Generic Considerations

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes · 24 Apr 2003, 17:41 · from urth-v0304.mbox · original

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From: "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" <katbarx at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Generic Considerations
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2003 10:41:20 -0700
Message-ID: <urth-v0304-3307 at digest.urth.net>
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Blattid:

> >Can you show me a fictive universe which maps exactly against the real?
> >If so, how can you know it does?

Matthew:
>When a character in a Ruth Rendell thriller walks a London street near my
>home I can too.  When Graves' Claudius refers to the Sybiline prophesies I
>can recall the cave complex of the Cumean Sybil I visited in February.
>Taking a plane or driving car are possible.
>
>While character and narrative might in varying degrees be creations of the
>author their milieu is something we can experience.

It seems to me that you are saying here that persons (characters)
and events (narrative) are not part of "the real," but places
(streets and caves) and inanimate objects (planes and cars) are.
Am I understanding you correctly in this?

>But tracing Severian's walk through Nessus, buying a copy of A Lancre
>Witch's Cookbook direct from the Guild of Engravers, getting to work by
>transporter or taking a holiday on a GSV... these are somewhat out of
>reach.
>
>Worlds with deliquescing doors and worlds with hinges ...

This reverts to the subect/object orientation of SF/MF. SF expends
much of it discursive energy on the level of the object, creating
and analyzing things that do not exist in the "consensus" world. MF
need not do this and uses more of its discursive energy creating
and analyzing the subjectivity of characters. But the subjects of
attention and analysis in MF are no more (or less) "real" than the
objects of attention and analysis in SF; though one could reasonably
claim, I suppose, that they represent a kind of thing that exists
in the consensus world, where deliquescing doors and transporters
do not ...

--Blattid

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