What is 'literature' and what SF qualifies?

[Extollager]

But is science subject to taste?

Does this mean that hard SF is tasteless?

If your questions are directed to me, rather than to Rodders, I would say something like "Science may be defined as (1) a body of tested knowledge expressed in symbolic language [words, equations]," and as (2) "an activity undertaken by people, using certain methods and declining others, to ascertain knowledge that will be expressed in such language."

Science fiction is first of all fiction, that is, a type of imaginative art. It will bear the imprint of the writer's imagination (perhaps an editor's imagination too), it will be written with some sense of an audience, and so on. If it is "tasteless," that would mean that it is, for the imaginations of readers, insipid. It would then be bad art, although the science reflected in it might be impeccable.

I think.

 

[Extollager]

For discussion -- Does someone need any qualifications, for having a worthwhile opinion on the topic of literature, beyond the ability to read?

Still wondering if anyone would be willing to tackle this question.

 

[psikeyhackr]

Science fiction is first of all fiction, that is, a type of imaginative art. It will bear the imprint of the writer's imagination (perhaps an editor's imagination too), it will be written with some sense of an audience, and so on. If it is "tasteless," that would mean that it is, for the imaginations of readers, insipid. It would then be bad art, although the science reflected in it might be impeccable.

I think.

In question #2 I specified HARD science fiction.

I use Arthur C Clarke's A Fall of Moondust as my benchmark for Hard SF. It incorporates known science. Today it is somewhat amusing in displaying Clarke's failure to extrapolate advances in computers but the story depends on his imaginative point which we now know to be incorrect. Clarke could not have known in 1961.

So the hard SF spectrum needs a different evaluation system than the amorphous term science fiction.

 

[Extollager]

In question #2 I specified HARD science fiction.

I use Arthur C Clarke's A Fall of Moondust as my benchmark for Hard SF. It incorporates known science. Today it is somewhat amusing in displaying Clarke's failure to extrapolate advances in computers but the story depends on his imaginative point which we now know to be incorrect. Clarke could not have known in 1961.

So the hard SF spectrum needs a different evaluation system than the amorphous term science fiction.

Yes, if you mean it needs a supplementary system, one that evaluates the science in the science fiction. But if it's fiction, if it's a story, then it's also subject to evaluation as such. Is it a well-made work of imagination or not? Does it please as story? You'd agree, right?

 

[Randy M.]

In question #2 I specified HARD science fiction.

I use Arthur C Clarke's A Fall of Moondust as my benchmark for Hard SF. It incorporates known science. Today it is somewhat amusing in displaying Clarke's failure to extrapolate advances in computers but the story depends on his imaginative point which we now know to be incorrect. Clarke could not have known in 1961.

So the hard SF spectrum needs a different evaluation system than the amorphous term science fiction.

Supplementary to my understanding of Extollager's point about fiction: The dubious science doesn't make the story less enjoyable if the working out of the ideas are still pleasing (rough parallel: you may get readerly bonus points for the proof, even if you make an error along the way to your solution), and if the characters and the prose are still engaging. This is why Frankenstein, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The War of the Worlds, among others, still entertain thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of readers even though the science doesn't hold up.

There's another dimension to fiction as well: For all the interest the science might generate to draw in a reader, good fiction usually tackles more than one subject, some of which are more timeless. The War of the Worlds comments more or less directly on religion and on mankind's hubris, for instance. If all that a hard sf story has going for it is the science, it's probably already dated shortly after publication and not all that interesting as fiction.

 

[Extollager]

I'd say that the situation with regard to "hard sf" is like that with historical fiction. Just as it might be part of a writer's artistic intention to maximize the scientific plausibility of a story (or not), it might be a writer's intention to make a story as historically plausible as possible (or not). A good reader will respond to the cues such writers provide. But the science in a hard science story might be good yet the story, as fiction, might be a flop. Similarly I might research the Russian revolution for 15 years and write a novel about it that was a flop, stone cold dead as fiction -- or I might be M. W. Waring and dedicate a similar number of years to research, and write a fine novel about the Russian revolution (The Witnesses). If the science or the history is accurate but the story doesn't satisfy as story, it's probably a regrettable curiosity -- not a good story.

 

[Randy M.]

For discussion -- Does someone need any qualifications, for having a worthwhile opinion on the topic of literature, beyond the ability to read?

No. Although, having read widely, having thought about what you have read and maybe even having tried to figure out what fiction (I'm assuming we're talking mainly about fiction) does and its value to readers in general and to yourself in specific, probably would help make that opinion worthwhile and informed.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

I think we can tease out another possible description of literature, which is that it has something to say. The thing is, what's being said in SF can't be heard by those in a position to define literature, the vast majority of whom live in a bubble - London, in the case of Britain. I'm also wondering if this is more a Brit thing than for other countries, as we still have an absurd class system underlying everything, and that gas a lot to do with the snobbery mentioned above.

 

[The Big Peat]

For discussion -- Does someone need any qualifications, for having a worthwhile opinion on the topic of literature, beyond the ability to read?

They don't need formal qualifications but I think a certain level of knowledge as to what is commonly meant by literature is necessary for it to be worthwhile.

I think we can tease out another possible description of literature, which is that it has something to say. The thing is, what's being said in SF can't be heard by those in a position to define literature, the vast majority of whom live in a bubble - London, in the case of Britain. I'm also wondering if this is more a Brit thing than for other countries, as we still have an absurd class system underlying everything, and that gas a lot to do with the snobbery mentioned above.

Stick literature vs genre fiction into the old search engine and the whole first page of hits appear to be American sites.

 

[David Evil Overlord]

Anything that moves from the sci fo section to the lit section in shops. 1984, Frankenstein, Clockwork Orange all Spring to mind. HG Wells, too.

Anything that moves from the Sci Fi section of the bookshops and onto the bookshelves of pretentious People Who Simply Shan't Ever Read One Of Those Dreadful Scienctifical Fictions.

 

[Extollager]

Stephen Palmer wrote, "what's being said in SF can't be heard by those in a position to define literature, the vast majority of whom live in a bubble - London, in the case of Britain. I'm also wondering if this is more a Brit thing than for other countries, as we still have an absurd class system underlying everything, and that gas a lot to do with the snobbery mentioned above."

Stephen, I live in rural North Dakota USA and have never traveled to the UK, so I wondered if you would like to expand on your comment for the benefit of people with similar limitations. I've noticed here at Chrons that some people who post seem (to me) to be "sensitive" about "snobbery," but without explaining what they mean by the term. If the moderators think it's not appropriate to discuss this topic, fine, they can shut down the discussion, but I'm curious. Practically every phrase in your second sentence could be expounded.

 

[psikeyhackr]

Yes, if you mean it needs a supplementary system, one that evaluates the science in the science fiction. But if it's fiction, if it's a story, then it's also subject to evaluation as such. Is it a well-made work of imagination or not? Does it please as story? You'd agree, right?

I regard The Empire Strikes Back as the best Star Wars movie. But it has characters walking out of the Millennium Falcon into what should be vacuum inside the giant worm. It is fiction but not science fiction. I am not aware of any Hard SF that that is also literary though I am not much of a judge of that aspect.

 

[Extollager]

At least I'd say this, that I know of no reason why a work of hard science fiction could not also be a work of real literary merit. It could excel both in terms of the scientific content and in terms of the attributes of genuine literature.

That the thing could be done doesn't mean it has been or ever will be done.

I hope no one will leap to take offense at what I'm about to say but will read me with good will.... I think there may be, inherent not in hard science itself, but in the attitudes that might be common among its practitioners, something that tends against the probability of high literary merit.

1.Hard science means deep mathematics. Now mathematics by its very nature is as bloodless a thing as the human mind can engage itself with. Agreed? -- is that fair?

2.There is nothing inherently wrong with hard science and mathematics. As we are always reminded (perhaps often by people without much proficiency in mathematics), this approach to knowledge yields all sorts of applications that no one wants to do without such as anesthetics and antibiotics. But the methodology or hard science can be appropriated for the purposes of an ideology. The ideology is reductive.

3.An ideology of reduction works against literary achievement; conversely, literary achievement may take into account what we know through the application of the method, but will include more. The trajectory of literary achievement is towards expression of the depth and height of the human dimension.

So, for example, when I read the great Russians, whether the physician Chekhov or Tolstoy or Dostoevsky, I find an evocation of the human that is worthwhile and that (so far as I know) could be made no other way than by literature; take such writers away and I will not find that I can do without them because all that I miss from them is still there in the sciences.

So if there are things in literature that cannot be evoked by anything else that people make (including scientific articles), then a great work of hard science fiction will need to be good or great as literature as well as good or great in its scientific content.

Is what I'm saying correct? It makes sense to me, but do others agree?

 

[Bick]

At least I'd say this, that I know of no reason why a work of hard science fiction could not also be a work of real literary merit. It could excel both in terms of the scientific content and in terms of the attributes of genuine literature.

That the thing could be done doesn't mean it has been or ever will be done.

I hope no one will leap to take offense at what I'm about to say but will read me with good will.... I think there may be, inherent not in hard science itself, but in the attitudes that might be common among its practitioners, something that tends against the probability of high literary merit.

1.Hard science means deep mathematics. Now mathematics by its very nature is as bloodless a thing as the human mind can engage itself with. Agreed? -- is that fair?

2.There is nothing inherently wrong with hard science and mathematics. As we are always reminded (perhaps often by people without much proficiency in mathematics), this approach to knowledge yields all sorts of applications that no one wants to do without such as anesthetics and antibiotics. But the methodology or hard science can be appropriated for the purposes of an ideology. The ideology is reductive.

3.An ideology of reduction works against literary achievement; conversely, literary achievement may take into account what we know through the application of the method, but will include more. The trajectory of literary achievement is towards expression of the depth and height of the human dimension.

So, for example, when I read the great Russians, whether the physician Chekhov or Tolstoy or Dostoevsky, I find an evocation of the human that is worthwhile and that (so far as I know) could be made no other way than by literature; take such writers away and I will not find that I can do without them because all that I miss from them is still there in the sciences.

So if there are things in literature that cannot be evoked by anything else that people make (including scientific articles), then a great work of hard science fiction will need to be good or great as literature as well as good or great in its scientific content.

Is what I'm saying correct? It makes sense to me, but do others agree?

Err, no, I disagree with just about all of that. For starters, your point 1 is all kinds of wrong. Hard SF doesn’t mean ‘deep mathematics’ at all, and mathematics is not bloodless in any event.

Examples: Greybeard by Aldiss, or The Drowned World, by Ballard. Aldiss and Ballard both tick the box for ‘literature’ in my opinion, neither have any mathematics in their books, and both these are hard SF as most would define it.

 

[Bick]

Still wondering if anyone would be willing to tackle this question.

It requires some level of education and insight, but not a qualification, per se. Many folk who love a book are not critical or enlightened readers, of course.

 

[Extollager]

Bick, I think the needed "education" often has little to do with the educational establishment, elementary and secondary schools, colleges, etc. In fact I think that, increasingly, they impart much that needs to be unlearned if literature is to be read well and recognized. More helpful may be conversations with well-read parents, siblings, friends, and so on, and a lot of exploration, especially of older writing, on one's own; also, limits on electronic media, whether those limits are set up, early on, by parents, or, later on, by oneself.

 

[Extollager]

Err, no, I disagree with just about all of that. For starters, your point 1 is all kinds of wrong. Hard SF doesn’t mean ‘deep mathematics’ at all, and mathematics is not bloodless in any event.

Examples: Greybeard by Aldiss, or The Drowned World, by Ballard. Aldiss and Ballard both tick the box for ‘literature’ in my opinion, neither have any mathematics in their books, and both these are hard SF as most would define it.

Then I guess, as so often happens at Chrons, we need definition, or at least I do. I thought: physics (which is largely mathematics) is a hard science; psychology is not a hard science; literary criticism is not a science, etc. I thought this was a common notion of things. Da mihi lucem!

As for "bloodless," that was a comment about mathematics as such, not about mathematicians and their minds. I meant that mathematics appears to me to be a severe effort to say something about reality from which the maximum degree possible of human experience, opinion, etc. has been eliminated. Put another way, I would have thought that someone could be a truly brilliant mathematician and a very bad person, while I would have thought it was less likely that someone could be a great judge and also a very bad person. I might not understand mathematics. I barely passed college algebra, so, if I am ignorant, give me light.

 

[Bick]

Bick, I think the needed "education" often has little to do with the educational establishment, elementary and secondary schools, colleges, etc. In fact I think that, increasingly, they impart much that needs to be unlearned if literature is to be read well and recognized.

Well yes, I’d agree with that.

 

[Bick]

Then I guess, as so often happens at Chrons, we need definition, or at least I do. I thought: physics (which is largely mathematics) is a hard science; psychology is not a hard science; literary criticism is not a science, etc. I thought this was a common notion of things. Da mihi lucem!

I think the issue here is that ‘hard SF’ as I understand it, is not what you seem to be reading into the term.

Hard SF is ‘hard’ science fiction, not ‘hard science’ fiction. In other words, there’s no requirement for maths or physics per se. The science involved could be biology, or psychology, or sociology.

 

[Extollager]

Could you elaborate? I think you're on to something that will help me, but I'm not getting it completely.