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as a degeneration from the ''wholesomeness" of our own, however limited, system of gender roles. |
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John Huntington, Rationalizing Genius: Ideological Strategies in the Classic American Science Fiction Short Story (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1989), pp. 1046 |
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What is significant in Leiber's five decades of development is the way in which his circumstances and his reading constantly combine to give him better understanding of his craft. Lovecraft's example helped Leiber to analyze himself during his crisis of confidence in the mid-1940s, and to identify the rudiments of his symbolism, then, when his ambivalence about his symbolism emerged, the timely publication of (Robert) Graves' Seven Days in New Crete focuses his misgivings and gives him something to react against. In much the same way, Leiber's discovery of Jung in the late 1950s justified his shift to personal concerns, and extended his understanding of his symbolism. When Leiber's recovery from grief in the mid-1970s interested him in individuation, (Joseph) Campbell, De Quincey, and Ibsen allowed him to present his symbolism by artful allusion, and to find still another new direction. |
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This cross-influence of life and reading is not unique to Leiber, but what does seem unusual is how aware Leiber has been of the process. Many writers absorb literary and environmental influences unconsciously, so much so that they are afraid to analyze them too closely lest self-consciousness prevent them from writing. By contrast, Leiber seems to have used his fiction as the main instrument in a fifty year process of individuation. Developing slowly and deliberately, sometimes too self-consciously to be successful, at other times hiding from the implications of his work through whimsy, irony, or ambiguity, Leiber appears to have thought through most of the major changes in his work. In this respect, he disproves the critical stance that writers cannot be the best judges of their own work. Although he can be vague or reticent about details, his nonfiction about his influences and his life indicates a writer with a clear idea of how he operates in his craft. If this awareness has sometimes given his fiction a contrived feel, it has more often allowed him greater control, enabling him to pinpoint his themes and to find ways of reinforcing them. In general, the more personal or painful his material has been, and the more he has struggled to control it, the |
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