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Study 005 - Mimsy Were the Borogoves (Patreon)

Published:
2022-08-05 15:07:27
Edited:
2022-08-05 15:13:09
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

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Content

We're investigating non-Euclidian geometry once again with Mimsy Were the Borogoves by Lewis Padgett!

Special thanks to superstar reader Greig Johnson!

Check out this full reading by William Shatner - it will sicken you!

Next up: Arena by Frederic Brown

Comments

Jeremy Impson

My Mome Raths are thoroughly outgabed

Mandy Reznor (She/It)

Yes! I think I may have recommended this one a while back—or, at least, decided I should, never did, and now can't remember if I did or didn't. I got on the trail of this tale while sniffing around two authors covered in the old podcast, Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore. I was interested in seeing what the work they collabarated on under the shared pen name of "Lewis Padgett"—and this title stood out because I'd seen it before. On a tangential note, I'd like to recommend (for personal reading, not podcast coverage) a set of more contemporary sci-fi tales that *also* crib a lot from Lewis Carol by the authoresses Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette. A tale of theirs named "Boojum"—which are much more the future space-ships-and-adventure tales—can be found for free online at the website for Lightspeed Magazine.

Adequately Excellent Entertainment

So, when you say it got on a list of the best SciFi stories "before 1965"... Why was 1965 the year chosen for that list? Seems arbitrary for a list created in 1970.

It's a Ghost.

A great page turner! I got up only once while reading the story, and that was only because I needed a second martini (it was actually a glass of water).

Ben Gilbert

Michelle Elbert, The Science Fiction Hall of Fame anthology was voted on by the SFWA for stories that were written before Nebula awards which were created in 1965. There was a second volume published later and a third volume devoted to novellas. It’s available as an ebook and from Audible.

Ben Gilbert

With next week’s story you will have done 4 stories from the SF Hall of Fame anthology: Nightfall, Fondly Fahrenheit, Mimsy, and Arena. You should check out The Little Black Bag by C M Kornbluth which is another story about an item accidentally sent here from the future. It was adapted as a Night Gallery episode. Some more favorites are Microcosmic God by Theodore Sturgeon, Born of Man and Woman by Richard Matheson, First Contact by Murray Leinster, Scanners Live In Vain by Cordwainer Smith, and The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin.

Ben Gilbert

Another story with a title from Lewis Carroll is The Sea Was Wet As Wet Could Be by Gahan Wilson who was better known as an illustrator. It is horror rather than SF.

Eric Sroka

This was perfectly timed- I just read another Kuttner story, and decided I would try to track down some more stuff. And I’ll definitely try to get some C.L. Moore too. Good stuff!

Fred Kiesche

Congratulations! You've made it to five episodes! Pretty good for two rookie podcasters.

Thomas Paynter

Wow great choice for a story! I had this story in a collection when I was young and read it many times. So interesting to find out that it was written by Moore and Kuttner. Not that men can't write stories with a focus on family and children, but it makes sense that one of the authors was a woman. I'm not quite as optimistic about the children's fate as you guys. Yes, the toys taught them to make the transition, but were they ready? Did having a few toys for a few weeks fully prepare them for what they would find on the other side? Presumably the children of the box-creator had teachers and other forms of preparation, not just the toys. Did the children in the story learn just enough to jump out of the fish tank but not enough to make it to the sea?

Joseph Dawson

The chief problem with social constructivist notions is that they principally understand infinite interpretability as license to frame/say/identify anything they like as anything at all - which is, in principle, a contradiction. This view doesn't take into account that things have a nature in and of themselves independent of our interpretation. Indeed, this has to be the case in order for us to get anything off the ground when it comes to understanding what anything is at all. After all, we do get into cars understanding that they aren't toasters and conduct experiments in laboratories and do not mistake water for turpentine when thirsty. There is a substantial difference between what "proposition A" is and what "proposition A" may identify or be identified as by virtue of the fact that "proposition A" must remain what it is as a particular genus of being in order for it to begin to identify or be identified as anything substantially or cosmetically other than what it indeed is - if we are to take the modernists seriously regarding the usage of the word in light of their social constructivist claims. A simple example is that one does not confuse the Nile River for a cup of coffee; though one might, given the scope of human action and thought. One might elect to be reductive and use false syllogisms and say something along the lines that coffee is liquid and that a river is liquid and therefore, the Nile River is coffee... implications abound... Let me assert as a principle that an idea, constructed or otherwise only has validity in as much as it conforms to reality. This gets us closer to the idea of what identify means when we hear a phrase like, "Identify yourself". What is meant here is that we need information that corresponds and conforms to that irreducible reality which allows us to say that apples are apples and archeologists to say when looking through the boneyard that here is an adult female, an adult male and a child. Pompeii might very well serve here.

Joseph Dawson

Alice in Wonderland is fantastic. It's an entirely different affair than what one might expect it to be if the whole of one's notion of the story is rooted in Disney. This is not to poo poo Disney of course.

HRPrice

I highly recommend reading Alice in Wonderland. It’s been bouncing around pop culture for so long that there’s a TON of adaptation drift. I always enjoy trying to guess which ones are based entirely on other adaptations and which ones read the source material but made the creative choice to ignore it.

Jim Cannon

Another understated horror story. That family, shattered. Those kids, lost in who knows what, and a highly advanced civilization getting off scott free, not even bothering to follow-up on what damage they might have caused. Metaphor for colonialism, perhaps, the damage the developed world has done (and continues to do) to everyone else.

Aidan McSweeney

You two should check out some of the images generated by the A.I. created by the engine “Midjourney.” They’ve been all over TikTok and are hilarious. People just type in nonsense words like “Scrobble Shneest” into the software and the A.I. scours the internet for information and images and generates a picture based on those inputs.

Aidan McSweeney

Also I just threw out “engine” and “software” interchangeably like I have any idea what the actual definition of those words are so whoops if I messed them up!

Doug McCool

This reminded me of Arthur C. Clarke's "Childhood's End" as it pertains to children slowly showing signs of humanity taking the next step forward in existential evolution. I won't spoil that story, as great as it is, but children in that story start demonstrating visions that, to their parents, are nothing more than the fantasy of children.... but the alien overseers recognize as actual places from across the cosmos... indicating that the human race was ready to "advance". Concerning "Alice in Wonderland" (originally "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", or even "Alice's Adventures Under Ground", if you go back far enough)... I'd love to see some of Lewis Carroll's work covered. Of course, I'm aware of the controversy surrounding him and his relationship with the Liddell girls. It's easy enough to paint him as a creep, but if one does the research, I don't think there's enough evidence to slap a label on him. We can't know one way or the other, but for my money, I don't think he was a predator, as we'd define such today. But, at worst, it's just another occasion of separating art from artist... which we are certainly accustomed to in our readings of old writings. I can't help but think this would come up should you guys ever cover his works, so I'm getting out in front of it... unless, of course, it never would've come up unless I mentioned it, in which case..... Have you played any of the American McGee Alice games... those are goth-tastic!

Sweatin' to the Great Oldies

It's rather disheartening to encounter so many time machine inventors proving to be cavalier, negligent, and otherwise myopic about the implications of their device. At least they're not evil.

Falconhoof

The way kids can grasp new ideas, without any apparent effort, is practically a superpower. Like Chris, I've committed myself to the thankless task of learning German as an adult. After several years of stubborn progress, it feels like the hard work is finally paying off. I can keep a decent conversation going and I'm getting a handle on some of the more complex grammar. Or so I thought, until recently my 4 year old daughter noticed that daddy sometimes "says the wrong words", and decided to casually correct me every time it happens. Having bilingual kids is a guaranteed way to feel like an idiot on a regular basis. Perhaps I should confiscate those weird, non-euclidian toys her uncle Harry bought her.

Runninghead

Loved Chris' description of a tesseract! Long before it entered the MCU it was described wonderfully by Carl Sagan in his TV series "Cosmos". Chris' description was perfect, but I'm with Chad; This episode really underlined just how much harder it is for my brain to grasp the concept as an adult than it was for me as a child.

nils hedglin

The idea of a future scientist throwing kids toys into the past reminds me of the great Russian novel Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky Brothers. Extraterrestrial debris is sudden left various places around the earth, like trash from an alien picnic. Roadside Picnic is definitely a book you should cover.

Steve

We also have a taste organ in our lungs. It doesn't usually relay sense qualia to the brain but causes airways to constrict when the air is smoky. Although I've sometimes, after running very hard, had the taste of blood from it without any in my mouth.

Travis Lampe

Loved the discussion and will definitely be checking out this story on my own. One thing you didn’t touch on that seems implied in the story (at least to me) is the implication that the alien “scientist” at the beginning inadvertently began his own civilization. Assuming the kids in the story were the first humans to escape our reality.

G. Monaldo

Episode strays a bit into woke homophobia with the fluid sexualities stuff. Unfortunately, however uncool it may be, I’ve been gay my whole life. No matter how much people seem to want to convince me I’m at least a bisexual. Whether that’s some right wing religion or the newest cultural trend, neither seems to be capable of accepting the existence of homosexuals.

Incaptivity

Never got familiar with this story until now. I had seen The Last Mimzy and yes it is significantly different than this for the worse. Really like the contextual shift this story makes on non-Euclidean/extra dimensional mechanics presented to the oblivious. In weird fiction being presented new geometry is liable to turn one mad or worse. But in this it helps immensely with self growth and even though the ending can easily be spun as unsettling it ends up reading charming. Good story

Joshua Weiss

I was delighted/appalled to realize that the horror and tragedy experienced by this family was caused by some dude from the future throwing out some junk he had lying around. Shades of "The Gods Must Be Crazy," or "Roadside Picnic."