"Science fiction will never be Literature"

[Underemployed]

So says Sven Birkerts, writing for the New York Times. Check out his biog here (http://www.bu.edu/agni/about/staff/bio-birkerts.html).

I wish I could fathom why remarks like this still bother me so much. For one thing, it displays a rather shocking level of ignorance - what about 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, The Time Machine, War Of The Worlds, Frankenstein, Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde, The Handmaids Tale, Brave New World?

For another, Birkets is, judging by his biog, a fine example of the Ivory Tower Academic, publishing worthy tracts which no-one outside of the industry will read, making a living not from the sale of books but through grants, teaching, seminars and literary reviews. Perhaps I'm guilty of selective memory in thinking that it is always people who have a vested interest in keeping Great-Works-Of-Literature (TM) the sole province of a self-selected cultural elite who come out with these statements.

I must admit a bias of course - I'm a sc-fi/fantasy fan who is currently trying to write a book myself - one that I'd prefer to be sold by Wal-Mart and ASDA than treasured as a work of genius by reviewers. Nonetheless, I really do think we should all challenge the view that only particular genres can be considerd Literature, however you choose to define it.

[Abdul Alhazred]

The Handmaiden's Tale totally copied Heinlein's Revolt in 2100.

[Mojo]

Originally posted by Underemployed
So says Sven Birkerts, writing for the New York Times. Check out his biog here (http://www.bu.edu/agni/about/staff/bio-birkerts.html).

I wish I could fathom why remarks like this still bother me so much. For one thing, it displays a rather shocking level of ignorance - what about 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, The Time Machine, War Of The Worlds, Frankenstein, Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde, The Handmaids Tale, Brave New World?It's to some extent a case of how "literature" and "science fiction" are difined. I suspect that Birketts would classify any works that he considers to be of literary merit as not being science fiction. Do you have a link to the NYT article?

Since Abdul Alhazred mentions Margaret Atwood, there's a nice article about this phenomenon here (http://www.ansible.co.uk/sfx/sfx107.html):Recently I wrote about authors and reviewers who maddeningly insist that some example of SF isn't science fiction because it's, well, good.

[hgc]

Originally posted by Mojo
It's to some extent a case of how "literature" and "science fiction" are difined. I suspect that Birketts would classify any works that he considers to be of literary merit as not being science fiction. Do you have a link to the NYT article?

Since Abdul Alhazred mentions Margaret Atwood, there's a nice article about this phenomenon here (http://www.ansible.co.uk/sfx/sfx107.html):
Recently I wrote about authors and reviewers who maddeningly insist that some example of SF isn't science fiction because it's, well, good.
And RLS was no true Scotsman. ;)

[Kiless]

Bull&*%$.

Science fiction is literature.

I know, because I brought a copy of 'The Handmaid's Tale' with me to TAM 3 for the booksale, and I saw Linda of JREF walk off with it. :)

Seriously though, both that book and 'Ender's Game', 'Frankenstein' and 'The Left Hand Of Darkness' (and the potential for many more, since it's a rather open course in some aspects of text teaching) are all on our Year 11 and 12 curriculum for English teaching, let alone the multitude of university courses out there that include SF texts as a part of their Lit courses.... the question is silly. Some people just have no imagination. :rolleyes:

[TragicMonkey]

People are always leery of relatively new genres. They're still looking down on fantasy at "not quite-quite" as well, despite Lord Dunsany. Give it another century; these academic literary types are terribly conservative. They'd probably be the first to exclaim in horror about Dante writing in the vernacular had they been alive at the time.

I'm amused to note that Lovecraft and the other early twentieth century horror writers are beginning to get some ivory-tower cred, whereas before it was unthinkable to bother writing about "weird fiction". And I'll take this opportunity to shill for M.R. James. His stuff rocks!

[Neutiquam Erro]

My local B&N has the proof -- they have an aisle labeled "Literature," and another aisle labeled "Science Fiction."

To be fair, he may simply be playing a numbers game. The "signal to noise" ration in the Lit. aisle is fastly better than that of the SF aisle. In other words, it is as easy to randomly select a good book from Lit as it is difficult to do so in SF.

The point is, of course, that it's all "Literature." B&N is actually differentiating between sub-classifications: "Serious," and in some cases "Classic" fiction, and "Science" fiction, which despite notable exceptions is overwhelmingly oriented to a more juvenile or uncritical audience. Perhaps the true distinction that the SF aisle offers quite a lot of new, soon-to-be-forgotten "pulp," where as the Lit aisle features works with proven "staying power."

[Oregon_Skeptic]

For academics to outright dismiss science fiction as non-literature is rather foolish. I would argue that most of the time science fiction is not literature, just like most of the time most novels and short stories, no matter the genre, are not literature. Most westerns are not literature, but Cormac McCarthy sure writes westerns that are literature. Perhaps someone should point out to Mr. Birkerts, however, that science fiction certainly can be literature, and some is already in the canon. Frankenstein is now well entrenched in English literature. Verne, as important as he is to the foundations of science fiction, is not yet as accepted in academic circles as Shelly, but The Mysterious Island will end up there some day. Certainly Hawthorne’s short stories “The Artist of the Beautiful� and “Rappaccini's Daughter� are canonical and science fiction. Don’t forget that Edgar Poe is often credited as a founder of science fiction (though his science fiction work may not be his best). Even Charles Brockden Brown uses science fiction in Wieland (1798?).

And that was the stuff written in the 18th and 19th centuries. Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land and Dick’s The Man in the High Castle and Valis should be considered canonical. I think Le Guin and Farmer have works that could be considered as well. And there is a vast array of short stories that are as good as any in American or English lit, and I’m sure we can all list several of those.

Now for a plug regarding some of those short stories: If you have not read it or don’t own it, find a copy of The Science Fiction Hall of Fame: Volume One, 1929-1964. The works here were chosen by the members of the SFWA, and Robert Silverberg details the process in his introduction. You can find it at amazon.com. I bought this when I was a teen and I literally read my copy until it fell apart. The easily recognized giants are here: Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke, et al. But some are writers and works that are generally less well known today, like Lewis Padgett’s “Mimsy Were the Borogoves� and Godwin’s “The Cold Equations.� And while not all of the works presented are literature, you would be hard pressed to find another single volume with this much good science fiction.

[athon]

Challenge w*nkers like this on defining genre. It's nigh impossible.

One of my few published works was as co-author of a book that addressed writing speculative fiction. Well, to be honest, it was on writing fantasy, but we feel that it deserves a rewrite where we address the genre as spec' fiction instead.

The reason for this is that it is so hard to try to fit a great deal of fiction into a single category. Science fiction, fantasy, horror, weird fiction, space opera... it all blurs and has done increasingly so in the past decade. How do you define China Mieville? Michael Moorcock? Peter Hamilton? Hell, even the classics like Jules Verne?

What, then, is literature? How does something climb into this tower of tossers? I find it remarkable that anybody can still make such claims in this day and age.

Bah, there'll always be the illiterate morons who can't see past their copies of 'Meaning of Pi' to appreciate that good literature is a matter of opinion.

Athon

[Ian Osborne]

I'm surprised no one's mentioned 1984 yet. Think about it - if it was crap, no one would doubt it was Science Fiction.

[epepke]

Originally posted by Ian Osborne
I'm surprised no one's mentioned 1984 yet. Think about it - if it was crap, no one would doubt it was Science Fiction.

Yeah, but 1984 is British. The British have never gotten their knickers in a twist over whether something is Science Fiction or not.

Americans (mostly Northeasterners) do. How dare people print pulp magazines without even glossy covers to expose new writers? They should properly be abused by the editors of McSweeny's first. And they're teddibly proud that you can't pick up a copy of McSweeny's at most Barnes & Nobles. Literature is supposed to be elitist, don't you know that?

Canadians do it doubly and three times on Sunday. Because not only are pulp magazines pulps, they're American pulps.

[CptColumbo]

There are a large number of books and novels with SF elements, but are not usually labelel SF. For example; The Lord of the Flies andOn the Beach.

[Piscivore]

Originally posted by Neutiquam Erro
The "signal to noise" ration in the Lit. aisle is fastly better than that of the SF aisle.

Only because what's in the Lit aisle is what survived. How much of what was published this year in "mainstream" fiction is going to still be on the shelves in two decades? Five? Ten?

SciFi is only just barely old enough for the same sort of selection to begin showing results.

[epepke]

Originally posted by Piscivore
Only because what's in the Lit aisle is what survived. How much of what was published this year in "mainstream" fiction is going to still be on the shelves in two decades? Five? Ten?

SciFi is only just barely old enough for the same sort of selection to begin showing results.

True. The bookstores I go to have "Fiction & Literature" sections. Most of the new stuff is either 1) crap, or 2) trendy.

Of course, that's true of the "Science Fiction" section, too.

[zakur]

Science fiction that was required reading in "literature" classes I took in high school and college:

Fahrenheit 451
1984
This Fine Day
Brave New World
A Handmaid's Tale
The Left Hand of Darkness

There may have been more, but these are the ones I recall.

[Jon.]

William Gibson's Neuromancer was on the curriculum for first year English at the university I went to, and I read The Handmaid's Tale as part of a university English course, too.

There were also some short stories, including one by Philip K. Dick about a guy who realizes he's a robot, and has a punch-tape running inside him to give him all his stimuli. Very Matrix-y.

[thrombus29]

Can a short story be Literature?
If so, than Science Fiction has plenty.

Harlan Ellisons "The Deathbird"

Cordwainer Smith "Scanners live in vain"

If not, than what are stories like John Updike's "At the A&P" or Cheever's "The Swimmer" Considered?

Also Consider Pynchon, what would that be?

[epepke]

Originally posted by Jon.
There were also some short stories, including one by Philip K. Dick about a guy who realizes he's a robot, and has a punch-tape running inside him to give him all his stimuli. Very Matrix-y.

"The Electric Ant." One of my favorite short stories of any genre.

[Piscivore]

Originally posted by Jon.
There were also some short stories, including one by Philip K. Dick about a guy who realizes he's a robot, and has a punch-tape running inside him to give him all his stimuli. Very Matrix-y.

What is the name of that one, please?

ETA: Just understood that epepke answered this question. Thanks.

[hgc]

Some sci-Fi books by Kurt Vonnegut...

Player Piano
The Sirens of Titan
Cat's Cradle
Slaughterhouse 5
Slapstick

[bangdazap]

Here is the review in question: http://query.nytimes.com/search/full-page?res=9F04EEDA163FF93BA25756C0A9659C8B63

and the actual quote is: I AM going to stick my neck out and just say it: science fiction will never be Literature with a capital ''L,'' and this is because it inevitably proceeds from premise rather than character.

[hgc]

Originally posted by bangdazap
Here is the review in question: http://query.nytimes.com/search/full-page?res=9F04EEDA163FF93BA25756C0A9659C8B63

and the actual quote is: I AM going to stick my neck out and just say it: science fiction will never be Literature with a capital ''L,'' and this is because it inevitably proceeds from premise rather than character. Oh, it's worse than I thought. This reviewer, Sven Birkerts, has made a sweeping generalization with a absolutist tinge ("never"), and is justly open to getting slammed.

I refer back to Slaughterhouse 5 or a hundred other great sci-fi novels which are first and foremost about character.

[Thurkon]

Originally posted by Underemployed
So says Sven Birkerts, writing for the New York Times. Check out his biog here (http://www.bu.edu/agni/about/staff/bio-birkerts.html).

I wish I could fathom why remarks like this still bother me so much. For one thing, it displays a rather shocking level of ignorance - what about 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, The Time Machine, War Of The Worlds, Frankenstein, Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde, The Handmaids Tale, Brave New World?


Not to mention 1984, Fahrenheit 451 and many others which have been accepted by better critics than he into the official Great Literary Books canon™. Collegiate level literary professors don’t seem to agree with him, as reflected in their class coursework. But hell, if he said it must be true.

I understand the gist of what he’s saying, but limiting great literary works by genre is horribly ignorant. Many great writes like Herbert, Bradbury, Philip Dick, and such simply use sci-fi as a background for a deeper, more profound story. There’s plenty of trash out there, but every genre has it’s trash…even within the “canon�.

To me, Jane Austin and Emily Bronte are overblown 19th century romance novel writers…but that’s just me.

[Piscivore]

Originally posted by Thurkon
To me, Jane Austin and Emily Bronte are overblown 19th century romance novel writers…but that’s just me.

No, it isn't. :)

[epepke]

Originally posted by hgc
Oh, it's worse than I thought. This reviewer, Sven Birkerts, has made a sweeping generalization with a absolutist tinge ("never"), and is justly open to getting slammed.

I refer back to Slaughterhouse 5 or a hundred other great sci-fi novels which are first and foremost about character.

Besides, an awful lot of literature isn't about character, either. I wish I could remember which issue, but someone had a snarky essay in the New Yorker about this. A lot of modern literature is about memorable sentences, not character.

[Skeptic]

I'm surprised no one's mentioned 1984 yet.

Or Shakespeare's The Tempest, or Homer's Odyssey, to name two other obvious examples...

[Chaos]

Originally posted by Skeptic
I'm surprised no one's mentioned 1984 yet.

Or Shakespeare's The Tempest, or Homer's Odyssey, to name two other obvious examples...

There are Fantasy, not SF. You´ll notice that some fantasy authors (David Eddings, for example) will get upset if you lump their works together with SF.

[Cloud]

This subject was simply too juicy to me to lurk on as I've been trying so hard to find good sci fi that is written well.. and I guess foolishly I thought that by reading what editors and other authors are calling the best of their age, i.e. the hugo and nebula award winners, maybe I would see what sorts of things are rising to the top of the pile these days. So I read a sampling of the last 5 nebulas including Vernor Vinge among others and I was absolutely appalled at the poor quality of the writing, the meandering quality of the plot, shallow characters, and in general the inability to keep me wanting to read any more.

Now, I don't think I'm the ultimate authority on writing in general, but I have to say pretty much anything I've read recently has been better than any of the scifi novels I have picked up. Every one of the Harry Potter books were better by leaps and bounds. And I am a huge fan of science fiction.. I love the idea of exploring the human condition/the universe through far flung places and ideas, I'm just not seeing any of those.

Is anyone else seeing this dearth of ability to write compelling interesting novels among the sci fi writers of today or am I alone? I suppose I just feel that a neat techology idea by itself does not a novel make. In contrast I feel from the short story collections I have been reading that the quality in the last few years of the short fiction has been going up. I find that interesting. What happened to the Leguin's and the Heinleins?

Thoughts?

~Cloud

[Skeptic]

Well, if character interaction is what they want, how about (say) Lem's Solaris, Sheckley's Immortality, Inc. or Ellison's Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes, to name a few off the top of my head? How about, oh, The Stars My Destination? The whole point of good SF is that is shows something deep about the human condition by transporting the action to another, strange, sphere.

I think the real issue is different: the two greatest Sci-Fi writers of the "Golden Age"--Asimov and Heinlein--were really, really bad at creating characters and far more concerned with technology (the difference is, Asimov knew his own limitations so he hardly ever tried to write a romantic or sexual scene, while Heinlein didn't, and his sexual / female characters make for painful reading).

For many people, that is SF.

[ceo_esq]

Originally posted by athon
Bah, there'll always be the illiterate morons who can't see past their copies of 'Meaning of Pi' to appreciate that good literature is a matter of opinion.Did you mean The Life of Pi? I rather liked that book.

* * * * *

I'm surprised no one's mentioned what many people consider to be the seminal work in the genre, Thomas More's Utopia.

[Mojo]

Originally posted by Skeptic
I think the real issue is different: the two greatest Sci-Fi writers of the "Golden Age"--Asimov and Heinlein--were really, really bad at creating characters and far more concerned with technology And the same goes for Arthur C. Clarke, I suppose. I seem to remember someone describing him as writing about people as if he'd never actually met any (although I could be mistaken here - a quick google has failed to find the quote, so it's entirely possible that it was about someone else). But again, I think he's aware enough of this to have worked around it, certainly in his best works.

[epepke]

Originally posted by Cloud
Is anyone else seeing this dearth of ability to write compelling interesting novels among the sci fi writers of today or am I alone? I suppose I just feel that a neat techology idea by itself does not a novel make. In contrast I feel from the short story collections I have been reading that the quality in the last few years of the short fiction has been going up. I find that interesting. What happened to the Leguin's and the Heinleins?

I don't think that you're alone; I have a difficult time finding good SF as well. Of course, you would have to specify what you consider good. I have a similar problem finding good "mainstream" fiction. I find a lot of it to suffer from a concentration of style over substance, cynicism, and a kind of "noble savage" condescention. Even when SF lacks some qualities of mainstream fiction, the converse is also true.

However, pointing out a quality problem is quite different from saying that a genre inherently can't be literature, categorically. SF is still fairly young as a genre.

I do agree that looking at Hugo and Nebula awards isn't a very good strategy. It would be like looking at Academy Awards to find the best films.

[Skeptic]

I don't think that you're alone; I have a difficult time finding good SF as well. Of course, you would have to specify what you consider good. I have a similar problem finding good "mainstream" fiction.

By chance, I leafed through some old SF magazines the other day. Sure, once in a while you find an original Heinlein or Asimov or Clarke (or Bradbury, or Clement or Doc Smith or ... ), but the vast majority of the stories are simply BAD. As in REALLY bad.

It's not so much that the stuff written today is worse--it's just that history hasn't yet done the "censorship" for us.

[epepke]

Originally posted by Skeptic
By chance, I leafed through some old SF magazines the other day. Sure, once in a while you find an original Heinlein or Asimov or Clarke (or Bradbury, or Clement or Doc Smith or ... ), but the vast majority of the stories are simply BAD. As in REALLY bad.

Which is good, actually. You have to have a place where bad writers can get published, because otherwise, how are they going to get good?

I've also found the other thing to happen. I'll go through a stack of old SF magazines and find something really good by a writer who never, somehow, ever made it big.

It's not so much that the stuff written today is worse--it's just that history hasn't yet done the "censorship" for us.

I definitely agree with this.