sci-fi is not literature?

claudius

according to the likes of aa gill (you either love him or hate him), people who read science fiction novels cannot be classed as book lovers since, he believes, the genre is not worthy enough to be deemed literature. since most of this forum is dedicated to sci-fi books, what do you people think of that statement?

i grew up reading sci-fi/fantasy, but my tastes have now broadened, and although there are many books that deserve kudos (dune, brave new world, 1984, foundation saga .....), most, i think, are just forgettable (but enjoyable) pulp that don't last long in the memory (raymond e feist's books, for example). but, hey, what do i know? just want some input.

OfflerCrocGod

B*llsh£t is what I say literature is what you can read and enjoy. Sci-Fi is readable and enjoyable you have read many Sci-Fi books that you have forgoten about quickly , So? , how many "literature" books have you read and promptly forgot about umm..?.

Read "I Am Legend" or the HHG2G or books by Arthur C Clarke and Asimov , this person sounds like a conceited prick , his ninja is not strong:ninja:

disco_rob_funk

The chap's obviously never read The Time Machine, and considered that it was written in 1895.

H.G. Wells must have had a boundless imagination.

Manach

Firstly who is AA Gill?

Second, the one of the first major works in the European canon was Homer's Illiad, a work of imagination which would be easily linked to SciFi/Fantasy.

I myself read a fair bit on diverse topics, and the books that got me initially hooked were good quality SciFi/Fan works which challenged me, eg Clarkes "Foundations of Paridise", and Donaldson's "Illearth War".
It's this type of work, which can grab the imagination are saving literature.

mike65

AA Gill is an amusing hack who knocks about the Jeremy Clarkson.
The debate is pointless to arugue (no-one is going to relent), yet important as its about prejudice and imapacts on the way not just sf is juded buy those who read it.

I remmeber looking at the list of books availible by a certain publisher and while Arthur C Clarks works were "Sci-fi" Brave New World by Huxley was classed as literature. Too many think science fiction equalls Bug Eyed Monsters rather than Big Ideas.

Mike.

davej

I think "science fiction", just like any other genre, is such a broad term that it encompasses everything from third rate rubbish to literature of the highest calibre. However it is true that sf is less respected by academia and you would struggle to find many of them in the literary canon.

davej

Caesar_Bojangle

My best friend has read just about every star trek book published and countless other books in the sci fi genre. He reads nothing outside of sci fi. The nearest thing i've read to sci fi is lotr and 1984. My reading interest stretches across the literary spectrum but i reckon him to be better read than myself and vastly more articulate.

MrNuked

The noun is pedant I think


I agree that books such as Dune and 1984 are literature.
But why is there a thread on the annoyingly long-winded and repetetive Wheel of Time series in this forum? Maybe there should be a pulp fiction forum too. Although that would obviously cause confusion with the film.

Hip

AA Gill writes for the Sunday Times, and both his columns alone are worth the price of the paper IMHO.

Saying that, he is prone to exaggeration for effect. Sci Fi, which I personally can't stand, is as much literature as any other popular form of writing, it's just an easy target ; )

Fence

Sci-fi & fantasy (coz they are both often linked) have just as much right as anything else to be classed as literature.

Personally I have no problems with people saying they don't like sci-fi, what I do have a problem with though is authors who write sci-fi and then pretend they don't, because they are better than that.

Margaret Atwood, for example says that her new book:
"Oryx and Crake is not science fiction. It is fact within fiction. Science fiction is when you have rockets and chemicals. Speculative fiction is when you have all the materials to actually do it. "

But IMO speculative fiction is part of sci-fi.

Cya
Fence

Tyrrial

Given any genre, ignoreing whether you like it or not, there are badly written books, and not so badly written books... so a genre can never be classed so easily as bad or for that matter good.

Shinji

Dunno if anyone's actually read (or attempted to read) AA Gill's own book, but my god, if there were ever an argument for something not being literature...

The guy is the poncey arts version of Richard Littlejohn anyway, he exists to get a rise out of people and he's been getting worse at it and hence more blatant as he gets older

trunks

most people think that literature is some old book of some art (poorly structured) novel, and most likely will never read.
there is classic lith..the like of bronte, or Joyce and there is modern lith.
the graphic novels of Neil Gaiman are considered modern lith?,
there is no true definition of literature other that it's a good story and well written.
and if you write a story western it' western or sci-fi or period Victorian it's still a story

Krusty_Clown

Some definitions of the word Literature:
n.
1. The body of written works of a language, period, or culture.
2. Imaginative or creative writing, especially of recognized artistic value: “Literature must be an analysis of experience and a synthesis of the findings into a unity” (Rebecca West).
3. The collective body of literary productions, embracing the entire results of knowledge and fancy preserved in writing; also, the whole body of literary productions or writings upon a given subject, or in reference to a particular science or branch of knowledge, or of a given country or period; as, the literature of Biblical criticism; the literature of chemistry.
4. Printed material: collected all the available literature on the subject.

Unfortunately, given the above definitions, it could be argued that even Gill's Sunday Times column could be classed as literature. He's a pompous ass, who earns his wage by publishing controversial statements, of which this is one. A glorified TV critic.. By the way, the definition of Science Fiction from the same source is:

A literary or cinematic genre in which fantasy, typically based on speculative scientific discoveries or developments, environmental changes, space travel, or life on other planets, forms part of the plot or background.

Von

From Attack! Books site.

Most of truly great novelists - Defoe, Swift, Orwell, Leyner, Shelley, Stoker (blah blah blah) were HACKS slamming out GENRE writing for a mass audience. Science ****ing fiction for the most part. Is there anybody out there who seriously thinks Rushdie is fit to eat the sweetcorn out of William Gibson's ****? That Amis is qualified to lick Alan Moore's boots clean? That Virginia Wolf contributed a single character with as much emotional depth and impact as the impoverished hack who banged out Superman? Come on? Really?

Says it all really. Gimme Vatican Bloodbath over anything AA bleeding Gill recommends anyday.

Caesar_Bojangle

I handed up an essay to my english teacher a few months back, he wouldnt correct it because it was sci fi. I gave it to another english teacher who gave it an A, but said most LC examiners would mark it harshly due to it being sci fi.

We are always being told we should be original in LC english but when i handed up one of the most original stories i could possibly conjure, i get a slap on the wrist for going outside the norm, for originality.

mike65

Ceasar that does'nt suprise me in the least, teachers have, for the most part the wit and immagination of a the average dept of finance
civil servant.

If you find a good teacher look after them!

Mike.

Saruman

I dont get it.. whats different about a standard work of fiction... and Science-Fiction? Its all fiction!!! The only reason you could say that is that there are a load of utter shíte SF books out there.. then again no doubt there is also a load of crap fiction literature out there.

The guy is a muppet.

Von

Originally posted by mike65
Ceasar that does'nt suprise me in the least, teachers have, for the most part the wit and immagination of a the average dept of finance
civil servant.

Mike.

Lots of great writers (3 examples - Gogol, Flann O'Brien, JK Huysmans) have worked in the civil service so I dunno what you're talking about. It's the ideal occupation for writers really. Steady income and all the rest.

Slutmonkey57b

Science fiction has always been underrated by the critics simply because of its percieved technical bent. On very few (and even undeserved) occasions have sci-fi/fantasy novels crossed over into the mainstream (lotr *spit*), and it is important to remember in this regard that the world of literature is dominated by the "artistic" mindset for whom image is all important. A writer such as Virginia Woolf proposed no theories more interesting than Asimov or Clarke, however her writings were applied to "reality" and as such were percieved as relevant, whilst equally interesting musings on the nature of humanity and social structure may have been explored by genre writers, whose ideas were fleshed out in the world of a potential future or alternate universe in which "real" characters featured less prominantly.

Classic literature is ultimately deemed to be character driven, introspective of the human condition, and flattering to human's innate narcissism. Genre writers tend to be driven by concept or politic, and have a disturbing tendancy to portray human flaws as aberrant rather than celebratory as would be the case in the "arty" mindset. It is as much this betrayal of humanity's exalted position that poisons the well against it, never mind the degree to which such supposition may be considered legitimate, or mitigated by the author's acceptance of it.

WhiteWashMan

all novels are literature

some are good and some are bad examples...

Zachary Taylor

I do love AA Gill, and am inclined to agree with him based on the sci-fi I have read, which is little apart from the sort of thing I'm sure Gill wasn't referring to (Homer, Orwell) though which apparently (wrongly?) is classed as science fiction (where's the science in Homer) but I digress, and over-use brackets. Despite my natural inclination to the contrary, I cannot deny that some science fiction must be recognised as having artistic value. That much I conclude from the little contact I have had with the likes of Asimov, KJ Anderson(Dune). It is, albeit rarely, "an analysis of experience and a synthesis of the findings into a unity" as Rebecca West wrote and as I stole from dictionary.com. I don't know who Rebecca West is but she makes a good point and supports mine, so she's in there. Sci-fi can be literature, of course it can, but only very rarely and we certainly give the title "literature" to all sci-fi, just as we cannot give it generally to any genre.

Fence

Well it all depends on your definition of literature doesn't it? I mean if you see literature as anything written then of course sci-fi novels are literature. If however you see it as something that is recognised by critics etc as "worthwhile" then very little sci-fi will get classified as literature.

personally I think that sci-fi is just as much literature as anything else, as is fantasy (which I think is what Homer would ce stuck under). But genres are just labels, put there mainly by the marketing crowd so that an audience will have some odea of what to expect. And sci-fi and fantasy is often marketed as "big ship, big gun, big sex" when that is not what is behind good sci-fi.
Plus you got the difference betwenn hard & soft sci-fi, between speculative fiction & sci-fi, between fantasy & sci-fi, between magic realism & fantasy. Take genre labels as merely a guide, not as the be all and end all of what to read.

DriftingRain

For one perosn to judge what is literature is B.S.! Read what you want and be glad to have a great book at hand. Everyone is different and just because this gill fella don't like sci-fi don't mean everyone else don't have to love it!!!:)

neohoki

If it isn't literature then what is it?