(urth) Short Story 46: Going to the Beach

[Daniel Petersen]

I didn't realise this one hadn't been collected elsewhere.  I can't believe
it.  It's one of my favourite short stories.  His interaction with the
android girl reminds me just a tad of something like Flannery O'Connor in
an s.f. scenario.  It also strikes me as being in vivid counterpoise with
Silk's compassionate interaction with Marble and Olivine.

-DOJP

On Mon, Oct 1, 2012 at 12:18 PM, Marc Aramini <marcaramini at yahoo.com> wrote:

>   Going to the Beach******
>
> This was first published in Showcase in 1973, and has not been recollected.
> ****
>
> SUMMARY:****
>
> The story begins “Seventeen years ago, Miss Hiteecher his high school
> teacher, everyone’s high school teacher- had explained that those who did
> worst on the test would be given jobs.”  This is contrary to our
> protagonist’s parents’ teachings; he doesn’t believe her at first, but “the
> habit of belief, had shaken his faith in what a moment earlier he believed
> he knew.”  The children whisper that her assertions are not accurate – it
> is those who do best, or show aptitude for “the stuff they want”, who will
> be given jobs while the others will receive “the Honorable Income” to live
> as they best see fit for the rest of their lives.****
>
> Those with jobs must wait for the industry to be fully automated “so that
> the workers may be set free”.  ****
>
> The story then proceeds to his current life – the sneer of Miss Raile, the
> monorail booth, at his dirty dollar while a panhandling android girl
> accosts him on his way home.  ****
>
> The leisure classes who receive honorable income are returning from their
> day “going to the beach”, but he must return home to work.  The android
> girl rubs against him and asseverates that, despite his protestations of
> poverty, he has coins in his pockets to share with her; she wants to go
> home with him.  He tries to push her off the train, but she gets on with
> him and they discuss the validity of android emotions. ****
>
> In the dim light the android girl believes that an older couple cannot see
> them for what they are, a working class man and an android panhandler, and
> she wants to be perceived as the girlfriend of someone on the Honorable
> Income.  She reveals that she must plug in for energy at his house.  ****
>
> He allows her to plug in from a cord in her purse.  While she is plugged
> in, he rifles through her purse, to find nothing beyond the ordinary.  He
> goes out to eat, and when he returns the engineer he was waiting for is
> sitting there.  The engineer has brought a package that represents “going
> to the beach” for the protagonist: the possibility that if his work is
> automated, he can have a life of leisure and a family.  ****
>
> “Once, people resisted automation.  Engineers developed designed and
> built wonder-new devices for them to make their work less onerous, and they
> sabotaged them because there economic well-being depended upon their work …
> to enlist their cooperation” …[the Honorable Income was established]****
>
> The main character looks over the package and says that it is good, but
> the engineer knows that it is a lie.  He asks for particular
> improvements, but the man must get to work.  As the engineer leaves, our
> hero begins typing: “*Seventeen years ago, Miss Hiteecher his high school
> teacher – everyone’s high school teacher* … It was a beginning.****
>
>
>
> COMMENTARY: This is one of the last 70s stories that has never seen
> republication in a larger Wolfe collection, and like most other ones, it
> deals with a society where a robotic and human working underclass is
> largely segregated from those who receive a government income.  This
> parallels the set up in many of these early stories: “Slaves of Silver”,
> “The Rubber Bend”, “Sonya, Crane Wessleman, and Kittee”, and several others.
> Here, a writer (whether of journalism, autobiography, or fiction remains
> unclear) displays an aptitude on his test for a certain thing which
> prevents him from the honorable income, because, even in this almost
> utopian future where work is done by machines, there are still things that
> they can’t quite get right.****
>
>
>
> The life of leisure that is paralleled with “going to the beach” is pretty
> ambiguous in value.  Interesting to note that engineering has been
> completely automated and is one of the first things to go, but writing and
> creative endeavors, or perhaps the valid life experience our writer is
> starting with, are still for all intents and purposes beyond being copied.
> ****
>
>
>
> Our protagonist is a bit cruel to the android girl, thinking of her as the
> lowest of the low if she must accost the working class for money.  Once
> again, the problem of a social system such as this is the creation of an
> underclass that is scorned for little reason.  Our writer thinks about
> the beach, but seems more willing to work than to offer the suggestions
> necessary to escape his “lifelong” work.****
>
>
>
> The discussion of stars is interesting: our protagonist claims that he
> sees the stars always, even when he isn’t looking at them.  This inner
> vision is of course the theme – perhaps he can share it.****
>
>
>
> It is interesting that no one is named except for generic artificial
> “intelligences” like Miss Raile and Miss Hiteecher, who are named after
> their functions.****
>
>
>
> Wolfe’s engineer turned writer background is perhaps relevant here: the
> engineer is just another android, as it has been automated, but the
> writer’s role has not yet, and may never be, suborned by artificial
> attempts.****
>
>
>
> NAMES: All the computer generated artificial authorities, like Miss
> Hiteecher and Miss Raille, are eponymous to some degree.  However, they
> use the phonetic spelling of the Voisriit system found in “The Blue Mouse”
> and “Silhouette”, which really does posit a connection between these short
> pieces.  No other “real” characters get names, which is interesting.  It
> seems as though ALL individual names have been lost.  The engineer is an
> engineer, the android girl is an android, and our hero is simply “he”.****
>
>
>
> AMBIGUITIES: Only the nature of the test is ambiguous, but it is pretty
> clear that it is an aptitude test, and that passing and failing are
> meaningless, because those with aptitude for certain things which cannot be
> fully automated are performing a necessary function, even though they must
> scrounge by with dirty “labor” money.****
>
>
>
> CONNECTION WITH OTHER WORKS: This is firmly entrenched in Wolfe’s
> alternative wealth redistribution cycle, and these are the stories that
> have tended to be pushed to the side in reprints and collections, perhaps
> because the threat of actually incorporating socialism and intentionally
> redistributing wealth waned ideologically for a time.
>
> ****
>
> Next up is Hour of Trust, collected in “The Island of Doctor Death and
> Other Stories and Other Stories”.****
>
>
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