Eleanor Arnason's Blog, page 51

Postscript to Preceding Post

I have to say that there is pleasure in getting angry over something that doesn't matter. In the end, The New Yorker's opinion will not have any effect on the writing I enjoy. When I get angry at politics or economics, the anger involves fear and frustration, because it does matter and I have so little power.

The opinions of anti-choice Republicans can end in grave harm for many people. Mr. Krystal's opinions only matter in a tiny elitist enclave that the rest of us can avoid.

So I enjoy a short burst of righteous anger when faced with Mr. Krystal. But now I need to calm down and move on to things that matter.

Genre Fiction

It's amazing how easy it is to get me angry. This, for example, did the job...

What I’m trying to say is that “genre” is not a bad word, although perhaps the better word for novels that taxonomically register as genre is simply “commercial.” Born to sell, these novels stick to the trite-and-true, relying on stock characters whose thoughts spool out in Lifetime platitudes. There will be exceptions, as there are in every field, but, for the most part, the standard genre or commercial novel isn’t going to break the sea frozen inside us. If this sounds condescending, so be it. Commercial novels, in general, whether they’re thrillers or romance or science fiction, employ language that is at best undistinguished and at worst characterized by a jejune mentality and a tendency to state the obvious...

One reads Conrad and James and Joyce not simply for their way with words but for the amount of felt life in their books. Great writers hit us over the head because they present characters whose imaginary lives have real consequences (at least while we’re reading about them), and because they see the world in much the way we do: complicated by surface and subterranean feelings, by ambiguity and misapprehension, and by the misalliance of consciousness and perception. Writers who want to understand why the heart has reasons that reason cannot know are not going to write horror tales or police procedurals... Good commercial fiction is inferior to good literary fiction in the same way that Santa Claus is inferior to Wotan. One brings us fun or frightening gifts, the other requires—and repays—observance.

I realize this is a classic example of a guy who identifies with "literary" fiction defending what he likes. He may know mysteries and adventure stories. I suspect he does not know science fiction.

What he describes as "literary" sounds like the classic bourgeois novel of character and psychology. These can certainly be good. But they've been done -- in the 19th century and early 20th century, and I see no reason to do them again. If I want to read one, I will get out James or Proust.

Speaking of Conrad, an African writer -- I think Amos Tutuola -- has pointed out that The Heart of Darkness uses the entire African continent as a backdrop for the psychological problems of one white man, as if that enormous continent, full of societies and people, had no other useful purpose.

I can't say if this criticism is right, since I haven't read Conrad and don't intend to. Tutuola sounds more interesting.

In any case, the author of the above essay is not interested in what interests me -- which is change, technology, new ways of seeing the universe, big social questions, and fiction that pushes the limits of reality. The inner workings of the Western bourgeoisie really don't grip me.

And I don't like it when the essayist pulls in Odin. I presume this is a reference to Wagner's Ring Cycle. Odin is a seriously strange and scary being -- king of the gods, defender of hospitality, god of war, death and poetry. This is the guy who gave an eye for wisdom and sacrificed himself to himself to get knowledge of runes. He belongs to the realm of magic and mythology, not to the world of psychological novels; and if you encounter him now, you have entered science fiction or fantasy.

Writing News

I have three stories coming out at online magazines in the next month or so. Two are reprints: "Ace 167" at Lightspeed and "The Glutton" at Apex. The third is original: "Holmes Sherlock" at Eclipse Online, a new magazine edited by Jonathan Strahan.

Foul Mood

I was in a foul mood yesterday and found it difficult to do anything productive. I'm not sure why. Maybe the time of year. I like the colder weather, but not the increasingly shortness and darkness of days.

In any case, I got almost nothing done. Today, I finished one story -- it's out the door -- and revised two more stories. This is a slow process. I print a story out and revise it with pen or pencil, then input the changes, then print it out again and go over it again. Some stories require many, many revisions. Others are done after I have gone over them two or three times.

The two stories I revised today will have to be gone over at least one more time.

In addition, I did some inputting to an unfinished story. I have four stories done and bouncing from editor to editor, plus another five stories still in-house.

I was in a foul mood yesterday and found it difficult to ...

I was in a foul mood yesterday and found it difficult to do anything productive. I'm not sure why. Maybe the time of year. I like the colder weather, but not the increasingly shortness and darkness of days.

In any case, I got almost nothing done. Today, I finished one story -- it's out the door -- and revised two more stories. This is a slow process. I print a story out and revise it with pen or pencil, then input the changes, then print it out again and go over it again. Some stories require many, many revisions. Others are done after I have gone over them two or three times.

The two stories I revised today will have to be gone over at least one more time.

In addition, I did some inputting to an unfinished story. I have four stories done and bouncing from editor to editor, plus another five stories still in-house.

Soup

Patrick is out of town again, this time to conference in Duluth. I made chicken stock today and made the final revisions on a story. Tomorrow, I will make a vegetable soup with the stock and work on another story, which is almost ready to go out.

The hardest part of writing -- for me -- in making the final changes, saying, "it's done," and sending the story out.

American Fantasy and Science Fiction

Still more from facebook:

I just wrote a long post about writing outside one's own culture and then deleted it by accident. I think I will leave it gone. It was in response to a post on Hiromi Goto's blog, which Nisi Shawl linked to. Horomi was writing about the need for F & SF by and about people not in the dominent, white and European culture. The short form of my comment is: yes, indeed we do. Science fiction is about escaping from the here and now, but when it's good, it's based on reality and experience; and white experience is only a small part of human experience.

I rechecked Hiromi's blog and discovered I have read into it some of my pet dislikes. European elves in the US make me crazy. We have our own myths and magical creatures and should use them. Even given the question of how authentic they are, it seems to me that Paul Bunyan and Brer Rabbit say more to me as an American.

And then there are the kings and nobles in the European material that American writers borrow. This reminds me of a comment on another post of mine. It's a quote from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. "I didn't know we had a king, I thought we were an autonomous collective" Well, the US is not an autonomous collective, alas, but we don't have a traditional king or nobles. We have robber barons and governmental tzars. There is a difference. And our folklore tends to work on the level of small animals, working people and petty criminals. Brer Rabbit. John Henry. Paul Bunyan. Jesse James.

Fargo

More from facebook. Patrick has gone to Fargo for a couple of days, and some people on facebook were making jokes about going to Fargo. Who would want to? So I wrote this:

Patrick called from Fargo last night. He said the drive up was good. Wonderful light and wonderful fall colors. He will go to his meeting today, then check out a new coffee shop. I made him promise to go to Zanbroz, a store that has two locations, one in Fargo and one in Sioux Falls. I've been to the Sioux Falls store many times, but never to the one in Fargo. It's hard to describe what they are like. The Sioux Falls store bills itself online as a variety store and a book store. Whoever is buying for them has good and interesting taste. And the Fargo store may still have its soda fountain counter.

I think it's possible to get Chippers in Fargo, though they are made in Grand Forks, if I remember correctly. Chippers are potato chips dipped in chocolate, and they are good. There are, in fact, reasons to go to Fargo. Best of all, maybe, is the chance to visit fossil Lake Agassiz.

Patrick went up to attend a meeting of the interfaith organization that runs the local homelss shelter and works on homeless issues. He likes the people a lot and says they are doing excellent work, and he likes Fargo.

Fargo's on Jim Hill's High Line, a major rail line that runs from St. Paul to the West Coast. This means that homeless people riding the trains end there; and there are local homeless people. There is a serious lack of housing in North Dakota right now, due to the oil boom, which has brought people into the state who have more money for rent than many local people. So the construction and oil workers get the housing at very high rents; and the local people are homeless. It's the market in action.

The oil money helps the North Dakota economy, and oil and construction workers get needed jobs. But there is still the problem of people without homes.

Software

I typed "software" as "siftwire" just now. It's a rather nice looking word and could go several ways: "siftwar," which might be an SF war, or keep it as "siftwire," then figure out what a siftwire is.

Anyway, I posted the following on the Wyrdsmiths blog and got two responses. Readers are more likely to respond to software problems, I think.

I have two Apple computers at home, and a PC netbook which I take out. In addition, I post to a couple of blogs and am on facebook.

What this means is I do a lot of typing in different programs, often switching rapidly from one to another. Usually this is not a problem. But I keep looking for the like button when I read blogs, and sometimes strange things happen when I move among three different word processing programs. One of my stories has acquired an extra 2,000 words in the netbook version, which should be a copy of the Mac version. I made a brief attempt at finding the extra words, then decided to finish the story on a Mac.

Things that are simple and obvious to me in Word suddenly become a problem with the open source software on the netbook. I suppose I could decide to load Word onto all the computers, but that would mean spending money.

Anyway, not a big deal. But it surprises me how easily I can move among the programs and then how frustrating it is to suddenly not know how to do something very simple. Where is the line spacing in this program? How do I bold or center?

More from Facebook

I checked out Jeff VanderMeer's blog and found him reporting on all kinds of interesting speculative fiction from all over the world. I need to get serious about keeping up with the field or fields.

The stories he describes have a couple of traits, I think. One is they are multicultural and multinational, which is cool. SF and related kinds of fiction should be multi. They also sound to me (I haven't read any yet, though I am making lists) as if they sit the line between SF and literature. They are not the old-time, plot-driven, popular trash I grew up on. (And here I have to correct myself. I was reading William Tenn and Alfred Bester and P.K, Dick as a kid. This was not exactly Doc Smith. To be fair, I was also reading E.R. Burroughs. Though never -- as far as I can remember -- Doc Smith.) So I am wondering if what's happening to SF is it's becoming multi and slipstream. And that's where it's alive and growing, rather than exhausted and dying. I am in favor of #1, but I resist #2. As far as I can remember, I have always wanted to write science fiction and fantasy and folk tales; and I have never wanted to write literature. This is a prejudice I need to deal with. I will have to read some of the stories that Jeff likes.

And I should also consider whether SF is alive and growing in several different directions. I have read some New Space Opera which I really like. New Weird sounds interesting, though I haven't read enough of it. I like what Aquaduct Press publishes. New Feminist? Or simply What Aqueduct Press Likes?

Maybe I should see SF and related fields as a creature with many tentacles, reaching and grasping in many directions. That will make me happy. I like tentacles.

Maybe I should see this entire post as a way of avoiding getting to work cleaning the bathroom.