From aerialsâŚ
How could any one
so much any way
even fixed breed
enteric: thatâs my
pallid inner coverlet
(from âMelaninâ by JH Prynne)
-to dull actuariesâŚ
The wall between so-called âseriousâ fiction and speculative fiction is real enough and high enough, but itâs not a figment of SF writersâ imaginations, and the guard towers on that ugly wall arenât being manned by genre writers.
(interview with Dan Simmons)
Itâs exhausting keeping interested in a genre whose leading luminaries are complete jackanapes. But thatâs the truth. One can go blue in the face, trot out one tired encyclopedia-salesman routine, a little leather casebook of myriad examples where the above statement is proven to be mindless, irresponsible falsehood. But the dittoheads (so to speak) arenât interested in buying. Theyâll trot out the same, faux-wounded lines. And when the party line is kneejerked by someone who has written more than one superb, complex novel, and not some clone-a-hack, you know the genre is d-o-o-m-e-d.
(An aside, D.S. says: â Perhaps Iâll believe that this snobby, ugly and unnecessary Berlin Wall between genre fiction and âserious fictionâ has been torn down when I see The New York Times and other heavy-hitter literary makers and shakers of record explaining why Greg Bearâs Blood Music is a work of near brillianceâŚâ Right, like the glowing review Alan Cheuse gave of Bearâs Darwinâs Radio on NPR? Ah, thereâs that Joseph Cornell-like suitcase again of mine! Canât resist pulling it out. AnywayâŚ)
So, it gets tiring. It gets tiring to (a) continually remind people outside of a given genre of the excellent, necessary work being done that happens to be in a genre, and simultaneously (b) be hammered with charges of elitism, snobbery, whatever one can throw that will stick, for engaging with the first group; these (b) people are not interested in breaking bread, but of protecting their own, needlessly small, astroturfs (âthe iconic displacement of substanceâ-Prynne again.). Which is not to say that this, in the long run, is of cosmic significance. No weblog has much earthly significance, for that matter. But in trying to decide how to tweak the signal-to-noise of my own heart through this little âNew postâ box, itâs sometimes hard to know what constituencies to approach. Which ones nurture and which ones wither. In a year of Ptarmiganing, a year of shuttling badminton-like through different reading communities uneasily on my part. Some people-and I admire them to no end-can do this effortlessly, and with a knotty nuance that I know I lack. Is it good enough to write about only what strikes me? This turns over every 2-3 weeks or so, like a frenetic glacial lake. Thatâs the question-do generalist impulses create enough signal and drown out enough noise to make the effort worth it in the first place? Iâd say yes. Itâs certainly worth writing about. If anyone has any thoughts about this please throw them my way.
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