Science Fiction Is Gonna Go Eat Worms
09. Oct, 2009 
7 Comments
Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I’m gonna go eat worms.
Just about everyone is linking to, commenting on or clipping from John Howell’s piece Why Science Fiction Just Can’t Win.
The OF Blog offers a commentary round up illustrative of all of the link happiness.
Including Nick Mamatas’ piece wherein Nick shows the hammer hidden under his overcoat and turns things into a slight rant about the failure of blog reportage, here
At the risk of getting bonked, I took a look at the fairly well redacted version of Margaret Atwood’s Writing With Intent over at Google Books (about which you can read more on the settlement at the Marooned site), where Peggy’s definitions and sensibilities regarding SF are realized in full bloom.
Full contradictory bloom. Imagine enormous orchids unfolding in a manner that prevents sunlight from reaching them.
But first! Whenever this subject comes up, there are two literary authors who’s names are held up in juxtaposition.
In the white corner, standing with one Pulitzer and one each Nebula, Hugo and Sidewise Awards -the Magus of Metaphor, the Gentleman of Genre, Michaaaaaaaaal ChAAAAAAAbonnnnnn! (Insert suitable echoing and applause.)
In the black corner, holding a Booker and an AC Clarke award, the Diva of the negative Definition, the Literary Lass, Margaret Atwood. (Insert mild, respectful clapping.)
(Hmmm – Pulitzer vs Booker. If you were playing dueling experts-by-way-of-recognition, Chabon comes out on top. If the literary types would only listen to their own experts, we wouldn’t be having this debate.)
Chabon has previously extolled the virtues of genre and holds whatever that is up as being legitimate.
Atwood is mushy-mouthed (if one reading of her chopped up essays on the Google books site is anything to go by).
Here, in her review of Le Guin’s collection of short stories (The Birthday of the World and Other Stories) she begins by writing this:
The Birthday of the World and Other Stories is Ursula K. Le Guin’s tenth collection of stories. In it she demonstrates once again that she is the reigning queen of…but immediately we come to a difficulty, for what is the name of her kingdom?
She rambles a bit, offering up possible names for whatever it is that Le Guin writes and then offers this:
“Science Fiction is the box in which her works are usually placed, but it’s an awkward box: it bulges with discards from everywhere (!) Into it have been crammed all of those stories that don’t fit comfortably into the family room of the socially realistic novel or the more formal parlor of historical fiction, or other compartmentalized genres…Its subdivisions include science fiction proper (gizmo-riddled and theory-based space travel, time travel or cyber-travel to other worlds with aliens frequent); science-fiction fantasy (dragons are common; the gizmos are less plausible, and may include wands); and speculative fiction (human society and its possible future forms, which are either much better than we have now, or much worse).
(!) mine, as I was blown away by the implied suggestion that SF is nothing more than the discards from other sub-literary writing.
(Try this on for size. What genre does this story belong to: cowboys are defending their herd against rustlers when a spaceship lands and aliens offer to help in exchange for some cows on the hoof. Western or SF? I think SF, as it is the rare western that can accommodate SF tropes, while the reverse is fairly common.)
Anyway. While it is true that SF lacks a true definition, no one in the SF community could get away with offering a serious definition drawn from the descriptions offered by Atwood.
(No wonder Le Guin wrote the kind of review of Atwood’s recent work that she recently did, and in fine echoing form as well. Damn her with faint praise? I think not.)
Atwood simultaneously tells the world that Le Guin’s works are (negatively) undefinable and links them to things that are discarded. Nice. Not.
But the rub is not between dueling author-reviewers, it is between and betwixt the amorphous pseudo definition of what Atwood’s works SHALL NOT BE DEFINED AS.
From Atwood’s write-up of her writing up of Oryx & Crake, we get this:
Of course, nothing comes out of nothing. I’d been been thinking about “what if” scenarios all my life.
…Oryx & Crake is a speculative fiction, not a science fiction proper. It contains no intergalactic travel, no teleportation, no martians. Like The Handmaid’s Tale, it invents nothing we haven’t already invented or started to invent.
Somewhere between the review of Le Guin’s collection and writing about her own works, Atwood has removed Speculative Fiction from one of the TYPES of Science Fiction.
Clearly her finger was not pointing at herself when she said “science fiction”.
Equally clear is the idea firmly fixed in her head that SF = bad writing while Atwood = good writing, therefore, Atwood <> Science Fiction. (Don’t have the traditional not equal sign on the keyboard….)
As Nick Mamatas suggests, an interview would be really good here. Questions put to Atwood herself (anyone got an email?), starting with this one:
Ms. Atwood, when reviewing Ursula Le Guin’s collection, you stated that speculative fiction is one of the sub-divisions of science fiction. By that somewhat definition, you have clearly identified Oryx & Crake as a science fiction novel – I quote “O&C is a speculative fiction” – yet you state that O&C “is not a science fiction proper.” Does that make O&C improper science fiction, or don’t you know what you’re talking about? Isn’t it true that you have a definition of science friction and bad literature mixed up in your head? Why don’t you just listen to Michael Chabon? Maybe you’ll win a Pulitzer if you do.
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Funny. You could put it more bluntly. Hey, do you think Chabon is heaps smarter than you, or what?
“Le Guin.” Her name is “Ursula K. Le Guin.” Not “LeGuin.”
Great piece and even better research. Love how you set Chabon V. Atwood boxing style. Round one knock out!
When I posted up the video interview of Atwood, I also emailed her American publicist to see if she could answer a couple short questions on the distinction between sf and spec fic. I am not sure I would have been as blunt as you
but I was aiming for the same thing. I was pretty much told I was not important enough to be asking her any questions, but feel free to give it a go if you want.
Le Guin! Happy Now? LOL
Alec, thanks for the link. I’m going to add it to the Classic SF Channel’s fan stuff or educational sections.
Something I didn’t write about in the piece was this:
I think that the ultimate difference between Chabon and Atwood – at least the personas allowed to speak/write in public – is this: Chabon is doing his thing and comfortable with it. He writes what he wants to and – lucky him! – lots of people happen to like it, genre, literary or whatever it may be.
Atwood is insecure. She may write what she wants to, but she is uncomfortable with it. She herself does not really know ‘what she writes’.
Unlike Chabon, Atwood wants an audience. Marketing and categorization is important to her, not for academic reasons, but because she is afraid of reading the tea leaves incorrectly.
Ultimately, Chabon writes because he must. Atwood writes to get something.
Well, ultimately, all writers write to get something, even if it’s only the satisfaction of seeing their words on the page – or computer screen. Oh, I knew what you meant, but I thought the comment needed a Garyfication.
“Unlike Chabon, Atwood wants an audience.”
If Michael Chabon didn’t want an audience, he wouldn’t bother to go through the tedium of finding an agent, dealing with copyediting deadlines, etc., and so on, and would simply keep his manuscripts on his computer.
“Ultimately, Chabon writes because he must. Atwood writes to get something.”
Mindreading assertions tend to be problematic.
Fun stuff. Always good to see someone put Ms. Atwood in her place. I hope you’ll join us in celebrating reshelving day.