Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site duke.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!zeta!sabre!bellcore!decvax!mcnc!duke!crm From: crm@duke.UUCP (Charlie Martin) Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers Subject: Re: Criticism Message-ID: <5897@duke.UUCP> Date: Wed, 5-Jun-85 15:37:49 EDT Article-I.D.: duke.5897 Posted: Wed Jun 5 15:37:49 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 8-Jun-85 01:49:26 EDT References: <228@rti-sel.UUCP> Reply-To: crm@duke.UUCP (Charlie Martin) Distribution: net Organization: Duke University Lines: 126 Summary: longish reply to criticism of SF as ``literature.'' 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)