Giving The Future A Chance

[coalescent]

You've got to love the global communications network.

There I was last night, quietly minding my own business, when suddenly I get a call from an unknown number. At the other end of the line is an enthusiastic applez: "Turn on Radio 3!" he said. "There's a show you have to listen to!"

This perhaps has more impact if you know that applez is and was in San Francisco, listening via the internet. It made my evening, anyway, and Tom was also impressed.

The show in question was Nightwaves, Radio 3's daily 'culture and ideas' slot:

So why do we still need to maintain the distinction between the literary and the generic, and how do you define the two? That's the big question for the Undercurrents panel on Nightwaves tonight. Mulling over this weighty topic will be writers Brian Aldiss, Justina Robertson, Professor Valentine Cunningham and philosopher and Man Booker judge A.C. Grayling.

You can see why Zac thought I may be interested. And it was a good show: I spammed several of you about it last night, but anyone else who's interested can listen to it here and read the inevitable Third Alternative message board thread here. Zac's also posted about it over in ousfg, here.

Points I'm filing away for future reference:

• Aldiss hints that when he met Margaret Atwood she was quite happy, even keen, to be thought of as a science fiction writer. He then mentions that he thinks this was before she was published...


• JG Ballard is referenced as saying 'the day science fiction is taken seriously, it will be dead'. Aldiss questions whether science fiction, as an effectively self-invented description, is relevant any more, and even whether it ever did more harm than good. Kim Newman suggests that people unconciously associate science fiction as an american phenomenon, and therefore as crap.


• Some interesting discussion about whether genres are imposed by readers rather than writers (along with a healthy dose of the usual science fiction reader stereotype, although that was entertainingly rebutted by Robson). Also mention of the obvious influence of publishers. On the other hand, you do get people who want to write SF, or mystery, or [insert description here].


• Some talk of authors such as Bulgakov (who is a fantasist, not a science fiction writer) and Borges (who has written science fiction and fantasy, but is not a science fiction or fantasy writer).


• Comments from Ian Jack, the editor of Granta, saying 'he himself is not entirely sure why he wants to exclude fantastic literature'. Trying to reason it out, he suggests that writing within science fiction is self-limiting, and that maybe it lacks the scope of 'non-genre' writing. Justina Robson is asked to comment; you can almost hear her going slightly purple. :-)


• The inevitable debate about the importance of characterisation. Literary merit is best defined by pointing at it (like science fiction!); strong characters can be one reason a work endures, although they may be stylised rather than multidimensional. Characterisation is not the only dimension of a novel's value.


• The discussion is chaired by China Mieville. Every so often, I got an image of everyone else playing nice so that he didn't lean over and bang their heads together. :-)

Comments

[wg.livejournal.com]

thanks to you and Zac for pointing this out. Very interesting stuff. Not at all sure about Ian Jack's comments - i was going a bit purple with Justina Robson on that one.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I thought she was great, all told, though. Very nice characterisation of people who read 'mainstream'. :-)

Although I was a little surprised that she didn't make the obvious point that a genre that deliberately avoids normalising endings isn't exactly lacking in ambition...

Cheers

[applez.livejournal.com]

For making me sound a whole lot more cogent and coherent than I was...I think 'sputtering excitement' comes to mind. ;-)