"Randall Garrett - Takeoff" - читать интересную книгу автора (Garrett Randall)

possibly LuriaтАЩs last, was about a man with the тАЬgreatestтАЭ memory in all of Russia.
Well! ...I donтАЩt know whether Randall Garrett has in his time possessed the greatest memory in
North America, or if he still possesses it. But I am sure that he has been right up there with the finalists.
I cannot recall anyone ever mentioning RandallтАЩs super ability. No American Luria sought him out,
tested him periodically, and finally wrote him up as a case history of eidetic recall.
Actually, the Luria account of the Russian memory wizard was not up to the standard of this
scientistтАЩs earlier workтАФfrom my point of view. It gave the numerous tests and their results. It described
to a small extent some of the memory aids the Russian had worked out all by himself. (There were some
elements in these of the Roth memory-by-association system.) But it failed to describe any of the
commonplaces of, or the side effects of the ability on, the manтАЩs daily life. The commonplaces of
RandallтАЩs life shall come under closer scrutinyтАФlet me assure youтАФright here in these pages. Though
neither I nor anyone else has apparently ever received direct replies from him on basic aspects of his life.
When was Randall born? The only printed clue I have been able to find is given in the editorтАЩs
introduction to the original magazine version of Masters of the Metropolis, as follows:

тАЬRandall Garrett and Lin Carter had not been born when Hugo Gernsback created RALPH 124C 41+. To stress
their youth further (for one can, like me, be far from young and still have been born after the first appearance of
RALPH in Modern Electrics), they had not even been born when Gernsback founded Amazing Stories, the first
all-science-fiction magazineтАж.тАЭ

Yet, sitting across from me and my Russian princess at the L,A. airport Mariott Hotel Capriccio
Restaurant recently, Randall made the statement that he had known me for 30 years.
He is the one with the eidetic memory. So, since Gernsback founded Amazing in 1926 (and
Randall wasnтАЩt born by then), and thirty years ago was 1948, we can put two and one together into
twenty-one, or two and zero together into twenty.
Randall, did you emerge into this cruel world in 1927.? Or was that strange party you gave in the
spring of 1978 a celebration of half a hundred years of life?
Where was I in 1948 that our paths crossed? I have many memories of Randall over the years. But
that тАШ48 meeting is a blur to a memory-mine-that cannot even recall the title of LuriaтАЩs book on RussiaтАЩs
greatest observed rememberer.
(Alas, I bought the book. Read it. Gave it as a gift to a friend. And have never been able to locate
another copy.)
Are RandallтАЩs parents still alive? Where was Randall born? Where did he go to schoolтАЩ? What was
the title of his first published work? Does he have brothers and sisters? Was he born a Catholic? Or did
he convert?
These last two, particularly, are relevant questions, Because Randall for ten years (after his initial
foray into SF) attended seminary training, and became a Catholic priest.
Did his Russian alter ego experience some similar moral concern? There is no record of such details
in LuriaтАЩs work.
It is interesting that the Russian with the supermemory was a newspaper reporter when Luria first
met him. I mean, both menтАФRandall and the RussianтАФbecame writers automatically. Since Luria does
not mention it, and because newspapermen do not normally have their works collected, we cannot
examine the writings of the Russian mental marvel for clues about his personal life.
Fortunately, that is not our problem with Randall. He has a body of literature to his credit. Of which
you, dear reader, hold a portion in your hands. And a very revealing portion it is.
In these pages you will find...pastiches. Stories written in the styles of other writers. Here you will
find E. E. Smith, Ph.D. and H. P. Lovecraft and Eric Frank Russell as if returned from the dead, etc.
Randall remembers each authorтАЩs style exactly. In the case of the E. E. Smith тАЬtakeoffтАЩ he actually, after
more than thirty years, repeated an entire paragraph of E. E. SmithтАЩs without having seen the story in the
interim. Since he had made no conscious effort to memorize the story at the time he read it, he