Re: Chip on public radio

I just finished reading a rather awesome novel called Wittgenstein's 
Mistress, by David Markson, that really points up this distinction SRD 
has frequently made between the expectations created by tagging 
something as SF vs. as "literary" prose.  Its protagonist is a woman who 
wanders around a version of our world that has somehow mysteriously been 
depopulated of every other person but herself.  As a person whose 
expectations have been shaped by SF, and particularly by experimental SF 
of high literary quality like SRD's, I took her situation more or less 
at face value; the depopulation is never really explained, but that 
didn't bother me much.

However, reading the reviews of the book in the mainstream literary 
press (which tended to praise it to high heaven by the way), I was quite 
surprised at how many described the novel as a depiction of insanity 
from the inside.  To me, there is very little hint of this in the book, 
although the protagonist (who is also the 1st-person narrator) does 
describe an earlier period in her life (not long after the depopulation) 
when she did go mad for a brief period.  I really think that the 
entirety of the presumption of her insanity on the part of reviewers 
stems from this one fact (the depopulation) about the world Markson has 
created, though it's presented with great consistency and plausibility 
(to my mind) throughout, if you just accept the premise.

(Though I suppose that the fact that we find out at some point that the 
woman's son died when still a child may have also influenced those 
reviewers who were inclined to think of women as  prone to hysteria and 
madness in the face of such tragedy.  Or, the (again, to my mind) quite 
realistic depiction of memory in the book as frequently erratic and 
inconsistent may have made reviewers who were more used to fictional 
depictions of memory as Truth feel like she must be crazy.  I mean, 
sometimes she remembers the same event two different ways at two 
different places in the book!  What a nutcase!)

Anyway, I have to recommend Wittgenstein's Mistress to any and all SRD 
fans -- get it, read it, you won't be sorry.  Glad to have been shaped 
by the Literature of Ideas, I remain,

yr. obt. svt.,

d


On 10/7/2011 8:55 PM, Zvi Gilbert wrote:
>
> http://www.pri.org/stories/arts-entertainment/books/author-samuel-r-delany-on-the-beauty-of-sci-fi-prose6224.html
>
> "*Award-winning author Samuel R. Delany reflects on his science fiction
> writing career, the evolution of the genre and the distinction of sci-fi
> prose."*
> *
> *
> --Z
>