#42 = Volume 14, Part 2 = July 1987
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ARTICLE ABSTRACTS
CRITICAL APPROACHES TO SCIENCE FICTION
Carl Freedman.
Science Fiction and Critical Theory
Veronica
Hollinger. Deconstructing The
Time Machine
Naomi Jacobs.
Person and Persona: Historical Figures in "Recombinant"
Science Fiction
H. J. Schulz.
Science Fiction and Ideology: Some Problems of Approach
Antoni
Smuszkiewicz. Props and Their Function in Science Fiction
Carl Freedman
Science Fiction and Critical Theory
Abstract.--Noting the tendency of virtually every school of literary criticism
to privilege, expressly or implicitly, a particular genre, I argue that SF constitutes the
generic space exalted by genuinely critical--that is, dialectical--theory. SF, like
dialectics, refuses any simple acceptance of the mundane; and in evoking a world which is
not ours but which could, at least in principle, become ours, it estranges the actual
through an insistence on the primacy of historical specificity. After considering the
near-identity of SF and utopian generic tendencies, I go on to suggest some reasons why SF
has yet to receive the kind of serious scrutiny which its own intellectual challenges
would seem to warrant. I then offer readings of four exemplary SF texts, and conclude with
some speculations about the relationship between SF and Third-World literature.
Veronica Hollinger
Deconstructing The Time Machine
Abstract.--Both SF and deconstruction are involved in the processes of
defamiliarization, the former through its displacement of the social/political/cultural
present, the latter through its attempts to expose the conventional nature of the
"gestures of thought" of the Western metaphysical tradition. In addition, time
travel itself always achieves a deconstruction of certain classical notions about the
nature and structure of time.
It is first necessary to "read" time before writing a time-travel story:
within the terms of a set of metaphors suggested by Roland Barthes, one can conclude that
stories which support the classical Newtonian definition tend to read time as
"work" ("oeuvre"), while stories which explore the Einsteinian
paradigm of physical reality tend to read time as "text" ("texte").
Within the classical paradigm, time is linear, homogeneous, and uncentered. Relativity may
thus be identified with free play and différance, the (non)principles of the Derridean
"post-structure. "
At first glance, H.G. Wells's The Time Machine appears to be an exemplary
reading of time as classic "work." Wells's novella is structured around an
extrapolative reading of time future, and seems to support the conviction that the powers
of science will ultimately uncover the secrets of the natural world. However, because it
is a time-travel story, The Time Machine necessarily deconstructs any notion of
absolute time, displacing the concept of "now" from its fixed point on the
time-line, and subverting the privileged position of public over private time. In
addition, Wells's text undertakes its own particular deconstruction of the classical
world-view. In his early essay, "The Rediscovery of the Unique, " Wells
demonstrates his anticipation of several key Derridean concepts, in particular the
conviction that metaphysical structures must be undermined from the inside. This, in
effect, is what is achieved in The Time Machine, which, as a consequence, is a
profoundly ironic text. The subversion of 19th-century scientific values which it
undertakes on the level of narrative event is complemented on the level of textual
discourse by its deconstruction of the metaphysics of presence. The end result is a play
between narrative metonymy (The Time Machine as extrapolative work) and textual
metaphor (The Time Machine as figurative text), which is as integral to its
structure as is the play between present and future.
Naomi Jacobs
Person and Persona: Historical Figures in
"Recombinant" Science Fiction
Abstract.--Perhaps the most audacious of the many contemporary novelists using
historical figures are the practitioners of "recombinant" fiction, who combine
figures from all time periods and levels of reality within new fictional contexts. The
technique dates back at least to the Greek satirist Lucian. Such cultural icons, whether
historical or mythical, are powerful fantasy figures as well as ready-made type
characters, and their anachronistic conjunction can establish the cognitive disorientation
central to much SF. However, the variability of contemporary readers' responses to such
figures implies certain limitations to their use. Philip Jose Farmer's "Riverworld"
series (1971-80) demonstrates the difficulties of treating historical figures both as
types and as realistic characters in fiction intended for a general audience. Robert
Nichols' use of three historical figures as observers in his utopian series, Daily
Lives in Nghsi-Altai (1977-79), is better focused and ultimately more successful.
H. J. Schulz
Science Fiction and Ideology: Some Problems of Approach
Abstract.--Traditional English-language criticism of SF has largely avoided
the question of the ideological functions of this genre, especially of paraliterary SF.
West German "ideology criticism," on the other hand, has concentrated on paraliterary SF as a vehicle of ideological obfuscation and containment. The basic
assumptions of both schools are ill-suited to account for the ideological complexity of
commercial SF: the homology of high-literary SF (e.g., the classical dystopian novel) and
paraliterary SF in the case of the former, the changeless homogeneity of the paraliterary
SF system and its products in the case of the latter. The first (essentially formalistic)
view suppresses the special socio-cultural environment of SF and the special forms of
production and reception which prevail in it; the second view, a form of content-analysis
formalism, ignores the evolving differentiation process of this system and the
dissimultaneity of its ideological and generic ingredients. Both approaches operate with
the classical concept of text as centered, homogeneous and semantically closed. The
concept of text as "contestation" of ideological and generic components, advanced by Macherey and Jameson for instance, seems much better suited to identify and analyze the
ideological discontinuities of SF texts and of the entire paraliterary system of SF. The
SF criticism of Jameson, Suvin and others has prepared the way for an approach to the
ideological functions of SF which is sensitive to both its peculiar socio-cultural milieu
and its formal and ideological complexity.
Antoni Smuszkiewicz
Props and Their Function in Science Fiction
Abstract.--This essay discusses the function of props in (the creation of) the
presented world of fantastic fiction and of SF in particular. "Props" are understood
as objects furnishing the space of the presented world and/or accompanying the narrative
agent. They can be "real"--i.e., a mimetic reflection of an object existing in the
empirical reality--or "fantastic"--i.e., lacking any counterparts in the extraliterary world. The first category of props may be found in realistic as well as in
fantastic narratives; the second type, however, appears only in fantastic texts--SF and
fantasy. The fairy tale and Gothic fiction mainly employ real props, though some of them
are endowed with magical qualities (e.g., a flying carpet or the "monkey's paw").
The latter do not change the nature of the real props in the fairy tale and Gothic
fiction, whereas in SF they do. The fantastic props introduced in the presented world of
SF impel the reader to perceive that world as being fantastic in its entirety an thus even
the real props become to some degree endowed with SF coloring. For the purpose of this
paper, props have been divided into three groups in relation to the historical period in
which they were contrived (i.e., historical, contemporary and futuristic/fantastic), and
in relation to the narrative time (i.e., past, present, and future). Thus nine "pure
categories" of narratives have been distinguished and discussed with reference to some
appropriate literary examples.
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