Jan. 2, 1920— Isaac Asimov, who went beyond influencing generations of sci-fi readers by also
pouring out a near-endless series of volumes on biochemistry, history and
literature, was born in Petrovichi, Russia.
In science fiction, Asimov is considered one of the
masters, with much of his fame resting on his Foundation Series. In this trilogy, he coined the term “robotics,” referring
to the technology that robots (the machines originally described by Czech
playwright Karel Capek) possess, and even expounded on “The Three Laws of
Robotics.”
I have a confession to make here: My last immersion
in literary science-fiction was during one quarter of a high school English
class, where the genre was described in the phrase “Alternative Futures.”
Since
then, my exposure to the genre has come at the hands of TV and film. (Think of
fare as basic as The Twilight Zone, The
Invaders, Star Trek, and Star Wars.)
I can’t weigh in, then, on Asimov’s ultimate place in this type of fiction, or
how he rates compared to contemporaries such as Robert A. Heinlein, Ray
Bradbury and Harlan Ellison.
But that’s not to say I never read Asimov. In middle
school and high school, I devoured his histories (The Egyptians) and literary analyses (Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare).
It astonished me that he could range far beyond his chosen field of
biochemistry while still writing
works that consistently intrigued and educated readers.
So wide-ranging were his interests that it was hard
to find a section in any library that did not
feature one of his books. Altogether, he wrote or edited more than 500
books. A few friends have told me that I am a prolific blogger, but—Irish
Puritan that I am—I continually reproach myself for sloth when I consider the
lifetime achievement of Asimov.
Amazingly, he might have written considerably more works if death hadn’t claimed him.
By 1979, he had already surpassed 200 books—meaning that in the last 13 years
left him, when age and illness are usually slowing writers down, he had
actually quickened his pace.
What curtailed his output and his life
simultaneously was a blood transfusion after a 1983 triple bypass operation
which, nobody realized at the time, was infected with HIV, which later
progressed to full-blown AIDS. Only a
decade after his death did his family confirm that the heart and kidney failure
reported to have led to his demise had actually resulted from AIDS.
At times, it may have seemed like Asimov worked like
a man with something to prove. If his immigrant background didn’t inspire that
instinct, then it surely came from an uphill but necessary struggle to establish
his academic credibility.
Astonishingly, this future distinguished man of literature
was denied admission, at least initially, by virtually every school to which he
applied:
*At the age of 15, his application to Columbia
College was initially rejected because the school’s meager quota for Jews had
already been filled up.
*When he finally made it to the school, it was because he
had already demonstrated his ability at Columbia-affiliated Seth Low Junior
College, enabling him to transfer to the Ivy League institution when the junior
college closed.
*After earning his degree as an undergrad, he was rejected by
each of the five New York medical schools to which he applied.
Prejudice and detractors’ willfulness fueled Asimov’s
desire for achievement, while also spurring him to write an essay increasingly
cited in recent years. In a January 21, 1980 column for Newsweek, he complained
bitterly about a “ A Cult of Ignorance” in the United States:
"The strain of
anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our
political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means
that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’"
With biting irony, Asimov also observed about a
worrisome new neologism: “People who are not members of the intellectual elite
don’t know what an ‘elitist’ is or how to pronounce the word.”
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