Science Fiction as Literature

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Re: Re: Re: Science Fiction as Literature

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Both those reasons seem rediculous. Didn't Chaucer or Shakespeare make their works for money? Kuci already answered the tropey aspect reason.

Yep. So did Dickens. They're interesteing test cases, and became canonical in spite of that due to their complexity, originality, and ability to stand the test of time.

As for the trope comment from Kuci -- all fictional works contain tropes; that's not the same thing as being generic.

[Perfection]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly


No, it's not. The behavior of professional teachers and scholars of English does not constitue a "popular trend" within any actually meaningful definition of that term.

I didn't say scholars! I'm talking about teachers only. What teachers teach to everyone is a popular trend. You're really overestimating the connection of English teachers with academic literarly scholars here. What these academics say aren't mirrored in what teachers teach, and why should they be? These teachers are trying to instill a love of reading, not picking the books that the academics say are the best examplars of literary craftsmenship as judged by the reactions of the smartest literary afficianados!

[Perfection]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly


Why would you be interested in "common notions of litereature"? That's like being interested in "common notions of evolution." They're worthless.

That's what the OP is about! He's not wondering why Harvard academics don't like SciFi, but why English teachers don't teach it!

Also, common notions are quite important, because they sorta shape the mindset of folks.

[Aeson]

I think Dilbert Future is great literature. It's sorta Sci-Fi...

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Fantasy (aka, "Midnight's Children" - I'd imagine a tale that involves characters who have magical abilities because they were born within an hour of midnight of India's independence qualifies as a "fantasy" work).

C'mon, Imran, that's like saying The Great Gatsby is a crime novel because there's a gangster in it and eventually somebody gets murdered. Genre doesn't work like that.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly
C'mon, Imran, that's like saying The Great Gatsby is a crime novel because there's a gangster in it and eventually somebody gets murdered. Genre doesn't work like that.

You are completely splitting hairs. "Midnight's Children" quite nicely fits into the fantasy genre. Just because they don't have orcs or elves matters not. The entire freaking novel is underpinned by the magical abilities of the main character. Its also why his life mirrors the history of India/Pakistan/Bangladesh.

Without the magical abilities, the book can't really work (if it was tried, it wouldn't succeed).

To divorce it from fantasy is like divorcing "The Road" from Science-Fiction. It's done because people don't want to give these genres their due and if something using those genres shows literary merit, it must be sundered from that genre so that those genres can continue to be looked down on.

Frankly, that's bull****.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_Realism

Fantasy and Science fiction – Fantasy and science fiction novels, using strict definitions, portray an alternate universe with its own set of rules and characteristics, however similar this universe is to our world, or experiment with our world by suggesting how a new technology or political system might affect our society. Magical realism, however, portrays the real world minus any definite set of rules. Some critics who define the genres more broadly include magic realism as one of the fantasy genres. The fantasy author Gene Wolfe sardonically defined magic realism as "fantasy written in Spanish."

IMO, defining the genres as very narrow and strict does a great disservice and is used to keep those genres as something to be looked down upon.

[Jon Miller]

BTW, thanks for the suggested reads Imran.

JM

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by quantum_mechani
Ugh, this qualifies only if you define literature as 'boring books'. Red Mars remains one of the few books I think I actually regret finishing.

You would be in a very small population then, given that series is the most award-winning trilogy in SF...

[Jon Miller]

I wasn't very impressed either, but I should probably give it another try.

JM

[Kuciwalker]

Red Mars

[snoopy369]

Also good Literature that should be SF: Brief History of the Dead

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui


You are completely splitting hairs. "Midnight's Children" quite nicely fits into the fantasy genre.

Nope. There's a whole body of literature out there on how "genre" works -- most of it indebted to structuralist literary criticism of the 60s and 70s -- and there's no way, following that blueprint, that "Midnight's Chidlren" could ever be considered part of the same "genre" as "Lord of the Rings." The assertion is simply unsupportable from the point of view of genre theory.

Now, you can instead make at least two other arguments:

1) Who cares? We're talking about what people think of as fantasy, not some area of academic expertise. This is a fine argument, but then we have nothing to talk about.
2) Well, maybe fantasy actually isn't a genre. This is actually very interesting argument, but it's not the discussion we're having.

But, strictly speaking, asserting that "Midnight's Children" is part of the fantasy genre is like asserting that Pluto is a planet -- lots of people might agree with you, for all sorts of reasons, but at the level where these definitions actually get hashed out in a rigorous scholarly fashion, it ain't so.

[snoopy369]

I'll side with the "scholarly people are mostly idiots" group here.

[Colon™]

O M F G there's actually such a thing as genre theory?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly
But, strictly speaking, asserting that "Midnight's Children" is part of the fantasy genre is like asserting that Pluto is a planet -- lots of people might agree with you, for all sorts of reasons, but at the level where these definitions actually get hashed out in a rigorous scholarly fashion, it ain't so.

bad analogy. Pluto's planethood was a completely arbitrary decision either way.