SF agonistes

[calimac]

When Octavia Butler was awarded one of those MacArthur "genius" grants a few years ago, everyone in the science fiction community was very proud of her. She was one of us (she was even a Clarion grad), and she was both one of our best and one relatively little-known outside the field.

I heard several people say that it would be impossible for ignorant critics to put down SF as a whole now, as a good SF author had been deemed worthy of a MacArthur grant.

That's not what happened. Instead, I saw comments to the effect that the MacArthurs had jumped the shark, as they'd lost their minds enough to give a grant to an (ugh) science fiction writer.

So I wonder what will happen now that Doris Lessing is being presented with the Nobel Prize in Literature. Will the same kind of critics say that the Nobel Prize is meaningless? Will they drum up, as they do whenever they don't like the current winner, the names of such obscure past recipients at Selma Lagerlöf to make fun of? (Ironically, though there are more renowned Nobel literature laureates whom I haven't read, I have read Lagerlöf. They're still proud of her in Sweden. When I was about 9 we had a Swedish au pair girl, and she gave me a copy of a translation of Lagerlöf's children's classic The Wonderful Adventures of Nils.)

The alternative course, naturally, is to deny that Lessing writes science fiction. Because it's good, you see, so it can't be SF. And it's true that she doesn't write only SF, or is as intimately tied with the community as Butler was. Never mind that Lessing attended a World Science Fiction Convention as a Guest of Honor, or that she cheerfully identified her SF work as SF, there's always room for this sort of in-denial nonsense.

Comments

[asimovberlioz.livejournal.com]

Of course the mun-fi lovers will take the tack that "It's not SF, it's good fiction about possible futures" or other such BS.

She is not, however, the first writer of science fiction to have received the Nobel Prize for Literature. Harry Martensen wrote Aniara, an epic poem about a doomed evacuation spaceship. And I'm sure you of all people know why I'm aware of this particular work.

[milwaukeesfs.livejournal.com]

"Critic" Harold Bloom has aready been quoted by AP deriding her.

'However, American literary critic Harold Bloom called the academy's decision "pure political correctness."

"Although Ms. Lessing at the beginning of her writing career had a few admirable qualities, I find her work for the past 15 years quite unreadable ... fourth-rate science fiction," Bloom told The Associated Press."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071011/ap_on_en_ot/nobel_literature;_ylt=AmG4Zi3QoxZJR4MmyM9R9opvaA8F

I've pretty much always thought Bloom an ass, and this does nothing to change my mind--.

[cynthia1960.livejournal.com]

I find it interesting that she doesn't run away from the sf label, but she does run away from the feminist label.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Sure I know the reason.

And he wasn't the first SF writer with a Nobel either. That would, I think, be R. Kipling.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I got a chance on the radio to slag Bloom for the ignorant things he's said about Tolkien. In fact I spent more time bashing Bloom than I did Peter Jackson, about whom I tried to be noncommittal.

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

I love The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, which I took out of the library over and over in my youth. I tracked it down in adulthood and have a copy on my bookshelf, where the grandchildren have ignored it.

[pcw-rcw.livejournal.com]

Well, Jorge Luis Borge won, and we've always thought that his works were fantasy. Perhaps, Doris Lessing will be accepted better than we think she will be. Just getting the Nobel is progress.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

Because Bud Webster used it for his fanzine?

(Yeah, yeah, I know. Opera.)

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

I suggested on RASFF that she should deny that what she writes is literature, that she writes science fiction, which deals with real human issues and problems, rather than endless novels about the midlife crises of English teachers.

[pcw-rcw.livejournal.com]

Our mistake--Richard checked this at work and although Borges' name was tossed about at the time, Borges is not a Nobel Laureate. He's one of our favorite writers and we think he definitely deserved one--not to mention that his influence has lasted a lot longer than others who have won the award--so it was probably wishful thinking on our part. We suppose a reason why he did not get the award, might be because he did write fantasy-like stories.