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Fan Slants, v. 1, issue 1, September 1943
Page 12
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12.................................................................FAN SLANTS However, the discerning mind of the critic is regretfully forced to acknow-ledge the presence of certain irritating flaws in [title underlined] The Undying Monster. Chief among them is this business of hereditary memory. The realms of science and supernaturalism are usually distinct and do not infringe very deeply on one ano-ther, but when a supernatural work chooses to invade the field of science for theories to bolster its own structure, ti should be careful to test the soundness of its choices by recent expert opinion. Yesterday's discarded scientific theo-ries are of no use even to the supernatural, which must give the impression as much as science does of working toward the truth. Miss Kerruish's cherished "hereditary memory" is nothing more nor less than a branch of our old friend, the inheritance of acquired characteristics, a theory which, though it retains a certain historical interest through having been advocated by Spencer, Lamarck, and Darwin, has been thoroughly disproved by innumerable experiments in genetics, whereas all the experiments that have ever been advanced in its support have ob-vious and wide open loopholes. Even a slight application of that plebeian mental ingredient, common sense, should be enough to show the fallaciousness of the theory: how can an accidental alteration of some bodily tissue possibly alter the delicate mechanism of the germ cells so as to produce the same vital organ might influence the [underlined] health of the germ cells, but such an influence could hardly tam-per with the precise genes in the precise chromosomes so as to produce a similar bodily defect in the offspring. The whole theory of the inheritance of acquired characteristics is thus, to say the least, in highly doubtful scientific repute; yet on it depends the "hereditary memory" that plays so large a part in the plot of [title underlined] The Undying Monster. If the author had used some unproved or even unprovable theory, it would arouse no such resistance or antagonism as does this one in the mind of any reader who has ever thought about it. Next I must mention a more purely personal antipathy--my dislike of Miss Luna Bartendale, the wonder-working little female who unravels the age-old mys-tery of the monster. In the first place, she is irritatingly smug about her fishy-sounding psychic powers (of which more below) and prissily moralistic in her attitude toward the warlock, who, though a villain, is a glorious villain. Secondly, I think it is out of place of have a woman as the central character in the macabre hunt of the monster; a man, and preferably one with some elements of mystery or power about him, would be much more in keeping with the grim atmos-phere of the story. (The movie omitted Miss Bartendale in favor of a male sci-entific detective, who was at least a slight improvement--the only one in the film.) But most of all I object to Miss Luna because she is not believable; her utter femininity is at variance with the intellectual strength and subtlety she is supposed to possess. It has been my experience in my brief span to have found almost invariably that the only truly intelligent women are those with more or less masculine minds and characters (though they need not be of the hor-sey business-woman type to qualify), whereas really feminine women are content to get by on personal charm and cunning wiles. Luna Bartendale is allegedly a highly intellectual woman, but the emphasis in the author's characterization of her is always on her extreme femininity--her tiny body, her delicate doll-like features, her beautiful golden curls, and her great big blue eyes, which are described so often they begin to take on in one's mind the aspect of a lemur's orbs. It just doesn't jibe. The book also would be better off without Miss Kerruish's fortunately timid tendencies toward spiritualism, as in giving Luna the "supersensitive" power of detecting the presence of evil and the supernatural. Perhaps all that is needed is a more convincing description of her psychic faculties, but at present I find them a little dubious. And calling the supernatural the "forth dimension" and
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12.................................................................FAN SLANTS However, the discerning mind of the critic is regretfully forced to acknow-ledge the presence of certain irritating flaws in [title underlined] The Undying Monster. Chief among them is this business of hereditary memory. The realms of science and supernaturalism are usually distinct and do not infringe very deeply on one ano-ther, but when a supernatural work chooses to invade the field of science for theories to bolster its own structure, ti should be careful to test the soundness of its choices by recent expert opinion. Yesterday's discarded scientific theo-ries are of no use even to the supernatural, which must give the impression as much as science does of working toward the truth. Miss Kerruish's cherished "hereditary memory" is nothing more nor less than a branch of our old friend, the inheritance of acquired characteristics, a theory which, though it retains a certain historical interest through having been advocated by Spencer, Lamarck, and Darwin, has been thoroughly disproved by innumerable experiments in genetics, whereas all the experiments that have ever been advanced in its support have ob-vious and wide open loopholes. Even a slight application of that plebeian mental ingredient, common sense, should be enough to show the fallaciousness of the theory: how can an accidental alteration of some bodily tissue possibly alter the delicate mechanism of the germ cells so as to produce the same vital organ might influence the [underlined] health of the germ cells, but such an influence could hardly tam-per with the precise genes in the precise chromosomes so as to produce a similar bodily defect in the offspring. The whole theory of the inheritance of acquired characteristics is thus, to say the least, in highly doubtful scientific repute; yet on it depends the "hereditary memory" that plays so large a part in the plot of [title underlined] The Undying Monster. If the author had used some unproved or even unprovable theory, it would arouse no such resistance or antagonism as does this one in the mind of any reader who has ever thought about it. Next I must mention a more purely personal antipathy--my dislike of Miss Luna Bartendale, the wonder-working little female who unravels the age-old mys-tery of the monster. In the first place, she is irritatingly smug about her fishy-sounding psychic powers (of which more below) and prissily moralistic in her attitude toward the warlock, who, though a villain, is a glorious villain. Secondly, I think it is out of place of have a woman as the central character in the macabre hunt of the monster; a man, and preferably one with some elements of mystery or power about him, would be much more in keeping with the grim atmos-phere of the story. (The movie omitted Miss Bartendale in favor of a male sci-entific detective, who was at least a slight improvement--the only one in the film.) But most of all I object to Miss Luna because she is not believable; her utter femininity is at variance with the intellectual strength and subtlety she is supposed to possess. It has been my experience in my brief span to have found almost invariably that the only truly intelligent women are those with more or less masculine minds and characters (though they need not be of the hor-sey business-woman type to qualify), whereas really feminine women are content to get by on personal charm and cunning wiles. Luna Bartendale is allegedly a highly intellectual woman, but the emphasis in the author's characterization of her is always on her extreme femininity--her tiny body, her delicate doll-like features, her beautiful golden curls, and her great big blue eyes, which are described so often they begin to take on in one's mind the aspect of a lemur's orbs. It just doesn't jibe. The book also would be better off without Miss Kerruish's fortunately timid tendencies toward spiritualism, as in giving Luna the "supersensitive" power of detecting the presence of evil and the supernatural. Perhaps all that is needed is a more convincing description of her psychic faculties, but at present I find them a little dubious. And calling the supernatural the "forth dimension" and
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