the sociology of squirrels: reading science fiction

[truepenny]

What I was trying to talk about in the preceding post (and failing pretty miserably) was the sociology of science fiction reading. What do we read, why do we read it, and what does it have to do with what the genre proclaims is being read? How do critical acclaim and popularity really match up?

This is, of course, a bit of a minefield of a question, since we're all Pavlovianly conditioned to reject "popular" literature as being unimportant. This is not a new problem--sixteenth and seventeenth century English writers get very snotty about plays for exactly the same reasons that academics today get snotty about science fiction. It's the obverse face of the Lowest Common Denominator; we assume that quality and popularity must somehow be inversely proportional, when in fact we need to remember Sturgeon's Law, chant it to ourselves, tape it up on our monitors, or, hell, have it tattooed on our foreheads.

90% of everything is crap.

So, sure, there are lots of plays that were very popular in the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I & VI that are total crap, just as there are bucketloads of Victorian novels that were very popular that are total crap, just as, you know, 90% of what's getting published in science fiction today is total crap, wildly popular or otherwise. But, please remember, Sturgeon's Law applies across the board. 90% of the soi-disant "literary" fiction being published today is also crap. The problem is that, somehow, a neat double standard has been enacted, so that literary fiction gets judged by the 10%, while popular fiction gets judged by the 90%. And to talk about the 10% in any popular genre with anyone not already a fan of the genre (as in, The Mainstream), you'd better go in prepared to expend a lot of energy in convincing them to let go of that 90%.

Oof. I sound bitter, and I don't mean to. But I'm as susceptible as anyone else to the urge to shout, But look! Look at what we're doing! Look at how thoughtful and provocative and literary it all is! Because I love my genre, and I don't like people talking trash about it. Sure, I admit, 90% of it is crap, but that's because Sturgeon's Law applies.

A genre of writing gets bonus points with critics and academics for not being popular. Because (I hypothesize wildly) it seems to be endangered. You don't go around clubbing baby harp seals and scaring the pandas out of the mood, and you don't attack the genre of modern poetry. But science fiction is like squirrels. They're all over the place, and they're kind of cute, but they're just rodents, and after all, you know no matter what you do, you will never be able to bring the squirrels down. You don't need to be considerate because they've got numbers on their side. Also, the chewing and the ingenuity and the brass-balled effrontery. The squirrels, you feel, don't need champions.

And people speaking up for squirrels are going to get the same kind of funny looks people get when they speak up for science fiction--outside of the squirrel science fiction-loving community.

Um. I've digressed pretty thoroughly from whatever it is I thought my point was. Something about whether the various awards are or are not accurate barometers for what's going on in the genre. And, of course, "the genre" has become sprawling and byzantine enough that of course the answer is: Maybe. As a first approximation.

I do wonder what the literary historians of two hundred years from now will be reading. And will those books be the same books that we are now, by giving them awards, trying to flag for posterity's attention?

There. Maybe that was what I meant.

Comments

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

The problem is that, somehow, a neat double standard has been enacted, so that literary fiction gets judged by the 10%, while popular fiction gets judged by the 90%.

This is like being from the Midwest. I can't tell you how many East Coast people I met in San Francisco who would tell me that they knew what a cultural wasteland the entire Midwest was, because they drove across the country on I-80 when they switched coasts. Rest stops in New York apparently all have their own theatre festivals (be sure to check out the Christopher Fry revival at Exit 215), and Alice Waters runs all the Burger Kings in Northern California.

[heresluck]

Apropos of very little: you reminded me of a quote I've been meaning to post and write about for, oh, a year now, which I found while reading up on my various Booker Prize-winning diss subjects, and which I will now share with you just 'cause I can:

"Literary prizes were first designed as a means of bolstering a mode of writing — art-writing — which is relatively low in market appeal and high in cultural capital. Though they are often endowed by states or rich individual, such prizes effectively function as marketing tools for the publishing sector in its effort to compete with cultural industries richer and with greater reach than itself. Literary prizes are a way that the state and the market combine to sustain art-writing in order to accrue prestige, with the enthusiastic support of publishers who use them to win media publicity and sales."

- Simon During, "Literary Subjectivity." ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature, 31:1 & 2, Jan-Apr 2000, 33-50.

[shadowhelm.livejournal.com]

I do wonder what the literary historians of two hundred years from now will be reading. And will those books be the same books that we are now, by giving them award, trying to flag for posterity's attention?

In 200 years, I doubt we'll care much.

[schrodingersgnu.livejournal.com]

Excellent point about the squirrels. The only time it really bothers me, though, is when the swedish academy yet again awards the nobel prize to some unknown poet instead of William Gibson. And I don't even like William Gibson's writing.

Lately I've taken to pestering people with a conviction that all university philosophy departments should be replaced with science fiction departments instead. I mean "what is consciousness" is essentially intellectual masturbation. "When does a robot become sentient" is a perfectly valid question that should be settled before we're forced to deal with it by necessity.

P.S. - my old PhD advisor used to characterize Peer Review as "our attempts at reducing the amount of crap below 90%. Optimistically, we might be down to about 50."

Unpoularity

[dmsherwood53.livejournal.com]

Yes poetry gets bronie points for being unpopular v. 20's darling with the poet as the Outsider too refined for socirty to understand.
NOT that us ,SF Fan's,are immune likkinging STAR WARS means facing the fact the the guy in the 2nd form who faced your fasce into a puddle likes it too as algis Budgs said.

[larryhammer]

you don't attack the genre of modern poetry

You don't? From where I'm sitting, I see it get pot-shots nearly every day. Admittedly as much from other poets as critics.

(Or did you mean Modernist poetry, from the first half of the 20th century?)

---L.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Ooh. Good quote.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Well, thank you very much for disturbing the pandas.

*g*

What I meant was, if someone asks you at a cocktail party (mundane rather than con), "What do you read?" and you say "Contemporary poetry. Mark Doty is my favorite poet," you may not be able to start a conversation, but you will not get the same caliber of look you would get if you said, "Science fiction. Elizabeth Bear is my favorite author."

It's the thing heres_luck's quote is talking about: cultural capital. Poetry has it; sf has it only by reverse snobbism.

Or to put it another way, Margaret Atwood never goes to ridiculous lengths to deny the label poet.

But the pandas, they so cute when they try!

[larryhammer]

Okay, that kind of cultural capitol. Gotcha.

I'd more likely (with the Doty comment) get complete indifference or a fist-fight than conversation, but that just makes your point.

---L.

Nuts?

[pigeonhed.livejournal.com]

what does it have to do with what the genre proclaims is being read

Does the genre proclaim anything? The genre's fanbase maybe does, but I have my doubts as to how coherent that is, and hence how significant it really is.

On awards, does a runaway classic like Neuromancer win because everybody has read it, or has everybody read it because it won? Does it matter?

200 years from now some of todays 'classics' will be widely available, some will be classroom texts, most will be obscure, known only to researchers and librarians (and the odd geek.) That is as it should be. And there is no sure way to tell which will be which consistently, because standards change. Standards vary even in contemporary critical analysis. What makes Crowley or Wolfe great is not what makes Dick great. It has nothing to do with mainstream snobbery, or genre insecurity.

To take your metaphor apart, what makes the Grey Squirrel a nuisance is not what makes the Red Squirrel a delightful sight.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

The more reason to care now.

Re: Nuts?

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

200 years from now some of todays 'classics' will be widely available, some will be classroom texts, most will be obscure, known only to researchers and librarians (and the odd geek.) That is as it should be. And there is no sure way to tell which will be which consistently, because standards change. Standards vary even in contemporary critical analysis. What makes Crowley or Wolfe great is not what makes Dick great. It has nothing to do with mainstream snobbery, or genre insecurity.

Well, of course, and if you think I don't know that, you must think I'm awfully naive.

But critical opinion has a great deal to do with mainstream snobbery and genre insecurity--and it will continue to do so 200 years from now. The "mainstream" and the "genres" may have shifted positions, but the idea will still be there. Titus Andronicus frequently gets condemned as a bad play among modern scholars because the critic in question neither understands nor approves of its aesthetic choices. Does that make it a bad play? No. Does that make it a great but misunderstood play? Not necessarily. That makes it a play that doesn't fit the current mainstream ideas. To be fair, Senecan tragedy has rarely, if ever, fit mainstream ideas, but that doesn't make it bad. It makes it genre.

You seem to want to treat "greatness" as an absolute, and that's your choice. But if you're going to do that, there's certainly no reason to be interested in how and why people evaluate and value the books they read in the way they do.

[shadowhelm.livejournal.com]

I guess I'm a true cynic. I write the best I can and I don't give a whit what happens 200 years from now. If it ends up a classic, fine. But I'm not making money off it then and I can't enjoy the rewards. I want my stuff to be read now and people to enjoy what I've written now. If it stands the test of time, then great. But honestly, there are plenty of authors who never got the acclain they deserved. Sorry, becoming famous after I'm gone doesn't pay my bills.

Re: Nuts?

[pigeonhed.livejournal.com]

No I don't think you naive. Maybe I am? Maybe I was unclear. I thought I was arguing that 'greatness' is not an absolute, that it is a variable. I purposely chose PKD as an example because some of his prose is horrible, I think it was Stan Robinson who said it looks like it has been translated into German and then back again, BUT some of his ideas, the air of paranoia he conjurs are unequalled. So if what I define as great varies from author to author, even book to book, then how useful is a gestalt genre view of greatness? I don't know, I would love someone to convince me I am wrong, that what the genre says is great always is great.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I don't know about anybody else, but I'm not talking about becoming famous.

I'm talking about reading and about what science fiction, as a genre, is creating itself to be.

You don't have to be interested in that, but I am.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Oh, see, I wasn't talking about myself.

[shadowhelm.livejournal.com]

I see. SFF as a genre will go where marketing wants it to go. (I warned you that I was a cynic). To a certain degree, it's driven by fans, but not completely. At this moment, it's driven by what hits the NYT bestseller list. Branding and name recognition is what is currently driving publishing. (Don't believe this? Friend me and read some of my commentary on it in my own journal)

Assuming in 200 years the SFF market exists (and believe me, I hope it does), this era of publishing will be looked at as a mass marketing phase. Where big names and media tie-in fill the shelves. Where branding is absolutely essential.

Some authors find this reality grim. I don't necessarily mainly because I am branded in a way. But getting branded in SFF is harder.

What will we see in 200 year? I haven't a clue. I suspect media will be vastly different. I suspect small press will take a bigger role. In the music industry, Ipods have revolutionized the industry because now people can buy from independents. I think that will eventually happen to the publishing world.

And then again, I might be full of crap.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

And then again, I might be full of crap.

I think you're having a different conversation than I am. Probably because the conversation I'm having doesn't interest you.

I'm talking about the canon (which I think is what Sarah was talking about, too, unless I don't get her post at all), and you're talking about the marketplace. Which is a completely different topic.

[janni.livejournal.com]

I can't tell you how many East Coast people I met in San Francisco who would tell me that they knew what a cultural wasteland the entire Midwest was, because they drove across the country on I-80 when they switched coasts. Rest stops in New York apparently all have their own theatre festivals (be sure to check out the Christopher Fry revival at Exit 215), and Alice Waters runs all the Burger Kings in Northern California.

This is an excellent way to put this! On behalf of the U.S. as much as on behalf of literature. :-)

The thing I didn't realize until I left New York is that New Yorkers talk about the importance of being near theatre, but they never go unless they live in midtown Manhattan, because travelling in the New York metro area is actually a huge hassle. It wasn't until I moved to the midwest (eight years in St. Louis) that I started going to theatre and concerts--because, like, there might only be a few things going on on a given night, but I wouldn't have to spend two hours commuting to get to them like I would in one of those supposedly less wasteland-like places.

[janni.livejournal.com]

But what becomes canon has always been partially influenced by what the marketplace lets get out there. They may be two different conversations, but they're not unrelated ones.

[janni.livejournal.com]

This has nothing at all to do with what you're actually getting at, but I just have to say, out here in the west, we do champion squirrels, actually. :-)

Major construction projects have been halted on account of needing to prove the local squirrel population wouldn't be harmed, even.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly. It used to drive me nuts living in California, because people would go on and on about how they could never live in the Midwest, but then they never went to shows or to the beach or anything much that was special about the area. We did, but we'd have to spend an hour and a half getting where we were going and another hour and a half getting back.

And to swing back to the literary side of this analogy, I read more "mainstream" or "literary" books in a year than most people who would never, ever touch that "genre" stuff. It's just that I read a lot.

Re: Nuts?

[almeda.livejournal.com]

And, like Moby-Dick, some things completely ignored (perhaps except for the Talented Few Readers Who Loved It) in their time will be reprinted and REPRINTED and forced down grade-schoolers' throats a century hence.