grumble at wolfe comment made attached to guardian article

James Wynn · 07 Feb 2011, 16:46 · from 2011-February.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2011 10:46:53 -0600
Subject: (urth) grumble at wolfe comment made attached to guardian
	article
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It's worth noting that as far back as the 1970s Wolfe said that the only 
significant market for Short Stories anymore was in the SF genre (you'd 
have to include Fantasy and Horror in that category I think).  Certainly 
this is true for stories that /experiment/ with the *art* of 
storytelling. I just picked up the 'Swords & Dark Magic' anthology this 
weekend and was reminded of the number and variety of anthologies in the 
SF&F section each year--compared to those in the "Literary Fiction" section.

The high-schoolish, careful observances of labels and clubby borders is 
a sign of an art in decay--as anyone who has closely observed the nature 
of poetry publishing can tell you.

u+16b9

PS: As an aside, I recall someone who frequently writes for "genre" 
while maintaining the respect of "literary" markets.  I recently read 
Neil Gaiman's (ed.) "Stories" anthology and have decided that if I never 
read another Joyce Carol Oats story, that will probably be just fine.

On 2/6/2011 8:44 PM, Lane Haygood 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
>

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