...one of the reasons I enjoyed Foe so much is that I could read it as specfic.
Yeah. Though -- continuing our conversation from last winter -- I'm inclined to see this overlap as rhetorical in addition to (and possibly even more than) generic: Coetzee is not interested in the modality markers of SFF, but he *is* interested in encouraging the audience to do a certain kind of work that is perhaps most familiar from, though not limited to, SFF.
I think, too, that it's worth considering *which* SFF we're talking about when we talk about puzzles. I was going to propose that one way in which litfic and SFF puzzle-solving differ is that in SFF there is more potential for being presented with an entirely *new* puzzle (as opposed to a new iteration of a familiar puzzle), and I still think that's a reasonable starter hypothesis, but I also think that the gap between "potential" and "actual" matters kind of a lot. I mean, think of all the Extruded Fantasy Product out there that is precisely *not* much of a puzzle, which is why those books are so interchangeable. The interchangeability is frustrating for some (or became so at some point), but clearly enjoyable for others.
So the question is, why doesn't it work in reverse?
Well, I think your essay about setting points towards some answers. SFF settings are a turnoff for some folks, the same way the setting and premise of a litfic novel about a fiftyish suburban guy having an affair might be a turnoff to, say, me. And then there's the question of interpreting setting: if one regards the setting merely as "dressing up" the story, which tends to be the case in much litfic (though not, for example, Gothic novels), then the whole thing is just baffling; whereas if one regards it as intrinsic, if worldbuilding is a large part of the *point* (for whatever reason), then, you know, bring it on. (Of course, litfic does worldbuilding too, and can do it either well or badly, but the ostensible mimesis of domestic realism means that most litfic readers don't think in these terms; it is, as you point out, precisely not a genre marker.)
And then -- back to rhetorical situation here -- there's the matter of audience perception of SFF as marketing category and what it means to be tagged as a writer or reader of SFF, ergo the phenomenon of mainstream authors who are happy to borrow all sorts of settings/puzzles/whatever from SFF but don't want to be classed as such.
no subject
Yeah. Though -- continuing our conversation from last winter -- I'm inclined to see this overlap as rhetorical in addition to (and possibly even more than) generic: Coetzee is not interested in the modality markers of SFF, but he *is* interested in encouraging the audience to do a certain kind of work that is perhaps most familiar from, though not limited to, SFF.
I think, too, that it's worth considering *which* SFF we're talking about when we talk about puzzles. I was going to propose that one way in which litfic and SFF puzzle-solving differ is that in SFF there is more potential for being presented with an entirely *new* puzzle (as opposed to a new iteration of a familiar puzzle), and I still think that's a reasonable starter hypothesis, but I also think that the gap between "potential" and "actual" matters kind of a lot. I mean, think of all the Extruded Fantasy Product out there that is precisely *not* much of a puzzle, which is why those books are so interchangeable. The interchangeability is frustrating for some (or became so at some point), but clearly enjoyable for others.
So the question is, why doesn't it work in reverse?
Well, I think your essay about setting points towards some answers. SFF settings are a turnoff for some folks, the same way the setting and premise of a litfic novel about a fiftyish suburban guy having an affair might be a turnoff to, say, me. And then there's the question of interpreting setting: if one regards the setting merely as "dressing up" the story, which tends to be the case in much litfic (though not, for example, Gothic novels), then the whole thing is just baffling; whereas if one regards it as intrinsic, if worldbuilding is a large part of the *point* (for whatever reason), then, you know, bring it on. (Of course, litfic does worldbuilding too, and can do it either well or badly, but the ostensible mimesis of domestic realism means that most litfic readers don't think in these terms; it is, as you point out, precisely not a genre marker.)
And then -- back to rhetorical situation here -- there's the matter of audience perception of SFF as marketing category and what it means to be tagged as a writer or reader of SFF, ergo the phenomenon of mainstream authors who are happy to borrow all sorts of settings/puzzles/whatever from SFF but don't want to be classed as such.