< previous page page_253 next page >

Page 253
same they don't change, the circumstances change. And of them all, I can only think of one Asimov story where a person changes and that's probably "The Ugly Little Boy." This is probably one of the few stories there may be one or two others which might be called "stories of character." And I wonder whether you ever felt that or ever were aware of the fact that one could deal with stories of character, even within science fiction or thought of it in those terms?
A.: Well, I knew that it could be done. I also knew well that it might be too difficult for me to do. I don't know that I have the kind of literary power that is required for that sort of thing. I can deal with rational action, but I'm not sure that I can deal with the inner recesses of being. Now "The Ugly Little Boy" was something I had written on a dare. No one had made it to me, I made it to myself. I got tired of having people tell me that I had no women in my stories. That's true, I rarely have women in my stories, and that's a matter of choice I'm not at ease with women in my stories, largely because I started writing long before I'd had so much as a date with a girl. Women were strangers and aliens to me and I never quite got over that. Even though in real life they are no longer strangers and aliens. But I got tired of hearing people say that, and so, to show myself, I decided to write a story in which a woman was the chief character, but not a woman like Susan Calvin, who is rationality personified, but a woman with emotions. So I sat down to do that, and that's what came out. It's not necessarily what I planned it just worked itself out that way. It's one of the few stories I've written that routinely makes women cry. At least I've received phone calls and letters from people saying that they've read "The Ugly Little Boy" and it made them cry at the end and invariably I answer and say I am pleased because it made me cry when I wrote it which it did. The only other story I've ever written in which I felt that I was deliberately, more or less, reaching for the pocket handkerchief at the end was "The Bicentennial Man," where that, too although I didn't plan it! is a story of character because Andrew, the robot, develops all the way through. He not only forces recognition of himself as a man that is the external change but all through internally he becomes more and more of a man. So, there again I did it. So, I suppose I can do it. I can do it, but I don't necessarily tend to, because what I concentrate on mostly is the problem.
Gunn: The puzzle, the mystery?
A.: Yes.
Gunn: You've often said that you don't know much about writing and I wonder, if I may say so, if this isn't a pose, a bit disingenuous?

 
< previous page page_253 next page >