In Which I Complain About the New York Times
The current "Inside the List" column in The New York Times Book Review includes a paragraph about Jonathan Lethem, whose novel You Don't Love Me Yet was reviewed in this issue. It states blandly that "some may recall that early in his career, Lethem was often pegged as a sci-fi writer himself."
Well.
No offense meant to Lethem, who has written a number of swell books in and out of genre (and who I don't think has ever tried to pretend his SFnal writings were anything but that), but the Times once again is trying to "save" a writer from the horrible genre ghetto. Oooh, he was "pegged as sci-fi;" how horrible that must be. The Times must do their best to get those genre cooties off him.
But let's review. Lethem's first published story was "The Cave Beneath the Falls," in Aboriginal Science Fiction's Jan/Feb 1989 issue. He published other stories in F&SF, Asimov's, and Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine, among other deeply speculative outlets. His first four novels -- Gun, With Occasional Music, Amnesia Moon, As She Climbed Across the Table, and Girl In Landscape -- were all science fiction. He had a major essay of SF criticism in The New York Review of Science Fiction in 1998. (I personally remember seeing him at a SFWA Authors/Editors reception in the mid-90s at least once.) His first story collection, The Wall of the Sky, The Wall of the Eye, was science fiction.
Lethem was not "often pegged as a sci-fi writer;" he wrote science fiction. And he was damn good at it, too. He's mostly doing other things now, but that doesn't retroactively make his work not science fiction.
You Times lit-snobs, get this through your heads: there is nothing wrong with writing genre fiction. And genre fiction counts. It exists, it's real, and it's often better than the stuff you pretend is the only fiction published. You'd be better off if you'd just shut up about things like this, since you refuse to even try to understand them.
Comments
Amen, Andrew.
Posted by: Paul | March 20, 2007 09:10 AM
The New York Times used to be the paper of record, but it has done it's best over the past ten years to throw it all out the window. The paper is just not relevant anymore. Case in point: Their recent bashing of '300' did nothing to hamper box office receipts. Nobody listens to them anymore.
Posted by: Michael L. Wentz | March 20, 2007 11:55 AM
Michael: I'm not sure I'm 100% in agreement with you; for one thing "the paper of record" is a very different thing from "a paper with influence," so the fact that the Times's critic disliked something that was successful doesn't really say anything about their role in the culture. (And does anyone's bad reviews of a big pop-culture phenomenon -- movie, TV, or musical -- stop people from consuming that thing?)
Being the paper of record means that the Times is looked upon as the record of what happened -- so the Times' biased, genre-hating view of the literary world is what future generations will assume is correct.
Posted by: Andrew Wheeler | March 20, 2007 12:08 PM
Andrew, I believe that in order to be "the paper of record" the New York Times also has to be a "paper with influence." If something in the culture is not influential it cannot be held to the high regard of being the final word on any subject. Because of its declining list of subscribers, and due to its slipping influence, I don't believe that the New York Times is in any position to damage genre either in this generation or the next. Although, I bet they like to think so.
Posted by: Michael L. Wentz | March 20, 2007 01:58 PM
Michael: I may be just more of a pessimist than you are, but the Times is still by far the most important and influential newspaper in the country. (And saying that there are things that it does not influence -- which I'll freely grant -- doesn't really change that.)
And "paper of record" is also a question of what paper is in microfiche and hardcopy in a million school libraries; what paper librarians suggest students use for searches and what paper the general public knows the name of. That's not the kind of reputation that goes away quickly; it takes generations to shift, if it does at all.
Posted by: Andrew Wheeler | March 20, 2007 02:08 PM
genre cooties!
If I were not taken I'd want to have your babies for all the wit, irritation, sarcasm, frustration and annoyance that simple phrase conveys.
Let's have a parade in Manhattan for genre fiction. It would be an extremely well-attended event.
They could have a parade for NY Times-approved literature but, well, imagine the size of the crowd...
*crickets*
Posted by: Wendy S. Delmater | March 20, 2007 07:35 PM