Mimsy Were the Borogoves by Henry Kuttner read by William Shatner Vinyl Record Album LP Caedmon Spoken Word online

Mimsy Were the Borogoves is a science fiction short story by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore that was originally published in the February 1943 issue of Astounding Science Fiction Magazine. It was judged by the Science Fiction Writers of America to be among the best science fiction stories written prior to 1965 and included in the anthology The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929–1964. The classic Henry Kuttner story Mimsy Were the Borogoves read by William Shatner. This is the original release on Caedmon records TC 1509.

From the back cover: One warm winter morning in Los Angeles, years ago, an event took place which led to the almost instantaneous writing of “Mimsy Were the Borogoves.” The title, of course, comes from the poem “Jabberwocky” in Through the Looking-Glass, and as the Caterpillar points out to Alice, it can mean anything you choose it to mean. The Caterpillar explained that he paid his words extra if they had to do more than the usual amount of work, and certainly “Mimsy” is called upon here to carry a tremendous burden of meanings. What they are depends on you who hear it. In a moment I'll give you my interpretation or, more accurately, my guess about a part of what it may mean.

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Mimsy Were the Borogoves by Henry Kuttner read by William Shatner

Vinyl: VG+ light scuffs/sleeve marks
Cover: VG+ minor edge and storage wear

Album Tracks:
Side A - 30:40
Side B - 31:55
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The beginning happened on that winter morning as Lewis Padgett (who was Henry Kuttner) and his wife, CL Moore (me) sat at breakfast beside an open window. Through it, from downstairs, came the quiet voices of several children, unseen to us, who were discussing something that seemed to be grave and important, though we couldn't make out the words. Now and then their mother's angry calls, increasingly shrill, summoned them to breakfast. They ignored this, except that their dialogue instantly stopped at such times, picking up calmly when the clamor ceased. They online had something more important to deal with, and they sounded very competent to do it, whatever it was.
I remarked on this. We listened awhile, catching nothing of any meaning from the quiet voices. At least, I didn't.

But after awhile Henry Kuttner finished his coffee, sat and thought a bit, went to his typewriter and wrote “Mimsy Were the Borogoves.” He typed it at his usual machine-gun speed, though as I remember it now, without the customary pauses now and then for reflection or discussion about what should come next. The pages slid smoothly through the typewriter and fell to the floor as he started the next one, and I began to read as I gathered them up. I was still enjoying the last page when he rolled in a title sheet, and without any of our usual debate about what the story should be called, he typed "Mimsy Were the Borogoves.”

I wish now we had discussed it. At the time it seemed so right as not to need explanation or discussion. Only today am I beginning to think further thoughts about it. The story is clearly about the strange and alien race called children, through whose ranks we all pass on our journey toward-well, whatever it is we're journeying toward. And the title-When Alice asked about it the Caterpillar explained that “mimsy” means flimsy and miserable, and that borogoves are a kind of thin, shabby-looking bird. While I do believe this implicitly, I suggest that the words mean many other things too.

Possibly borogoves are all of us, in different garments, and mimsy is a way we are all bound to feel now and then. We can only be sure that in the course of our journey through childhood toward maturity we once lived in a world where our senses were keener and our minds more flexible than they ever will be again. All of us were once inhabitants of that remarkable, frightening, boring, exciting time called childhood.

This story is, perhaps, about the pleasures and perils of that time, and of learning too much too soon from an irresistibly compelling source. And about the price of loving, the price of learning, the unbridgeable gulfs between individuals, and the irresistible forces that drive us to keep on trying the impossible. Even, sometimes, somehow, really getting there. Which can be more dangerous than failure, from some viewpoints, anyhow.

As for Unthahorsten, in this story, he probably had a lot in common with you and me. His glossach may well be something like our minds, so lovingly stored with things of no more practical use, but infinitely valuable to those of us mimsy enough to cling to outworn borogoves. Things to be tossed finally and casually into the future. Like this story. - CL Moore

Henry Kuttner (Lewis Padgett) and C. L. Moore (Catherine Moore) were both well established in the science fiction field when they married in 1940. Together and separately, under fifteen-odd names and pseudonyms, they published some four hundred titles, including several mystery novels. They were at work on their first television assignment when Henry Kuttner died, very suddenly, of a heart attack, in February of 1958.

CL Moore is the author of several science fiction classics under her own name, including Judgement Night and Shambleau. She is now Mrs. Thomas Reggie, and is living in California.

Although William Shatner is renowned for his role as Captain James Kirk, commander of the USS Enterprise in the NBC television series Star Trek, his talents are quite diverse. He was one of the first Canadian actors to join the repertory company of the now distinguished Stratford (Ontario) Shakespeare Festival, where his companion players included such great actors as Alec Guiness, James Mason and Anthony Quayle. He appeared on Broadway in the role of the examining magistrate in A Shot in the Dark, co-starring Julie Harris. Apart from acting, as time allows, he writes and directs for television and feature films. William Shatner has also recorded THE PSYCHOHISTORIANS from Isaac Asimov's Foundation for Caedmon on TC 1508. Leonard Nimoy reads THE ILLUSTRATED MAN (TC 1479), THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES (TC 1466) and WAR OF THE WORLDS (TC 1520) for Caedmon.
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