Margaret Atwood has written some profound and enduringly popular books during her career, not least my favourite of her works, The Handmaid's Tale. I read The Handmaid's Tale around the same time that I read We by Yevgeny Zamyatin and Children of Men by P.D. James, two highly regarded dystopian novels revolving around society's breakdown or fatal flaws. They are both regarded as science fiction, to greater or lesser extents, as most dystopian works are- the "hard science" of social experimentation and social science is the basis, however loose, for roughly half of all dystopian fiction, sharing the genre with disaster/ accident/ catastrophe (which, incidentally, then fuels a socially focused story, after the cause of the current state of affairs). At the time I couldn't help grouping these three books together in my mind- similar themes ran through all of them, and they all felt largely the same.
Even now they come as a set in my mind when I refer to them, and it's little wonder why; I probably picked them up in the library as a group because of their very similarities. So why is the author of one of them, The Handmaid's Tale, keen to inform everyone that it is in fact not science fiction, and wouldn't be unless it was entirely implausible and possibly had dragons?
According to this article from the lovely io9 folks here Margaret Atwood is arguing exactly that in a new essay she has written on science fiction, her works, and the spotty fan-boys that make up possibly 25% of the genre's audience. Never have I seen an author who has so grounded themselves in a genre and sub-genre try to escape it so fervently. Atwood's argument goes a little along the lines of "if it could possibly happen, however improbably and however far into the future or far removed from here, then it is not science fiction". However, "if it contains dozens of impossibilities, sword wielding heroines, dragons and secret islands, particularly if they're illustrated on the cover, then it is science fiction".
Both of which are statements that essentially go against many hard-set definitions of science fiction, and ruin the distinction (which is already blurred) between fantasy and science fiction. H.G. Wells, one of the grandfathers of science fiction, argued that any science fiction work (or scientific romance, as he christened them) had a saturation point of one impossibility- if your story had more than that, it was not scientifically based enough. And it rings true- The War of The Worlds, The Time Machine, The Island of Dr Moreau, The Invisible Man, all of them have on impossibility which acts as the first domino of the story- everything after the existence of Martians, the existence of time travel, the ability to experiment on the nature of life itself and the ability to make man invisible is feasible and a perfectly understandable set of reactions from human characters. To use The Handmaid's Tale as an example, you could argue that Atwood doesn't even achieve that one impossibility- it is a series of improbabilities woven together, but still possible. Societal changes have happened that aren't necessarily probable now, but are not impossible given the conditions of the world Atwood creates. It is therefore science fiction.
Atwood argues, however, that it is not science fiction, and by doing so she implicates that almost all known hard science fiction should in fact fall within another genre of realistic stories while the accepted definition of fantasy is retrofitted onto the name science fiction. In Atwood's argument, if I've interpreted it correctly, impossibilities such as elven races living among urban human cities, dragons existing in realms and kingdoms and magic being inexplicably present all classify as science fiction. Which means, in turn, that while current science fiction texts would be without a genre, current fantasy would steal their name and fantasy, by its very nature required to be fantastical, would be an empty genre.
And all this for what? It seems Atwood wants to distance herself from the genre, and eagerly and insistently wants to argue the point against decades of debate and definition surrounding the two genres. I don't think I've ever seen anyone so keen to escape a definition because of a misguided prejudice- she seems to see stigma where there is none. Or rather, sees stigma where there is much less of one now. Given how mainstream (to sound awfully like a hipster for a second) science fiction has become, in TV, film and books, the idea that the average reader views the genre of science fiction as an area of Comic Book Guys debating the separate meanings of the three Klingon words for axe while trying to remember the last time they had a shower doesn't ring true,except to Margaret Atwood. She seems to be labouring under the illusion that genre fiction is Bad, always has been, always will be, with the sort of English Literature attitude that ruins some people- Literary Fiction is not the only thing worth reading. For every Sebastian Faulks state of the nation book there is an equally good commentary in genres, such as Cormac McCarthy's The Road.
I won't say much more, except that Atwood nails her own coffin shut when she starts citing a discussion she had with a science fiction fan, and takes his view as representative of all readers of genre fiction. First of all, she says "let's call him Randy- for that is his name", which is not only unnecessary but such a smugly self-aware attempt at intimacy and humour that it is infuriating. She then argues "For Randy-and I think he's representative- sci-fi does include other planets, which may or may not have dragons on them. It includes the wildly paranormal-not your aunt table-tilting or things going creak, but shape-shifters and people with red eyeballs and no pupils, and Things taking over your body." Which is possibly the most basic, juvenile and dismissive definition I've heard for the genre. Whether Randy himself thought this, or Atwood's view of the stigma informed and moulded his arguments into this sentiment I'm not sure, but if it was his view she had the luck to find just one portion of genre readership. If it wasn't his view and she heard what she wanted, I think that speaks for itself.
What does everyone think? How would you define science fiction, and how would you separate it from fantasy? Most importantly, is Atwood right, wrong or neither?
Argh I wrote a really long comment and then lost it :(
ReplyDeleteBut the gist was - Atwood's wrong.
I can't speak to where her books fit - I haven't read any. But she seems to be mistaking bad writing - and there's a lot of it in these genres, but I think that's more because they're popular atm and so a lot's being published/ rushed out - for science fiction. If something's unbelievable, that doesn't make it science fiction. It doesn't even make it fantasy. Like you said, you get one impossible thing - push the reader's suspension of disbelief past the limits and they lose interest in the story.
For me, science fiction is concerned with the technological - hence the 'science' part - and fantasy is concerned with the magical/ supernatural. With both, it still has to have its own rules, because if you don't impose limits on it you struggle to create conflict, as you have the deu ex machina option of fixing everything with magic/ technology. I don't think all dystopias should be seen as sci fi personally, but I'm not well read in either.
Her article's pretty patronising - and yeah, her summing up of sci fi is both dismissive and offensive. It reminds me of JK Rowling's "Oh, I never thought of myself as a fantasy writer" - Woman, you wrote seven books about a magic school and the surrounding wizarding world, surely you didn't think you were writing realism?! People are too snobby about genre fiction, as we experienced in creative writing seminars - Saleel was always very wary of it. And trying to reject and genre and tradition you as a genre writer are clearly part of only makes you look stupid.
Slightly OT, you got any recs of sci fi dystopian novels? You know, the sort of thing that's clearly written to make a point (like 1984) but works well as a novel at the same time. My brother wants to write something like this, but has no idea how to structure it without it just being an argument.
I had no idea Rowling had said that- just shows how much people don't want to be pigeon-holed into genres they think aren't worth much. What an idiotic reaction, especially given the amount of established fantasy (not to mention myth) she ripped off and blended together- sorry, was "inspired by".
ReplyDeleteFor SF dystopian novels that make a point you can't go far wrong with a lot of Soviet/ Russian bloc work. The one I mentioned in the post, We, by Yevgeny Zamyatin, is pretty good, a reaction to the Russian revolution of 1905 and the oncoming Soviet state (formed a year after the novel was completed in 1921). An apparent clockwork-efficient haven turns out to be flawed and oppressive, to put it simply and do the plot massive injustice. Outside of the Soviet-inspired stuff, Brave New World, The Children of Men, and Heliopolis by Ernst Junger are all worth a look and would probably all fit the bill of being statements as well as good novels. For a bit of satire on it, Ben Elton wrote a novel called Blind Faith that responds to a lot of 21st Century societal anxiety, definitely worth a read.
Well, I think when you're using mythology it's more considered like an inspired recreation than ripping off :P but yeah I came across something in Dianna Wynne Jones the other day that I was like dude, Rowling totally stole that - there was a character called Sirius who could turn into a dog or something, I forget exactly what it was. I've been informed that she nabbed a lot from Pratchett as well, but haven't got far enough in the series to see it for myself.
ReplyDeleteCheers for the recs, I mooched Children of Men for my brother and I'll be keeping an eye out for the others. The Ben Elton one sounds particularly interesting. And I'll be interested in the Zamyatin one, I loved learning about the Russian Revolutions. (Wow that sounded nerdy.)