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From: wfi@rti-sel.UUCP (William Ingogly)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Science Fiction, Art, Criticism, and Sam Delany
Message-ID: <428@rti-sel.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 27-Sep-85 15:08:47 EDT
Article-I.D.: rti-sel.428
Posted: Fri Sep 27 15:08:47 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 29-Sep-85 06:36:01 EDT
References: <2821@sun.uucp>
Reply-To: wfi@rti-sel.UUCP (William Ingogly)
Distribution: net
Organization: Research Triangle Institute, NC
Lines: 172
Summary: 

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


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