Henry Wessells, Editor.
Cooper Wessells, Honorary Secretary.
All correspondence to:
TEMPORARY CULTURE
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Electronym: wessells@aol.com
Use this electronym for requests to be added to or dropped from the
mailing list. Back issues are archived at the Avram Davidson Website,
URL : http://www.avramdavidson.org
PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THE ORIGINATING ADDRESS
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THE UNTIMELY "NOVEMBER WHIMSY" ISSUE
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UNDINE, or a footnote to "The Mother-in-Law of Pearl"
(From the Archives)
In the papers of Avram Davidson there is a tear-sheet from the issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association for 21 July 1978 (pp. 236-237). It is a Special Communication, comprising a two-page article by Oscar Sugar, M.D., entitled "In Search of Ondine's Curse," and was sent to Davidson by his close friend and fellow science-fiction writer Alan Nourse.
"In Search of Ondine's Curse" describes the "origin of the eponym," which was first used in 1962 to describe the loss of automaticity of breathing. The term derives from German legend recorded by Paracelsus, who applied the name "undine" to the elemental spirit of water; other correspondences include "sylph" (air), "salamander" (fire), and "kobold" (earth). In its most basic form, the myth describes how a nobleman married an undine; despite her warnings he reviled her, so that she returned to the water-realm; when he later proved faithless to her, he was cursed with the inability to breath.
The modern form of this tale derives from the story Undine (1811) by Friedrich Heinrich Karl, Baron de la Motte Fouque, which was widely read and adapted throughout the nineteenth century. Sugar summarizes the principal events of the tale and notes that Edmund Gosse published an English translation in 1896. He also discusses a twentieth-century French dramatic adaptation, Ondine by Jean Giraudoux (1939), and several instances of the clinical syndrome, including instances where the reporting doctor provides unusual variants of the story.
The Gosse translation, which I have before me in the 1898 edition with the dual imprint of A.C. McClurg (Chicago) and Lawrence & Bullen (London), contains several notable passages. Undine describes her kind to the handsome knight Huldbrand as "having the semblance and the body of humanity -- but for one great disadvantage . . . we shall be what sand and smoke and winds and waves are made of. For no souls have we: it is the element that moves us . . ." (p. 141). Her father wishes her to gain a soul, which she may only do by marrying a human being.
After their marriage, she warns Huldbrand, "But don't ever be angry with me on a piece of water, or even when we are near any waters, for then my relations would regain auhtority over me. They would pitilessly snatch me from you . . . and for all the rest of my days I should have to live down there in the halls of crystal . . ." (p. 208). Nonetheless, he loses his temper and she disappears. Huldbrand remarries, but Undine reappears, rising on the waters of a reopened well, and "she kissd him with a heavenly kiss, but she released him not, she pressed him ever closer and closer to her, and wept as if whe would weep away her soul. . . . 'I have wept him to death!' she said to a servant . . ." (p. 277).
Readers of "The Mother-in-Law of Pearl" will recall that the stories is an intricate web constructed from the commerce in fresh-water molluscs, noble ancestry, faithless love, and medical science (in both its theoretical and practical aspects).
Across the head of the JAMA article, Davidson has written: "Sent me Sept. '78, 3 or 4 years after I'd written the Undine/Eszterhazy story: had I read this (or the others mentioned) first, I couldn't have written mine -- AD".
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Adventures in Unhistory at Auction
At the time of this writing, approximately two days remain before the end of an online auction of a pristine copy of the signed, limited edition of Adventures in Unhistory (Owlswick, 1993), one of 26 lettered copies. The existence of a lettered state has not previously been recorded, and may have been for presentation only (A signed, limited edition of 72 numbered copies was offered for sale in the spring of 1993). Even the trade state of this book is a genuinely scarce book in the experience of the editor of the District Mail (and confirmed by the steady flow of unfulfillable requests for the book).
The link is provided below (or search Avram Davidson at www.ebay.com) :
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2709181776&category=2229
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THE MECHANICS OF PLOTTING
(From the Archives, Again)
When one considers the charms and strengths of Avram Davidson's writings, topics such as the play of language, the display of arcane knowledge, the brilliance of his imagination, the artful digressive nature of his prose, are likely to be touched upon. Davidson's inventiveness in such domains is beyond dispute; certain other aspects of his writing, such as the plotting of novels, hold a lesser significance.
Reviewing The Phoenix and the Mirror, Joanna Russ observed : ". . . a book that drags in spite of its splendid exoticism and the solidity of its background. Perhaps the problem is in the plot. The book does not really have a plot, that is, an action in which self-motivated characters come into conflict with each other or something else through the pursuit of things they really want. What it has instead is an intrigue that never quite comes off (sometimes developments are too slow, sometimes too fast, often just arbitrary)."
I have before me a single sheet of paper, a photocopy of a teaching aid used by Davidson during some of his brushes with academe (as writer-in-residence or visiting temporary professor, etc., etc.). It is a list, an exercise that anyone who has ever taught a writing class might recognize :
1. Up on Cliff :______________________________
2. How Got There :______________________________
3. Off Cliff :______________________________
4. Adventure :______________________________
5. Complication :______________________________
6. New Stuff :______________________________
7. Old Stuff :______________________________
8. Revelation :______________________________
9. _Frustration_ :______________________________
10. Resolution (Hint of Future) :______________________________
This list may be a stray, borrowed from someone else, like many an effective writing exercise. I do not know. I have reprinted it because this list corresponds closely to the structure of at least one of Davidson's novels. Rork! is a novel in ten chapters, each with a tone that corresponds to the ten stages. I suspect that it may correspond to other novels from the middle 1960s.
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This issue of the District Mail arrives months later than initially intended; but it arrives. It might improperly be dated 39 November 2002, but to spare confusion among certain librarians and other literal-minded individuals, I use the commonly accepted calendar. There were a number of responses to the announcement of a delay in publishing, ranging from those who queried it as a mere dactylographic error to persons who clearly understood the editor's intent: "I am prepared to wait until at least the 31st February 2003" (hence please note that this issue appears tweny days early) and "And when is 36 November? It sounds like an anniversary in the Aztec calendar. Avram would have known for sure."
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PUBLICATIONS OF THE AVRAM DAVIDSON SOCIETY
The Last Wizard with A Letter of Explanation.
Publications of the Avram Davidson Society, number one.
Size: 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches, xii pages. Second printing, May 1999.
Single copies, $10.00 (postpaid).
El Vilvoy de las Islas.
Publications of the Avram Davidson Society, number two.
Size: 6 x 9 inches, viii + 32 pages. June 2000.
Issue of 100 copies in paper wrappers : single copies, $13.00 (postpaid).
To order, send a cheque in U.S. funds, payable to Henry Wessells, to :
P.O. Box 43072, Upper Montclair, NJ 07043-0072, USA
Orders by e-mail to wessells@aol.com will be held until payment is received.
Trade discount available.
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Next Issue Date : March 2003
The editor of The Nutmeg Point District Mail invites contributions on any
topic pertaining to the life and work of Avram Davidson.
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