A Process of Translation

[coalescent]

Kelly Link's Magic For Beginners is reviewed in the New York Times by Michael Knight (yes, really). He seems a bit confused:

Take ''Some Zombie Contingency Plans.'' It's about a recently released convict who drives around the suburbs looking for parties to crash because he's lonely. There are zombies here, but are they real? The premise is fresh and the characters (the con, the girl whose party he crashes, her little brother who sleeps under the bed) are likable and Link puts a metafictional twist on the narrative voice (''This is a story about being lost in the woods,'' she says), but the story doesn't quite come together, and those zombies -- are they supposed to be a metaphor?

Scott Westerfeld explains:

Allow me to explain, Mr. Non-sf-Reading Reviewer Man. Sure, zombies can “be a metaphor.” They can represent the oppressed, as in Land of the Dead, or humanity’s feral nature, as in 28 Days. Or racial politics or fear of contagion or even the consumer unconscious (Night of the Living Dead, Resident Evil, Dawn of the Dead). We could play this game all night.

But really, zombies are not “supposed to be metaphors.” They’re supposed to be friggin’ zombies. They follow the Zombie Rules: they rise from death to eat the flesh of the living, they shuffle in slow pursuit (or should, anyway), and most important, they multiply exponentially. They bring civilization down, taking all but the most resourceful, lucky and well-armed among us, whom they save for last. They make us the hunted; all of us.

That’s the stuff zombies are supposed to do. Yes, they make excellent symbols, and metaphors, and have kick-ass mytho-poetic resonance to boot. But their main job is to follow genre conventions, to play with and expand the Zombie Rules, to make us begin to see the world as a place colored by our own zombie contingency plans.

EDIT: A relevant comment at Making Light:

I got into a rather heated argument a few months back with someone who was insisting that Tooth and Claw was good because "it isn't really about dragons." I said that it was too really about dragons, and that it would have been a much worse novel if it had not been really about dragons. "But I mean, really about dragons," said the other person. And I said yes, really about dragons. It didn't matter how many kinds of typographical emphasis she attempted to vocalize: Tooth and Claw is about dragons.

It also does other things, but if every little thing in it was a metaphor for man's inhumanity to radishes or some damn thing, it would suck.

Comments

[veggiesu.livejournal.com]

The idea that the ambiguity, the balance between the literal and the metaphoric, might be the point doesn't seem to really occur to him

So now the argument has moved on from "he thinks the zombies might be metaphorical - stoopid n00b, doesn't he get that they're literal??" to "he doesn't understand that the fact that the zombies might metaphorical is the point". Since you ignored it the first time I said it, I'll say it again - you keep changing your argument everytime anyone answers it. You keep changing what you think the guy got wrong, whenever anyone points out that he might have made a valid point. And you keep ignoring the valid points that are being made in defence of mundanes ^[1] reviewing "your" genre.

However, as interesting and engaging as this discussion has been (honestly, I've enjoyed it), I think when we get to the point of discussing what we mean by "understand", it's time to declare this conversation Officially Up It's Own Arse, and speak of cake intsead.

Mmmmmmmmmm, cake. Hott Chocolate Fudge Cake :-)


[1] I use this word advisedly. It strikes me that it's use (and I appreciate, in all senses of the word, that you've never used it) smacks of a teenage desperation to see oneself and one's group as special and different and beyond the understanding of those poor "normal" idiots. And that to me charactrises both the referenced response to the review, and the subtext of the entire "he's not one of us; he can't possibly expect to understand" argument.

[chance88088.livejournal.com]

mmmmm I agree with Su because she has cake.

[veggiesu.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I have cookies, too :-)

[chance88088.livejournal.com]

ooooo *plans to agree with Su more often*

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I still think that if you think I've been changing my position, then I haven't been explaining my position clearly enough. But I can't be bothered going round the houses again, either, especially when there's cake available. :)

[veggiesu.livejournal.com]

Have a cookie, too :-)