kanders@lll-tis-a (08/21/85)
From: kanders@lll-tis-a (Kevin Anderson)
Hooray for Davis Tucker finally taking to task those people who
practice "Anti-art" snobbery -- those who snort with derision at
something which requires you to turn on a 5 Watt bulb over your
head and use a few brain cells. Perhaps this category includes
those people flaming at "awful" DHALGREN ("Gawd, this stuff makes
me *think* -- yukk, give me Edgar Rice Burroughs anyday!"). I
have never read DHALGREN, but it's on my list of Must Read books
(and it's moved up a couple of notches because of this controver-
sy). I will say, though, that I have never heard it described
with anything less than respectful awe. It won the Nebula Award,
which is given by the Science Fiction Writers of America to the
work which the *writers* feel is the best piece of literature
published in the past year (and it won the Nebula back in the
days when the award did mean something). I think that anybody
who says that DHALGREN is a poorly written, plotless piece of
trash should maybe ask themselves if there is even the remotest
chance they might be MISSING something?
I am relatively new to the net, but I'm rather disturbed by the
inordinate amount of time spent discussing "mindless adventure"
books and films -- Piers Anthony, Joel Rosenberg's Guardians of
the Flame, the deep questions behind "Back to the Future" --
sure, it's nice to read books for fun once in a while, but SF
*is* the "Literature of Ideas" and you don't often find dazzling
ideas in gosh*wow! space opera. I can enjoy watching a fluffy
adventure movie, too, but I enjoy a fascinating challenge much
more. Too many ray guns, rocketships, and bug-eyed monsters
makes me afraid my brain will atrophy!
-- Kevin J. Andersonpeter@baylor.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (08/23/85)
> From: kanders@lll-tis-a (Kevin Anderson) > > > Hooray for Davis Tucker finally taking to task those people who > practice "Anti-art" snobbery -- those who snort with derision at Etc., etc.... Science fiction is, as you say, the literature of ideas. Unlike other forms of literature the background has prominence over the characters. Thus it is that very bad works of literature are very good SF. The occasional exceptional author can produce a book that's both good SF and "art". It's my opinion, totally unsubstantiated by statistical analysis of course, that the % of good literature in SF is probably about the same as in other forms of fiction... it's just that, since SF has other, orthogonal, standards to meet that may take precedence over the quality of the writing (look at Robert Heinlein, even his good stuff), certain books get raved about by the SF community that the mainstream wouldn't even consider reading. This gets up the critics nose, since he doesn't realise that there might be other criteria for judging a work, so he posts abominable reviews such as the one referenced above. No, folks, we're not anti-art. We just have other things to look for than superb characterisation and brilliant prose. If the book has these as well, great. But it doesn't stand or fall on them. -- Peter (Made in Australia) da Silva UUCP: ...!shell!neuro1!{hyd-ptd,baylor,datafac}!peter MCI: PDASILVA; CIS: 70216,1076
oyster@uwmacc.UUCP (Vicious Oyster) (08/23/85)
In article <3362@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> kanders@lll-tis-a writes: > >Hooray for Davis Tucker finally taking to task those people who >practice "Anti-art" snobbery -- those who snort with derision at >something which requires you to turn on a 5 Watt bulb over your >head and use a few brain cells. Perhaps this category includes >those people flaming at "awful" DHALGREN ("Gawd, this stuff makes >me *think* -- yukk, give me Edgar Rice Burroughs anyday!"). I think you may be missing the point. Seems to me that people are reacting to the "art snobbery" of Tucker, rather than promoting "anti-art." I stopped reading the Problems postings after they turned from intelligently and carefully thought-out criticism to random name-calling and self-aggrandizing bleating (somewhere around part II). I happened to have enjoyed Dahlgren *and* several Lord of the Rings clones ('though I draw the line at Burroughs :-), and I suspect that the vast majority of SF-Lovers readers, if not SF lovers in general, are equally omnivorous. >Too many ray guns, rocketships, and bug-eyed monsters >makes me afraid my brain will atrophy! > Perhaps, but we have a shining example of what happens to those who read only so-called "artistic" literature. - joel "vo" plutchak {allegra,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!oyster P.S. My preferred method of dealing with Tuckeresque postings is to 'n' past the original posting and linger over the inevitable flames. But then again, I only do it that way for my own enjoyment, so it's not an artistically valid thing to do. God, how I wish Art ruled my universe! <mirthful sarcasm>
brust@hyper.UUCP (Steven Brust) (08/28/85)
> Science fiction is, as you say, the literature of ideas. Unlike other > forms of literature the background has prominence over the characters. > Thus it is that very bad works of literature are very good SF. The > occasional exceptional author can produce a book that's both good SF > and "art". ....................................................... > > Peter (Made in Australia) da Silva > UUCP: ...!shell!neuro1!{hyd-ptd,baylor,datafac}!peter > MCI: PDASILVA; CIS: 70216,1076 I respect your opinion on this, but it seems to me that, as the "lituerature of ideas," the other requirements of the work (characterization, quality of prose, etc) become stronger, not weaker, lest the idea fail to get a fair hearing because the writing itself puts one off the book. -- SKZB