LINDSAY%TARTAN@CMU-CS-C.ARPA@sri-unix.UUCP (09/27/83)
Well, maybe SF writers haven't been winning Pulitzers. But, how many Pulitzer prize winning books are still for sale two years later? Have a look; the few you find will be in the remaindered pile. Then look through the SF shelves in your local bookstore. There's material from the 30's, sure, it's packaged with nostalgia puffery. But most covers don't mention how old the story is. This makes it easy to forget that many are 20 to 30 years old: some are 40. In "Carnal Knowledge", Jack Nicholson's (1950's) character shows his culture by rhyming off the names of the great novels he has read recently. The moment was one of Feiffer's little jokes: all of the "great" books have utterly sunk without a trace. SF is different. We guard our achievements, and build on them, and we are scholars of this literature of ideas, to a level unimagined by the average consumer of "the modern novel". When I read "The Shadow of the Torturer", I read it knowing the themes and textures of "The Dying Earth" (late 1940's). And, not surprisingly, Wolfe has given homage in interviews to that exact book. We were both enriched by it, many years ago, and it bothers me not at all that many people new to it will fail to notice the copyright date. -------