Interesting that the thrust of the "notes for future work" part immediately makes me think of a line from one of the more canonical SFF books - "equally undeserving" gets me jumping directly to the "For we each of us deserve everything, every luxury that was ever piled in the tombs of the dead kings, and we each of us deserve nothing, not a mouthful of bread in hunger" passage in The Dispossessed. I don't have a coherent point here, just a series of loose associations - certainly that passage underlines quite a lot of the attitude I try to take into politics, putting aside "deserving" entirely and working on "what can we do for one another?"
But it's got some relationship to the latter half as well - I have this odd relationship with the passage where I mostly knew it from being in lefty SFF communities (on Tumblr, in this case) where it gets passed around as part of the canon of Things Worth Sharing, and it spoke to me in isolation; so on rereading the book, where its appearance on the page is *as* a quotation from foundational literature, making a curious little doubling. I feel like there's something there in the way something shaped like fandom in its nonlocal sense can be a vehicle for sharing a thought, in a way that can influence people in sometimes quite deep ways.
As I say, I'm not going anywhere specific with this, but I'm thinking thoughts about this newsletter and maybe my unfocused thoughts will knock someone else's unfocused thoughts loose.
(Also on a much more tangential and less weighty point: I should perhaps have expected that an author whose use of imagery when writing about awe and faith and gods speaks to me so powerfully grew up in the same aesthetic context as I did, but specifically citing one of my top three favourite hymns took me out. :D )
("Let All Mortal Flesh" is /the best/, I am glad to join with you on this point.)
What a great quote from The Dispossessed. And I see what you mean about the sort of... mirror-doubling feeling of seeing it passed around canonically on Tumblr, then encountering it *as* a canon text. Particularly given the SFnal nature of the book—you can (almost) imagine the quote having made it to the Urras canon *from tumblr*. Reminds me of Chip Delaney's point about the key reading protocol difference of true SF being that we're supposed to believe *could* happen—maybe given physics / technology we don't yet understand, and so on—a future that emerges from our own present. I think lots of things many folk call SF don't work this way, but still—I've always had this little ping of sadness when we pass dates on, e.g. the Star Trek timeline—oh, that's /fantasy/ now, or, at least, an alternate timeline. (Not that many late-20th century events of the Star Trek timeline are the sort of thing to which one should look forward, of course!)
I love and resonate so much with these ideas, Max. If you care to explore these ideas further, may I suggest Tabitha Carvan's incredible and hilarious analysis of fandom, This is Not A Book about Benedict Cumberbatch, which has become such an important text for me in the past few years. (http://www.tabithacarvan.com/this-is-not-a-book-about-benedict-cumberbatch). Plus, the amazing work being done by Vanessa Zoltan and co. at Not Sorry Productions (https://notsorryworks.com/) to challenge us to use secular texts as the basis for sacred practices.
Wonderful to hear from you, Vardit! Sorry the reply's a bit late, it's been wild out here. Thank you for the links, these both sound extremely up my alley. Hope all's well with you and yours!
I fully subscribe to your thesis (as I do to this newsletter :)), and it makes me think of current reading -- my mom, in her typical fashion, heard that I like one of the Shardlake books and proudly presented me with seven 500+ page paperbacks that I somehow have to put in my apartment. So anyway, I'm towards midway through a CJ Sansom's series about Matthew Shardlake, 16th century lawyer and reformer, part of Thomas Cromwell's movement (the older Cromwell) to reform the Church in England.
It is absolutely fascinating to see the character's strong belief in the righteousness of the reform ideals (Catholic Church Bad and Corrupt) inevitably tempered by the absolute atrocities that get carried out in the name of those ideals -- I shuddered after finishing book two to realize the scale of destruction of monasteries in England during Henry the 8th's time -- and then mixed with feelings about how our reformation is good, but what those Wacky Germans are doing will inevitably lead to anarchy and ruin... but maybe anarchy and ruin is not so bad given how things are going under the monarchy... etc. Very similar to what you talk about here -- a complex, confusing, bloody debate that slowly but surely works its way out over the years and eventually settles into a more religiously tolerant society. It certainly doesn't make me super excited about what we're going to see in the next whatever years, but there is a strange sort of hope I derive, as it sounds you do, from the fact that no matter how bad we humans are at figuring things out, we do, eventually. At least so far. :)
Those books sound /fascinating/ and now I really want to read them & compare / contrast with Mantel's Thomas Cromwell trilogy, with which they seem to be in conversation. And yes: I share your hope. And that ominous Homer Simpson "so far...."!
I'm in the middle of The Bright Ages by Gabrielle and Perry a sort of top-level overview of medieval Europe, with a thesis that the medieval period was not a "Dark Age" in any sense—not that things were all rosy and peaceful, but then, they aren't *now* either. Humans are always a tangle—never one thing all the way through.
Interesting that the thrust of the "notes for future work" part immediately makes me think of a line from one of the more canonical SFF books - "equally undeserving" gets me jumping directly to the "For we each of us deserve everything, every luxury that was ever piled in the tombs of the dead kings, and we each of us deserve nothing, not a mouthful of bread in hunger" passage in The Dispossessed. I don't have a coherent point here, just a series of loose associations - certainly that passage underlines quite a lot of the attitude I try to take into politics, putting aside "deserving" entirely and working on "what can we do for one another?"
But it's got some relationship to the latter half as well - I have this odd relationship with the passage where I mostly knew it from being in lefty SFF communities (on Tumblr, in this case) where it gets passed around as part of the canon of Things Worth Sharing, and it spoke to me in isolation; so on rereading the book, where its appearance on the page is *as* a quotation from foundational literature, making a curious little doubling. I feel like there's something there in the way something shaped like fandom in its nonlocal sense can be a vehicle for sharing a thought, in a way that can influence people in sometimes quite deep ways.
As I say, I'm not going anywhere specific with this, but I'm thinking thoughts about this newsletter and maybe my unfocused thoughts will knock someone else's unfocused thoughts loose.
(Also on a much more tangential and less weighty point: I should perhaps have expected that an author whose use of imagery when writing about awe and faith and gods speaks to me so powerfully grew up in the same aesthetic context as I did, but specifically citing one of my top three favourite hymns took me out. :D )
("Let All Mortal Flesh" is /the best/, I am glad to join with you on this point.)
What a great quote from The Dispossessed. And I see what you mean about the sort of... mirror-doubling feeling of seeing it passed around canonically on Tumblr, then encountering it *as* a canon text. Particularly given the SFnal nature of the book—you can (almost) imagine the quote having made it to the Urras canon *from tumblr*. Reminds me of Chip Delaney's point about the key reading protocol difference of true SF being that we're supposed to believe *could* happen—maybe given physics / technology we don't yet understand, and so on—a future that emerges from our own present. I think lots of things many folk call SF don't work this way, but still—I've always had this little ping of sadness when we pass dates on, e.g. the Star Trek timeline—oh, that's /fantasy/ now, or, at least, an alternate timeline. (Not that many late-20th century events of the Star Trek timeline are the sort of thing to which one should look forward, of course!)
You are definitely a poet.
Thanks, Donna!
I love and resonate so much with these ideas, Max. If you care to explore these ideas further, may I suggest Tabitha Carvan's incredible and hilarious analysis of fandom, This is Not A Book about Benedict Cumberbatch, which has become such an important text for me in the past few years. (http://www.tabithacarvan.com/this-is-not-a-book-about-benedict-cumberbatch). Plus, the amazing work being done by Vanessa Zoltan and co. at Not Sorry Productions (https://notsorryworks.com/) to challenge us to use secular texts as the basis for sacred practices.
Always a joy to get a glimpse into your thoughts!
Wonderful to hear from you, Vardit! Sorry the reply's a bit late, it's been wild out here. Thank you for the links, these both sound extremely up my alley. Hope all's well with you and yours!
I fully subscribe to your thesis (as I do to this newsletter :)), and it makes me think of current reading -- my mom, in her typical fashion, heard that I like one of the Shardlake books and proudly presented me with seven 500+ page paperbacks that I somehow have to put in my apartment. So anyway, I'm towards midway through a CJ Sansom's series about Matthew Shardlake, 16th century lawyer and reformer, part of Thomas Cromwell's movement (the older Cromwell) to reform the Church in England.
It is absolutely fascinating to see the character's strong belief in the righteousness of the reform ideals (Catholic Church Bad and Corrupt) inevitably tempered by the absolute atrocities that get carried out in the name of those ideals -- I shuddered after finishing book two to realize the scale of destruction of monasteries in England during Henry the 8th's time -- and then mixed with feelings about how our reformation is good, but what those Wacky Germans are doing will inevitably lead to anarchy and ruin... but maybe anarchy and ruin is not so bad given how things are going under the monarchy... etc. Very similar to what you talk about here -- a complex, confusing, bloody debate that slowly but surely works its way out over the years and eventually settles into a more religiously tolerant society. It certainly doesn't make me super excited about what we're going to see in the next whatever years, but there is a strange sort of hope I derive, as it sounds you do, from the fact that no matter how bad we humans are at figuring things out, we do, eventually. At least so far. :)
Those books sound /fascinating/ and now I really want to read them & compare / contrast with Mantel's Thomas Cromwell trilogy, with which they seem to be in conversation. And yes: I share your hope. And that ominous Homer Simpson "so far...."!
I'm in the middle of The Bright Ages by Gabrielle and Perry a sort of top-level overview of medieval Europe, with a thesis that the medieval period was not a "Dark Age" in any sense—not that things were all rosy and peaceful, but then, they aren't *now* either. Humans are always a tangle—never one thing all the way through.