Isaac Asimov | It’s Been a Good Life
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To make memories into a meaningful memoir or rather a mesmerising memoir is a feat!
A laudable feat at that!
And Asimov does that with aplomb!
An inspirational read like Benjamin Franklin’s, this autobiography could surely be classed as one of its kind, and made a governing rubric for other potential autobiographers to emulate!
Autobiographies reveal the personal and the private side of a person that they’ve so carefully preserved and guarded from the public eye! As such, they offer the reader a beautiful peek into ‘how’ they lived their life, tackled the challenges, handled the pressures, received their quotas of fame and shame, adventures and mishaps, and what ‘life’ had taught them – all of them in a graded, coherent and chronological fashion.
Asimov’s Autobiography titled, It’s Been a Good Life begins in like fashion, starting off with a lovely prologue that I found so inspiring and endearing!
Hence tempted to cite a line… nay two, from off this lovely little prologue for us all –
Human life is, or should be, an adventure in self-discovery, learning what talents one has and using them successfully. Isaac Asimov knew he'd had this adventure to the fullest and, at the end, said "It's been a good life.
No one but Isaac could tell the genuine story of that good life.
Fortunately, he did-in short pieces, letters, and three large, detailed volumes of autobiography.
it says!
Acknowledging his love for the English language, which he prefers twice over, to Russian or Yiddish, Asimov says,
My father was fluent in Hebrew, Yiddish, and Russian. My mother was literate and could read and write both Russian and Yiddish. It would have been good to know the language of Pushkin, Tolstoy, and Doestoevski. [But] allow me my prejudice: surely there is no language more majestic than that of Shakespeare, Milton, and the King James Bible, and if I am to have one language I know as only a native can know it, I consider myself unbelievably fortunate that it is English!
Asimov then moves on to describe his first brush with science fiction magazines at his all-time favourite candy store!
No one can possibly have lived through the Great Depression without being scarred by it.... No "Depression baby" can ever be a yuppie. We were poor, but we always had enough to put food on the table and to pay the rent. Never were we threatened by hunger and eviction. And why? The candy store. It brought in enough to support us,
says Asimov!
He then gives us his own sweet reasons for choosing science fiction as his favourite medium –
Says he –
The science-fiction magazines were the first pulp magazines I was allowed to read. That may have been part of the reason that, when the time came for me to be a writer, it was science-fiction that I chose as my medium.
Another reason was science fiction's more extended grasp on the young imagination. It was science fiction that introduced one to the universe, in particular to the solar system and the planets. Even if I had already come across them in my reading of science books, it was science fiction that fixed them in my mind, dramatically and forever ...
Interestingly, his father’s presence is palpable all through the book for all good reasons!
How much the role of the parents in nurturing and fostering their child’s prowess!
In chapter Three for the first time, we see his doting father giving him his first words of advice – on not mixing with the bums of his locality!
Says his dad –
"Remember, Isaac," he would say, "if you hang around with bums, don't think for a minute you will make a good person out of the bum. No! That bum will make a bum out of you."
Describing his solitary, day-dreaming, care-free walks in Brooklyn, and his ecstatic, happy and peaceful moments with books, Asimov says,
To those who are not bookworms, it must be a curious thought that someone would read and read, letting life with all its glory pass by unnoticed, wasting the carefree days of youth, missing the wonderful interplay of muscle and sinew. There must seem something sad and even tragic about it, and one might wonder what impels a youngster to do it.
Let me tell you, if you don't know it from your own experience, that reading a good book, losing yourself in the interest of words and thoughts, is for some people (me, for instance) an incredible intensity of happiness.
If I want to recall peace, serenity, pleasure, I think of myself on those lazy summer afternoons, with my chair tipped back against the wall outside the candy store], the book on my lap, and the pages softly turning.
On having been non-religious all through his life, he has a sweet answer that offends none!
Says Asimov, Isaac Asimov,
I am sometimes suspected of being nonreligious as an act of rebellion against Orthodox parents; but I have rebelled against nothing. I have been left free and I have loved the freedom.
I have never, not for one moment, been tempted toward religion of any kind. The fact is that I feel no spiritual void. I have my philosophy of life, which does not include any aspect of the supernatural and which I find totally satisfying. I am, in short, a rationalist and believe only that which reason tells me is so.
Have I told you that I prefer "rationalism" to "atheism"? The word "atheist," meaning "no God," is negative and defeatist. It says what you don't believe and puts you in an eternal position of defense. "Rationalism" on the other hand states what you DO believe; that is, that which can be understood in the light of reason.
The question of God and other mystical objects-of-faith are outside reason and therefore play no part in rationalism and you don't have to waste your time in either attacking or defending that which you rule out of your philosophy altogether.
I was just visualising the possible impish smile he musta sported on his face, when he wrote down the following lines on the concept of Heaven! ;-)
And it is quite interesting to note that Asimov presents even his dislikes, disapprovals and aversions in such a genial, graceful and gentle manner, with an equally humorous style, which I personally feel is a rarity amongst writers of his stature!
Says Asimov -
Imagination was stretched to conceive of the final resting place of evil people or of anyone, however good, who didn't subscribe to quite the same mumbo jumbo that the imaginer did. This gave us our modern notion of Hell as a place of eternal punishment of the most vicious kind. This is the drooling dream of a sadist grafted onto a God who is proclaimed to be all-merciful and all-good.
Imagination has never managed to build up a serviceable Heaven, however. The Islamic Heaven has its houris, ever available and ever virginal, so that it becomes an eternal pleasure house. The Norse Heaven has its heroes feasting at Valhalla and fighting each other between feasts, so that it becomes an eternal restaurant and battlefield. And our own Heaven is usually pictured as a place where everyone has wings and plunks a harp in order to sing unending hymns of praise to God.
What human being with a modicum of intelligence could stand any of such Heavens, or the others that people have invented, for very long? Where is there a Heaven with the opportunity for reading, for writing, for exploring, for interesting conversation, for scientific investigation? I never heard of one.
If you read John Milton's Paradise Lost you will find that his Heaven is described as an eternal sing-along of praise to God. It is no wonder that one third of the angels rebelled.
When they were cast down into Hell, they then engaged in intellectual exercises (read the poem if you don't believe me) and I believe that, Hell or not, they were better off. When I read it. I sympathized strongly with Milton's Satan and considered him the hero of the epic, whether Milton intended that or not.
[Recently] I dreamed I had died and gone to Heaven. I looked about and knew where I was - green fields, fleecy clouds, perfumed air, and the distant, ravishing sound of the heavenly choir. And there was the recording angel smiling broadly at me in greeting.
I said, in wonder, "Is this Heaven?"
The recording angel said, "It is."
I said (and on waking and remembering, I was proud of my integrity), "But there must be some mistake. I don't belong here. I'm an atheist."
"No mistake," said the recording angel.
"But as an atheist how can I qualify?"
The recording angel said sternly, "We decide who qualifies. Not you”.
"I see," I said. I looked about, pondered for a moment, then turned to the recording angel and asked, "Is there a typewriter here that I can use?"
The significance of the dream was clear to me.
I felt Heaven to be the act of writing, and I have been in Heaven for over half a century and I have always known this.
I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God, and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul.
I would also want a God who would not allow a Hell. Infinite torture can only be a punishment for infinite evil, and I don't believe that infinite evil can be said to exist even in the case of Hitler. Besides, if most human governments are civilized enough to try to eliminate torture and outlaw cruel and unusual punishments, can we expect anything less of an all-merciful God?
I feel that if there were an afterlife, punishment for evil would be reasonable and of a fixed term. And I feel that the longest and worst punishment should be reserved for those who slandered God by inventing Hell.
Says Asimov, Isaac Asimov!
Speaks volumes to the perceptions and impressions of heaven and hell – to each their aura! To each their charm!
And herein ends chapter four to his autobiography titled, It’s Been a Good Life!
And yes...! our journey with Asimov continues…
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