no surprises

[ironymaiden]

i am inevitably disappointed when i read a work that has been classed as literary fiction, yet has science fiction themes. still i continue reading them, hoping for another Iron Bridge.*

so, um, Children of Men (the book). all men in the world are suddenly infertile, and we are carefully told that the world supply of stored sperm has also gone bad somehow, yet we can't have one lousy sentence that mentions an effort at cloning. don't worry, the inevitable miracle baby is a McGuffin, and you will finish the book no wiser as to how it was born after 25 years of barrenness. this is totally another novel about a middle-aged guy who is well-off but miserable anyway and doesn't know how to love (down to the dead child causing a broken marriage in his past, yawn) tarted up with setting and politics.

i just grabbed The Time Traveler's Wife off the shelf to read next...






*oh wow, David Morse has stopped writing and dedicated his life to Darfur. whoa.

Comments

[varina8.livejournal.com]

In that context, I'd love to know if you read Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go? I adored it, though I was only lukewarm on his detective novel When We Were Orphans.

[mrdorbin.livejournal.com]

Children of Men (the book) was such a disappointment after Children of Men (the movie).

[ironymaiden]

i was lukewarm on it, but i was lukewarm because it was a story about people who never got over high school.

[varina8.livejournal.com]

I hadn't thought about the characters quite that way, but I can see it.

Maybe this isn't what you're talking about, I can't tell

[andrew-the-oga.livejournal.com]

An acquaintance of mine from years back used to talk about "intellectual colonialism." She was referring (she said) to how mainstream discussion of rarely looks to speculative fiction, when talking about the social implications of any particular technological or scientific advance.

People are already here, she'd say. Already talking about this. We've already thought of all these ideas they're claiming to have discovered.

Okay, now I remember: not just an acquaintance. Never fall in love with a fuck buddy, especially not if she's the most popular girl in your science-fiction club. Everybody can be replaced.

Christ-a'mighty, I'm morose this week.

Re: Maybe this isn't what you're talking about, I can't tell

[ironymaiden]

yes. it was something i was trying to put my finger on when i was reading The Eyre Affair. it felt to me like the author hadn't done their research.

Other hands

[andrew-the-oga.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, it's a work of fiction, not a research paper-- it isn't as if there's a contractual relationship or something.

I remember being so disappointed by The Handmaid's Tale for reasons like this.

It only really bothers me when (other) people rave about how visionary, or whatever, etc.

Nowadays, of course, I just don't read fiction.

Re: Other hands

[ironymaiden]

contractual relationship, no. but the western educational system trains us to study our influences before we build on them or subvert them. perhaps that's it - the canon of something like time-travel stories doesn't exist as canon for someone who doesn't read speculative fiction. (or someone who gets all huffy at the idea that they're writing it, like Ms. Atwood.)