The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag

Last updated
The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag
Author Robert A. Heinlein
Country United States
Language English
Genre Science fantasy
Publication date
October 1942
Media typePrint (Periodical & Paperback)
First published in Unknown Worlds , October 1942

The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag is a science fantasy novella by American writer Robert A. Heinlein. It was originally published in the October 1942 issue of Unknown Worlds magazine under the pseudonym of "John Riverside". The novella also lends its title to a collection of Heinlein's short stories published in 1959.

Contents

Plot summary

Jonathan Hoag, a lover of art and fine dining living in Chicago, realizes that he has no memory of his daytime activities when asked, at an evening dinner, what he does for a living. Furthermore, when he washes his hands in the evening, he discovers a red-brown substance, possibly dried blood, under his fingernails.

He contacts a detective agency, Randall & Craig, and asks them to follow him during the day. The partners, actually the husband and wife team of Ted and Cynthia Randall, agree to this. They try to collect fingerprints from their client, but find that Hoag leaves none, even when not wearing gloves. The few memories Hoag has turn out to be false, except for his home address, and a doctor, Potiphar T. Potbury, whom Hoag consulted about the substance under his fingernails, had thrown him out of his office and told him not to return.

The first time the pair tail Hoag, Cynthia sees him turn and talk to her husband. Then Cynthia is menaced by Hoag after she tails him in an office building. When she is reunited with Ted, he tells her that he had a completely different experience: after uneventfully tailing Hoag into the building and up to Hoag's office on the thirteenth floor, Ted discovers that Hoag is a jeweler working for a company called Detheridge & Co., and that the red substance is jeweler's rouge. Both realize that something is terribly wrong, especially once they discover that the building has no thirteenth floor.

Ted has a series of "dreams" in which he is taken through a mirror into the offices of Detheridge & Co., where he is told to leave Hoag alone by an assemblage of conservative businessmen. He ignores the dreams until, in one final dream, Cynthia is taken through as well. The businessmen reveal themselves as "Sons of the Bird", disciples of an old pagan religion; Hoag is a nemesis of theirs. They cause something to be sucked out of Cynthia into a bottle, and return her and Ted to their apartment.

Ted wakes up to find Cynthia in an apparent coma. He realizes that the dreams were true, and paints over all the mirrors in the apartment. He then calls Potbury, the only doctor he knows, to come and examine Cynthia. Potbury diagnoses her with lethargica gravis, but when Ted repeats the mantra of the Sons of the Bird to him, "The Bird is Cruel!", Potbury compulsively covers his face just as the sons did. Realizing Potbury is one of them, Ted overpowers him and locks him in the bathroom. He calls Hoag, who comes to the apartment. Told about Potbury, Hoag says that lethargica gravis is just a way of saying "deep sleep". They open the bathroom door, only to find that Potbury is gone, and the mirror scraped free of paint with a razor. They find a bottle in Potbury's black bag which, upon being opened, causes Cynthia to awaken.

To solve the mystery once and for all, Ted and Cynthia take Hoag to their office and subject him to questioning under drugs. After a few questions, Hoag wakes up with a strong, dominant personality, completely different from the nervous, weak man they have heretofore worked with. He declares the session over, and tells them to meet him later in a park just outside the city. He gives them a list of things to bring, and leaves them in a state of some puzzlement.

Reaching the park, with the collection of fine foods and wines Hoag requested, Ted and Cynthia find him there. They picnic on the epicurean fare, and Hoag tells them he is an art critic. The art in question is their entire world, created by an "artist" as a student project. Critics live as inhabitants in the world, not knowing they are critics, in order to judge experiences. One such experience is eating and drinking, as Hoag points out, since the simple act of gaining energy to live had not been thought of as an "experience" previously. Another is sex, but this is thought to be ridiculous until Hoag realizes that it is the basis for "the tragedy of human love" that he sees between Ted and Cynthia. Hoag's artistic judgment is that, while there is much that is amateurish in the world, overall its creator has real promise.

The Sons of the Bird are responsible for all the things that Ted and Cynthia have seen, including the times they saw Hoag during the day. They only encountered the real Hoag in their home and office. The sons were an early artistic mistake, hurriedly "painted over" rather than eliminated in the rush to complete the work, but still holding power. Now they are to be expunged completely. Hoag was recruited to report on them; the substance under his fingernails is their ichor, placed there to make them fearful.

Hoag tells the couple to leave the city, not stopping to talk to anyone on the way. He places one last grape in his mouth, and then becomes still. Leaving his inert body, the two drive through town, but finally yield to the urge to tell someone about Hoag's body. When they roll down their car windows, however, all that is outside their automobile is a pulsing, luminous mist, though all the other windows show an apparently normal scene. They drive on in a state of shock.

In the epilogue, the Randalls now live in an unnamed remote rural area by the sea. They do everything together, have no mirrors in their home, and every night before going to sleep "he handcuffs one of his wrists to one of hers".

Reception

Alexei and Cory Panshin described the novella as "the last and strangest of the stories that Robert Heinlein contributed to the Golden Age before he ceased to write during World War II." [1] Galaxy's Floyd C. Gale in 1961 found it "a brand of fantasy-mystery [that] would shock-present-day Heinlein lovers", [2] while the SF Site's Dale Darlage stated in 2011 that it seemed more like the work of Philip K. Dick than of Heinlein, and that although not all the aspects of the story have aged well, "the underlying story overcomes all of that window dressing." [3]

In 1996, Jonathan Lethem published the short story "The Insipid Profession of Jonathan Hornebom (Hommage à Heinlein)", which the SF Site's Neil Walsh called "an overt parody" of Heinlein's original, while conceding that it is "parody-tribute-homage (...) rather than outright mockery". [4]

The cultural theorist Slavoj Žižek has had occasion to ruminate on this story. He asserted that the luminous mist which confronts Ted and Cynthia as they drive out of town could only represent the Lacanian Real, "the pulsing of the presymbolic substance in its abhorrent vitality." [5]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert A. Heinlein</span> American author and aeronautical engineer (1907–1988)

Robert Anson Heinlein was an American science fiction author, aeronautical engineer, and naval officer. Sometimes called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was among the first to emphasize scientific accuracy in his fiction, and was thus a pioneer of the subgenre of hard science fiction. His published works, both fiction and non-fiction, express admiration for competence and emphasize the value of critical thinking. His plots often posed provocative situations which challenged conventional social mores. His work continues to have an influence on the science-fiction genre, and on modern culture more generally.

<i>Stranger in a Strange Land</i> 1961 SF novel by Robert A. Heinlein

Stranger in a Strange Land is a 1961 science fiction novel by American author Robert A. Heinlein. It tells the story of Valentine Michael Smith, a human who comes to Earth in early adulthood after being born on the planet Mars and raised by Martians, and explores his interaction with and eventual transformation of Terran culture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Varley (author)</span> American science fiction author (born 1947)

John Herbert Varley is an American science fiction writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">"—And He Built a Crooked House—"</span> Science fiction short story by Robert A. Heinlein

"'—And He Built a Crooked House—'" is a science fiction short story by American writer Robert A. Heinlein, first published in Astounding Science Fiction in February 1941. It was reprinted in the anthology Fantasia Mathematica in 1958, and in the Heinlein collections The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag in 1959 and The Best of Robert Heinlein in 1973. The story is about a mathematically inclined architect named Quintus Teal who has what he thinks is a brilliant idea to save on real estate costs by building a house shaped like the unfolded net of a tesseract. The title is paraphrased from the nursery rhyme "There Was a Crooked Man".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spider Robinson</span> Canadian science fiction author (born 1948)

Spider Robinson is an American-born Canadian science fiction author. He has won a number of awards for his hard science fiction and humorous stories, including the Hugo Award 1977 and 1983, and another Hugo with his co-author and wife Jeanne Robinson in 1978.

<i>Secret Window</i> 2004 film directed by David Koepp

Secret Window is a 2004 American psychological thriller film starring Johnny Depp and John Turturro. It was written and directed by David Koepp, based on the novella Secret Window, Secret Garden by Stephen King, featuring a musical score by Philip Glass and Geoff Zanelli. The story appeared in King's 1990 collection Four Past Midnight. The film was released on March 12, 2004, by Columbia Pictures; it was a moderate box office success and received mixed reviews from critics.

<i>Waldo & Magic, Inc.</i>

Waldo and Magic, Inc. is a book containing those two novellas, one science fiction, one fantasy, by American writer Robert A. Heinlein. It was published in 1950.

"The Man Who Traveled in Elephants" is a short story written in 1948 by Robert A. Heinlein. It was first published as "The Elephant Circuit" in the October 1957 issue of Saturn Magazine. It later appeared in two Heinlein anthologies, The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag and The Fantasies of Robert A. Heinlein (1999).

<i>The Fantasies of Robert A. Heinlein</i>

The Fantasies of Robert A. Heinlein is a collection of science fantasy short stories by American writer Robert A. Heinlein.

Jubal Harshaw is a fictional character featured in several novels by Robert A. Heinlein, most prominently 1961's Stranger in a Strange Land. He is described as: "Jubal E. Harshaw, LL.B., M.D., Sc.D., bon vivant, gourmet, sybarite, popular author extraordinary, neo-pessimist philosopher, devout agnostic, professional clown, amateur subversive, and parasite by choice."

"They" is a science fiction short story by American writer Robert A. Heinlein. It was first published in the April 1941 issue of Unknown, and can be found in Heinlein's short story collection The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag. It also appears in a number of multi-author anthologies.

The science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) was productive during a writing career that spanned the last 49 years of his life; the Robert A. Heinlein bibliography includes 32 novels, 59 short stories and 16 collections published during his life. Four films, two TV series, several episodes of a radio series, at least two songs and a board game derive more or less directly from his work. He wrote a screenplay for one of the films. Heinlein edited an anthology of other writers' science fiction short stories.

The Heinlein juveniles are the science fiction novels written by Robert A. Heinlein for Scribner's young-adult line. Each features "a young male protagonist entering the adult world of conflict, decisions, and responsibilities." Together they tell a loosely-connected story of space exploration. Scribner's published the first twelve between 1947 and 1958, but rejected the thirteenth, Starship Troopers. That one was instead published by Putnam. A fourteenth novel, Podkayne of Mars, is sometimes listed as a "Heinlein juvenile", although Heinlein himself did not consider it to be one.

<i>The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag</i> (collection) 1959 collection of science fantasy short stories by Robert A. Heinlein

The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag is a collection of science fantasy short stories by American writer Robert A. Heinlein. Published by The Gnome Press in (1959), the collection was also published in paperback under the title 6 X H.

"Nothing Ever Happens on the Moon" is a science fiction short story by American writer Robert A. Heinlein, published in April and May 1949 in Boys' Life, a magazine of the Boy Scouts of America, who jointly hold copyright with Heinlein, dated 1976. The story is about a boy who tries to become an Eagle Scout on the Moon. It is approximately 30 pages long as collected in Expanded Universe (1980). The story was again collected in Off the Main Sequence (2005).

Advent:Publishers is an American publishing house. It was founded by Earl Kemp and other members of the University of Chicago Science Fiction Club, including Sidney Coleman, in 1955, to publish criticism, history, and bibliography of the science fiction field, beginning with Damon Knight's In Search of Wonder.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate</span> Short story by Ted Chiang

"The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" is a fantasy novelette by American writer Ted Chiang, originally published in 2007 by Subterranean Press and reprinted in the September 2007 issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction. In 2019, the novelette was included in the collection of short stories Exhalation: Stories.

Clifford N. Geary was an American illustrator of science fiction, especially Robert A. Heinlein's "juvenile series" published by Scribner's from 1948 to 1956, and of popular science.

<i>Nebula Award Stories 5</i>

Nebula Award Stories 5 is an anthology of award-winning science fiction short works edited by James Blish. It was first published in the United Kingdom in hardcover by Gollancz in November 1970. The first American edition was published by Doubleday in December of the same year. Paperback editions followed from Pocket Books in the U.S. in January 1972, and Panther in the U.K. in December 1972. The American editions bore the variant title Nebula Award Stories Five. The book has also been published in German.

References

  1. ↑ Panshin, Alexei (2021). SF in dimension: a book of explorations. ISBN   978-1-005-28721-4. OCLC   1261277613.
  2. ↑ Ley, Wiley (February 1961). "Galaxy's 5 Star Shelf". Galaxy Science Fiction. pp. 139–143.
  3. ↑ "The SF Site Featured Review: The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag". www.sfsite.com. Retrieved 2022-10-31.
  4. ↑ "The SF Site: Books I've Been Avoiding: Overlooked or Over-hyped? by Neil Walsh". www.sfsite.com. Retrieved 2022-10-31.
  5. ↑ Žižek, Slavoj (1991). Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture. MIT Press. p. 13-15. ISBN   0-262-24031-9.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.