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Thank you Ursula,
You've summed up everything wrong with what Robert Weil (a former colleague of mine at OMNI during the period I published a Ballard story) said about J.G. Ballard in the article.
Calling Utopia a Utopia
Ursula K. Le Guin
Writing about the death of J.G. Ballard for the New York Times (21 April 09), Bruce Weber spoke to Ballard’s American editor at Norton, Robert Weil. Mr Weil said of Ballard: “His fabulistic style led people to review his work as science fiction. But that’s like calling Brave New World science fiction, or 1984.”
Every time I read this sentence it suggests more parallels:
“But that’s like calling Don Quixote a novel.”
“But that’s like calling The Lord of the Rings a fantasy.”
“But that’s like calling Utopia a utopia... “
It is shocking to find that an editor at the publishing house that had the wits to publish J.G. Ballard (as well as the Norton Book of Science Fiction) can be so ignorant of what Ballard wrote, or so uninformed about the nature and history of the science-fiction genre, or so unaware of the nature of literature since the 1980’s, that he believes — now, in 2009! — that to say a writer wrote science fiction is to malign or degrade his work.
To define science fiction as a purely commercial category of fiction, inherently trashy, having nothing to do with literature, is a tall order. It involves both denying that any work of science fiction can have literary merit, and maintaining that any book of literary merit that uses the tropes of science fiction (such as Brave New World, or 1984, or The Handmaid’s Tale, or most of the works of J.G. Ballard) is not science fiction. This definition-by-negation leads to remarkable mental gymnastics. For instance, one must insist that certain works of dubious literary merit that use familiar science-fictional devices such as alternate history, or wellworn science-fiction plots such as Men-Crossing-the-Continent-After-the Holocaust, and are in every way definable as science fiction, are not science fiction — because their authors are known to be literary authors, and literary authors are incapable by definition of committing science fiction.
Now that takes some fancy thinking.
If Mr Weil allows H.G.Wells’s stories any literary quality or standing, he’d have to declare that “The First Men in the Moon” and “The Time Machine” are not science fiction — invoking, I suppose, their “fabulistic style”.
Knowing those stories differed in certain respects from other fiction, and having a scientific mind and training, H.G.Wells himself sought a classification for them. He called them “scientific romances.” The term “science fiction” hadn’t yet been invented and adopted.
When I read such nonsense as Mr Weil’s, I could wish it never had been.
But “science fiction” is the term we’re stuck with. And in any reasonable definition, it is an accepted literary category, usefully and adequately descriptive of such works of literature as Brave New World, 1984, The Man in the High Castle, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, and all J.G. Ballard’s major stories and novels.
Editors, critics, and others who use it not as a description but as a negative judgment are wrong to do so. And they do wrong. They are gravely unjust both to the science fiction of literary value that they refuse to admit is literature, and the science fiction of literary value they refuse to admit is science fiction. Mr Weil owes Aldous Huxley, and George Orwell, and his own author, J.G. Ballard, an apology beyond the grave.
Spiral
Copyright © 2009 by Ursula K. Le Guin
Permission is granted to reproduce this essay, with attribution:
by Ursula K. Le Guin
You've summed up everything wrong with what Robert Weil (a former colleague of mine at OMNI during the period I published a Ballard story) said about J.G. Ballard in the article.
Calling Utopia a Utopia
Ursula K. Le Guin
Writing about the death of J.G. Ballard for the New York Times (21 April 09), Bruce Weber spoke to Ballard’s American editor at Norton, Robert Weil. Mr Weil said of Ballard: “His fabulistic style led people to review his work as science fiction. But that’s like calling Brave New World science fiction, or 1984.”
Every time I read this sentence it suggests more parallels:
“But that’s like calling Don Quixote a novel.”
“But that’s like calling The Lord of the Rings a fantasy.”
“But that’s like calling Utopia a utopia... “
It is shocking to find that an editor at the publishing house that had the wits to publish J.G. Ballard (as well as the Norton Book of Science Fiction) can be so ignorant of what Ballard wrote, or so uninformed about the nature and history of the science-fiction genre, or so unaware of the nature of literature since the 1980’s, that he believes — now, in 2009! — that to say a writer wrote science fiction is to malign or degrade his work.
To define science fiction as a purely commercial category of fiction, inherently trashy, having nothing to do with literature, is a tall order. It involves both denying that any work of science fiction can have literary merit, and maintaining that any book of literary merit that uses the tropes of science fiction (such as Brave New World, or 1984, or The Handmaid’s Tale, or most of the works of J.G. Ballard) is not science fiction. This definition-by-negation leads to remarkable mental gymnastics. For instance, one must insist that certain works of dubious literary merit that use familiar science-fictional devices such as alternate history, or wellworn science-fiction plots such as Men-Crossing-the-Continent-After-the Holocaust, and are in every way definable as science fiction, are not science fiction — because their authors are known to be literary authors, and literary authors are incapable by definition of committing science fiction.
Now that takes some fancy thinking.
If Mr Weil allows H.G.Wells’s stories any literary quality or standing, he’d have to declare that “The First Men in the Moon” and “The Time Machine” are not science fiction — invoking, I suppose, their “fabulistic style”.
Knowing those stories differed in certain respects from other fiction, and having a scientific mind and training, H.G.Wells himself sought a classification for them. He called them “scientific romances.” The term “science fiction” hadn’t yet been invented and adopted.
When I read such nonsense as Mr Weil’s, I could wish it never had been.
But “science fiction” is the term we’re stuck with. And in any reasonable definition, it is an accepted literary category, usefully and adequately descriptive of such works of literature as Brave New World, 1984, The Man in the High Castle, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, and all J.G. Ballard’s major stories and novels.
Editors, critics, and others who use it not as a description but as a negative judgment are wrong to do so. And they do wrong. They are gravely unjust both to the science fiction of literary value that they refuse to admit is literature, and the science fiction of literary value they refuse to admit is science fiction. Mr Weil owes Aldous Huxley, and George Orwell, and his own author, J.G. Ballard, an apology beyond the grave.
Spiral
Copyright © 2009 by Ursula K. Le Guin
Permission is granted to reproduce this essay, with attribution:
by Ursula K. Le Guin
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From:
the email back and forth--start from the BOTTOM
Ellen
Far be it from me to deny anyone the pleasure of riding a hobby horse...
-----Original Message-----
From: Ellen Datlow [mailto:]
Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2009 11:27 AM
To: 'Bruce Weber'
Subject: RE: READER MAIL: Bruce Weber
LOL. Ah, but you see we sf/f/h editors/writers have been defending our chosen endeavors against mainstream ...what? denigration/trivialization, whatever for decades. That's a problem with working within what is perceived as a "ghetto."
Of course it goes both ways. I get annoyed when those outside the field say that "if it's good it's not science fiction" --eg Margaret Atwood, Michael Chabon, Cormac McCarthy, et al. But there are also those IN the fields of fantastic fiction who are suspicious of writers who dip into their territory.
I'm pleased that this has slowwwwwly been changing over the decades from both ends. Michael Chabon's fantasy/sf can be honored by both the mainstream and science fiction. Jonathan Lethem can move from sf/f to mainstream adulation, Joyce Carol Oates writers whatever she damned well wants whether it's mystery, mainstream, horror or fantasy. And of course, J. G. Ballard also slipped back and forth between his futuristic novels/stories and his mainstream work.
Sorry. Didn't mean to go on :-)
-----Original Message-----
From: Bruce Weber [mailto:weber@nytimes.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2009 11:19 AM
To: 'Ellen Datlow'
Subject: RE: READER MAIL: Bruce Weber
Not that I care to defend robert weil, whom ive never met, but in my experience the blogosphere is exceedingly literal-minded...and whether or not you label orwell or huxley or ballard science fiction seems to me irrelevant, unless you're looking for a reason to be indignant about something.
-----Original Message-----
From: Ellen Datlow [mailto:]
Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2009 10:48 AM
To: 'Bruce Weber'
Subject: RE: READER MAIL: Bruce Weber
Actually his comment that Brave New World and 1984 are not science fiction puts the lie to that. That remark has generated a LOT of ridicule in the blogosphere. If there was a comment section by your obit you would have seen the reaction to what he's said. And so might he.
Best
Ellen
-----Original Message-----
From: Bruce Weber [mailto:weber@nytimes.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2009 9:26 AM
From: datlow
Subject: Re: READER MAIL: Bruce Weber
i think he probably meant to suggest that science fiction is ordinarily considered a literary ghetto but that ballard proved it isnt....but perhaps you should be writing to him and not me.
----- Original Message -----
From: "NYTimes.com" <emailus@ms2.lga2.nytimes.com>
To: <weber@nytimes.com>
Sent: Tuesday, April 21, 2009 11:24 PM
Subject: READER MAIL: Bruce Weber
> To: BRUCE WEBER
>
> You have received reader mail via nytimes.com. To respond to this
> reader,
> simply 'reply' to this message.
>
> READER'S NAME:
> Ellen Datlow
>
>
>
> READER'S MESSAGE:
> I'm amused that Bob Weil doesn't consider Ballard a science fiction
> writer
> when Ballard himself did. More to the point, Bob was an editor at
> OMNI, the science fact and science fiction magazine while I was
> fiction editor there and published "Dream Cargoes," by ...you guessed
> it: J.G. Ballard
>
> ARTICLE REFERENCED (if any):
> J. G. Ballard, Novelist, Is Dead at 78
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Re: the email back and forth--start from the BOTTOM
From:
Re: the email back and forth--start from the BOTTOM
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Re: the email back and forth--start from the BOTTOM
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Re: the email back and forth--start from the BOTTOM
In which case, why include Weil's remark as though it were pointing out a useful distinction about Ballard's work? Doing so means he doesn't get to pretend it's just "the blogosphere" stirring up a fuss over labels.
But this is all obvious stuff we've seen before. Thanks for calling him on it, and for quoting Le Guin's wonderful response. I figure we've got about a decade or so to go before the culture at large finally gets past this old-fashioned view of science fiction.
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on the other hand
I was once on a panel with someone who bragged that when she saw Stan Robinson's climactic thriller books on the Fic/Lit shelves of her local Borders, she'd collect them all and restock them in SF.
Ghetto walls are reinforced on both sides!
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I think it's a good sign that so many young-ish writers cross genre borders with impunity. Thank God for Michael Chabon (and RIP Roberto Bolano).
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I love it! Funniest thing I've read all day.
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"Ghetto walls are reinforced on both sides!"
I think that's the truest remark on this page!
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Re: on the other hand