Dear Baniel, methinks you're reacting in a slightly kneejerk fashion here ;-)
Niall's quoting others, and seems to lend the Second Two a tad too much credence, but from what I've read, I don't think he's saying that the latter two have it All Right and the former All Wrong.
SF readers do get Metaphor, y'know. Most of them. I do. I'm quite certain the rest of the Third Row (ie: I'm too lazy to type up all da names) do. They do also understand the multiple readings angle, if you will. In this sense, Westerfield's reading is the more 'blinkered SF fan' one, and yes, does come across as self-important. However, I don't think you'd need to look far to find his equivalent in lit-fic land.
The brief description Knight provides for the stories in the review (annoyingly spoilerific descriptions, I might add. It's a short, but still) almost undercut his pretty much dead-on accurate description of the writing, the feel, the questions the ficition poses, the contradictions. Knight may not fully be enjoying the book in the way Niall is (or, for that matter, in the way I did), or he may simply be asking the 'questions' as a way to illustrate what you wonder when you first get through the book, or what mainstream readers unfamiliar with this level of 'oddness' might get from it (see his closing parapgraph).
I think it's more about levels of comfort, rather than a deeper lack of understanding; yes, Knight's a-hunting for metaphors, and he does seem rather disqueted, perhaps even disconnected from stories at times (he says as much in his closing paragraph, give or take), but I can't conclude from this that he's reading it 'wrong'. The simple fact he seems to relish the fact that Link undercuts the metaphors he thinks are building more often than not (paragraph 6) tells me he does, in fact, rather 'get it'. Most of the time. Whether or not ZCP 'quite comes together' is, after all, a matter of perspective.
That he is reading it from a more mainstream perspective seems clear. Are SF fans more comfortable accepting the literal weridness of it all in addition to the potential metaphorical baggage? Quite probably. Does that make their reading more correct, or richer? If they read it as straightly as Westerfield seems to have done, well, then that's anything but true. Yes, Westerfield's got a clear 'understanding' of what 'Zombie Contingency Plans' is about. And at the same time misses the point completely, and rails against Knight's review on, I might argue, fairly unfounded grounds. There Be Zombies throughout the book, and it's a review of the entire work What exactly did he expect from a 400 word review on a book in a mainstream paper? Detailed analysis of every story? That one's being used as an example, and while the effectiveness of the description vis. getting the point of it all across is debatable (see above), I can't but conclude that Knight's review is, in fact, a good one, if not a great one. In fairness to Westerfield, though, I'm liable to see his reaction as a knee-jerk rant in and of itself, and not necessarily representative of how he reads things. I like giving people the benefit of the doubt.
I have much the same kind of feeling vis. the Making Light quote as I do the Westerfield one; namely, that while yes, if the whole book was only one big, pompous, metaphorical travel into drivel, and only that, or tried to hard for EVERYTHING TO BE METAPHORICAL, or otherwise meaningful in ways beyond the literal, then it probably wouldn't make a terribly satisfying piece of writing. I've read Donaldson's stuff. I know what I'm talking about. The opposite approach that is portrayed (whether accurately or not. In Westerfield's case, my vote is 'not', in the Making Light snippet, we ain't got the source, soo), let's mislabel it the 'lit' approach, is equally blinkered in stating it's good BECAUSE it's about metaphor, not Real Dragons. Both, in this case, are wrong, but I put it to you that a strictly metaphorical reading, and attribution of quality to a book because of it, smacks of a good deal more pretention than a strictly literal reading. Neither, however, is particularly great, rich, or as rewarding as it could be. Some may be slightly more wrong than others, but which ones depends on your own perspective.
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Date: 2005-08-15 09:41 am (UTC)Niall's quoting others, and seems to lend the Second Two a tad too much credence, but from what I've read, I don't think he's saying that the latter two have it All Right and the former All Wrong.
SF readers do get Metaphor, y'know. Most of them. I do. I'm quite certain the rest of the Third Row (ie: I'm too lazy to type up all da names) do. They do also understand the multiple readings angle, if you will. In this sense, Westerfield's reading is the more 'blinkered SF fan' one, and yes, does come across as self-important. However, I don't think you'd need to look far to find his equivalent in lit-fic land.
The brief description Knight provides for the stories in the review (annoyingly spoilerific descriptions, I might add. It's a short, but still) almost undercut his pretty much dead-on accurate description of the writing, the feel, the questions the ficition poses, the contradictions. Knight may not fully be enjoying the book in the way Niall is (or, for that matter, in the way I did), or he may simply be asking the 'questions' as a way to illustrate what you wonder when you first get through the book, or what mainstream readers unfamiliar with this level of 'oddness' might get from it (see his closing parapgraph).
I think it's more about levels of comfort, rather than a deeper lack of understanding; yes, Knight's a-hunting for metaphors, and he does seem rather disqueted, perhaps even disconnected from stories at times (he says as much in his closing paragraph, give or take), but I can't conclude from this that he's reading it 'wrong'. The simple fact he seems to relish the fact that Link undercuts the metaphors he thinks are building more often than not (paragraph 6) tells me he does, in fact, rather 'get it'. Most of the time. Whether or not ZCP 'quite comes together' is, after all, a matter of perspective.
That he is reading it from a more mainstream perspective seems clear. Are SF fans more comfortable accepting the literal weridness of it all in addition to the potential metaphorical baggage? Quite probably. Does that make their reading more correct, or richer? If they read it as straightly as Westerfield seems to have done, well, then that's anything but true. Yes, Westerfield's got a clear 'understanding' of what 'Zombie Contingency Plans' is about. And at the same time misses the point completely, and rails against Knight's review on, I might argue, fairly unfounded grounds. There Be Zombies throughout the book, and it's a review of the entire work What exactly did he expect from a 400 word review on a book in a mainstream paper? Detailed analysis of every story? That one's being used as an example, and while the effectiveness of the description vis. getting the point of it all across is debatable (see above), I can't but conclude that Knight's review is, in fact, a good one, if not a great one. In fairness to Westerfield, though, I'm liable to see his reaction as a knee-jerk rant in and of itself, and not necessarily representative of how he reads things. I like giving people the benefit of the doubt.
I have much the same kind of feeling vis. the Making Light quote as I do the Westerfield one; namely, that while yes, if the whole book was only one big, pompous, metaphorical travel into drivel, and only that, or tried to hard for EVERYTHING TO BE METAPHORICAL, or otherwise meaningful in ways beyond the literal, then it probably wouldn't make a terribly satisfying piece of writing. I've read Donaldson's stuff. I know what I'm talking about. The opposite approach that is portrayed (whether accurately or not. In Westerfield's case, my vote is 'not', in the Making Light snippet, we ain't got the source, soo), let's mislabel it the 'lit' approach, is equally blinkered in stating it's good BECAUSE it's about metaphor, not Real Dragons. Both, in this case, are wrong, but I put it to you that a strictly metaphorical reading, and attribution of quality to a book because of it, smacks of a good deal more pretention than a strictly literal reading. Neither, however, is particularly great, rich, or as rewarding as it could be. Some may be slightly more wrong than others, but which ones depends on your own perspective.