phil's became very angry.

About then Lem did an interview with a German newspaper. A translation of the interview was published in Atlas, a magazine of news translations, and Ted Cogswell saw it. At this point no one but Cogswell knew the interview/article existed, but Cogswell fixed that by publishing the English translation in Forum. In it Lem said among other things that he had accepted his honorary membership in SFWA in hopes of reforming the organization from within, but soon found it was utterly hopeless, devoted to making money. Lem quoted Heinlein's remark that what we are after is Joe's beer money, and threw up his hands: "How can literature ever compete with beer?" American SF, according to Lem, was universally and without exception worthless.

The two Phils, who felt they had been ripped off by Lem since he had invited them to send works to his Krakow publisher and the publisher had then published the works without contract or payment, hit the roof. They threatened to resign, publicly, with furor and rancor and much publicity, because here was Lem not paying dues and having a membership while they had to pay and be ripped off and listen as Lem called their works worthless and without value.

andrew j. offutt was then Treasurer and thus Chairman of the Membership Committee, and he had the complaints from the two Phils, and reading the bylaws discovered that Lem was in fact eligible for Active Membership, and thus NOT ELIGIBLE for Honorary Membership. About then Tolkein, who had been honorary because he would not acknowledge the Wolheim ripoff edition of Lord of the Rings as an American publication, settled with Wolheim (through SFWA efforts; one of our triumphs) and negotiated for an authorized edition in the US and thus became eligible for Active Membership. He instantly joined, leaving Lem as the sole honorary member.

offutt ruled that Lem was eligible for Active Membership and need not submit any credentials or even an application to convert from Honorary Membership to Active; and Fred Pohl and others volunteered to pay Lem's dues. Fred personally asked Lem to accept Active Membership and close this matter. Lem refused, and told people he had been kicked out of SFWA because of his interview and his views of American SF.

Darko Suvin and other academics went wild, told Lem's version of the story in various literary publications, refused letters from me and from Fred Pohl telling what really happened, and for a while the "SFWA kicks out Lem" story went the rounds. It didn't help that both Phils were delighted and not very careful about details when they told the story of how offutt traded two Phils for one Stanislaw.

Michael Copabianco, who was President of SFWA long after this, has pointed out that to European academics being "thrown out of a writers' association" in a Communist country (which Poland then was) was a big deal and and in fact meant you could no longer publish in that country. Some European academics, unfamiliar with US practices, may have thought that the SFWA action kept Lem from being able to publish in the US; in fact, it was because he was published in the US that we was not eligible for honorary membership.

=============

Notes toward an essay on illegal immigration:

I should write about the immigration mess and the demonstrations, but it's a long and complex subject and needs considerable thought.

Note a few facts: illegal immigrants compete for the lowest level jobs and thus depress entry level wages by a lot; and while they pay sales taxes they also send a lot of money home, while consuming public resources on which they pay no income tax.

In other words, were they not here, to the extent that the work they do is now done legally and on the books, the money stays in the country; entry level wages rise; and perhaps more overweight middle class people would do some of their own gardening thus reducing in weight and becoming healthier and reducing the strain on medical care facilities.

Meanwhile illegals have caused the shutdown of many emergency rooms in Southern California and other border area hospitals by using the emergency rooms as a substitute for health insurance. This is a serious situation.

I once whimsically said we should offer a $2000 bounty on each illegal delivered to the authorities at the border. I am not sure that's whimsy.

And see below

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