BARD@MIT-XX.ARPA (06/03/85)
From: Bard Bloom <BARD@MIT-XX.ARPA> Bill Ingodly writes: > How many of the following authors have you read, for > example; Jorge Amado, John Barth, Donald Barthelme, Saul Bellow, > Thomas Berger, T. Coraghessan Boyle, Italo Calvino, Robert Coover, > Don DeLillo, Joan Didion, Jose Donoso, Stanley Elkins [sic], Carlos > Fuentes, . . . > In what way are > the best writers in SF more numerous or better writers than these > mainstream people? We're talking superior craftsmanship here, things > like real dialogue by real people, little things I find infrequently > in much SF. I've recently read _Invisible_Cities_ (Calvino); saying that it had either characters or dialogue is an act of considerable generosity. (It is virtually pure structure, more like an abstract painting than a novel; recommended, but *NOT* for personality.) Didion's _A_Book_Of_Common_Prayer_ was somewhat better, in that the dialogue captured the characters -- but if the characters were real, they were not especially sane; neither did many of their actions make sense. They were more plausible before I started then after I finished. Other books, further in my past, had realer dialogue and characters; but it does not seem strange to me that the two I've read most recently don't. > because Zelazny doesn't really believe in these characters. I > challenge the best of you out there to care about a character and > bring him or her to life for your readers when you yourself have no > faith in your own characters or any real interest in them other than > as devices to carry the plot along! I can't read Zelazny's mind, except such of it as he broadcasts. It seems to me that he does care about his characters. Ignoring internal evidence in his books, he writes stories about the same characters and _doesn't_ try to publish them -- except once, in a short story collection which I can't find [help?], when he published one. This doesn't quite sound like a sign of intense apathy to me. Again, Mahasamatman strikes me as a more believable character than any in the Calvino, Didion, or Elkin I've read recently. > "...Some call me Sam, and most call > me ham, but you can call me Jim, or you can call me Slim..." Is this > believable or well-done? If you had read _Lord_Of_Light_ recently, I would flame at you for not checking your parody-quotation. Sam doesn't say it; it's description and thus believable. It appears in the first and last chapters. Things being as they are, it foreshadows and summarizes the novel, sketching in a few sentences Sam's personality and the important conflicts and their resolution, and placing the novel in a frame. Very well-done. Zelazny's works in general concern rather unusual characters: gods, Princes of Amber, and other people who wield intense personal power -- power derived from their personalities. He describes how such power alters these people, from causing them to become mature (e.g. Sam, Corwin) to destroying them (Dr. Render in "He Who Shapes"). Such people are rare (-8 except for Unix wizards 8-), but are certainly valid characters for SF. Real enough for you? > Lift your heads out of the SF ghetto, people... I hereby allow you, or encourage you, to stop reading SF. With excessive flame, Bard -------
wfi@rti-sel.UUCP (William Ingogly) (06/05/85)
In article <2175@topaz.ARPA> BARD@MIT-XX.ARPA writes: >Bill Ingodly writes: I sincerely hope this is a typographical error, since I'm sure most mature posters to the net are offended by 'humor' that pokes fun at people's names or racial/physical characteristics. Please take care to get people's names right in the future, since errors of this sort can lead to bad feelings. Catch my drift? >> In what way are >> the best writers in SF more numerous or better writers than these >> mainstream people? We're talking superior craftsmanship here, things >> like real dialogue by real people, little things I find infrequently >> in much SF. > >I've recently read _Invisible_Cities_ (Calvino); saying that it had either >characters or dialogue is an act of considerable generosity. (It is virtually >pure structure, more like an abstract painting than a novel; recommended, but >*NOT* for personality.) Didion's _A_Book_Of_Common_Prayer_ was somewhat >better, in that the dialogue captured the characters -- but if the characters >were real, they were not especially sane; neither did many of their actions >make sense. They were more plausible before I started then after I finished. > >Other books, further in my past, had realer dialogue and characters; but it >does not seem strange to me that the two I've read most recently don't. In at least one other response prior to this one, I discussed my overstressing realism in dialogue and characterization in my posting. As I pointed out in that response and in at least one private mail exchange on this topic, many excellent contemporary writers are unconcerned with realism in these senses. Invisible Cities is an example, but you might make a case that Calvino's working at the margins of fiction as we ordinarily understand the term. Fiction, poetry, realism, dadaism, etc. are all categories created mainly for critical or didactic purposes and many modern writers have worked deliberately at the margins of these categories, in part to illuminate their artificiality. Joan Didion is an example of a writer whose fiction is closer to a 'classic' understanding of what the novel is about. Few SF writers, it seems to me, work consciously to redefine or subvert the nature of their own tools (i.e., language and fiction itself) in the way that certain non-SF writers like Calvino and at least some of the other names on my list do. Most SF attempts a more or less realistic presentation of events, although certain techniques of the early 20th century avant-garde like stream of consciousness and nonlinear temporality are quite common (notice, please, that I said MOST SF, not all SF). Fiction that's structured as strangely as Calvino's Invisible Cities, or (perhaps a better example) his If On A Winter's Night A Traveller, is quite scarce in the SF genre. I used realistic presentation of dialogue and characterization in my argument because (rightly or wrongly) I believe many SF writers, including Roger Zelazny, are attempting to present characters and situations in a realistically convincing manner. Furthermore, my recollection of Lord of Light is that it dealt with a fantastic world, but that the main characters in it were presented in an entirely realistic fashion (note for example the 'scientific' explanation in the book of the origin of the gods and their powers). In this sense, your invocation of other contemporary writers' deliberate subversion of realism is beside the point, since what I'm saying is that I believe that Zelazny was in certain senses (but not all) attempting realism and that he failed. And I fully realize I haven't read the book in ten years, and intend to do so (this point was also made in another of my recent postings on this subject, which you may care to read). Please note also that I invoked Zelazny and Ellison to make a point: that there are many so-called mainstream writers who are AT LEAST as good as the best SF writers; I just don't personally think Zelazny and Ellison are the best SF writers that can be invoked, but many other people who post to this group do. Since no one has directly addressed the central issues in my original response, I can only conclude that in the future I'll have to attack only those writers who EVERYONE will agree is bad so no one gets so riled up that s/he misses my point. >> because Zelazny doesn't really believe in these characters. I >> challenge the best of you out there to care about a character and >> bring him or her to life for your readers when you yourself have no >> faith in your own characters or any real interest in them other than >> as devices to carry the plot along! > >I can't read Zelazny's mind, except such of it as he broadcasts. It seems to >me that he does care about his characters. Ignoring internal evidence in his >books, he writes stories about the same characters and _doesn't_ try to >publish them -- except once, in a short story collection which I can't find >[help?], when he published one. This doesn't quite sound like a sign of >intense apathy to me. Again, Mahasamatman strikes me as a more believable >character than any in the Calvino, Didion, or Elkin I've read recently. So we disagree on Zelazny. Chacun a son gout. The point I was trying to make in all of this is simply that Steve Brust was wrong when he said most of the best modern writers are writing in SF; you'd seem to agree with me on that point. I have nothing against Mr. Ellison and Zelazny; in the past year I've purchased both Madwand and Shatterday in hardcover and read them both. I don't feel, however, that they're the best people in the SF field, a claim I'm sure other posters to this group would dispute. I picked on Zelazny and Ellison because they're not my personal favorites; ANY SF writers I'd chosen to criticize would have been SOMEONE'S favorites, so no matter what I said I was bound to be a villain in someone's book. >> "...Some call me Sam, and most call >> me ham, but you can call me Jim, or you can call me Slim..." Is this >> believable or well-done? > >If you had read _Lord_Of_Light_ recently, I would flame at you for not >checking your parody-quotation. Sam doesn't say it; it's description and thus >believable. It appears in the first and last chapters. Things being as they >are, it foreshadows and summarizes the novel, sketching in a few sentences >Sam's personality and the important conflicts and their resolution, and >placing the novel in a frame. Very well-done. I found it rather silly and not well done at all. I admitted I hadn't read Lord of Light recently, and the quote is clearly a parody of the original. My parody DOES capture my own reaction to the original passage, however, which I found obtrusive and unrealistic. By the way, I read Lord of Light twice at the time, so it's not like my recollections are based on a cursory skimming of the book. >> Lift your heads out of the SF ghetto, people... > >I hereby allow you, or encourage you, to stop reading SF. Let me see ... anybody who doesn't agree with YOU and who thinks a writer YOU like has certain shortcomings as a stylist shouldn't read SF? Why do you find criticism of you personal favorites threatening? Perhaps you're objecting to my reference to an SF 'ghetto.' It was (again: I'm getting sick of referring back to the posting that started all of this) in response to Steve Brust's claim that most of the best writers working today are in SF, a statement I've heard from other SF fans and writers which I take as evidence of a lack of knowledge of and/or interest in fiction written outside the narrow bounds of the genre. Ghetto was perhaps the wrong word, since it implies an external cause for the ghettoization of its members; the insularity of some SF fans is self-imposed. Oh, yes, I've been reading SF since the age of seven (1952), so I resent your 'encouraging' me to stop reading SF. -- Bill Ingogly
crm@duke.UUCP (Charlie Martin) (06/05/85)
I was going to attempt a sort of point-by-point response, but whatthehell --- instead, I'll just try to write a cogent essay-let in reply to the whole recent mess. The point that I think has been offered is that SF writing is terrifically derivative and (somehow) less ``good'' than mainstream writing. Just to warn everyone ahead of time, I don't feel that this is really true: Sturgeon's Law applies to everything, mainstream or not. Furthermore, SF has the real advantage that it still is a commercial medium, and therefore has (so far) been largely spared the sterility that mars most ``literary'' fiction. There is bad fiction in SF and Fantasy, no denying: I hate endless hobbits with fake ID's as much as anyone. And series books are REALLY beginning to bug me. But I still feel that the proportion of good fiction in SF and Fantasy is *at least as high* and probably higher, than I have seen in mainstream or literary fiction. Those of you who are immediatly going to flame me because I believe that most mainstrean and literary (e.g. _Paris_Review_) fiction is sterile, go ahead; all I'm going to do from here on is explain what I'm talking about and make an argument in favor of my point of view. (flame point) When I say ``sterile,'' just what am I talking about? Good question, and one in which to some extent I'm going to try to avoid answering. The reason I want to avoid answering the question is that I believe it is as unanswerable as the question ``Just what is it you mean when you say the word `red'?'' I believe this sterility is directly perceptible by anyone who has learned to read fiction at all. Have you ever read (or tried to read) a story in which you were never able to become engrossed in the story? Where you were always conscious that you were ... reading ... a ... book? Then I believe you were reading something that I call sterile. Now, note that two different people would believe different things sterile. I find it hard not to be conscious of ...reading ... the ... book... (I promise I won't do it again) when I have read Moby Dick. In my case, this is for a paradoxical reason: the sentances are so pretty, so nicely rounded and fully packed, that I find myself admiring them rather than falling into the book. Now that may be a result of my partially-trained ``writer's ear'' but it is none-the-less so. I find it impossible to read Moby Dick for pleasure. I very much doubt that _Finnegan's_Wake_ is read by *anyone* for pleasure -- or if it is, it is only because years of study have made the reader so familiar with the language involved (which means learning how to handle puns across several european languages which are written in the form of euphonic Scotch telegrams) that this language barrier is no longer a problem. I believe that _Finnegan's_Wake_ is sterile. Bill has mentioned several times the various writers who are involved in meta-fiction: Calvino has been prominent. I don't feel that meta-fiction is *inherantly* sterile: _Cosmicomics_ is an example of a break with conventional ficiton which I don't think is sterile at all. However, writing meta-fiction, writing fiction in which conventions are challenged, is a risky business: it's hard for the reader to co-operate in understanding the dream. Calvino sems to manage; for me John Barth does not. It could be argued that I'm saying ``then good fiction is just what you like.'' And in fact I am -- but the word ``just'' should be deleted from the sentence. I am in fact claiming that good fiction is fiction in which a clear and strong dream is created, which is formed out of the agreement between the writer and the reader to take these little black marks and turn them into a vivid dream, a way of creating clear memories of something that didn't happen, or that happened to someone else. I think anything that does this is likely to be fun to read, something that is ``just'' what I like. Anything that does not make this work may be in some sense admirable (as I have long admired the creative effort and verbal trickery of _F'sW_) but it is simply not good fiction. Now, how does this all apply to SF, and the discussion that has been going on? The essential question to me is: does the proposed fiction create this vivid dream? Clearly, the first proponent of the ``SF is a ghetto and it should be, 'cause it's bad'' theory doesn't feel so. However, this does not mean that it is bad for everyone: perhaps this is just a person who shouldn't really be (mainly) an SF reader. But the idea originally proposed was that we who prefer to read SF should get our minds out of the ghetto and find out what *real* fiction is like. However, my experience with what has been propounded as ``literary'' is that, for me at least, the ``literary'' fiction is nearly completely sterile. The few ideas that are proposed are puerile or dull, the characters are often people who I wouldn't want to talk to in person, and the situations are usually intolerably banal. I can't make the dream vivid: the author's style, choice of words, non-standard sentence structure or simple lack of identification with his own characters have made it impossible for me. The usual response to this has been an essentially elitist one: ``if you were a literary sophisticate, you wouldn't find it so.'' Well, maybe so: but my experience with English Lit people has been that becoming a ``literary sophisticate'' really means ``learn the code words and accepted interpretations. Learn to fit in.'' Perhaps those of us that believe that there is more good writing in SF than in mainstream are simply near-illiterates, as the more strenuous pro-literary voices seem to have claimed. On the other hand, maybe we really are seeing the Emperor's bare ass, shivering in the cold that critical acclaim can't keep out. A postscript: Bill Ingogly has mentioned _Lord_of_Light_ as an example of SF that he disliked, especially mentioning the ``he was called Mahasamatman, and Binder,... but he preferred to be called just Sam'' section as being a part of the book that he especially disliked. The particular comparison he's used was to that awful ``you can call me Jim, or you can call me...'' comedian. Well, okay, clearly this business broke the clarity of the dream for Bill. However, as a long-time student of the various sutras and storys of the life of the Buddha, I really enjoyed it. That was a very nicely used parody or pastiche of a stylized phrase that happens over and over again in Sutras and in Vedic literature, and really gave me the feel that this was a story in the Eastern sort of world that the book is meant to evoke. If indeed the measure of ``literature'' is the sophistication required to read it, perhaps -- just perhaps -- the sophistication that was lacking was not Zelazny's. -- Charlie Martin (...mcnc!duke!crm)
wfi@rti-sel.UUCP (William Ingogly) (06/07/85)
In article <5897@duke.UUCP> crm@duke.UUCP (Charlie Martin) writes: >The point that I think has been offered is that SF writing is >terrifically derivative and (somehow) less ``good'' than mainstream >writing. Just to warn everyone ahead of time, I don't feel that this >is really true: Sturgeon's Law applies to everything, mainstream or >not. ... I completely agree; one of my responses in this exchange made exactly this point (though I mistakenly attributed Sturgeon's Law to Arthur Clarke). I have never made the point described here; if you think I have, I've either failed to communicate correctly or you've misread me. >Have you ever read (or tried to read) a story in which you were never >able to become engrossed in the story? Where you were always conscious >that you were ... reading ... a ... book? Then I believe you were >reading something that I call sterile. > >Now, note that two different people would believe different things >sterile. I find it hard not to be conscious of ...reading ... the ... >book... (I promise I won't do it again) when I have read Moby Dick. As you point out, this is the problem I have (or had) with Lord of Light. I found some of his techniques intruding on my enjoyment of the story. Do you find Nabokov's fiction sterile, by the way? He was a *very* self-conscious writer who deliberately played games with the authorial presence (in one of his novels, for example, a character goes insane when he discovers he's a character in a book; and in Lolita, Humbert Humbert mentions a play or book called 'My Cue' by Vivian Darkbloom. Try rearranging the letters in Vivian Darkbloom's name ...). Nabokov and Melville are two of my favorite authors, so perhaps we're dealing with a difference in personal taste here. More than one literary critic has knocked Nabokov for playing these games with his readers' heads, so you're not alone if you dislike him. But does that make him a bad writer? >I find it impossible to read Moby Dick for pleasure. I very much doubt >that _Finnegan's_Wake_ is read by *anyone* for pleasure -- or if it is, >it is only because years of study have made the reader so familiar with >the language involved (which means learning how to handle puns across >several european languages which are written in the form of euphonic >Scotch telegrams) that this language barrier is no longer a problem. I >believe that _Finnegan's_Wake_ is sterile. I totally agree. I also would call it self-indulgent. The few people I know who have made a study of Finnegan's Wake claim to get great enjoyment from tackling the task, however, so I suspect that this is another case where a certain amount of personal taste is involved. Perhaps it's like the guy who likes to beat himself over the head with the baseball bat because it feels so good when he stops. :-) >Bill has mentioned several times the various writers who are involved >in meta-fiction: Calvino has been prominent. I don't feel that >meta-fiction is *inherantly* sterile: _Cosmicomics_ is an example of a >break with conventional ficiton which I don't think is sterile at all. >However, writing meta-fiction, writing fiction in which conventions are >challenged, is a risky business: it's hard for the reader to co-operate >in understanding the dream. Calvino sems to manage; for me John Barth >does not. Again, I agree; Calvino is a blast, and Barth is a bore. For me, of course. I'm sure both of us have known people who greatly enjoyed Giles Goat-Boy, or Chimera, or one of Barth's other books. Gunter Grass is another writer who's an acquired taste, I think. > ... But the idea >originally proposed was that we who prefer to read SF should get our >minds out of the ghetto and find out what *real* fiction is like. We both know SF readers who read nothing but SF; I have one of them in my family. From postings to this group over the past two years, my feeling is that there are readers in this group who hold the mistaken opinion that SF is the only place where most interesting/valid/worthwhile things are being done today in fiction. I certainly did *not* say that SF in general is not real fiction, or put down the entire SF genre. If you think I did, I suggest you reread my posting. Yes, I've made extreme statements (the use of the word ghetto was extreme). The intention was to get people's attentions and spark some exchanges on this topic, and it seems to have worked. I care a great deal about SF, but I care a great deal about a lot of fiction written outside the genre as well. >However, my experience with what has been propounded as ``literary'' is >that, for me at least, the ``literary'' fiction is nearly completely >sterile. The few ideas that are proposed are puerile or dull, the >characters are often people who I wouldn't want to talk to in person, >and the situations are usually intolerably banal. I can't make the >dream vivid: the author's style, choice of words, non-standard sentence >structure or simple lack of identification with his own characters have >made it impossible for me. Try replacing "literary fiction" in this paragraph with "SF." Bad fiction is bad fiction, no matter what the genre. And all of us (myself included) have to admit that fiction fulfills different needs for different people. We all have our own ways of approaching a story, and I suspect we all get something different from a story. What I've reacted strongly to in this group and others in the past are what I've felt were absolutist statements that pigeonholed whole genres of fiction, types of music, or groups of people unfairly. >The usual response to this has been an essentially elitist one: ``if you >were a literary sophisticate, you wouldn't find it so.'' Well, maybe >so: but my experience with English Lit people has been that becoming a >``literary sophisticate'' really means ``learn the code words and >accepted interpretations. Learn to fit in.'' Perhaps those of us that >believe that there is more good writing in SF than in mainstream are >simply near-illiterates, as the more strenuous pro-literary voices seem >to have claimed. Then you've had one or more bad experiences with 'English Lit' people that you shouldn't generalize from. I've known several people, undergraduates and graduate students alike, who were rabid SF fans in first-rate English Lit departments (University of Virginia and University of Iowa at Iowa City, for example). I think this is an unfair generalization. And defending the claim that there's more good writing in SF by accusing myself and others of character assassination isn't a fair argument in my book. Certainly, graduate or undergraduate programs in English encourage their students to conform in more or less subtle ways; this is more a problem with academia in general than with literary criticism or the formal study of English (or other) literature. What makes you think students in these programs are all too short-sided to see that these problems exist? And 'code words' and 'accepted interpretations' exist in all disciplines, including computer science. Every field has jargon; in many cases, it streamlines the communication process between practitioners of a discipline. This is true of a lot of the jargon that's involved in 'lit-crit bulls__t,' as another poster recently put it. And as far as 'accepted interpretations' goes, I think you're talking about critical consensus regarding quality judgements in fiction. A lot of people in this newsgroup seem to want to believe that quality judgements are meaningless, since (apparently) anything which can't be described by an algorithm is subjective. I think this is wrongheaded, simply because so much of human culture and human behavior is subjective. My feeling is that the 'lit-crit' consensus is correct in many cases, and just plain wrong in others. Guess what? It's no different in any other field of intellectual endeavor, including the sciences and engineering disciplines. >A postscript: Bill Ingogly has mentioned _Lord_of_Light_ as an example >of SF that he disliked, especially mentioning the ``he was called >Mahasamatman, and Binder,... but he preferred to be called just Sam'' >section as being a part of the book that he especially disliked. The >particular comparison he's used was to that awful ``you can call me Jim, >or you can call me...'' comedian. Well, okay, clearly this business >broke the clarity of the dream for Bill. > >However, as a long-time student of the various sutras and storys of the >life of the Buddha, I really enjoyed it. That was a very nicely used >parody or pastiche of a stylized phrase that happens over and over >again in Sutras and in Vedic literature, and really gave me the feel >that this was a story in the Eastern sort of world that the book is >meant to evoke. If indeed the measure of ``literature'' is the >sophistication required to read it, perhaps -- just perhaps -- the >sophistication that was lacking was not Zelazny's. I've already admitted that it's been ten years since I read the book. I am not an unsophisticated reader, and you know it; just a human being with a memory that's sometimes defective like everyone else. The quote, as you and at least one other poster have pointed out, is little like my recollection of it. If I've unfairly criticized Zelazny, I apologize. -- Bill Ingogly
crm@duke.UUCP (Charlie Martin) (06/07/85)
In article <234@rti-sel.UUCP> wfi@rti-sel.UUCP (William Ingogly) writes: >In article <5897@duke.UUCP> crm@duke.UUCP (Charlie Martin) writes: > >>is really true: Sturgeon's Law applies to everything, mainstream or >>not. ... > >I completely agree; one of my responses in this exchange made exactly >this point (though I mistakenly attributed Sturgeon's Law to Arthur >Clarke). I have never made the point described here; if you think I >have, I've either failed to communicate correctly or you've misread >me. note please that I am not replying only to you -- one reason that I wrote this as an essay in itself was that it was not only your criticism to which I intended to respond. So, since I didn't make it clear, I'll do it explicitly for everyone to see I AM NOT CRITICIZING BILL IN PARTICULAR -- AND THE POINT I WAS RESPONDING TO HERE WAS ORIGINALLY MADE BY (I've lost his/her first name) TUCKER. I did an F of Bill's article for convenience, and because I wanted to respond in particular to points that had been made in his letter, too. > >>Have you ever read (or tried to read) a story in which you were never >>able to become engrossed in the story? Where you were always conscious >>that you were ... reading ... a ... book? Then I believe you were >>reading something that I call sterile. >> >>Now, note that two different people would believe different things >>sterile. I find it hard not to be conscious of ...reading ... the ... >>book... (I promise I won't do it again) when I have read Moby Dick. > >As you point out, this is the problem I have (or had) with Lord of Light. >I found some of his techniques intruding on my enjoyment of the story. >Do you find Nabokov's fiction sterile, by the way? I blush to admit that I haven't read much Nabokov, except for interviews with him. When he was widely available, I was considered ``too young,'' and there is now so much back stuff to read.... >He was a *very* >self-conscious writer who deliberately played games with the authorial >presence not necessarily bad, just hard to pull off -- >Try rearranging the letters in Vivian Darkbloom's name ...). Nabokov >and Melville are two of my favorite authors, I think that Melville would have been one of mine, too, had I been born seventy-five years ago. But my little mind was warped by early years of reading less ornate authors, and I've never managed to adapt to the more ornate verbal style. But I'm not arguing that Melville is a bad author, just inviting commiseration and sympathy. As I said, my problem is not that _Moby_Dick_ is bad, but that it's too good: the pleasure of seeing the words work interferes with my ability to fall into the book, see the waves and hear the voices in the movie theatre in my head. >>that _Finnegan's_Wake_ is read by *anyone* for pleasure -- or if it is, I misstated this a little, because I *do* read Finnegan Wake for pleasure -- I love puns, and enjoy finding them in FW. But I can only do it a page at a time, and it's not really the *same* pleasure I was talking about. >know who have made a study of Finnegan's Wake claim to get great >enjoyment from tackling the task, however, so I suspect that this is >another case where a certain amount of personal taste is involved. >Perhaps it's like the guy who likes to beat himself over the head with >the baseball bat because it feels so good when he stops. :-) I kind of think it's more like jigsaw puzzles -- but not like reading fiction. >> ... But the idea >>originally proposed was that we who prefer to read SF should get our >>minds out of the ghetto and find out what *real* fiction is like. > ... >that SF in general is not real fiction, or put down the entire SF >genre. If you think I did, I suggest you reread my posting. Once again, let me stress that I was not necessarily replying to only Bill-Ingogly words, but rather taking up the side of the SF-is-okay people in general against the Forces Of Literature. Knowing you as a fan I took this as being (on your part) hyperbole. I realize that you are partial to SF. Let me recast once-and-for-all what I felt had been the thesis proposed: that most or all of SF was crap, that most mainstream fiction was better, and that SF readers who thought otherwise should get their minds out of the pulp-lined gutters of the paperback ghettos, and learn what *good literature* was, so they wouldn't say these foolish things. >Yes, I've >made extreme statements I firmly approve -- can't have a fun discussion unless you take a strong stance. >What I've >reacted strongly to in this group and others in the past are what I've >felt were absolutist statements that pigeonholed whole genres of >fiction, types of music, or groups of people unfairly. But you see, that is the same thing to which I am reacting -- statements that SF readers don't know what ``good'' is, and refuse the ``good stuff'' in favor of endless serial episodes masquerading as novels. The statements to which I've been responding have been very strong -- not just ``there's a lot of crap out there'' but ``the reason there's so much crap out there is that you turkies can't tell the crap from good stuff.'' I know you know better, and I admit that your posting was not quite this strong (although I certainly felt the out-of-the-ghetto phrase suggests it -- but let that pass; hyperbole is fun, and other postings on this subject have certainly been that strong, or seemed to have been.) I stick to my original point -- there is (in my mind) AT LEAST as much trash out there in Literature (proportionately) as there is in SF. > >>The usual response to this has been an essentially elitist one: ``if you >>were a literary sophisticate, you wouldn't find it so.'' ... >>believe that there is more good writing in SF than in mainstream are >>simply near-illiterates, as the more strenuous pro-literary voices seem >>to have claimed. > >Then you've had one or more bad experiences with 'English Lit' people >that you shouldn't generalize from. I've known several people, >undergraduates and graduate students alike, who were rabid SF fans >in first-rate English Lit departments (University of Virginia and >University of Iowa at Iowa City, for example). I think this is an >unfair generalization. Maybe so -- it's been nearly ten years since I was an English major, and that didn't last very long. But it has been my experience, and has been an experience shared by many of my acquaintances who have been in the same position. Hard to tell if a generalization is unfair unless you can examine the whole class about which you are generalizing. But my experience is at least partly based on the responses I've had from my near-stepmother, who is busily getting a Ph.D. at Drake, after having been at UI/Iowa City for some time. I don't think I quite follow the point of SF fans at the Lit Departments -- I don't believe that there is some reason English majors can't like SF. I just think that the current ``direction'' of formal academic English and what is being called ``Literature'' is such that, to be respectable within these departments, an SF-fan/Lit Major had better praise the obscurity over _Dahlgren_ over the more clear style and form of something like _Ender's Game_. (Aside: if anyone hasn't read _Ender's Game_ yet, do so immediately. It's bloody wonderful.) >And defending the claim that there's more good >writing in SF by accusing myself and others of character assassination >isn't a fair argument in my book. If you took the phrase about ``near-illiterates'' that way, well, I'm sorry. But that's the way the ``ghetto'' statement read to me, that is even more so the way that ?? Tucker's articles have read to me, and I stand by it. Note that ``near-illiterate'' refers in no way to one's character -- but does seem to me to say clearly in few words the attitude that I felt was being taken. > >Certainly, graduate or undergraduate programs in English encourage >their students to conform in more or less subtle ways; ... >.... And as far as 'accepted interpretations' goes, I >think you're talking about critical consensus regarding quality >judgements in fiction. .... >My feeling is that the 'lit-crit' >consensus is correct in many cases, and just plain wrong in others. And I agree. But *my* feeling is that the consensus is often *compelled* by exactly those forces which encourage conformity. (I hope my elisions haven't resulted in me taking you out of context -- but I was trying to abstract what I think is an essential point.) And I see these ``up out of the gutters! We're here to save you, and lead you to the true light of Good Literature'' sorts of statements as an attempt to get the consideration of SF to get in line. My problem is that I suspect that they're standing in the wrong line, on what I feel are strong philosophical and literary grounds >Guess what? It's no different in any other field of intellectual >endeavor, including the sciences and engineering disciplines. It's just a little harder, because we can't go out and pick up a VTGLM (Vacuum Tube Good Literature Meter) to make our measurments with. But I've proposed a VTGLM of my own (admittedly influenced by reading a number of EngLit people whom I admire, most notably John Gardner): does it encourage the reader to enter into the Dream with the dreamer? By my measurements, more SF and fantasy (and mystery fiction, and thrillers, and 19th century novellists who were writing for a living, like Dickens) get a high rating than what has been offered to me as ``literature.'' Admittedly, the form of ``meter'' I'm suggesting does not really allow us to agree, or even allow me to repeat my own measurements -- but it does allow me to have a reasoned basis for my assertion that the proportion of crap is higher in Literature than in SF. I'll listen to other arguments, and I still try to read outside SF (for example, I'm reading Montaigne now), but I've not yet been offered any other arguments. > >>A postscript: Bill Ingogly has mentioned _Lord_of_Light_ as an example >>of SF that he disliked, especially mentioning the ``he was called >>Mahasamatman, and Binder,... but he preferred to be called just Sam'' ... >>sophistication required to read it, perhaps -- just perhaps -- the >>sophistication that was lacking was not Zelazny's. > >I've already admitted that it's been ten years since I read the book. >I am not an unsophisticated reader, and you know it; just a human >being with a memory that's sometimes defective like everyone else. The >quote, as you and at least one other poster have pointed out, is >little like my recollection of it. If I've unfairly criticized >Zelazny, I apologize. Honest-to-Ghod, I am someday going to get a function key for sarcasm added to this terminal. You are right -- I know perfectly well that you are not an unsophis- ticated reader. Instead, this was an attempt to point out that allowing ``sophistication'' to be a measure of Good Literature can be a two-bladed sword. (By the way -- I never took that as a real quote at all, but as a parody intended to point up what you felt was a bad technique. If you felt I was accusing you of misquoting, I'm sorry -- I was really accusing you of crafty and well-composed exaggeration in order to make a point.) -- Charlie Martin (...mcnc!duke!crm)
wfi@rti-sel.UUCP (William Ingogly) (06/08/85)
In article <5909@duke.UUCP> crm@duke.UUCP (Charlie Martin) writes: >note please that I am not replying only to you -- one reason that I >wrote this as an essay in itself was that it was not only your criticism >to which I intended to respond. ... I wasn't quite sure, since you were responding to more than one person at once. Here are a few comments on your reply to my reply to my reply ... >I blush to admit that I haven't read much Nabokov, except for >interviews with him. When he was widely available, I was considered >``too young,'' and there is now so much back stuff to read.... It's possible some of the people in this group might enjoy his fiction. I didn't include Nabokov or some other people I enjoy and admire on my list because they're dead. Nabokov, by the way, enjoyed SF and all other 'popular' fiction, including things like comic strips and detective magazines. He wrote a play, the Waltz Invention, which is science-fictional in its subject matter. Also, most of his fiction has certain fantastical aspects. For example, Ada, or Ardour is set in a fictional earth in which Canada is apparently joined or close to Russia in some way; certain philosophers on this alternate earth believe that when people dream they're actually visiting a real place in another universe or dimension called Terra (i.e., our own earth). >Knowing you as a fan I took this as being (on your part) hyperbole. I >realize that you are partial to SF. ... For all those of you out there who still don't know it: yes, I do like SF. Yes, my statements did involve hyperbole. Heh, heh ... I think all of us can use a good shaking up once in a while. >I firmly approve -- can't have a fun discussion unless you take a strong >stance. I think it HAS been a fun discussion (but I'm certainly not suggesting it stop), and I feel I've learned some things from you, Charlie, and from the other responders on this topics. Thanks to everyone. >But you see, that is the same thing to which I am reacting -- >statements that SF readers don't know what ``good'' is, and refuse the >``good stuff'' in favor of endless serial episodes masquerading as >novels. The statements to which I've been responding have been very >strong -- not just ``there's a lot of crap out there'' but ``the reason >there's so much crap out there is that you turkies can't tell the crap >from good stuff.'' I know you know better, and I admit that your >posting was not quite this strong (although I certainly felt the >out-of-the-ghetto phrase suggests it -- but let that pass; hyperbole is >fun, and other postings on this subject have certainly been that >strong, or seemed to have been.) I stick to my original point -- there >is (in my mind) AT LEAST as much trash out there in Literature >(proportionately) as there is in SF. I've said it too. Unfortunately, I have to agree with you on some of the postings on this topic. And the 'out of the ghetto' phrase WAS intended to be hyperbole (hyperbolic?); I don't REALLY think SF is a ghetto, but I still believe many SF fans I've met are narrow minded about the values of fiction outside the genre. Many mainstream readers, critics, and writers are narrow minded about the values of SF, however; some of John Gardner's comments on SF in his book called (I think) On Becoming A Writer are rather unfair, I thought, but others are right to the point. >Maybe so -- it's been nearly ten years since I was an English major, and >that didn't last very long. But it has been my experience, and has been >an experience shared by many of my acquaintances who have been in the >same position. Hard to tell if a generalization is unfair unless you >can examine the whole class about which you are generalizing. > >But my experience is at least partly based on the responses I've had >from my near-stepmother, who is busily getting a Ph.D. at Drake, after >having been at UI/Iowa City for some time. Yeah, it can be an unfortunate experience. When I was an English Lit major at Iowa City, I got bloody sick and tired of the graduate students' constant toadying to the instructors. The instructor would come up with a particularly juicy bon mot, and the grad students would snigger appropriately. And many 'lit-crit' types ARE unbearably arrogant snobs. A fellow I knew at Univ. of Virginia had finished his PhD dissertation in English and was looking for a faculty position. He told me he would only accept a position at a MAJOR department. After two or three months, he told me he didn't know what to do because he couldn't find a position worthy of his talents, and that sometimes he was tempted to do away with himself. God's gift to academia, I guess. This fellow also was convinced that EVERYTHING was trash except for the two or three writers he had studied and admired: Walt Whitman and Robert Lowell were two of them. We criticized each others' writing, but he NEVER had anything good to say about anything I'd written. Funny thing is, he never had anything good to say about his own stuff, either. Other English grad student friends of mine, on the other hand, have been much more fun to be around, and many of them have been admirers of a lot of SF. My experience is that the sour apples are plentiful, but that in some English departments at least they haven't managed to ruin the whole barrel. I'd even consider taking a graduate course or two in English Lit to meet people and exchange ideas. And that was one of the nicest things about being in a place like Iowa City: there are kindred souls around if you take the trouble to go out and meet them. Unfortunately, I think English departments do tend to be cliqueish, but if you find the right clique: oh, it can be a great experience. > ... I just think that the current ``direction'' of formal >academic English and what is being called ``Literature'' is such that, >to be respectable within these departments, an SF-fan/Lit Major had >better praise the obscurity over _Dahlgren_ over the more clear style >and form of something like _Ender's Game_. Well, I think all departments have their rogue elephants. Somebody or other tells a story about the time Nabokov was teaching at Cornell; the teller was a junior faculty member (or something) at the time. One day, Nabokov was talking to him and asked him if he'd been following the action on one of the trashier soap operas on the tube. The fellow's jaw dropped, needless to say (this story is related in the preface to Appell's annotated edition of Lolita, by the way). It's interesting to note that this story is important because of what it says about the critic who repeated it as well as what it says about Nabokov's own eclectic tastes. Appell (sp?) certainly wasn't recounting it to put down Nabokov as an oddity. What you say may be true of many (or even most) people in formal academic English, but it certainly ain't true of all of them. >>My feeling is that the 'lit-crit' >>consensus is correct in many cases, and just plain wrong in others. > >And I agree. But *my* feeling is that the consensus is often >*compelled* by exactly those forces which encourage conformity. ... > And >I see these ``up out of the gutters! We're here to save you, and lead >you to the true light of Good Literature'' sorts of statements as an >attempt to get the consideration of SF to get in line. My problem is >that I suspect that they're standing in the wrong line, on what I feel >are strong philosophical and literary grounds Hmmm... I don't quite see what's going on here. Are you saying the methods used to make statements about literature are invalid in general, are invalid when applied to SF, or making some other point entirely? I think academia tends to crank out conformists in all fields, certainly, but I think there has been a WIDE range of approaches to the criticism of literature tried out in the last fifty years or so. Are they all bad? That is, are you rejecting the notion of criticism entirely, rejecting certain schools, proposing reforms to existing approaches, proposing a whole NEW way of looking at SF, or something else? For example, are there any of the books of criticism written specifically on SF that you admire (e.g., LeGuin's, Amis's, etc.)? >But I've proposed a VTGLM of my own (admittedly influenced by reading a >number of EngLit people whom I admire, most notably John Gardner): does >it encourage the reader to enter into the Dream with the dreamer? By >my measurements, more SF and fantasy (and mystery fiction, and >thrillers, and 19th century novellists who were writing for a living, >like Dickens) get a high rating than what has been offered to me as >``literature.'' ... The problem here, of course, is that the secret handshake that works for your mind may do nothing for mine, and vice versa. But I do have to agree that a lot of modern fiction is sterile for precisely this reason: too many of us have forgotten the huddle around the fire, and what the telling of the ancient tales told us about ourselves. A few years back I read an article somewhere that talked about the death of the mainstream novel (a death which has since failed to materialize, of course) at least as a vehicle for 'serious' writers. The author pointed out that the novel was alive and kicking in the SF genre, because Story is the very essence of SF. I think we both admire Italo Calvino, Charlie; he's certainly one contemporary writer outside the SF genre who knows how to tell a hell of a story. Readers of this group should check out Cosmicomics, T Minus Zero, and the Baron In The Trees, for example. > ... Instead, this was an attempt to point out that >allowing ``sophistication'' to be a measure of Good Literature can be a >two-bladed sword. The point's well taken. Thanks for an excellent response to my posting. -- Cheers, Bill Ingogly
tomj@chinet.UUCP (Tom) (09/07/85)
From _ABC of Reading_ by Ezra Pound: 1. "Literature is news that STAYS news." 2. The critic who doesn't make a personal statement, but merely repeats other men's results is an unreliable critic. _krino_: to pick out for oneself, to choose. I will make a personal statement in this article. I do not believe that even one in one thousand science fiction/fantasy works are works of literature. If pushed to name one which is a work of literature, I would answer _Winter's Tale_, by Mark Helprin, a mainstream novel with millenial themes, and a serious dose of fantasy. I can read and re-read this novel, and still find new things; Mr. Helprin "writes like an angel", which doesn't hurt either. Other points: from Mr. Ellison's review of _Dhalgren_, I would have to believe that it isn't a work of literature: it'd be difficult to find something new in a work so turgid you cannot even finish! I enjoy detective novels, and sf/f works, and they aren't literature. It is difficult for me to re-read these works though. Examples of typical sf/f novels I cannot re-read: _Dayworld_, anything by Heinlein, Chalker, or Anthony. Examples of ones I can re-read: works by Glen Cook (in particular, the second book of the Black Company series: _Shadows Linger_), certain works by Zelazny, though I will never be able to fully appreciate that terrible pun about epilepsy again, and Tolkein's works. This phenomenon isn't confined to sf/f: consider re-reading a Le Carre spy novel! As to art, and anti-art, to put it in a mainstream context, I consider JRjr's work in the uncanny x-men anti-art, and Arthur Adams work in the special Blue (err, New) Mutants special edition ART, especially panel 3, page 5 panel 6 page 15, and panel 4 page 57. Read it!!!! (yes, I know that the x-puppies are mainstream; that doesn't mean the mag cannot be good!) Tom Johnston ihnp4!chinet!tomj
oyster@uwmacc.UUCP (Vicious Oyster) (09/10/85)
In article <175@chinet.UUCP> tomj@chinet.UUCP (Tom) writes: > > Other points: from Mr. Ellison's review of _Dhalgren_, I would have >to believe that it isn't a work of literature: it'd be difficult to find >something new in a work so turgid you cannot even finish! Two comments on the above line: 1) "A good writer is not, per se, a good book critic. No more than a good drunk is automatically a good bartender." - Jim Bishop [with thanks to Bob Webber] And I personally don't have an extremely high opinion of Harlan Ellison's works. 2) I found Proust's megalithic "Remembrances of Things Past" and Joyce's Ulysses both too "turgid" to finish, but I doubt that you'd have trouble finding one or two people who would agree that they are works of literature (however it is you define "literature"-- I see that word used on those prettily-colored envelopes I receive so often in the mail (can you say "junk mail"?); i.e. read the enclosed literature). - joel "vo" plutchak {allegra,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!oyster