October, 2020 – A Stewartian lunch, and a new printing of Earth Abides

 A package arrived last week carrying copies of the new printing of Earth Abides, with its splendid “Introduction” by Kim Stanley Robinson.  Even if you have a copy of EA, this very affordable printing is worth buying for Robinson’s Introduction to the novel. (Buy from the non-profit Bookshop.org and a percentage of the sales will go to support independent bookstores.) 

 I consider the cover of this printing one of the three best EA covers. (And there have been many covers)

The original cover, by H. Lawrence Hoffman,  is a fine piece of art depicting a ruined city after the fall – a city which looks to be San Francisco. 

But as wonderful as Hoffman’s cover is, images of ruined cities speak of loss.   My other favorites, which include the one on this new printing’s cover, focus on the Hammer of Ish — a powerful symbol of rebuilding, and thus hope.  One of them is the cover of this new printing, with the Hammer centered over what appears to be a view of Earth from above the clouds.  That overview encourages readers to keep a Whole Earth in mind as they read the gripping, encouraging story set during a pandemic not unlike the one Stewart describes. 

My third favorite is by Alan Ligda, a hero of Earth Abides. 

When Random House decided to stop publishing the book, Ligda acquired the rights from Stewart.  His edition is  a beautiful work printed by Hermes Press, his family’s small fine quality press.   

 Ligda centered the Hammer of Ish on the cover,  juxtaposed over an open book.   The cover makes an important point:  LIke the Hammer, books are tools — for such as Stewart, Ligda, and all writers and readers.  

(Sadly, as heroes often do, Alan Ligda died young.)

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My order of the new  Earth Abides was shipped on the publication date. October 13.   On October 14th, by coincidence (or Jungian synchronicity?) I shared lunch and conversation about things Stewartian with Ed, George and Ted  (Theodosia) Stewart’s grandson and the current keeper of the family rights. We hadn’t seen each other since his grandmother’s memorial service, about 30 years ago, so we spent some time catching up.Then we turned to matters of the GRS Legacy that he manages.  No need to go into great detail, but thanks to his request for advice about book contracts and followup suggestions from my agent, Sally van Haitsma, it looks as if Ed and the Legacy are about to get an excellent agent.  (The agent’s in Berkeley where most of Earth Abides takes place. He once managed a legendary bookstore, Cody’s.   And he’s looking for clients.) The agent is also familiar with film options and contracts.  Since there’s now  interest in filming another of GRS’s other books should be a marriage made in heaven (as they say)..

All-in-all, the middle of October 2020 has been a milestone time for the Legacy of George R. Stewart, and Earth Abides.

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It’s been  6 decades since a kind, wise librarian walked into the stacks, pulled out a book, and said “Here.  I think you’ll like this book.”  The trail from there has been like that of Wendell Berry’s Jayber Crow:  winding, up and down and back and forth, often through the dense fogs of life.  But the winding path has always been  lit by the lessons George R. Stewart teaches in Earth Abides.   Learning that Kim Stanley Robinson generously mentioned the GRS biography in his Introduction to the new printing of EA, brings this life arc almost full circle –  from reading the book as a 12-year old to finding myself in the book.  It is a pleasant summiting.  Lunch with Ed while we chewed over things Stewartian were gifts of the summiting, after that decades-long wandering saunter. 

Seeing Ish’s Hammer beautifully displayed on the book’s cover makes my spirit sing.  During those many years, the Hammer of Ish has been an encouraging (if symbolic) companion.  Like a lantern or a grail, it has been a life-gift.  As has Earth Abides. 

Ish’s Hammer

….By gifted artist, schoolmate of Lennon and McCartney, and playing an important role in the story of George R. Stewart and Earth Abides, Steve Williams (AKA The Pilgrim). 

Want to buy a print of the painting?  Here’s Steve’s  website; contact information is near the bottom:

saa.co.uk/art/stevewilliamsart

 

 

 

Of Carl Jung, Carl Sauer, and George R. Stewart

Carl Jung is supposed to have said that there are no accidents.  If an important encounter seems beyond coincidence, Jung is certain it is NOT a coincidence.  Jung even coined a term to describe such encounters:  “synchronicity.”

There have been many Jungian synchronicities in my George R. Stewart work.  Consider today’s extraordinary encounter.

There’s a small cafe here in the care center where I’m sequestered while antibiotics are poured through the system. Today was the day I was supposed to leave, but the antibiotic infusions have been extended.  Deciding to to celebrate anyway, with real coffee, I went to the cafe.

A couple came up to the counter, ordered some items to go, saying they’d been visiting a friend here but had to rush back to San Francisco.

Always neighborly, I asked where in San Francisco they might be going.

“Actually,” she said, “We’re going to Berkeley.”

“Where in Berkeley?”

“Solano Street.”

“Sure, I know Solano. Friends live there.”

On impulse I asked, “Have you read Earth Abides?” (The book is set in Berkeley up the hill from the Solano neighborhood.)

“Have I? I grew up in Berkeley, where it’s set.

“In fact, I’m Carl Sauer’s granddaughter. My mother was his daughter.  GRS and Granddad were great friends.

“I saw him almost every week hen I was a child”

“Your grandfather?”

“George Stewart – he often came to visit my grandfather when I was there.”

 

Carl Sauer

 She was a member of a family of academic royals, and it was an honor to shake her hand (and her husband’s).

Sauer was considered the greatest geographer of his time.  He had a profound influence on Earth Abides, since GRS often discussed the effects of the removal of humans from the ecosystem with him — a major theme of the pioneering novel.  Stewart acknowledged his debt to Sauer by mentioning him in Earth Abides.

Stewart took also Sauer on research trips to the place that was the focus of his final ecological novel, a place he called Sheep Rock.

At the end of the novel, Stewart steps out of the text to explain how he did the research:

            I, George Stewart, did this work…

            I have looked into the blue and green depths of the spring, and have climbed  the rock, and gazed out across the desert. That first night, the grim fascination of  the place rose within me, and I thought of this book.

           That time I was with Charlie. I was there again— with Jack, with Selar, with Carl and Parker and Starker, with Brig and Roy. I said to myself, “I shall know more about this place than anyone knows of any place in the world.” So I took the others there, and one looked at the beaches and the hills, and another at the grass and the shrubs, and another at the stone-work among the hummocks, and so it went, until at last each had shared with me what he knew. Besides, I read the books.

            But if you ask me, “What is true, and what is not? Is there really such a place?” I can only say, “It is all mingled! What does it matter? In the end, is what-is-seen any truer than what-is-imagined?” Yet, if you should look hard enough, you might find a black rock and a spring—and of the other things too, more than you might suspect.

            So here, I write of myself, for I also was there, and I am of it….

“Carl,” of course, is Carl Sauer.

The couple had to leave. I gave them my card, silently wishing we’d met when the biography was being written – her story would have been as valuable as Baiba Strad’s or those of the Stewarts.

This is the type of encounter that makes one believe the gods – or at least Carl Jung – are at work in our lives.