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Wednesday, January 30, 2008
I Agree with 99% of This
And that's rare! Check out Clive Thompson's piece in Wired on science fiction as simulation and thought experiment and see if you can find the 1% I disagree with!
I personally agree only about 50%. At the risk of coming across a little too ‘feminazi’ as I like to put it, I agree that male authors sometimes have distorted views of the inner lives of women. What about female Sci-Fi authors? As much as hate to do this to her, Margaret Atwood has been grouped into this category. I can only speak for The Handmaid’s Tale as I haven’t read any other of her novels, but WOW..talk about distorted. If men’s inner lives were really THAT bizarre I don’t know how the human race would exist. Come to think of it, that is kind of what the novel is about. I digress. Anyway, as to Sci-Fi being “the last great literature of ideas” the author seems to be implying that the only literature is novels. RANT WARNING: Since when are all novels meant to be didactic? We are talking fiction least we forget. Philosophers, Sociologists and other academics publish many works every year in journals and texts with fresh and exciting ideas, and we are meant to obtain knowledge from these. As being members of the literary community I feel it is our duty to read works other than novels even though we may prefer them to texts and journals. But, who am I but a humble non-traditional student to say?
Confession: I haven't read Handsmaid's Tale! But pointing out something he didn't address is not disagreeing with him.
I'm with you on the "last great literature of ideas" thing, but for somewhat different reasons. I'm not sure how relevant scholarly literature is to his claim--where I thought you were going was something like, "Hey, what about all those dramatists, like Tony Kushner and Suzan-Lori Parks, that are dealing with ideas?" or "You write as if the only options for novelists were realism vs. science fiction--where have you been the last 80 years?"
2 comments:
I personally agree only about 50%. At the risk of coming across a little too ‘feminazi’ as I like to put it, I agree that male authors sometimes have distorted views of the inner lives of women. What about female Sci-Fi authors? As much as hate to do this to her, Margaret Atwood has been grouped into this category. I can only speak for The Handmaid’s Tale as I haven’t read any other of her novels, but WOW..talk about distorted. If men’s inner lives were really THAT bizarre I don’t know how the human race would exist. Come to think of it, that is kind of what the novel is about. I digress.
Anyway, as to Sci-Fi being “the last great literature of ideas” the author seems to be implying that the only literature is novels. RANT WARNING: Since when are all novels meant to be didactic? We are talking fiction least we forget. Philosophers, Sociologists and other academics publish many works every year in journals and texts with fresh and exciting ideas, and we are meant to obtain knowledge from these. As being members of the literary community I feel it is our duty to read works other than novels even though we may prefer them to texts and journals. But, who am I but a humble non-traditional student to say?
Confession: I haven't read Handsmaid's Tale! But pointing out something he didn't address is not disagreeing with him.
I'm with you on the "last great literature of ideas" thing, but for somewhat different reasons. I'm not sure how relevant scholarly literature is to his claim--where I thought you were going was something like, "Hey, what about all those dramatists, like Tony Kushner and Suzan-Lori Parks, that are dealing with ideas?" or "You write as if the only options for novelists were realism vs. science fiction--where have you been the last 80 years?"
So when are you joining up as co-author here? ;)
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