The University of Liverpool’s Dinah Birch has a well-written article in the Times, using the great Brian Aldiss’ recent A Science Fiction Omnibus (published by Penguin at the end of last year and highly recommended – I’ve been dipping in and out of the short stories for weeks) as a springboard to argue for the literary and imaginative merits of the genre. Which is a very welcome change from the more usual disparaging comments we tend to see directed towards even the best literary SF, or even the dreadfully condescending “this is quite well written – for science fiction” which is often appended by critics and even some authors (including mainstream literary authors who haven’t been above employing elements of the genre themselves, however much they protest it). Actually Dinah makes a point of the fact that the dividing line between mainstream authors and science fiction simply isn’t the solid line some would have us believe:
“The brick wall that seems to divide its products from mainstream fiction for readers crumbles when it comes to writers. The American tradition tends to be more specialized, but the list of major British novelists who have produced ambitious science fiction alongside other kinds of work is a formidable one, including Edward Bulwer-Lytton, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, H. G. Wells, E. M. Forster, Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, Kingsley Amis, Anthony Burgess, Doris Lessing, Salman Rushdie, Kazuo Ishiguro, Martin Amis, J. G. Ballard and Iain Banks. Because these authors have secured reputations elsewhere, their science fiction attracts those who would never identify themselves as readers of the genre. Yet the powers of thought behind George Eliot’s grim The Lifted Veil, Martin Amis’s provocative Time’s Arrow, or Kazuo Ishiguro’s deeply compassionate Never Let Me Go, are not distinct from what has made them household names. Science fiction is richer and more various than our lingering assumptions about the adventures of silver-suited spacemen wielding ray-guns would imply.”
This is an argument many of us who champion the SF&F genre will already be familiar with – I’ve taken delight in asking people who dismiss all science fiction as worthless if 1984 is worthless, for example, only for them to look startled and protest that isn’t really SF (which is the usual, very weak response from someone who is acting out of bias, not a logically argued statement. Exactly the sort of person who needs to read more widely, really). But it is quite encouraging to see Dinah arguing the case in the august pages of the Times Literary Supplement. Strangely I have usually found the SF readers are more likely to try other literature than mainstream readers are to think, oh this SF book was highly recommended, perhaps I should read it (graphic novels often suffer in the same manner too). So you will see some readers of Iain M Banks’ SF books also reading his latest mainstream (if such a word applies to Iain) novel, because they like the writer, regardless of genre, while all too often the mainstream reader realises his new book is SF and puts it back on the shelf to await his next ‘proper’ book (in fact I am pleased to say several of the mainstream writers from the above quote have been featured reading at the SF book group I set up years ago). As with comics the inference is that the entire medium is somehow for children, not for clever, mature grown-ups and there is something odd about those of us who still wish to read it as adults. Of course, it’s an opinion usually informed by an utter lack of actual knowledge since people with this attitude won’t read a book from the genre. Which is a shame because the best SF (and I am aware like all other genres there is good and bad, I’m not pretending it is all wonderful) is usually extremely thought-provoking and deals with contemporary issues in an imaginative way. Sadly for some genres will always be used as a way to build walls between what books are acceptable and which are not, which as a book person I find ludicrous – I always thought all books were there to create new pathways to new lands for the reader, not roadblocks.
Fri, Feb 1, 2008
Books