(urth) "Realistic fiction leaves out too much." - Gene Wolfe

[Bruce Hayles]

*See http://mysite.verizon.net/~vze2tmhh/wolfeint.html*

*Q:* *What's available to an adult, adventurous reader in science fiction?
Why should they read that genre? Why should they move past realism?*

*GW:* The adventurous reader has probably already moved past realism. I
realize that sounds like a smart remark, but I mean past the kind of fiction
that is called "realism" as a literary genre, and that's what it is: a
literary genre. It is archtypically the story about the college professor
who is married to the other college professor.

Did you read Ursula K. LeGuin's <http://www.uic.edu/~lauramd/sf/leguin.html>
 novel, *The Dispossessed<http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/science_fiction/dispossessed.html>
*? It was about the college professor who's married to a college professor,
only science fiction, and this planet is Russia and this planet is the
United States. When I read it I was so disappointed. I'd had a dozen people
tell me how wonderful it was.

*Q:* *Yeah, I heard that too. Then I read it.*

*GW:* I've read that book before; I've read it as realism many a time. It's
a John Updike kind of book. I've read that story so many times ... now I
read a book until I can recognize the story, and say, "This is what it is,"
and that's as far as it goes, since I have no urge to finish it. I'm long
past feeling so guilty that I have to finish everything I start. I don't
finish ninety percent of what I start.

Look, the reason someone should go past that sort of realism is that it is
narrow, stultifying and ultimately false.

*Q:* *And the fantastic genres aren't?*

*GW:* No, not the better stuff. We're dealing with the truth of the human
experience, as opposed to what we are willing to accept from other people.

*Q:* *Wait, I don't see that distinction. The truth of experiences versus
other people's experiences?*

On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 6:43 PM, James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com> wrote:

>  Well, I understand that Wolfe is saying, among other things, that
> Naturalism and Realism address solely what *is* as opposed to What Might
> Have Been and therefore cannot state authoritatively "Why What Is Is". You
> can't address the nature of Identity in Realistic fiction. You can't take
> seriously mythology, miracles, magic or ghosts (even though people REALLY
> act as though such things are true, and some claim experiences that confirm
> it).
>
> Still, it's quite a thing to say for an author who typically stops the
> narrative just when a big (apparently important) action scene is about to
> occur-- a writer who creates vast worlds and has the reader look at it
> through a paper towel tube.
>
> J.
>
> On 4/29/2011 4:50 PM, Daniel Petersen wrote:
>
> 'I do think he is saying realistic fiction leaves out the unexplained
> mystery of life, the majestic grace of the impossible that creeps into our
> everyday, that ignores things that are beyond the rational and explicable
> laws of the commonly perceived reality and fiction'
>
>  Yes.  So, no.  I don't think it's the pot/kettle scenario.
>
>  DOJP
>
> On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 9:43 PM, Marc Aramini <marcaramini at yahoo.com>wrote:
>
>> Some of Wolfe's interviews are priceless for that quality.  "Looking for
>> the thumb print under the lily"?  Oh, it was a lily, huh?
>>
>> Anybody read his contribution to Last Drink Bird Head?  I feel like that
>> little exercise is SO classic Wolfe.  Sets up a scenario, throws in a random
>> plastic toy, and then leaves us to figure out how the concluding event went
>> down.  I think it is not necessarily an impossible task, but it sure is a
>> bit inscrutable to fully "get" that conclusion. (Did Damon Knight get really
>> mad? What happened to the toy?  why is the unconscious guy back there at the
>> end of the bar?  Is that his toy bird?)
>>
>> I do think he is saying realistic fiction leaves out the unexplained
>> mystery of life, the majestic grace of the impossible that creeps into our
>> everyday, that ignores things that are beyond the rational and explicable
>> laws of the commonly perceived reality and fiction, (but we all know what he
>> was really saying, anyway).
>>
>> --- On Fri, 4/29/11, James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
>> > Subject: (urth) "Realistic fiction leaves out too much." - Gene Wolfe
>> > To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
>> > Date: Friday, April 29, 2011, 12:24 PM
>>  > I just read this quote by Wolfe.
>> >
>> > Irony? Pot-Meet-Kettle?
>> >
>> > J
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