Lost Art — A Closer Reading

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In Category - Space Future

Authors: Emshwiller, Ed, 1925-1990 [Illustrator], Hawk, G. K. Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2019 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Science fiction; Short stories; Survival -- Fiction; Space ships -- Fiction Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 4,932

Reading time 22 min

Text sections 1

Lost Art — A Closer Reading can be approached with a clearer sense of reading commitment from its source measurements: 4,932 words, 22 min estimated reading time, and 1 detected text section.

The text analysis averages about 17.5 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Science fiction,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #59150

In a crashed spaceship, two survivors confront a button-dependent culture's fragility. The story contrasts mechanical reliance with a remembered 'lost art' of direct action, using snow, silence, and failed machinery to frame a survival dilemma.

Editorial Edition Score 4.4/5

★★★★★ ★★★★★

Calculated from edition completeness, EPUB availability, text structure and catalogue metadata. Not a user rating.

How this score is calculated

Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.

Edition quality

File: pg59150

Read the Text

Endicott said nothing but looked at the tier upon tier of buttons, functionless now.

Allison looked at the board, too, his narrow shoulders hunched. "They've never failed before," he muttered through chattering teeth.

"What?" Endicott seemed bemused.

"The buttons. Punch 'em, and you always get what you want--except now!"

"Now, now," Endicott said soothingly. "Panic isn't going to help us any. All we have to do is sit tight--and wait. They'll send a relief ship out--"

"In the morning. Morning, sure. They had us on the 'viewer, don't forget. They'll know exactly where to look."

"They won't be able to locate us in this white stuff."

"I tell you they know precisely where we are. And anyway the scanviewer will pick us up."

"I don't think they'll ever find us." Allison slumped down on his transverse geeseat, stared wide-eyed at the drift forming slowly inside the torn metal of the windward side of the control room. "This white stuff scares me." He shivered, then got up hastily, his boots slipping slightly on the snow-slick decking, and punched the button again. "It's got to work!" he cried and beat on the board with his fist.

"Stop that!" Endicott said sharply.

There was a crack of a slap in the control room, then silence.

In a moment Endicott said in his soothing voice, "Sorry, Allison. Everything'll be all right. Don't you worry."

"If you say so, Chief." Allison stood in the center of the control room, his arms slack by his sides.

"We'll be all right," Endicott said. "We have food capsules--"

"We'll be all right, except--" Endicott peered through the rents in the hull into the storm outside. "All we have to do is sit tight," he added hastily.

"We'll freeze tonight without heat." Allison's voice was still breathless with panic.

"Yeah. Yeah, I've been thinking about that. There's some thing 'way down deep in my mind--something I can't quite get--" Endicott still looked out at the storm-thrashed trees, a puzzled expression wrinkling his face. "Something from my childhood--I was born a long time before you, you know, before they set up state conditioning homes for children. Long before they set up this 'everything-from-buttons' business. Lived with my own people, I did, and I seem to remember--seem to remember--" The puzzled expression became a frown of concentration. "Or maybe it was something I read a long time ago," he mused.

"Did what?" Allison perked up.

"Read. You wouldn't know what that was. Everything comes from buttons now, entertainment, food, light, heat--everything.... No, it was from my childhood, I'm sure. I remember my people used to take me out in the country--" Endicott mused on while a cloak of snow grew on the shoulders of his jacket, and the light began to fade.

"Out in the country? What for? Nobody goes out there." Allison's eyes gleamed slightly in the growing dusk.

"--for picnics. And--" Endicott's eyes brightened, and one hand clenched.

"For what?" Allison's head thrust forward.

"What?" Endicott snapped, irritated at having his train of thought broken.

"What did your people take you in the country for?"

"A picnic.... Yes, yes, that's it! I remember now!" Endicott's words poured out.

"You know it is forbidden to think of the old days."

"Shut up! Let me think. You want heat, don't you?"

"It's forbidden to think of the old days," Allison repeated stubbornly. "You'll get heat when I report this--in a different way."

"Shut up! Look, you want to keep from freezing tonight?" Endicott glared. "All right. Come with me and do as I say." Without a backward glance Endicott crossed the slippery deck and entered the passageway. At the midship cargo natch he stopped.

"How are you going to open it without power?" Allison's breath-plume shot over Endicott's shoulder. "It's locked and unlocked by a button on the control board. Remember Chief?"

"Stop gloating, Allison. This is for your benefit as well as mine. There's an escape hatch in the control room."

"That's controlled by power, too."

"Yes, but in these older models the hatch also has a manual control, as I remember." Endicott moved off toward the control room.

Allison hesitated, then followed, and joined Endicott as he began to search the control board. Endicott found the emergency lever for the escape hatch and tugged on it, turning his head to watch the hatch in the side of the hull, back of his seat. The hatch, big enough for one man to pass through at a time, popped, crackling with frost, and stirred slightly.

"Now, Allison, my boy, let's put our shoulders to it." Endicott was in high spirits again.

Continue Reading →

The story opens with a cargo ship wrecked in a snowstorm, its hull torn, control board dead. Snow sifts through jagged metal tears, settling on banks of useless pushbuttons. Allison, dazed, mechanically punches a button, expecting a response that never comes. Endicott, the older engineer, has already inspected the machinery and knows they are beyond repair: 'We're off the powercast.' The setting is immediate and tactile—wind-thrashed branches scrape the hull, frozen breath merges with drifting snow. The buttons, once reliable, now acquire 'grotesque, lop-sided, conical hats' of snow. This opening establishes a world where technology has failed utterly, and the characters must reckon with a dependency they never questioned.

The Button Civilization

The story's world is defined by pushbuttons. The control board is described as 'bank upon bank of pushbuttons,' and characters refer to them constantly: 'Punch 'em, and you always get what you want.' Allison's instinctive reaction to crisis is to push a button, even when it is clearly dead. Endicott's response is more measured, but he too is shaped by the same system—he inspects machinery, checks the receiver, but ultimately admits, 'Something in its guts is burned out.' The buttons are not just controls; they are a cultural reflex. The narrative emphasizes this through repetition: Allison 'punched the button on the control board again,' and later 'jabbed the button again and again.' The word 'button' appears a dozen times in the opening pages, reinforcing the theme of mechanical dependency.

Snow as a Structural Element

Snow is not merely weather; it is a structural force. It enters the ship through tears in the hull, sifts over the control board, and accumulates on buttons. The snow is described with active verbs: 'stiff fingers of icy, wind-driven snow beat a tattoo,' 'filtered through the jagged tears,' 'sifted down.' It transforms the familiar cockpit into an alien, hostile space. The snow also serves as a time marker—Allison watches it form 'lop-sided, conical hats' on buttons, then idly watches another form in its place. This slow, visual process contrasts with the instant gratification the buttons once provided. The snow isolates the ship, making rescue uncertain: 'They won't be able to locate us in this white stuff.' It is both a physical obstacle and a symbol of the characters' helplessness.

Voice and Dialogue in Crisis

The dialogue between Allison and Endicott reveals their differing responses to disaster. Allison is panicked, repetitive, and childlike: 'No power means—no heat!' and 'They've never failed before.' Endicott is calm, almost detached, using soothing phrases like 'Now, now' and 'Panic isn't going to help us any.' His speech is measured, with pauses marked by em-dashes: 'All we have to do is sit tight—and wait.' The contrast is heightened by physical description—Allison's 'narrow shoulders hunched,' Endicott's 'old blue-veined hands.' The dialogue also hints at a generational gap: Endicott remembers 'the old, old days—when a man could save a life without a push-button,' while Allison knows only the button world. Their exchange is terse, driven by immediate needs, and avoids exposition beyond what is necessary for survival.

The Promise of Rescue and Its Uncertainties

Endicott insists that a relief ship will come 'in the morning,' because 'they had us on the viewer.' But Allison counters with a practical doubt: 'They won't be able to locate us in this white stuff.' The story thus sets up a tension between faith in technology (the viewer, the rescue system) and the reality of the storm. Endicott's confidence is based on the assumption that the system works—'They know precisely where to look'—but the reader, like Allison, may question whether that knowledge is enough. The excerpt ends on this note of uncertainty, with the characters waiting in a dead ship, surrounded by snow. The story's structure hinges on this waiting period, and the reader is left to wonder whether the 'lost art' of the title refers to a skill that could save them without buttons.

Readers should pay attention to how the story uses the physical environment—the snow, the cold, the damaged hull—to mirror the characters' psychological states. The repeated references to buttons and the powercast create a world where technology is both omnipresent and fragile. Endicott's vague memory of a time before buttons is a key detail, but the story does not yet reveal what that 'lost art' might be. The narrative moves between the control room and the passageways, between dialogue and interior observation, building a claustrophobic atmosphere. The ending, though not included here, likely hinges on whether that lost knowledge can be recovered.

There’s something about the silence in that crashed ship that reminds me of the quiet between the lines in Willie’s Planet — Reading Notes. Both books keep returning to what happens when the buttons stop working, when we’re left with just our hands and the snow. I keep thinking about that lost art, and how we never notice it until it’s gone — Willie's Planet — Reading Notes sits beside it on my shelf like an old friend.