(urth) grumble at wolfe comment made attached to guardian article

[James Wynn]

"I never understood any kind of border patrol when it comes to music.”
~ Bob Dylan

On 2/7/2011 11:42 AM, Son of Witz wrote:
> I'm definitely with Lane on this.
> It's the same with musical sub-genres. Just play good music, I don't 
> care how you need to categorize it for the marketplace.
> These preceived categories indicate nothing about the intrinsic 
> quality of the work.
> I'm reading a James Ellroy "Crime Novel" right now.  Bah!  The thing 
> scorches!
>
> ~witz
>
> On Feb 6, 2011, at 6:44 PM, Lane Haygood <lhaygood at gmail.com 
> <mailto:lhaygood at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>> SF to me has no significant differences from "literary" fiction. 
>>  Sure, there are stylistic conventions and structural differences, 
>> but those are there in the difference between a frame story and 
>> first-person narrative, for example.  Each "genre," so to speak, may 
>> contain different story structures, literary techniques, etc.  And 
>> plenty of genre fiction is uninteresting schlock... but so is your 
>> average perusal of the literary fiction section.  Good writers are 
>> good writers are good writers, no matter what they write.
>>
>> And I'm reminded of the Wolfe quote that what we call "sf" is what 
>> was once called "literature."  For instance, if Homer were to write 
>> "The Odyssey" today, it would be called epic quest fantasy.  The same 
>> for the Kalevala or the Eddas, which were Tolkien's primary influences.
>>
>> And yeah, it is unjust that sf, for entirely political reasons, gets 
>> short shrift from prize committees and critics and other image 
>> conscious types.  On the other hand, their approval of what I read 
>> was never requested, nor is it important to me, although I will 
>> continue to tell anyone who will listen that there are truly 
>> wonderful writers working in sf (Wolfe, Le Guin, Bakker, Lynch, etc.).
>>
>> LH
>>
>> On Sun, Feb 6, 2011 at 7:04 PM, Marc Aramini <marcaramini at yahoo.com 
>> <mailto:marcaramini at yahoo.com>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>     --- On Sun, 2/6/11, Lane Haygood <lhaygood at gmail.com
>>     <mailto:lhaygood at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>>     > From: Lane Haygood <lhaygood at gmail.com <mailto:lhaygood at gmail.com>>
>>     > Subject: Re: (urth) grumble at wolfe comment made attached to
>>     guardian article
>>     > To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net
>>     <mailto:urth at lists.urth.net>>
>>     > Date: Sunday, February 6, 2011, 4:38 PM
>>     > Literary fiction is entitled to its
>>     > pretensions. That is, after all, what distinguishes one made
>>     > up story from another sufficient to call it "literary."
>>     >
>>     >
>>
>>     I guess.  But then you know there are these grants and stuff,
>>     like Vollman getting 50,000 tax free for five years, for, as you
>>     said, creating a made up story.  Just reeks of ... injustice?  I
>>     don't know.  But those pretentions are so ... repetitive and
>>     boring?  The best SF is sometimes pretentious in novel and
>>     interesting ways.
>>
>>
>>
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