"Philip Jose Farmer - 1952-1964" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farmer Phillip Jose)

Farmer proved them wrong with his first published work, тАЬThe Lovers,тАЭ which appeared in the August
1952 issue of Startling Stories. ItтАЩs gripping depiction of love and sex between a man and an alien
insectlike creature had a tremendous impact on the field, broadening what was тАЬacceptableтАЭ and opening
up the market for others to explore. Largely because of this single story, he was voted a Hugo Award for
1953 as New Writer of 1952.тАЬ It was the first of what to date constitutes a body of work totaling more
than forty novels and collections, characterized by originality, inventiveness, and a use of symbolism that
has yet to be equalled.

Philip Jose Farmer was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1918

but was raised in Peoria, Illinois, where he spent the bulk of his life. He enrolled at Bradley University in
1941 but had to drop out due to lack of funds. He later returned to school as an evening student, earning
a degree in 1950; he also worked in a steel mill for many years. Farmer began to write in the mid-1940s,
and тАЬThe LoversтАЭ was published when he was thirty-four, an advanced age by the standards of the
science-fiction community. However, he quickly made up for lost time by an astounding^rolificity,
although he did not write for considerable portions of time during the first decade of his career.

His major literary themes and obsessions were clear from early on and have been noted by all who have
written on himтАФa concern with sexuality and reproduction in all its variety; the good and evil that he
seems to believe resides in all of us; an interest in religious beliefs and imagery, especially with matriarchal
religions; parasitology, frequently coupled with sexuality; and a deep love of American popular culture
and the books he read and adored as a child and as a young man, especially Burroughs, Baum, and
Twain but also including the characters and magazines of the pulp era. Indeed, he has reworked these
stories and characters in his own writing to the extent that he has produced a whole body of work about
parallel universes, parallel places, and parallel people, books where Samuel Clemens, Tarzan, Odysseus,
and Doc Savage all interact, and most are even related to one another.

His writing is characterized by rapid pacing, some weakness of plot, a wonderful use of puns,
protagonists who are deeply flawedтАФa quality especially true in his тАЬheroicтАЭ figuresтАФand a deep
cynicism that pervades even his humorous work.

But most of all, Farmer (like the late Philip K. Dick) writes of the real, the unreal, and the maybe real,
combining and integrating them into the same story in ways that have revolutionized one corner of modern
science fiction. Few writers have been as daring so early as Farmer, few so willing to shock, in his case
usually to good effect. One of his most important critics, Mary T. Brizzi, has commented that тАЬHe is
certainly among the brightest stars in the science fiction sky,тАЭ and that тАЬHis early works were beautifully
crafted, exploring unconventional themes in a sensitive way.тАЭ His work has also been called тАЬnauseating.тАЭ

тАЬfilthy,тАЭ and тАЬobscene.тАЭ John W. Campbell, Jr., said that one of his stories (which he didnтАЩt buy) made
him тАЬwant to throw up.тАЭ He notes that other, more admiring critics have noted the powerful influence of
Freud and Jung in his work, but he rejects these references saying that тАЬThe term Farmerian should be
good enough.тАЭ Indeed it is.

This volume collects what I consider to be representative selections of his best work from the years 1952
to 1964, years that saw the publication of several important longer works and collections, including The
Green Odyssey (1957), Flesh (1960, revised 1968; a novel which gives new meaning to the term
father-figure), A Woman A Day (1960, also revised 1968), The Lovers (expanded and published in
1961 and revised again in 1979), Cache from Outer Space (1962), Inside Outside (1964, a major
work), and Tongues of the Moon (1964).