Reflections on Isaac Asimov

The most famous man to use the word psychohistorian amazed, inspired, frustrated, and puzzled me.

Isaac Asimov’s (1920-1992) incredible productivity and erudition still amaze me. He, according to a newspaper article I read some years ago, wrote his first hundred books in only 20 years (five books a year). This New Yorker’s second hundred took nine and one half years (10.5 books a year) and his third hundred was achieved in less than six years (16.5 books a year). At that rate of increased efficiency, had he lived to 100 years,

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instead of merely to 72, just imagine how many books he would have produced! In fact, he wrote a mere 500 books rather than the astronomical number that would follow from the geometric progression he seemed to be approaching. I still chuckle and remain awestruck at the thought of such literary profundity. In contrast to Asimov, my first recollections of writing are of not being able to do it. While my days of writing blocks are long gone, writing is still a slow process for me: I am still at the beginning stages of my first 100 books. I am hoping for a long life so I may achieve my goals!

Towards the end of his life Asimov declared “writing is more fun than ever. The longer I write the easier it gets.” A friend of his told me that “the man was a machine” when it came to writing; which is why “he turned out stuff incredibly with incredible speed.” As an example she mentioned that “someone at the United Nations asked him to write something on children. He did it in two days (with research!) and it was perfect, ready for the printers.” Asimov’s example is one of many which inspired me to write and to enjoy writing.

In the late 1970s I thoroughly enjoyed a commencement speech Asimov gave at Ramapo College. He spoke of the enormous creativity and curiosity of the young child, creativity and curiosity which are usually lost in the process of schooling. Ramapo’s strait-laced academic vice president, a former seminarian, was pleased to meet this popularizer of science and science fiction. Afterwards, he commented that during the processional and the ceremonies the speaker kept propositioning the good-looking valedictorian in her early 20s — less than half his age. The administrator, who is now back to teaching philosophy, wondered aloud if the secret of Asimov’s literary profusion was an uncensored quality which allowed him to let it “all out.” I thought there might be some merit in this suggestion; certainly, Asimov wrote so quickly that he had little time to censor his own thoughts or words. I also wondered if the vice president was as “straight-laced” as I had imagined.

In 1979 I became co-editor of The Psychohistory News: Newsletter of the International Psychohistorical Association. One of my first endeavors was to attempt to interview Asimov in person. The project began auspiciously with Asimov being the most prompt correspondent I ever engaged before or since. His replies arrived so rapidly that it crossed my mind that the writer may have told the mailman to wait while he typed a reply to me! His answer said, “Yes…, but….” Yes, I could interview him, but first I would need to do the proper background reading which included the first volume of his autobiography, In Memory Yet Green (1920-1954). This seemed like a reasonable request. So, after writing him that I accepted this condition, I started reading. Additional epistles from him added to my pre-interview homework. I soon enlisted my rapid-reading younger son to assist in the task. The second volume, In Joy Still Felt (1954-1978), appeared in print well before I was halfway through the first. And there were numerous additional homework assignments as well!

At that point, I suggested to this denizen of the 33rd floor of a Manhattan skyscraper that we get on with the interview since he wrote so much faster than I (and my son) could read. I got no response and this marked the end of his part of the correspondence. I sought the advice of a psychohistorical colleague who was an old friend of Asimov. Had he cut off communication because of my honesty: “You write faster than my son and I read”? She said that had nothing to do with it. In her experience, Asimov would never give a personal interview to anyone who was psychological in their approach. “But,” I stammered, “isn’t he married to a psychoanalyst/ psychiatrist?” My colleague simply shrugged her shoulders and declared that it made “no difference” He would not accept a personal interview by anyone with psycho as part of their qualifications.

After Asimov’s death the same colleague reported that this “helpful, kind, decent, dear, lovely guy” was “very horny.” She reported that whenever they were alone together, however briefly, he never stopped propositioning her. I asked how his wife dealt with his womanizing and was told, “She ignored it.” Clearly, I was not alone in finding this science fiction writer and popularizer of science puzzling and at times frustrating.

I was not puzzled or frustrated when I learned from reading Alan Elms that Asimov feared heights: that he was an acrophobe (with agoraphobe tendencies) who wrote about space travelers. As a psychotherapist, I readily understood the inclination to devote psychic energy to something that one experienced anxiety

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about. He avoided air travel, until he marshaled his courage later in life, while relishing literary space travel on the pages of the Foundation Trilogy and elsewhere. In his autobiography, he does make reference to the possibility that his absorption of his mother’s fears that stemmed form his “babyhood experience with pneumonia” resulted in his disinclination to take risks including flying. He seemed to have been one of many people who can make vaguely psychological comments about themselves but who are most uncomfortable if any professional makes such comments.

Returning to the subject of space, a vital point is that we project out into space things that we cannot do within ourselves or on this Earth. Space is such a fertile place for our fantasies, dreams, and endeavors that in less then one century humans have flown both close to the Earth and in outer space. If people, even acrophobic men like Isaac Asimov and his fellow science fiction writer, Ray Bradbury, can think of doing something, other people will actually do it! And here on Earth I will continue to be inspired by Asimov’s erudition, literary productivity, and belief that knowledge should be accessible to all humankind.

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