Zenna Henderson was a schoolteacher right here in Arizona, in fact. She obviously loved children almost all of her stories are about children. She wasn’t the most prolific writer and all of her stories have recurring themes. She loved children, in fact she loved people. And she didn’t confine her identification of ‘people’ as humans born on earth. She loved the sense of wonder; she would not have been surprised if wonder were included in our “six senses”. She also had an unflagging faith in the power of belief; and, significantly, she did not link it to religion or a god except in a couple of stories but with a light touch.
This book was published by NESFA Press, the publishing arm of the New England Science Fiction Assn. This is the second collection of Henderson’s work published by NESFA. The first was a complete collection of all of her stories of The People titled “Ingathering”. She wrote two collections of short stories “The Anything Box” copyright 1965 and then “Holding Wonder” copyright 1971. This book reprints all the stories from those two books and then includes three short poems and five stories that had not been reprinted since their original publication in various small publications. Both books are still available for sale on their website. I bought this book solely for those five stories. And I don’t regret it.
“Before the Fact” is a subtly SF story, gently told; but with a tremendously sad message. It isn’t the only story to predict the fall of an overly complex society; but maybe the first where the children saw it coming.
“Thrumthing and Out” was wonderful. Again, not the first nor the last examining the end result of generations sequestered from the ‘out’ due to some undisclosed catastrophe that caused their ancestors to hide. We’ve seen generation spaceships where the inhabitants have forgotten they are inside something. In this story, the people have forgotten they are inside something; there are inarticulated threats of how bad “out” is but they don’t even seem to have myths or legends to fall back on. A certain group of specialists are regularly sent to inspect the integrity of their walls. An incursion from “out” is most feared causing an extreme reaction. Then one day, a dedicated specialist who always believed she would follow the rules and report a Spill; ended up having quite a different reaction one that was predicated upon how her communistic society regarded personal possessions. The moment she realized that her discovery was unique and it belonged solely to her was the moment she unconsciously decided not to report. The story concerns itself only with her experience but also with the two others who get pulled into the mystery/conspiracy. Henderson brings in another element to give the story a way to resolve. She brings in music; which is peculiar to my mind but probably because I’ve had more time to consider what ought to brought into the lifeboat this story was published in 1972. They only brought in recordings; nothing about the how music was made; so nothing original anymore. Since this is only a short story; one can now, from our point in time, consider how much more could be made of this story what happened after? It could be another streaming show like “Silo.”
The next one “The First Stroke” was also an SF story but I’m not sure if Henderson had a real message in this one; it was published in 1977. I’ve not made a study of the evolution of science fiction but the 1970s had a tremendous impact on the genre. We might have been, at this point, starting to look at aliens more generously than imagining world destruction. If anything, Henderson’s message was explicit in the conversation that our protagonist overheard, without any understanding. This was a typical short story for its time.
“There Was a Garden” was really off the beaten-path for Henderson; unlike anything else I can recall. Humanity is gone. What’s left reminds me of the joke of the parts of a human body arguing about which of them was more important. But the entities arguing are discussed the condition of the world itself: mountains, water, fields, continents, snow, even avalanche. It’s rather charming but also human-centric when you get to the end.
“…Old…as a Garment” was, to my mind, a very typical Henderson story. It had hints of an older short story she published in 1960 “Something Bright”- this story published in 1978. As with many of her stories, we catch a glimpse, a moment only, to see something. She does not give us backstory or worldbuilding. We see a group of elders gathering for a Dance which excludes younger people. And there’s a good reason for it; this Dance is a celebration of the youth that is still within every old person. It was both sweet and tender.
I have reviewed both “The Anything Box” and “Holding Wonder” so please take a look at those to get a sense of what is in those two books. The next time I need a comfort read, I’ll drop a review of her The People stories. And then spread the word: don’t let her be forgotten. ~~ Catherine Book
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