(Warning: Altadenablog is indulging his geek side, in which he explains, kind of, why he has a picture of a rock in his office. Deal with it or skip it!)
In the past year, three men have died whose works I encountered in my youth and whose ideas and enthusiasms still occupy a large amount of my head-space: Forrest J Ackerman (so influential to me from age 7 on) died a few months ago, and Robert Anton Wilson (who so influenced me as a young adult) died last year. The one who occupies some of the most prime territory of my head died today.
I still remember vividly being at the public library in Ft. Collins, Colorado, flipping through the magazines, and coming across an Esquire (this is about c. 1970-72) with an article: “An Interview with Lord Greystoke.” Now, I was a big fan of boy’s adventure books, so I knew exactly who Lord Greystoke was: Tarzan of the Apes. The interviewer -- who swore up and down that it was a real meeting -- was one Philip Jose Farmer. I never knew what hit me.
I was a fan of Sherlock Holmes, and knew about the “Sherlockians”: fans who start with the premise that Holmes was a real person, and speculate about where his adventures really took place, the historical people he met. Farmer stretched and expanded this beyond all reason: he took that idea and ran with it, adding not only Tarzan, but Doc Savage, the Shadow, almost every pulp fiction character who delighted the heart of a boy -- imagine if all of them were real!
That was my introduction to the worlds of Philip Jose Farmer. Someday I shall write yet another appreciation of him (a couple have appeared in various publications over the years), but his work has been a joy and delight to me for almost 40 years now. His death means, a little bit, a the death of something in myself, too.
It wasn’t only the pulp heroes, of course (what has come to be called the Wold Newton family, for reasons we won’t go into here). Farmer is also known for his RIverworld series: imagine all 30 billion people who have ever lived from prehistory to the 20th century reborn in a day, naked and bald, by the banks of a great river. It’s a multi-book tale that includes as characters Mark Twain, Tom Mix, Jack London, the Victorian explorer Sir Richard Francis Burton, and many others. Or his Pocket Universe series, where the godlike characters of William Blake’s poetry (Urizen and the like) create small universes of their own design.
But he’s perhaps best known for two things: introducing sex to science fiction (some of it quite disturbing, but in a good way!); and being the actual author of “Venus on the Half-Shell” by Kilgore Trout. For quite a long time, people thought that “Venus” was actually written by Kurt Vonnegut, but he had given Farmer permission to use his novelist character’s pen-name, until some critics said that it was Vonnegut’s best work in years!
Anyway, we don’t have the time or space to discuss his work in detail. But my love for Farmer introduced me to people in history like Sir Richard F. Burton, encouraged me to read Joyce’s Ulysses, and have been a feast of endless pleasure and imagination. For others as well: there would be no such thing as The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen without PJF. Jimi Henrix's "Purple Haze" was based on a Farmer story.
At one time I had one of the most significant collections of Farmeria in the country. I sold most of it, because I've lost the "collector" part of me and had some bad economic times ten years ago, but I've held on to the significant pieces: the first edition Tarzan Alive (personally autographed to me), Fire and the Night (his only non-SF novel, about interracial romance -- and it's from the 1950's!), the Startling Stories magazine with his story The Lovers (the first SF story with fairly explicit sex scenes); the Omni magazine where Farmer writes an appreciation of Robert Anton Wilson, and Wilson writes an appreciation of Farmer; and my first edition Riverworld books. These I won't get rid of! They may have to bury me with Tarzan Alive.
In my office, I keep a bulletin board with religious icons and images of people who inspire me and make me feel grateful. Phil Farmer is there -- him and the Wold Newton meteorite. I am grateful to him -- my life is richer because it has encountered this great imagination. I hope he's on the banks of the great river right now, boarding the Not-for-Hire, and starting the next great adventure.
UPDATE: The NY TImes obit.
