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JAMES GUNN
The Academic Viewpoint
James Gunn, author and professor of English at the University of Kansas, who
began his writing of science fiction in 1948 and has since done some seventy
stories and sixteen books while editing three more, is a master of two
difficult disciplines. One is writing and the other is teaching. For over
twenty years he has successfully accomplished what many a writing teacher and
many a teaching writer has found impossible, the harnessing of these two
highly creative occupations in one working tandem.
With all this, he has found time to serve as regional chairman of the American
College Public Relations Association, and on the Information Committee of the
National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges. He has
also won national awards for his work as an editor and a director of public
relations. He has been awarded the Byron Caldwell Smith prize in recognition
of literary achievement and has also been president of the Science Fiction
Writers of America.
He has been a member of the Executive Committee of the Science Fiction
Research Association, and was presented with the Pilgrim Award of SFRA in
1976. Also, he has been given a special award by the 1976 World Science
Fiction Convention for his book ALTERNATE WORLDS.
He has written articles, verse, and criticism. He has done radio scripts,
screen plays, and television plays. A number of his stories have been
dramatized in both mediums. One, "The Immortal," was an ABC-TV "Movie
of the Week" in 1969 and became an hour-long series, also titled THE IMMORTAL,
in 1970. Meanwhile, his written work has been reprinted worldwide.
Consequently, if there is one writer in science fiction who is fully qualified
in both areas, that of the writer and that of the academic scholar of science
fiction, it is James Gunn. He is a professional behind the typewriter and
equally a professional in the academic area, and as such, no one is quite as
qualified as he to deal with the subject of the article that follows . . . .
When the dean of basketball coaches, the late Forrest C. "Phog" Allen, was
asked by James Naismith, the inventor of basketball, what he intended to do
with his life, Allen replied, "Coach basketball." Naismith responded, "You
don't coach basketball; you just play it."
For many years a similar opinion existed about science fiction: you don't
teach science fiction; you just read it.
As later events demonstrated, both opinions were incorrect. The first regular
course in science fiction was taught at Colgate University in 1962- by Prof.
Mark Hillegas, now at Southern Illinois, and Sam Moskowitz organized evening
courses in science fiction at City College of New York in 1953 and 1954.
Since then science fiction has spread into thousands of college classrooms and
tens of thousands of high schools, and even into junior high schools and
primary schools.
This surprising interest of academia in science fiction has aroused suspicion
and alarm among science
fiction readers, writers, and editors. Their attitudes have been summed up by
Ben Bova's editorial "Teaching Science Fiction" in Analog (June 1974) and
Lester del Rey's "The Siren Song of Academe" in Galaxy (March 1975), and
symbolized by Locus coeditor and co-publisher Dena Brown's comment at the 1970
organizing meeting of the Science Fiction Research Association, "Let's take
science fiction out of the classroom and put it back in the gutter where it
belongs."
Part of what frightens science fiction people about academia is the danger
that it will be taught poorly, dustily, inadequately, or drably. But even if
taught with knowledge, skill, and enthusiasm, science fiction may be perverted
by the academic viewpoint, some of them believe.
Teachers, they suspect, look at books differently from ordinary readers, and,
like Medusa, their look turns things to stone. Science fiction readers point
at their own high school experiences of hating Shakespeare or Dickens because
they were forced to read them.
Even at the college level, professors encounter the frequent student attitude:
"Why do we have to analyze fiction or poetry? It ruins them."
These are the concerns of the science fiction world How does academia respond?
First, the notion that all science fiction teachers are alike is simply lack
of knowledge about what is done in the classroom. Science fiction is taught
for a variety of reasons, at all levels. In colleges, for instance, it often
is taught for its content to help teach political science or psychology,
anthropology, religion, future studies, or even the hard sciences. Anthologies
for these specific purposes multiply in publishers' catalogs. Most objections
to the teaching of science fiction, however, do not concern themselves with
this use, although a bit of feeling adheres to the exploitation of science
fiction for some other purpose than the one God intended.
Even within English departments, teaching approaches vary. Some professors
teach the ideas; some, .,' the themes; some, the history and the genre; and
some, `' the great books. In general, all of these may be dismissed from the
concerns of the science fiction vested interests; if any of the subjects are
taught knowledgeably and capably, the judgments of their teachers about
approaches ideas, themes, definitions, history, and great books need not
coincide with those of any held within the science fiction world, where there
is, after all, almost as great a diversity of opinion as may be found outside
it.
In addition to the approaches listed above, some .j teachers may include one
or more science fiction books in a course in contemporary literature, popular
literature, or the literature of women, or of children, or of some other area
of experience. And some professors teach science fiction as if it were any
other kind of literature, and apply to it the same critical concerns they
apply to other books.
Here, perhaps, lies the greatest possibility for a break with science fiction
tradition. What values do teachers of literature search out when they teach
science fiction-or, for that matter, fiction of any kind?
Surprising as it may be to critics of the teaching of literature, the first
consideration is story. Story is as appealing to professors as it is to lay
readers. "Pleasure ` in fiction is rooted in our response to narrative
movement-to story itself," Professor Robert Scholes wrote in his essay, "As
the Wall Crumbles," in Nebula Ten.
But story is relatively unambiguous, at least in a work of fiction in which
story predominates, and teaching at all levels tends to gravitate toward those
works . whose qualities teaching can enhance. This is not to say that these
works are necessarily best in some abstract sense, but that they are
teachable. Many persons outside academia suggest that at this point science
fiction is in danger: qualities in a piece of fiction may be overvalued simply
because they are less accessible.
The danger is real. In some academic circles, as among a certain group of
avant-garde writers, story
has been discarded as too obvious or too easy. Susceptible students and
readers have been persuaded that story is a lesser art, if it is an art at
all, and difficulty, ambiguity, and obscurity are essential to good fiction.
The critics of academia suggest that if these aspects of fiction are highly
valued in classes, authors will be seduced into such corrupt practices.
The danger is real, but it is not as great as the doomsayers fear. Authors are
not as susceptible as all that (if they're not doing their own thing they
aren't worth much as authors), and the teaching of literature is not as
pernicious as all that. Story still counts for much in a literature class.
Witness the fact that the books most frequently taught by academics (as
reported by Jack Williamson in 1972) were Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange
Land, Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz, Wells's The War of the Worlds, Pohl
and Kombluth's The Space Merchants, Herbert's Dune, Huxley's Brave New World,
Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness, Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles,
Silverberg's Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Wells's The Time Machine, and
Asimov's I, Robot. Other books among those a bit less frequently taught would
reveal none unfamiliar to the average science fiction reader; the total list
represents, with a few arguments, a reasonable "best" list for any
knowledgeable fan, and even the arguable, titles have been honored by science
fiction critics and readers.
Admittedly, the list may reveal some bias toward what passes for excellence in
writing, skill in characterization, or verisimilitude in description. Few
teachers include "Doe" Smith or Edgar Rice Burroughs, from whose science
fiction adventures a generation of readers were weaned (though I, for one,
always include A Princess of Mars, and I would be surprised if some teacher
somewhere does not teach The Skylark of Space or Grey Lensman).
What then do science fiction teachers look for in a work of science fiction?
They are concerned, of course, with teaching the art of reading and the skills
of criticism (along with
the ability to communicate) rather than merely the specific work at hand. They
apply principles to texts, both to make the piece of prose, poetry, or drama
more accessible but also to enable students to apply similar principles to
reading they may do in other classes or outside of classes. They want students
to get more out of their reading, to read more alertly, more knowledgeably,
more enjoyably.
Critics who complain that this kind of approach to literature kills enjoyment
are restricting the enjoyment of literature only to those natural readers who
understand intuitively what is not immediately observable, or to those works
that have no depths.
What is not immediately observable to a casual reader of science fiction? The
best way to answer that question might be to list the aspects of fiction that
a good teacher looks for.
1. CONSISTENCY OF STORY
2. STORY PREMISES
3. APPLICATION OF THE PREMISES
4. CREDIBILITY OF THE CHARACTERS
5. CONSISTENCY OF THEME
6. IMAGERY
7. STYLE
8. TOTAL ARTFULNESS
9. CHALLENGE TO THE IMAGINATION
10. OVERALL IMPRESSION
1. CONSISTENCY OF STORY. A good reader continually adjusts his expectations of
a piece of fiction as the author gradually reveals the directions in which his
characters are moving, or are being forced to move. A well-written work
handles the reader's expectations skillfully, confidently, neither changing
directions nor disappointing expectations previously aroused. A careless
reader may never notice inconsistencies in various parts of a work, and a
casual reader may forgive them. An author should be held to the highest
standards of accountability, both for the improvement of reading and the
improvement of writing; an author is not at
liberty to do what he wishes without accepting the consequences.
2. STORY PREMISES. A good reader picks up the clues an author plants about the
foundations on which his world and his story rest. In a science fiction work,
this includes the science and the sociology the answers to the question: how
did we get there from here? In a skillfully written work, if the reader grants
the author's premises, he must grant the conclusions, but part of the tension
of the work always exists between the conclusions and the premises. The casual
reader misses an important part of the dialogue in which the good writer hopes
to engage him, and allows the lessable writer to pass unchallenged.
3. APPLICATION OF THE PREMISES. A good reader challenges the writer at every
point, debating the working out of the author's thesis, his arrival at the
conclusions, checking back continually against what he already knows,
theorizing that any discrepancy must be significant. This is not a tedious
process but one that, once recognized, becomes automatic with the alert
reader.
4. CREDIBILITY OF THE CHARACTERS. Are the characters real people? Should we
take them seriously? Are they meant to be realistic? Do they react
consistently? It is my thesis (see my chapter in Reginald Bretnor's symposium
The Craft of Science Fiction, Harper & Row, 1976) that characters in a science
fiction work should be judged differently from those in mainstream fiction
(often they are more important as representatives than as individuals), but
characters should be understandably motivated. They should not act arbitrarily
or inconsistently; they should act for their own reasons and not for the
author's convenience. This is not because of any abstract literary morality
but because the fiction is better if they do.
5. CONSISTENCY OF THEME. Does the story have a message? Not all fiction has
anything to say other than to reinforce the assumptions basic to the culture
from which the fiction springs, such as: good will prevail, or good will
prevail only if men and
women of intelligence and character work at it hard enough. But some fiction
attempts to say something more-about the nature or goal of life, the nature or
difficulties of society, or the nature or problems of people. The good reader
asks what the work means besides its obvious story line. Ursula Le Guin's The
Left Hand of Darkness, for instance, is about not only whether the world of
Winter joins the Ekumen, not only whether Genly Ai is successful or even
survives, but about the ways in which sex shapes our society and its
institutions. Another question is how well the theme is woven into the fabric
of the story, not appended to it like a sermon.
6. IMAGERY. One way in which meaning emerges from fiction is through the
imagery implicit in the work, often without the conscious knowledge of author
or reader-the literal images, the symbols, the similes, and the metaphors.
Once teachers begin talking about images, symbols, and metaphors, the ordinary
reader turns his mind off, and authors have been known to object to teachers
reading something into their writing that they did not intend, often accusing
teachers of falsifying what they were trying to do. As in most criticisms of
teaching, there is some truth to the charge; some teachers and some critics
build a mountain of interpretation out of a molehill of evidence, and many
ignore the author's intention-indeed, it was a tenet of the so-called "new
criticism" (now almost fifty years old) that considering the author's
intention is a trap, called "the intentional fallacy." Nevertheless, images do
occur in works of fiction, and they do influence the reactions of readers to
the work. Examples abound, even in science fiction, from the power imagery of
technology to the guilt imagery of the mad scientist in whatever his
contemporary guise.
7. STYLE. Style is the manner in which words are chosen and put together.
Complexity or uniqueness is not necessarily good. Sometimes simplicity or
transparency are superior. What we term style is often mistakenly reserved for
"high style," for individual mannerisms, for that which calls attention to
itself,
but what a careful reader notices is the suitability of style to subject and
the appropriateness of language and sentence structure-whether what is said is
enhanced by the way it is said. Innumerable would be writers have been misled
by teachers who told them, "Before you can be a successful writer, you must
find your own style." Fred Pohl is fond of quoting a French saying, "Style is
the problem solved."
8. TOTAL ARTFULNESS. The different parts of a piece of fiction do not exist in
isolation, though they often must be discussed in this fashion if they are to
be understood. Few skills-from the golfer's swing to the dancer's routine-can
be understood by watching them in their entirety. The separate acts must be
broken down into understandable units that can be learned and then reassembled
into the whole. All the considerations about fiction that have been discussed
up to this point may in themselves be well done but they may not together form
a coherent work, and then the good teacher points out why the whole is larger
than the sum of its parts.
8. CHALLENGE TO THE IMAGINATION. A piece of fiction might have every virtue
the teacher can describe and still be dull; and a piece of fiction can lack
almost every virtue and still rise above its circumstances by the way in which
it challenges the imagination. The teacher and the reader may wish that great
ideas were matched by great execution, but it is not always so, and the good
teacher recognizes the appeal of works that are otherwise deficient. This is
not to say that the public is always right, but to recognize, as Professor
Leslie Fiedler pointed out to an audience of science fiction writers a few
years ago, "For too long critics have tried to tell readers why they should
like what they don't like; they should be trying to discover why people like
what they like."
10. OVERALL IMPRESSION. After a work has been analyzed which means, literally,
separated into its constituent parts-it must be put back together. Students
object to having what they like dissected as if it were something dead, almost
as much as they
object to being forced to study something they consider dead. After the good
teacher has helped his students analyze any work of fiction, then, the teacher
should help them regain their vision of the work in its entirety-its overall
impression of readability, of narrative excitement, of fictional pleasure. The
teacher should bring it back to life. It is a difficult task but not an
impossible one.
Properly done, the study of literature does not diminish the enjoyment of
reading; it enhances that enjoyment, just as a good critical article about a
short story or a novel illuminates. the work for the reader, who goes to it
with new appreciation and understanding. To believe otherwise is to uphold the
blessings of ignorance, to maintain that the individual's enjoyment of any
complex art-and fiction is a complex art-depends upon how little he knows
about it.
Science fiction has not achieved as much as it might because it has enjoyed
few good critics. A critic is more than a reviewer; a reviewer discusses his
personal evaluation of a work, while a critic relates his evaluation to larger
principles and theories, to standards he or others have established for the
greater body of work to which the piece at hand is related. Critics raise
standards for writers as well as readers; we can be thankful for the work of
Damon Knight, James Blish, D. Schuyler Miller, and a few others in its past,
and the current work of Alexei and Cory Panshin, Lester del Rey, Joanna Russ,
Barry Malzberg, the writers for Delap's F&SF Review, and A Budrys.
Their judgments have not always coincided-there is no reason they should-but
science fiction is better because they have judged and made their criteria
plain. The judgments of academia may not be the same as those of science
fiction critics or its readers, but, without having read Budrys's contribution
to this volume, I would hazard the guess that his criteria for judging a work
of science fiction are not much different from those I have set down here.
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