blueskye@sun.uucp (Tim Ryan) (09/25/85)
Someone (sorry, but I don't remember your name), recently requested that s/he would like to hear what a "real critic" had to say about life, the universe, and science fiction. Lo, and behold, there is a major critical review of the field in the October, 1985 edition of _Harper's_ magazine (available at better bookstores). Below you will find quotes from this essay. NECESSARY DISCLAIMERS: 1. I personally do not agree with everything that is quoted here. 2. The material in quotes is Copyright, 1985, Harper's Magazine Foundation, and is used without permission. That said, the author of the essay is Luc Sante', who has written for the _New York Review of Books_, _Manhattan_, _inc._, &c. This is a real, professional, mainstream critic here, folks, so listen up to what some people in the "real world" :-) think about our beloved SF. *********************************************************************** "It is hard, a century or so later, to recall science fiction's original promise. Even today, when technological boosterism is at a pitch not seen in years, the mechanical utopias envisioned back then seem remote. Just as the creative leisure once anticipated as the legacy of the machine age materialized only as consumerism and boredom, so science fiction's great horizons have shrunk. Rather than inspiring liberty, science fiction has merely generated a new set of conventions. Instead of drawing anybody onward, these conventions have led inward, to minutely embroidered variations on earlier works; sideways, to procrastination and sloth (as when science fiction disposes of social issues by resolving them in impossible conditions); and backward, to nostalgia and escapism (as when it pretends that the present never occurred). "Conventions, of course, are attributes of all literary genres, and it seems pointless to fault a genre merely for being a genre. What makes science fiction different from other genres is the hubris of its intention, which is nothing less than to depict the future, and the impossible. That it usualyy delivers pedestrian sillines is therefore thrown into much greater relief. Like modern technology, science fiction relies on mystification to disguise the fact that it is continually retailing the same product." * * * "Nor does science fiction exclude humor, but a major component of humor is irrationality, a quality feared by science fiction. Within the terms of the genre, everything must adhere to a rigorous schema. Science fiction cannot bear to leave its conundrums elegantly unresolved. Its task is to literalize, add mass, and seek a convincing solution, no matter how extravagant or dull. Science fictioneers are addicted to a form of closure, by which internal consistency is achieved at the cost of absurdity. If humans shuttle back and forth through time like commuters on the subway, the mechanism of their travel must be accounted for in a consistent and 'plausible' way. If aliens are shaped like hourglasses and exhale chlorine, their physiology must be explained in terrestrial terms. Science is not usually considered a deterrent to the spirit of invention, so the fact that it can be invoked to deadening effect in a purely literary matter is a bit surprising. But science fiction's fear of instinct and desire for respectability mark its origins in the nineteenth-century bourgeousie, a milieu famous for using science as a bludgeon." * * * "This desire to capture the enormous impact of scientific discovery on the average mind reamins a central concern of science fiction. The _Star Wars_ movies and Frank Herbert's never-ending _Dune_ saga are recent versions of the serialized space opera, in which planets, colonies, species and biosystems interact in myriad configurations." * * * "Campbell was a tyrant who encouraged tyrannical views. His guidance bore fruit in the works of such writers as Robert Heinlein and L. Ron Hubbard. Heinlein's grandiose technocratic vision approaches fascism in works like _Starship Troopers_ (1959) and _Stranger in a Strange Land_ (1961), the latter once the bible of psychedelic zealotry and a major influence on Charles Manson. Hubbard, after producing acres of wordage for Campbell, tired of writing science fiction, and decided to live it, a decision that resulted in his pseudoscience, Dianetics, which had considerable impact on science fiction before mutating into the pseudoreligion Scientology." * * * "If science fiction today can be said to show a trend, it is a retrograde trend, serving up planets more distant and futures increasingly remote." * * * "Science fiction, by relying on a tradition of mediocrity, has effectively sealied itself off from literature, and, incidentally, from real concerns. From within, science fiction exudes the humid vapor of male prepubescence. The cultlike ferocity of science fiction fandom serves only to cultivate what is most sickly and stunted about the genre. "Meanwhile, in the outside world, science fiction finds work as a commercial fetish, substituting for religion. Consumers are shown a field of stars blazoned with the device "Beyond!" When associated with breakfast cereal or pickup trucks, the image of the cosmos suggests masculine adventure while promising oblivion. Anything can and does get sold this way. Nevertheless, the double seduction of bravado and of the void can most effectively be used to sell the prospect of annihilation. Perhaps it is not so much that science fiction has compromised itself as that time has caught up with it. Its once vast terrain has been thoroughly plundered; what is left is detritus, exploitable but degraded. Science and fiction can both be found elsewhere; the future, though, must still be invented." On the subject of Sam Delany and _Stars in My Pockets Like Grains of Sand_: "Better, perhaps, that the author dispense with earthly correlatives entirely and drown the reader in extragalactic miasma, as Samuel R. Delany does in _Stars in my pocket like grains of sand_. Delany, who began publishing in the 1960's, is the only major black writer of science fiction. His books are dense and thoughtful, if perhaps a shade overwritten, as his titles might suggest (_Driftglass_, _Time considered as a helix of semi-precious stones_). On the comscreen, which for some reason hadn't turned off when I'd left, the pale colors of the ball court still pulsed: withing the pentagonal frame, among the laughter, I watched Thadeus Thant (voice like a cracked claxon, a gentle, jovial, jealous creature, who, now, at age eighty, has learned to turn jealousy into ambition)...and imperious Eulalia Thant (an impressive redhead surrounded by more jewelry than I think all of us Dyeths owned, kilos of it floating out on suspensors that kept it turning slowly about her, as she turned about her children, her spouses, a woman with an insight into juman motivations both cultivated and uncanny)... "Delany has a flair for the alien, and is quite adept at convincingly rendering the whole of distant societies. But he is sometimes hard on the reader, who must spend hours deliberating over the prbable sexes of characters ina society where everyone is referred to as "she," regardless of gender, unless he/she becomes a sexual object, and thus becomes "he." After a few hundred pages, however, the insistence has a hypnotic effect, and the conceits take on flesh. Then, near the end, the book reveals itself as a doomed-love tale with a very long setup. The setup is so skillful and the denouement so pat that the book seems abruptly to fall of a cliff. It is as though the book had ended with "and then I woke up." The love story is a homosexual one, which ought to be either incidental or boldly announced; but instead the doom, the pat ending, and even the lengthy mis-en-scene seem like camouflage slathered on out of embarassment. This is an example of science fiction's accustomed approach to a subject of burning concern--to the author or to society at large: put it aboard a rocket ship and transport it eons away where it can be detonated safely." ******************************************************************* If you've gotten this far, congratulations! The actual essay is a really nasty piece of work by someone who clearly has an axe to grind. These excerpts are offerred mostly as a basis for further discussion, because I'm sure there will be many flames about points that have been made here. Again, I disavow any personal connection or support of statement in quotes. So don't flame me personally (please! I mean it!). Tim Ryan "What goes on here is not part of the real world." Tom West
wfi@rti-sel.UUCP (William Ingogly) (09/27/85)
In article <2821@sun.uucp> blueskye@sun.uucp (Tim Ryan) writes: >... This is a >real, professional, mainstream critic here, folks, so listen up to what >some people in the "real world" :-) think about our beloved SF. Note of course the qualifier "some." Before anyone post a flame in response to this he should ask him/herself whether this is an attitude held by all mainstream critics, a subgroup of mainstream critics, or this critic only. And I'd suggest you read the flames that are guaranteed to show up in Harper's in the next month or two. Don't assume out of hand that all critics agree with Mr. Sante or that all readers of Harper's do. > "It is hard, a century or so later, to recall science fiction's >original promise. Even today, when technological boosterism is at a >pitch not seen in years, the mechanical utopias envisioned back then >seem remote. Just as the creative leisure once anticipated as the >legacy of the machine age materialized only as consumerism and boredom, >so science fiction's great horizons have shrunk. Note that Mr. Sante is responding primarily to his understanding of science fiction as a genre which has its origins in the 19th century. Note also the political stance implied by his use of a term like "technological boosterism" and the assumption that the fruits of our technological activity have been primarily anti-human (e.g., consumerism and boredom). He's obviously one of those Marxist (see below) neo-Luddite types you sometimes run into in humanities departments at your local university. But you should realize when you read something like this that other mainstream critics are probably reading it and dismissing it as nonsense. A critical exchange usually consists of a series of thrusts and counterthrusts, and it will be interesting to see how other critics (if any) respond to the Harper's article. >Rather than inspiring >liberty, science fiction has merely generated a new set of >conventions. Instead of drawing anybody onward, these conventions have >led inward, to minutely embroidered variations on earlier works; >sideways, to procrastination and sloth (as when science fiction >disposes of social issues by resolving them in impossible conditions); >and backward, to nostalgia and escapism (as when it pretends that the >present never occurred). He's right in a sense, that science fiction tends to be highly stylized. But his attitude stems from the 20th century attitude that art must "progress" by discarding conventions in favor of a more 'direct' confrontation with reality and the nature of art itself. So what we've sometimes ended up with is art that's so self-referential that it has little to say about the human condition. This, of course, is the same criticism he's levelling at SF. Note the emphasis on 'liberty:' liberty from what and to what purpose? Science fiction DOES sometimes dispose of social issues and pretend that the present never occurs. But his sweeping generalizations lead me to believe that his exposure to SF consists of a few back issues of Amazing and Analog and a couple of books by Delaney he read on someone else's recommendation. Or maybe he's been reading net.sf-lovers ... ;-) > "Conventions, of course, are attributes of all literary genres, >and it seems pointless to fault a genre merely for being a genre. What >makes science fiction different from other genres is the hubris of its >intention, which is nothing less than to depict the future, and the >impossible. This is idiocy. He obviously is only superficially familiar with the genre and with its history over the last 50 years. >That it usualyy delivers pedestrian sillines is therefore >thrown into much greater relief. Like modern technology, science >fiction relies on mystification to disguise the fact that it is >continually retailing the same product." Note the slam (again) against modern technology. He simply does NOT like life as a human since 1800. >"Nor does science fiction exclude humor, but a major component of humor >is irrationality, a quality feared by science fiction. He obviously isn't familiar with Phil Dick's work. Or many other writers of SF works with a heavy dose of "irrationality" in their fiction. >... Science fictioneers are >addicted to a form of closure, by which internal consistency is >achieved at the cost of absurdity. If humans shuttle back and forth >through time like commuters on the subway, the mechanism of their >travel must be accounted for in a consistent and 'plausible' way. If >aliens are shaped like hourglasses and exhale chlorine, their >physiology must be explained in terrestrial terms. True to a certain extent. Case in point: the current discussion of the light sabre vs. the blaster in this very newsgroup (talk about angels dancing on the head of a pin!). But to say that all SF writers or readers are like this is to reveal one's own ignorance of the genre. > "This desire to capture the enormous impact of scientific >discovery on the average mind reamins a central concern of science >fiction. ... Note "desire to capture:" the reality is that writers like Delany, Silverberg, LeGuin, etc. are actually commenting on science's impact on society and the individual, something this critic thinks is beneath contempt (since he obviously has nothing but contempt for science and technology). We're talking politics here, people, not literature. >Dianetics, which had considerable impact on science fiction ... ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ As far as I can tell, horsefeathers (outside L. Ron's clique, of course). Just another instance of his limited knowledge of the field. > "Meanwhile, in the outside world, science fiction finds work as >a commercial fetish, substituting for religion. Consumers are shown a >field of stars blazoned with the device "Beyond!" When associated with >breakfast cereal or pickup trucks, the image of the cosmos suggests >masculine adventure while promising oblivion. Anything can and does >get sold this way. When's the last time you saw an ad of this nature? I have a sneaking suspicion this yoyo (1) doesn't own a television set and (2) never reads "popular" magazines. The commercial approach he's talking about went out around 1958 (which is probably the last time he sat down in front of a TV to see what the 'masses' are into). >... Perhaps it is not so much that science fiction has >compromised itself as that time has caught up with it. Its once vast >terrain has been thoroughly plundered; what is left is detritus, >exploitable but degraded. Science and fiction can both be found >elsewhere; the future, though, must still be invented." The same thing has been said about the novel, which still seems to be alive and well as far as I can see. > "Better, perhaps, that the author dispense with earthly >correlatives entirely and drown the reader in extragalactic miasma, as >Samuel R. Delany does in _Stars in my pocket like grains of sand_. >.... His books are dense and thoughtful, if >perhaps a shade overwritten, ... > "Delany has a flair for the alien, and is quite adept at >convincingly rendering the whole of distant societies. But he is >sometimes hard on the reader, [where have we heard THIS argument before!! ;-)] >who must spend hours deliberating over >the prbable sexes of characters ... >... After a few hundred pages, however, the >insistence has a hypnotic effect, and the conceits take on flesh. >...the book reveals itself as a doomed-love tale with >a very long setup. ... >but instead the doom, the pat ending, and even the lengthy >mis-en-scene seem like camouflage slathered on out of embarassment. If SF is so easily dismissable as a genre, why is he spending so much time trying to dismiss THIS book? >This is an example of science fiction's accustomed approach to a >subject of burning concern--to the author or to society at large: put >it aboard a rocket ship and transport it eons away where it can be >detonated safely." A rather pat and rather silly dismissal of Delany's intentions in SIMPLGOS. Just remember: one case (or a hundred cases, for that matter) does not a consensus make. Now I'm just going to sit back and wait for the sweeping generalizations about 'mainstream critics' to start rolling in... :-) -- Cheers, Bill Ingogly
randy@bcsaic.UUCP (randy groves) (09/28/85)
With friends like that, who needs enemies?? God, what a bozo! -- =========================================================================== ... only a hollygram, but one more is gone. =========================================================================== randy groves ...!uw-beaver!uw-june!bcsaic!randy