"George Langelaan - The Fly" - читать интересную книгу автора (Langelaan George)

THE FLY
Filmed as "The Fly"
By George Langelaan
GEORGE LANGELAAN, author of "The Fly," was a French-born British writer
and journalist who worked on the Paris staffs of the A.P., U.P., I.N.S. and The
New York Times. His natural propensity for travel eventually brought Langelaan
to the USA, where he worked for many years before returning to Paris. While in
the States, he became a member of a circle of literary figures, including Terry
Southern, who were selling work to the then prestigious and high-paying Playboy
magazine. Eventually Playboy took several pieces from the literate, sophisticated
Langelaan; including what would become his most celebrated tale, "The Fly." The
story was immediately recognized as exceptional. The Magazine of Fantasy and
Science Fiction cited it as "one of the most noted recent weird-horror stories" and it
was immediately selected for reprinting in The Best SF 1958. Just why this
unsettling tale, which the Science Fiction Encyclopedia rightly called "a macabre
story of an unsuccessful experiment in matter transmission" should have proved so
popular is difficult to understand. Perhaps because the author had the good sense
to take his narrative out of the laboratory, where previous science fiction writers
had placed it, and into the drawing room, where it affected real people. And
perhaps because at the heart of it is a tender, touching love story of a woman's
faithfulness to her husband's memory beyond the grave. Whatever the explanation,
"The Fly" touched a universal enough nerve to have stimulated the creation of not
one, but two movie versions (1958, 1986) filmed almost thirty years apart, while
each in turn produced its own lineage of sequels. Back in Paris Langelaan
produced several notable works of French science fiction, including Nouvelles de
l'anti-monde ("Tales of the Anti-World" 1962) and Le vol de l'anti-g ("The Flight
of Anti-G" 1967). Unfortunately Langelaan's one English language collection,
Out of Time (1964) was published in the U.K. only, and today command fabulous
prices in the rare book market. George Langelaan passed away some years ago,
not far from his beloved City of Lights, but his brainchild, "The Fly," bids to live
on forever.

I.
TELEPHONES AND telephone bells have always made me uneasy. Years ago,
when they were mostly wall fixtures, I disliked them, but nowadays, when they are
planted in every nook and corner, they are a downright intrusion. We have a saying
in France that a coalman is master in his own house; with the telephone that is no
longer true, and I suspect that even the Englishman is no longer king in his own
castle.
At the office, the sudden ringing of the telephone annoys me. It means that, no
matter what I am doing, in spite of the switchboard operator, in spite of my
secretary, in spite of doors and walls, some unknown person is coming into the
room and onto my desk to talk right into my very ear, confidentially тАУ whether I like
it or not. At home, the feeling is still more disagreeable, but the worst is when the
telephone rings in the dead of night. If anyone could see me turn on the light and get
up blinking to answer it, I suppose I would look like any other sleepy man annoyed
at being disturbed. The truth in such a case, however, is that I am struggling against
panic, fighting down a feeling that a stranger has broken into the house and is in my
bedroom. By the time I manage to grab the receiver and say:"Ici Monsieur
Delarnbre. Je vous ecoute," Iam outwardly calm, but I only get back to a more