Anders Koskinen reflects on how adventure stories impacted boys like a young Ray Bradbury.
In Bradbury’s view, the sense of wonder and excitement that young boys experienced when reading about the exploits of John Carter and Tarzan had a dramatic impact in shaping the world we know today. As Bradbury explains, the influence of Burroughs’ characters extends far beyond mere literary circles.
“By giving romance and adventure to a whole generation of boys, Burroughs caused them to go out and decide to become special. That’s what we have to do for everyone, give the gift of life with our books. Say to a girl or boy at age ten, ‘Hey, life is fun! Grow tall!’ I’ve talked to more biochemists and more astronomers and technologists in various fields, who, when they were ten years old, fell in love with John Carter and Tarzan and decided to become something romantic. Burroughs put us on the moon. All the technologists read Burroughs. I was once at Caltech with a whole bunch of scientists and they all admitted it. Two leading astronomers—one from Cornell, the other from Caltech—came out and said, ‘Yeah, that’s why we became astronomers. We wanted to see Mars more closely.'”
Unfortunately, today’s literary officials often have a dim view Burroughs’ tales. Pulp fiction has acquired a negative reputation, sometimes deserved – especially if one only judges books by their covers. However, many times these objections are based on politically correct views that leave little room for adventure or traditional masculinity in literature.
With all due respect to Mr. Koskinen, I have no idea why he thinks mentally healthy people would want to write fiction about “gay men.” But some decent points are made, other than that.
