Learning SF Protocols
The reading I most wanted to respond to this week was Jo Walton's SF reading protocols post on Tor.com. I've never really gotten into Science Fiction, but it's not for lack of trying. I end up feeling confused for the first 150 pages, which is enough to make me abandon a book altogether these days. (Stay tuned for my annotation of Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness later this week.)
I appreciated this post for recognizing that my frustrations with SF are not related to lack of intelligence or effort. I just haven't developed the same tools as readers who have engaged with SF since childhood. I don't know when to wonder or ask questions about a detail, or when to "skitter over the surface" of an info-dump the same way my SF fan peers do. I saw myself in that description, for sure.
However, my problem with the article is that it heavily implies, and at least at one point outright states, that someone "who doesn't have the skillset can't learn the skillset by reading it." This claim felt dubious to me, because how else would one develop a skillset required to read a genre without, well, reading that genre? The tone of the article also felt sightly gate-keeper-y, which I don't think was the intention, but colored my reading of it. There was a tiny bit of encouragement to read Harry Potter as a "starter set" at the article's conclusion. Still, I didn't feel welcomed into a community of SF lovers who want to share their love with me and teach me how to "get it." There was even a moment where Walton admitted to laughing at her aunt for reading too far into an SF story she lent her. Ugh!
When it comes down to it, Walton didn't seem intent on sharing a peek into their toolkit, just explaining the difference between people who have it and people who don't. Perhaps that is covered in another post. I am no more enlightened about how to read SF and enjoy it than I was before I read this article. Instead, Walton (and a lot of commenters! my fault for reading these, though) made me feel like I could never live up to their level of enjoyment and understanding of the genre because I can't go back in time to my childhood and encourage myself to read more SF.
I call bullshit! Excuse my language, but I see the same kinds of arguments from people who gate-keep other media. Be it dudes at shows who ask me if I know any of the band's songs, to people in my undergrad poetry classes who sneered at classmates who hadn't read Pound or Keats or whatever other old white dude from the classic canon. I refuse to believe that I can't develop my own SF toolkit. Especially when, as we are learning in this course, the boundaries between genres continue to blur, or were maybe not ever that clear in the first place.
Instead of being offended, I'm taking Walton's post as a challenge. Both as a reader, who sees a genre she isn't familiar with and wants to know what all the fun is about, and as a future librarian whose job is to hold open the gates for all kinds of readers rather than keep them closed.
I appreciated this post for recognizing that my frustrations with SF are not related to lack of intelligence or effort. I just haven't developed the same tools as readers who have engaged with SF since childhood. I don't know when to wonder or ask questions about a detail, or when to "skitter over the surface" of an info-dump the same way my SF fan peers do. I saw myself in that description, for sure.
However, my problem with the article is that it heavily implies, and at least at one point outright states, that someone "who doesn't have the skillset can't learn the skillset by reading it." This claim felt dubious to me, because how else would one develop a skillset required to read a genre without, well, reading that genre? The tone of the article also felt sightly gate-keeper-y, which I don't think was the intention, but colored my reading of it. There was a tiny bit of encouragement to read Harry Potter as a "starter set" at the article's conclusion. Still, I didn't feel welcomed into a community of SF lovers who want to share their love with me and teach me how to "get it." There was even a moment where Walton admitted to laughing at her aunt for reading too far into an SF story she lent her. Ugh!
When it comes down to it, Walton didn't seem intent on sharing a peek into their toolkit, just explaining the difference between people who have it and people who don't. Perhaps that is covered in another post. I am no more enlightened about how to read SF and enjoy it than I was before I read this article. Instead, Walton (and a lot of commenters! my fault for reading these, though) made me feel like I could never live up to their level of enjoyment and understanding of the genre because I can't go back in time to my childhood and encourage myself to read more SF.
I call bullshit! Excuse my language, but I see the same kinds of arguments from people who gate-keep other media. Be it dudes at shows who ask me if I know any of the band's songs, to people in my undergrad poetry classes who sneered at classmates who hadn't read Pound or Keats or whatever other old white dude from the classic canon. I refuse to believe that I can't develop my own SF toolkit. Especially when, as we are learning in this course, the boundaries between genres continue to blur, or were maybe not ever that clear in the first place.
Instead of being offended, I'm taking Walton's post as a challenge. Both as a reader, who sees a genre she isn't familiar with and wants to know what all the fun is about, and as a future librarian whose job is to hold open the gates for all kinds of readers rather than keep them closed.
This is a problem with a lot of sci-fi, that it's written for hardcore sci-fi fans and not as a good story to engage anybody, which leaves casual readers or newbies out in the cold. Too many sci-fi books rely on techno-babble to get through a scene, rather than on relationships between characters. This is one reason why sci-fi for me usually works better as a visual medium (tv or film) than on the page, while fantasy usually works better on the page rather than visually (it's hard to show the inner turmoil of a sorcerer gathering his magical will about him on-screen without boring the audience).
ReplyDeleteDon, you're totally right to point out that sometimes the best way to get into a genre is through a different medium. For example, I'd consider the Area X trilogy SciFi, and I loved that series and the movie version of Annihilation, too. I agree that some stories fit a certain medium best, which is true of all genres. I will not be deterred!
DeleteI really enjoyed reading your response to the SF article! Very well put. I agree that by reading more in that genre, we should become familiar enough to fully understand. The Left Hand of Darkness is a book on my list, so I am really looking forward to hearing about it from a fellow SF novice!
ReplyDeleteI too read this article just because I LOVE sci fi tv shows and movies (Star Trek, Star Wars, X-Files, V, Stargate - I can go on) but could never really get into the books, except for some reason Star Wars. I wanted to know if there was a secret these readers had that I didn't know about when it came to reading these novels. Can I be a true sci fi fan even if I don't read them? I agree with Don about this, for me seeing sci fi on the screen works better than reading about it and that doesn't make me any less a fan than the readers.
ReplyDeleteI read your post (which I very much enjoyed) and then went back and re-read the article and completely agree with you. I read some SF and usually enjoy it, but don't go too deep in the genre. I do have some trouble understanding some of the world-building because it can occasionally be really complex. Like you, I read the comments. Wow. Some commenter wondered if people who don't read SF have the capacity to read historical fiction and crime fiction. Oh my. I imagined asking that person to recommend a SF book for someone who doesn't read the genre much. I can see them being really snotty about it and telling me to not bother.
ReplyDeleteI LOVE your take on this article, I haven't gone and re-read this article in a few years (I'm horrible) but now I'm reading it with your voice in my ear and I 100% see the light. It is a pretentious article! I apologize for making you suffer through it but I love how you eviscerated it point by point! I'll work on finding a more inclusive article for next year! Great job and full points!
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