I've found myself thinking about Harlan Ellison a lot lately. Really for the first time since his death on June 28, 2018. One of the things I was thinking about was the Pyramid Books' Harlan Ellison Uniform Series, which published eleven Ellison books from February 1975 to December 1976. Once upon a time I had all of them. Now I only have four. Some of the titles I have in other editions, but there are a couple which I no longer have at all: Memos From Purgatory and The Other Glass Teat.
And thinking about that made me want to have them all...preferably in the Pyramid Books Uniform Series, of course. But they're not cheap anymore, so I'll probably hold off. (Saw one listing online for the complete set at $100. Not a bad price, but more than I want to pay for books which I mostly already have.)
Thinking about it also made me wonder why Pyramid only put out eleven of Ellison's books. It's hard to say how many he had total, but it was way more than eleven. Around 50. So either the series had limited ambitions...or the books didn't sell as well as expected, and Pyramid shut that thing down.
Which made me think of White Wolf Publishing's Edgeworks series, which in 1996 had announced its intention to republish Ellison's works in twenty volumes, many / most of which volumes would contain two books. Well...four volumes (8 of Ellison's books) made it out before that project was shut down in late 1997.
So far as I know...and I have tried very hard to know...there has been no other effort to publish Harlan Ellison's Complete Works. Although for the past decade or so he and his literary heirs have been publishing collections of all of his earliest stories, so his Complete Works keeps on growing.
And it's gotten to be hard to find any Ellison book for a reasonable price, really. How is it that the writer who won 8 Hugo Awards, 4 Nebula Awards, 5 Bram Stoker Awards, 2 Edgar Awards, 2 World Fantasy Awards and 2 Georges Méliès fantasy film awards (etc. / https://nebulas.sfwa.org/grand-masters/harlan-ellison/ ) is now represented thusly
at Books-a-Million...and thusly
at Half-Price Books on Westport Road. (They have both hardback and paperback sections for science fiction, hence two Ellison-less pictures for Half-Price.)
As a matter of fact, in all my years of going to Half-Price Books, I have only seen two or three Ellison books...all of which I already owned.
ANYway...all of my thinking about Harlan Ellison made me want to read him again, and since Memos From Purgatory was one of the two Pyramid books I no longer owned...and since hoopla had a copy of it that I could read for free...I started with that.
It didn't take long for me to realize that this wasn't a very good book. And shortly after that I realized that it was actually a very bad book. In several ways.
For one thing, the book is so histrionic...so overwritten...that virtually every page made me cringe. For instance, Ellison compares the judge who ruled that against him (and ordered his bail set to $1,000) to Eichmann, then to Hitler. He then goes on to say, "This is the sickness of our times, and the men we put in positions of power, to rule us wisely and with an iron hand. The Judge, harassed, tired, overworked, filled with a deadly cynicism and callousness from years of seeing pleading faces before him, impatient and uncomfortable..." etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Here are the facts: Ellison was in possession of an unregistered weapon. The judge ruled that Ellison was guilty of possessing an unregistered weapon. End of facts. Ellison's defense: the gun was a prop he used for his lectures, and he had no intention of using it for illicit purposes.
Oh...Harlan also compares the New York prison where he is interred for a few hours (The Tombs) to Torquemada's inquisition chambers. And to Hell. And (of course) to Purgatory.
It's just non-stop hyperbole. And on top of that, Ellison is constantly striving to be cool. He hears a "fellow prisoner" refer to the prison guard as a "hack." He then goes on to use the word "hack" over a dozen times in the chapter. For fuck's sake. And he constantly bombards the reader with his version of "hip" talk. It's just sickening.
Also sickening are Ellison's many references to "fags"...along with condemnatory statements about their predatory behaviors and their sickness. And just to add that extra touch, there's even a reference to "nigger."
But even that's not the sickest shit. That's reserved for what Ellison does--or at least says that he does, since I'm not convinced of his veracity--in this novel. The first time it hit me really hard was in this passage:
But as bad as that is, it wasn't the only thing.
Ellison admits that he took part in several other crimes: breaking and entering, stealing firearms, and assault with a deadly weapon on at least two separate occasions...and implies that he was also either party to or onlooker as an old lady was pushed to the ground and other defenseless people were terrorized or physically harmed. He justifies his participation in these acts as necessary in order for him to write his book with complete honesty.
Well. Observing horrible things happen without intervening is certainly part of a reporter's life. A part which I've frequently wondered about. But I don't think Ellison's defense of "it's so I can write my book" falls into that same category. And it certainly doesn't justify his actually taking part in statutory rape, assault, and grand larceny.
When I started this book I was excited about re-connecting with this writer who meant so much to me when I was an angry and alienated young man. As I penetrated farther into it I was irritated by Ellison's constant (and pathetic) attempts to Be Cool, to Be Hip. And as I got farther into the book and read about his participation in actual crimes ...felonies...I didn't think I was going to be able to finish it. And I didn't know if I ever wanted to read another book by him.
Nevertheless, I persisted.
And I managed to push myself through to the end.
And became aware of another bit of posturing on Ellison's part--a minor one in some ways, but one which made me question his veracity once again. Here's the bit:
Ellison writes this as if it Is Happening Now...but clearly if he did not hear his name being called, he wouldn't have included the first two questions, right? It's just posturing.
So on the one hand, I'm kind of sick of Harlan Ellison now, and thinking that he was a part of my childhood which I need not return to. In fact, not returning to his books might be a good thing, because that way his image need deteriorate no further in my mind. On the other hand, I would like to wipe the taste of Memos From Purgatory from my mind, and the way to do that would be to read some more Ellison.
So now I'm thinking about The Other Glass Teat, which is also available via hoopla .
News as it happens.
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