Speaking of Burton Rascoe, in an earlier post I said--based on a Google Books snippet--that his review of Lo! appeared in the little magazine Contempo. Through the wonderworks of the Harry Ransom Center I finally got a chance to look through the issues that mentioned Fort.
There was indeed a review of Lo! there but it was short and signed by Ajax:
"Frogs begin to hop, bleeding trees, fishes flop, a rainstorm of rocks, mud, more frogs, fish, worms, etc. All a matter of motion, a reorganization of matter and motion giving life a new significance: all expression a matter of continuity . . . all falls from the sky. This jumble of believe it or not facts, startling, stupid, curious, amaze and distort all life and mechanics, physics. Charles Fort goes on to say: I believe nothing. I have shut myself away from the rocks and wisdom of ages, and from the so-called great teachers of all time, and perhaps because of that isolation I am given to bizarre hospitalities . . . and that appeal to authority is as much a wobble as any other of our securities . . . a curious collection and conglomeration."
Rascoe's review--actually just one paragraph--appeared not as content, but as part of an advertisement on 15 June 1932.
It is interesting that Fort was advertised in Contempo, just as he was advertised in that other literary magazine Circle. The lines between literary modernism, pulpish writing, and science fiction was relatively thin.
There was indeed a review of Lo! there but it was short and signed by Ajax:
"Frogs begin to hop, bleeding trees, fishes flop, a rainstorm of rocks, mud, more frogs, fish, worms, etc. All a matter of motion, a reorganization of matter and motion giving life a new significance: all expression a matter of continuity . . . all falls from the sky. This jumble of believe it or not facts, startling, stupid, curious, amaze and distort all life and mechanics, physics. Charles Fort goes on to say: I believe nothing. I have shut myself away from the rocks and wisdom of ages, and from the so-called great teachers of all time, and perhaps because of that isolation I am given to bizarre hospitalities . . . and that appeal to authority is as much a wobble as any other of our securities . . . a curious collection and conglomeration."
Rascoe's review--actually just one paragraph--appeared not as content, but as part of an advertisement on 15 June 1932.
It is interesting that Fort was advertised in Contempo, just as he was advertised in that other literary magazine Circle. The lines between literary modernism, pulpish writing, and science fiction was relatively thin.
