Rachel: mixing with non-white, non-Western people.
People from "the East", from "the South."
You know... Negroes. Asians. Mulattos. People of "impure blood." People like me.
The foreign hordes who threaten the middle-class Anglo-Saxon paradise.
I've heard the Yngvi joke a thousand times, it's from an old Andre Norton book... maybe I should change name to something respectable, like Sider or Meltzer.
Marshall McLuhan said: "A man's name is a blow from which he never recovers." :)
-A.R.Yngve
http://yngve.bravehost.com
I like how this debate has evolved: many interesting comments and lots of insights made. I certainly learned things from the other posters, even those I disagree with. (I will never join the Tolkien camp! Never! Not even at gunpoint! A writer who so loathes race-mixing has no place in the bookshelf of a mixed-race reader like myself, so there.)
I did read "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay last year - a very good novel - and I didn't worry too much about which genre it belonged to. It touched so many genres at once! Which, perhaps, should be a model for any writer...?
Most interesting are the comments about the "center" and the "edge" of the genre we call science fiction. Also illuminating: the differences between "SF" as a critical definition, and the purely commercial definition made out of convenience. Loved the one about the reader asking for "those vampire books by what's-her-name..." :)
Here's a thought: For a long time, the "great center" of SF built its popularity on best-selling tales of interplanetary war, life in the future, contact with aliens... the stuff we now think of as the staples of SF.
What really constitutes the "popular center" of the genre today? Techno-thrillers like the ones Michael Crichton writes? The space-operas of Peter Hamilton? Or is the genre still dominated by media spin-offs like STAR TREK and the likes?
I wouldn't ask this, if I took the answer for granted, and this debate has taught me not to take much for granted...
-A.R.Yngve
http://yngve.bravehost.com
Martin Amis wrote the script for SATURN 3? I stand corrected. He's nothing like Chris Farah -- I have no right to pigeon-hole them together. My sincere apologies.
(Wasn't SATURN 3 the movie about a robot trying to rape a woman?)
-A.R.Yngve
I apologize for my trolling tendency.
"I just don't see how creating a fantasy culture and sealing oneself off from the real world are related. At least, not nearly that directly."
It depends on the individual, I guess, and how broad his or her range of interests is.
"But then, I also have no desire to go kick Martin Amis in the shins. I think most literary types are not scoffing at SF for being impossible or poorly speculated. I think the ones who scoff want very different things out of a book and are sometimes unwilling to see that speculation about possible futures can be one of the functions of literature."
OK... then I'll argue that the old distinction between "realistic" and "speculative" literature has now become illusory. Any attempt to write, no matter how much gritty social realism it is meant to be, involves a degree of speculation. Was it Emile Zolà who invented the notion of the "realistic" writer as a cool, detached scientist, merely observing the world and analyzing it, without adding anything imaginary? Naturalism was an invention anyway, and it's obsolete. Ditto for Modernism.
We are living in an SF scenario. (Or rather several ones.)
Any good writer, regardless of genre, has to observe reality in order to write involving fiction. And we're observing the merging of SF speculation with that reality. That is why Chris Farah is talking out of another orifice than his mouth, so to speak. The quality of fiction can no longer be judged solely on the basis of obsolete standards. (Then again, SF/F can't completely escape some of those standards either.)
There are critical standards that should apply to any genre... it's hard to define what I'm thinking of here, but it's something like "consistency" (similar to "the interior logic of the fictional world"), and "psychological honesty". Let's say I'm personally working my way toward a set of standards for what literature should try to accomplish.
All I'm sure of is that I don't want to tilt at intellectual windmills like Chris Farah. He and is ilk are not relevant anymore. Either ignore him or tell him the game is up.
I propose:
1. Any attempt to write "realistic" fiction according to the old standards will ignore the scientific and technologial realities of the present-day world, and how they affect our social interactions and psychology.
2. Any attempt to ignore ANY sort of standards of the quality of fiction, will result in a deterioration of fiction. "What do I care about spelling, grammar or psychological credibility? If it feels good, it IS good!"
3. Readers have the right to ignore standards. What they experience when reading, belongs to them personally. (But try to re-read the book you loved as a child, and you might change your mind.)
4. Writers, on the other hand, can't work without standards. We have a duty not to get sloppy. That's where critics can be helpful -- if THEIR standards are good and relevant.
-A.R. Yngve
http://yngve.bravehost.com
John: I think I read Stanislaw Lem's essay a long time ago. He was pretty harsh specifically on American SF, and complained that its intellectual potential was largely squandered.
In the ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SCIENCE FICTION, I read: "Lem's intellect may be vast; it's also cool and unsympathetic." :)
-A.R.Yngve
http://yngve.bravehost.com
OK, I was deliberately provoking a reaction there. I'd NEVER snatch the glasses from a nearsighted overweight person... it's not my style to bully the weak. A crude attempt at humor. Honest, Guv.
But seriously: what I'm trying to say -- in my bumbling manner -- is that any attempt to seal oneself off from the larger culture -- either by creating a fantasy world, or creating a phony "intellectual" class structure based on literary elitism -- is a flimsy and vulnerable position at best. Poke at it, and the illusion shatters.
What DO people like Martin Amis or Chris Farah say when the Asimo robots come marching into society? Will they pretend that robots do not exist, ignore that robots have a direct precedent -- indeed, direct inspiration -- in SF literature? Then it's they who're living in fantasy land.
How DOES the young man in the Tolkien costume respond if someone (not I) aggressively challenges his elaborate fantasy game? Retreat further? Break down in tears? Start thinking?
Chris Farah... he's a non-entity trying pathetically to restrict the free flow of information with non-existent powers of judgment and taste. Tell it to his face, Patrick. There is no reason you should suffer fools quietly. We're civilized beings, but that doesn't make him any less a fool.
-A.R.Yngve
http://yngve.bravehost.com
Good points, all. I'm preaching to the choir. :)
What I really ought to be doing is to gate-crash a gathering of the TRULY insular -- say, a circle of literary Important People, or a Tolkien costume show/Renaissance Fair -- and piss them off.
"Martin Amis, you pompous twit! YOU never got a walking robot named after you, like Asimov did! His influence on culture and science will outlast you by thousands of years! But you will be FORGOTTEN! Nyah nyah!"
"You know what, fat boy? They didn't have eyeglasses in the Middle Ages! Here, let me help you get more historically accurate! (Snatches glasses from young man in faux-medieval garb) What're you gonna do now, fat boy? Cast a spell on me? Get your head out of your ass and get on an exercise bike! Then you might get laid someday."
;-)
-A.R.Yngve
http://yngve.bravehost.com
Before I join the chorus savaging critic Cristopher Farah (who's a non-entity unworthy of my attention), I'm recall the unwritten rule that only black Americans may call each other "nigger" without being insulted.
I'm an SF fan and writer. Honestly. So then I'll use the "N" word, so to speak, and say: We're a bunch of whiners.
"We're not getting the recognition we deserve from the Establishment! Waaah!" Well, duh. Isn't that a teenagerish attitude?
If we're in a ghetto, it's because WE moved into it, locked the gates, and put up a sign that said: "We Don't Need Any Other Literature!" If fans seem insular, it's because most of them - not all, but most - ARE insular and wouldn't touch THE ARROW OF TIME, say, because there's no planets or spaceships on the cover.
Every group has its own prejudices. Bear that in mind. The Golden Rule: Treat others as you want to be treated. If you want recognition, start "recognizing" other forms of art and culture. Pick a mainstream novel from the library shelves -- any one -- open a page at random and start reading. Go to an art exhibit. Go see a non-SF movie.
Now, how you experience "their" books and culture will be different from how "they" experience it. But this is a good thing. You'll be able to see the limitations of "mainstream", but also the unwritten limitations and "rules" of "our" fantastic fiction. We have our own prejudices and limitations/hang-ups, we're just unaware of them.
For example, Tolkien fans will deny that THE LORD OF THE RINGS is built around Tolkien's fear of women and foreigners. But it is, it really is.
Or SF fans will vehemently deny that ENDER'S GAME is a piece of shameless wish-fulfilment for boys, with a tortured, mixed-up homophobic/homoerotic subtext. But it's there, it really is.
If we, instead of obsessing over superficial detail in our favorite SF/F books (technology/gear/costumes), ALSO learn to interpret levels of message and metaphor -- the way those snotty "mainstream" critics can -- we could learn stuff about ourselves which we're either unaware of, or unwilling to know. And this would make reading SF/F a RICHER experience.
There... I've drawn blood. Let the carnage begin.
;-)
-A.R.Yngve
http://yngve.bravehost.com
There is only ONE real cure for recurring sinus troubles: go to a specialist, and have your sinuses surgically enlarged.
I did, and all my chronic sinus problems went away. The surgeon anaesthesized my nose, went in with a knife, and literally carved out more space in my skull... sounds terrible, but it wasn't.
Go to a specialist now, and spare yourself future suffering... :)
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2004 | 11 |
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