Magazine article: Pipsqueak Prometheus: Some Remarks on the writings of L. Ron Hubbard (1948)

Pipsqueak Prometheus by Wil… by on Scribd

PIPSQUEAK PROMETHEUS

Some Remarks on the Writings of L. Ron Hubbard
By William Blackbeard1, ²

“De L’audace, de l’audace, et toujours de l’audace!” –Danton

1.
Steve Fisher, in a Writer’s Yearbook article, written several years ago, mentions, among other fixtures noted in the New York office of the editor of one of the less lurid pulps, a picture of L. Ron Hubbard in a pith helmet.” A member of the Explorer’s Club and one of the most prolific producers of pulp fiction sales today, Hubbard’s picture was probably as basic a furnishing in many an editorial sanctum as the reject box, and the pith helmet almost certain as integral a part of each as Hubbard’s hearty
dedication and flowing signature.

Nothing I have read in a fairly extensive survey of Hubbard’s science-fiction and fantasy writing made in preparation for the brief critical commentary to be made in these pages has led me to discard Hubbard’s pith helmet es a vital portion of my mental portrait of the author. As a matter of fact, especially as the material read approaches the present in point of publication, I am more and more presented, as I conceive of Hubbard in the abstract, with a grotesquely swollen pith helmet alone, a pith helmet which has enveloped the man.

I have purposely limited myself, as implied above, to Hubbard’s science-fiction and fantasy as a basis for these remarks, inasmuch as his writings in these allied fields, however prolific and repetitious, can alone in his work be considered sufficiently serious in intent to qualify as vehicles of genuine analytical value. Nothing else he has done in fiction is as apt to present as consistent and clear a pattern of Hubbard’s thinking, philosophy, conscious or subconscious attitudes. Ordinarily an author deserving of no more than an idle half hour of one’s spare time (I will exempt the really superior Fear from the general application this statement, as well as the opening chapters of Final Blackout, and no serious attention at all, Hubbard has assumed a certain notoriety and eminence in the not quite adjacent but mutually familiar worlds of science and science-fiction with the publication of his panacea universelle, Dianetics. I shall make little or no comment on that volume here; that is not the purpose of this article. Hubbard has guarded too well against frontal assaults on the text of Dianetics: He postulates the existence of engrams, unconscious memory retentions from painful occurrences in the pre-

2

natal stage and periods of unconsciousness as preceded by pain in the post-natal, which restrain and hamper the actions and reflections of the individual), in everyone, then ingeniously points out that anyone criticizing or attacking the conclusions reached in the book must have been led to do so by his engrams, thus closing, on the level of his theory, all refutation and most creative debate. Characteristically, however, Hubbard’s ego has led him to overlook his most obviously exposed flank–that of his personal standing as a creative artist and thinker. He has failed to consider that the status of his work in Dianetics might be challenged by an examination of his work in fields outside Dianetics, and, by analysis extended through that work, of the nature of his qualifications for serious work on any high creative or scientific level whatsoever. Conclusions derived from such a project and backed with sufficient evidence and example can hardly be termed engrammatic in origin–not, at least, successfully, inasmuch as nothing but accepted literary values, a little insight, and some known facts need be used as the basis for the analysis. It is just such an examination and analysis, short though it must necessarily be in this space, that I propose to make here.

Hubbard-Englehart-von Rachen-Lafayette’s first science fiction story, “The Dangerous Dimension,” was a short and appeared in Astounding Science Fiction” for July, 1938. Editor Campbell’s blurb for the story stated that “a name well known to adventure readers makes its first appearance in ASTOUNDING,” and it is plan that Campbell, casting about for the sort of writers who could “trim” stories to the”smoothness” he desired, thought that he had garnered one such in Hubbard. This initial work, brief though it is and hastily written, contains in seedling form nearly every point which I wish to make about Hubbard’s writing, points which later grew to become monstrously evident in most of his major fiction and sent clotting branches into nearly everything else he wrote.

These points are of primal import, in evaluating Hubbard as a thinker, a creator, and a researcher. Is a man, for example, who always thinks in terms of stereotyped images usually of much real value in any of these functions? Certain not. Yet it is precisely in such images that Hubbard thinks continually; they are clearly evidenced, in this initial science-fiction story, they never absent from a chapter, a page, and paragraph of his writings and this includes the writing in Dianetics. Hubbard’s literary talent, for the most part, consists in an extraordinarily facile ability to revamp infinitely a small number of stereotyped characters, plots, and settings which are basic to his imaginative processes; he has only rarely and very clumsily attempted to rise above this level of creation. In “The Dangerous Dimension” we find a brilliant, absent-minded, unimaginative, shy and unworldly scientist, Dr. Henry Mudge. With slight variations, Mudge becomes one of the two Hubbard hero stereotypes, who are found throughout the work to follow. Mudge is endowed with a miraculous power, the exercise of which whisks him about from place to place. Again, with variations, this becomes one of the two or three theme stereotypes in Hubbard’s science-fantasy. Mr. Mudge is taken care of by female housekeeper, Mrs. Doolin, who mothers him through the

3

institution of a rigid regimen which he affects to dislike but upon which he is really dependent; this, the mother image, one of Hubbard’s two basic female stereotypes, is introduced in this story, as in many others. The other female stereotype, that of the prostitute, enters this story briefly as the central figure in one of the more unique of the generally rather obvious locales to which Mudge wills himself: she is the woman on the houseboat in the Martian canal. At the conclusion of the story, a metamorphosis of the house-keeper-mother-stereotype into that of the prostitute is implied in the sudden fawning of Mrs. Doolin in the presence of the new, authoritative Mudge and her use of the term “dear” in addressing him.* The change in Mudge himself, of course, is complete; he evolves in the fairy-tale manner, from the basically decent, helpless “prince” kept by enchantment in a lowly state, where he must endure lashings every day, in e twinkling to a position of proud and respected authority. It is these two figures, at the antipodes of stock pulp fiction characterization, which dominate Hubbard’s science-fiction and fantasy writing. It is the meek, hubled, brow-beaten character who takes Hubbard’s sympathy; it is only his transition into the strong, dominating, self-sufficient individual, or his rescue by such an individual, which can save him from himself and his environment. Hubbard’s understanding and commiseration are reserved for the former stereotype; his respect and worship for the latter.

To analyze this matter of stereotypes further, since it is basic to our arriving at an understanding of Hubbard, we find that repeated standard procedures and methods of developing delineating ideas, which are themselves usually standard stereotypes, occur at all levels, of the creative process in his work. An outstanding example and one of significance in itself which we find in “The Dangerous Dimension” is the stock comic strip “socker” with which Hubbard verbally delineates the transition of Mudge from one locale to another. This is ridiculously but characteristically enough, the single word, “whup!” Mudge’s own terminology for this speedy switching of backgrounds, repeated only slightly less often in the story than “whup!” is “zip!” The use of similar “sockers” for like purposes occurs noticeably in “The Professor is a Thief,”** (in the terms “WHOOoosh,” and, conversly, “whooOOSH!”) and in “The Obsolete Weapon,” (in the word “BOWIE!”). These terms are significant inasmuch as repeated stereotypes they are indicative of Hubbard’s apparent conviction that all transitions or accomplishments of an essentially miraculous or wish-fulfilling nature are abrupt, swiftly executed, and absolute. The procedure by which Hubbard has his characters achieve a super-normal goal or transition in his stories is, as rule, swift and sudden; the achieved position or condition is nearly always irrevocable, unchangeable. It does become revocable only when, as in the case of Mike de Wolf’s immersion in Horace Hackett’s novel in Typewriter in the Sky, it is absolutely necessary to give the story a properly “happy” ending. Thus the initial impression we gain of a mind tending toward an almost

-oOo-

*It has been suggested by and acquaintance of mine that Hubbard may have dropped out to lunch between the first and second halves of “The Dangerous Dimension” and that the woman who was a housekeeper in the opening pages may have become, after a sandwich, milk, and some thoughts on a theme in Excalibur, Mudge’s wife in the closing sequences. A not unlikely thesis, by blue! WB

** A bibliography of Hubbard’s stories in Astounding and UNKNOWN is appended to this article. WB

4

rabid partiality for the fixed and definitively bounded conception through the recognition of the constant recurrence of stereotypes in Hubbard’s work is strengthened by the nature of certain of those stereotypes  themselves.

As a brief digression at this point, some consideration might profitably be devoted to anticipation of the most obvious defense, at least, which may be offered by Hubbard and, perhaps certain of his most ardent readers and devotees, in reply to the statements and inferences in this article. This, almost certainly, will be that Hubbard, frankly a voluminous and indefatigable producer of hack pulp fiction, takes little or no interest in the work by which he earns his bread and deliberately utilizes stereotypes as a method of simplifying his productive procedure. Hubbard himself has frequently derided his own fiction, including his major science-fiction and fantasy works, in private conversation, stating that he cares little or nothing for anything he writes for money and that the bulk of it is deliberately formula. That this is primarily a pose designed to escape criticism for failings which Hubbard may vaguely sense exist in even those stories to whose preparation and composition he has palpably directed the most conscious and careful effort of which he is capable, is, I feel, readily, if not concretely, demonstrable in those stories themselves. Certainly those of us who pretend to any artistic sensitivity at all are capable as a rule, I think, of divining in a work that excitement and pleasure communicated by the author, often unconsciously, when he has be[en] absorbed and fascinated by a theme and its delineation, just as we are capable of sensing the purely mechanical process of “creation” which produces the specifically hackneyed type of story which Hubbard claims to e his only production on the pulp fiction level. That many of his stories obviously bear the water-marks of this latter method of production is undeniable and obvious. Among these are the Unknown novel length fantasies, Slaves of Sleep, The Ghoul, Death’s Deputy, The Ultimate Adventure, The Indigestible Triton, and, despite the evident enjoyment Hubbard had in writing it, the clumsily-titled Case of the Friendly Corpse, the Astounding Science Fiction novels, The Tramp, General Swamp, C.I.C., and To The Stars, as well as many short stories in these and other magazines, notably the reprehensible “Doc Methuselah” series currently appearing in Astounding. That certain other stories clearly do not bear these watermarks, but rather present every sign of an attempt to produce an outstanding and lasting work, whose ideas had moved and inspired the author deeply, is equally evident. These stories are, in my opinion, specifically the Unknown novels Fear and Typewriter In The Sky and the Astounding novels Final Black-out and The End Is Not Yet. Yet the fact that these latter stories are constructed on much the same stereotyped characters and story lines as the specifically and clearly hack material underlines my basic contention at this point: that Hubbard’s thinking is inescapably bound to pre-conceived, unquestioned, and ironclad patterns, images and attitudes of thought, whether he is consciously aware of it or not. Thus the initial and basic objection which Hubbard is most likely to make to serious analysis of his pulp science and fantasy fiction is, I feel, not only not valid to the sensitive and thinking reader, but clearly indicative of a basic aspect of the Hubbard Character: inability to accept responsibility for an action or postulated thought

5

in which the author senses the possibility of an opening for a critical wedge. Rather than face a debate in which something he has produced may be attacked or analyzed disparagingly, Hubbard will attempt to sidestep the entire issue either by dismissing it as a thing beneath discussion: i.e., as in the case of his fiction, viewing it as nothing but contemptible trash in order to disarm criticism in advance; or, as in the case of Dianetics, establishing a simple postulated based on the totality of meaning implied by the sum all all the postulates advanced in the body of his idea so that the critic, in presenting negative commentary on any portion of the idea, proves himself erratic in direct ratio to the extent of his negative attitude: in short, anyone who does not see the light in this idea must be unable to do so because he is partially or wholly in the dark, and, from Hubbard’s carefully defended position, he seems hoisted by his own petard.

To return to the general course of the discussion, it should be stated, to further evolve the points in making, that Hubbard is not a good writer. That this is so is not a result of his deliberate pulp orientation, for there is a style of writing that is specifically of the major pulp producers of the past twenty years–in that of Norwell W. Page (Grant Stockbridge, William J. Makin, etc.) Raymond Chandler, Lester Dent (Kenneth Robeson), Frederick Faust (Max Brand, etc.), Cornell Woolrich (William Irish), E. Hoffman Price (Silaki Ali Hassan, etc.), and John D. MacDonald, to name a few. The work of all these writers is slick, swift and packs a punch. It is first-rate pulp. Hubbard’s, in contrast, is slovenly, ill-pace (meandering at one point and breaking into a halting gallop at another for no apparent reason), confused, and possesses a tendency to telegraph what little pu8nch it is able to develop. This is possibly due in part to Hubbard’s self-admittedly breakneck method of composition, as a result of which he is excelled by few in the swift and able production of saleable fiction; possibly is is also partly the result of undue influence upon his work of the styles of certain “classic” authors, notably Dickens, which brings about, particularly in his more serious science-fiction and fantasy, the frequent introduction of an uncertain style in his work, not quite “literary,” not quite pulp. In any case, a passage selected at random from Hubbard’s work (it is a pity that in the small space I have here that I cannot quote many more to illustrate specific points) will serve to emphasize my meaning. This paragraph is from The End Is Not Yet (Astounding, Oct. 1947, page 108. Try and grasp the meaning expressed here in the initial reading; I couldn’t, and have yet to find anyone who could.

“A few days later Martel was seated in the laboratory behind some large converted transformers doing some basic calculations for additional uses of the magnificent jinni he had discovered and, to some degree, bound to him with mathematical paths. The small desk was rickety and high, its top sloping toward him. The light over it was dim and an old quill scratched, in ancient style over problems well in advance of modern. So deep was he in his calculations that he did not immediately recognize the bustle and wrangle which was coming to him through his abstraction and then at last he looked up, peered through two enormous transformers and stared.”

6

(Continued from page 6)

This incomprehensible gibberish is typical of much that passes for writing in Hubbard’s work; there are worse passages (particularly in Dianetics but this was selected because of its ready availability (as the opening paragraph of the third part of The End Is Not Yet, its compactness and its illustration of Hubbard’s disconcerting mixing in his style of images and mannerisms derived from “classic” fiction with more mundane pulpisms. (In this case, as in much of The End Is Not Yet, Dickens is the chief influence; note the rickety desk and the quill pen, which have no logical place in the story, either as picturesque details or contrast of the atmosphere of the past with that of the highly modern laboratories and factory which serve as much of the novel’s background: Martel, in such an environment, would not use a quill pen or a rickety desk any more than he would work under a “dim light”) It is amusing, in passing, to note that the first sentence Hubbard had in print in a science-fiction or fantasy magazine (the opening paragraph italicized, in “The Dangerous Dimension”), contains a gross grammatical error. To conclude this point, however, it seems a reasonable assumption that Hubbard’s style of writing is clumsy, makeshift, and erratic because the author’s thought processes are likewise clumsy, makeshift and erratic. Uncertain of an idea, uncertain of a conception, sure only that if he pounds long enough at it and hard enough at it on his typewriter that it will shortly emerge in some form of reasonably toothsome malarkey he has never consistently had occasion to follow a thought to its ultimate and logical conclusions, to pick and worry an idea until it has yielded up its loveliest and most useful treasures, to discard the obvious and stereotyped aspect of a conception initially, as of little consequence, and begin and immediate delving beneath the surface of the apparent. Thus we have Friendly Corpse, To The Stars, and a hundred other quarter or two-fifths realized potboilers. Not thus, but by some reverse application of the procedures inferred above, some breaking through of the phlegmatic, impervious conditioned “creative” crust, some miraculous revelation of true potentialities, we  have “Fear“. But there has been only one Fear in Hubbard’s work; it was clearly a fluke, unlikely, it would seem to happen again. Perhaps it will be different with a “cleared” Hubbard; we shall see. But this article is about the essentially “uncleared” Hubbard, the Hubbard who wrote the great volume of pulp fiction reviewed for these remarks, the Hubbard who wrote Dianetics.

A few words now about these three or four works of fiction in which Hubbard felt an interest and creative pleasure considerably beyond that involved in the production of his average science-fiction or fantasy story. First, the really quite good Fear, the inexplicably, impossibly good Fear. I am not sure but that I may read more depth and sensitivity into Fear than actually exists there; the novel is perhaps little more than better than average weird fiction, complete with standard ghouls and ghosties–yet I feel that there is a novel that not only preceded the recent school of novels of psychological analysis,most popularly developed in such works as Charles Jackson’s The Lost Weekend, Carleton’s Brainstorm, and Mary Jane Webb’s The Snake Pit, but is better than any of them. It offers a picture of the insane mind that is genuinely chilling and completely convincing. It abounds in imaginative images of the most unusual and unfortunate

13

[for]gettable variety–no stereotypes here–and builds to a climax of true potency. The writing throughout is adequate and frequently more than adequate to the theme. I was more impressed by this [ ] than any other I read in the first two years of Unknown, with the exception of None But Lucifer, so that perhaps I am unduly biased in its favor; however, I feel that it is an outstanding work of its kind and perhaps the only piece of writing of Hubbard’s works that will survive him. Typewriter In The Sky, another Unknown novel, takes up an eternally delightful theme and works some really original variations on it. The writing is only so-so, and the plausibility of the characters, who are all stereotypes, nil. Yet there is a finding of good fund and high comic spirits in the novel which seems to work like yeast on the unleavened dough which seems to serve Hubbard with his usual plot material, and one frequently senses a mind aroused to curiosity and apt to make specific inquiries into the nature of things–as in the superb conclusion to Typewriter In The Sky, “Up There? God? Ina d dirty bathrobe?”–an aspect unusual in Hubbard’s fiction. Still, it is a minor work, and not of much serious significance. Final Blackout begins as a sketch, a vivid delineation of military life on the blackened fields of war, rising in the early chapters to a delineation of this type of life equaled only in [ ] novels as Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage and Henri Barbausse’s Le Feu, yet it bloats and fades in the middle and end into a pointless rambling Odyssey in which one man, the “Lieutenant,” plays God and invincible to the end, carves for himself out of the hulk of war-devastated England a throne upon which he may received from the entire populace of that country the same homage and worship he received from his men on the battlefields of Europe. This is not, of course the avowed purpose of the Lieutenant, but is subconsciously Hubbard and its emergence into the developing course of Final Blackout ruined the novel, logically and artistically. We can accept the invincibility of the Lieutenant–within limits–on the battlefield, where his survival after years of combat has clearly proven him a splendid and capable soldier, but that this invincibility can casually be transferred in application to the solution and downing of any obstacle is beyond our ability to take. It is Doc Savage, it is Superman, but it is not lasting literature. In The End Is Not Yet, a sloppy inherent novel, in which we find the French city of Biarritz, a major locale in the story, located on the Mediterranean (actually it is [in] the Bay of Biscay, halfway across southern France from the Cote d’Azur) and stock Frenchmen, Irishmen, Russians, etc., of the most stereotyped and prejudice-sustaining type, we meet the invincible [man] theme again, as we have met it directly and by inference in dozens upon dozens of Hubbard’s short stories and novels before. As pointed out earlier in these remarks, this individual is one of Hubbard’s [ ] principle hero-stereotypes, and the saying or goal of the other. [ ]character we discover in Charles Martel is basic to Hubbard’s imaginative creation–it is the man who dominates, who solves, heals, destroys evil and that unworthy of survival, bestows justice in judgment, gives noble quarter, is loved by a single good woman is attractive to all bad ones, and who receives the honor and worship and respect to which people–his people, whom he has protected and saved–instinctively and rightfully sense is his. It is the dream–Hubbard the ego-maniac’s vision idealized in fantasy. It is the basis of all Hubbard’s adult action and is his ultimate goal, however unachievable, it is […]likelihood and however unknown to his conscious mind.

14

It is this aspect of Hubbard in which we find our final understanding of his personality and character. I believe it is possible to postulate the source of this self-obsessed nature–not in engrams, certainly — in what has probably been his subconscious desire to create a work of genuine and lasting artistic or practical worth, for which he is subconsciously convinced he is incapable.

This desire and opposing conviction he does not dare reveal to himself in its naked actuality, so that he has has buried it and developed a thick protective sheathing against criticism (with which he might subconsciously and despairingly agree) and has sought to achieve his subconscious goal in various , usually abortive activities. This has led to his “exploring,” to his “studies” in hypnotism, to his postulation of Dianetic “therapy,” to his insufferable ego (see the introduction to the book edition of Final Blackout, for a prime example of this), to his “Major Hoople references to past achievements of a largely fictitious nature (see the article by Hubbard, written under a pseudonym, in Air Trails for April, 1949, in which he makes praising references to his considerable research work in the aeronautical field under discussion–which he most certainly never undertook in any extensive degree), and to each and all of those aspects of the Hubbard nature which have astounded, shocked, and puzzled his acquaintances–Hubbard probably is incapable of true friendship or love for anyone other than himself, excepting a sort of eager dependence, concealed in snobbish condescension, he probably feels toward those who see him in his own terms and treat him accordingly–for so many years. I believe that the final key to this understanding lies in Hubbard’s work, and it is by the various aspects of that work, as delineated clumsily and in succinctly in this too-brief article, that we arrive at an attitude toward the man and his likely abilities in any field calling for serious, concentrated, detached work. That Hubbard is capable of conceiving a good idea is not, of course, denied–but that he is capable of much worthwhile development of that idea, or that his statements pertaini8ng to results achieved in that development are trustworthy I do challenge–and do deny. Those of you who are reading Dianetics and practicing Dianetics “therapy” can take the ball from there.

-oOo-

NOTE: Four lines, overlooked in the haste of stenciling and mimeographing, originally intended for the bottom of page 3, are printed herewith:³

institution of a rigid regimen which he affects to dislike but upon which he is really dependent; this, the mother image, one of Hubbard’s two basic female stereotypes, is introduced in this story, as in many others. The other female stereotype, that of

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF HUBBARD’S WORK IN Astounding and Unknown Worlds

The Dangerous Dimension, July, 1938

The Tramp, serial, September, October, November, 1938

General Swamp, C.I.C., August, September, 1939 (Fred. Englehardt) (isfdb)

This Ship Hills, November, 1939 (Frederick Englehardt)

The Professor Has A Thief, February, 1940

Final Blackout, serial, April⁴, May, June, 1940⁵

The Kurt von Rachan series: The Idealist, July, 1940; The Kilkenny Cats, September, 1940; The Traitor, June 1941 [Note: The Traitor was published in January 1941]; The Mutineers, April, 1941; ⁶ The Rebels, February, 1942⁷.

One Was Stubborn, November, 1940 (Rene LaFayette)

The Invaders, January, 1942⁸

Strain, April, 1942⁹

The Slaver, June, 1942¹⁰

Space Can, July, 1942

The Beast, October, 1942

The End Is Not Yet, August, September, October, 1947; serial

The Ole Doc Methuselah series: Ole Doc Methuselah, October, 1947; The Expensive Slaves, November, 1947; Her Majesty’s Abberation, March, 1948; The Great Air Monopoly, September, 1948; Plague!, April, 1949; A Sound Investment, June, 1949; Ole Mother Methuselah, January, 1950.

The Obsolete Weapon, May, 1948

The Conroy Diary, May, 1949

A Matter Of Matter, August, 1949

The Automagic Horse, October, 1949

A Can of Vacuum, December, 1949

To The Stars: serial, February, March, 1950

Greed, April, 1950

Dianetics: The Evolution Of A Science, May, 1950

All the above are from Astounding SCIENCE FICTION; below, UNKNOWN:

The Ultimate Adventure, novel, April, 1939¹¹

Danger In The Dark, May, 1939¹²

Slaves Of Sleep, novel, July, 1939¹³

The Ghoul, novel, August, 1939¹⁴

Death’s Deputy, novel, February, 1940¹⁵

The Indigestible Triton, (Rene LaFayette) April, 1940; novel¹⁶

Fear, novel, July, 1940¹⁷

The Devil’s Rescue, October, 1940¹⁸

Typewriter In The Sky, serial, November, December, 1940¹⁹

The Crossroads, January, 1941 ²⁰

The Case of the Friendly Corpse, August, 1941; novel²¹

Borrowed Glory, October, 1941²²

The Room, April, 1942²³

(Note: It has been conjectured that W. MacFarlane, who wrote How Can You Lose? (January, ’49) and To Watch The Watchers (June, ’49) is a pseudonym of LRH, but conclusive evidence is lacking. AJC)

 

Notes