Particularly after what I saw Our Citz of a Certain Sort wearing outside the country this summer: t-shirts proudly emblazoned with, “I Am Texan, I Fart in Your Face Because I Can” issuing from, of course, mooning buttocks. Among these gatherings of Europeans from all over and people from other nations, NOBODY wore anything rude and offensive, much less like that. Indeed, they tended to dress with a great deal of style.

Love, C.

http://www.jeffvandermeer.com/2007/12/01/its-the-economy-stupid/#comments

But then as a child of Moorcock and Peake I can see Hal holding that position. He is wrong in many ways, as is China.

As Howard Jacobson wrote of Terry Eagleton (whom he has great respect for as a literary critic):

‘Few critics read a text better than Terry Eagleton, but he’s a
Marxist – not some of the time, but all of the time, and you can’t be anything all of the time when it comes to art’.

A work of literature is not irrelevant because it does not explicitly or even accidentally (and least of all by an act of grafted on deconstructionist revisionism) deal with the iniquities of class or worse: seem to reinforce them.

And Tolkien is far from perfect, but the sum remains greater than the imperfect parts.

I did respond on LJ,

http://syndicated.livejournal.com/jeffvandermeer/122069.html

Not realising that it was in fact Catherynne M. Valente guesting on Jeff’s journal. Too post-modern for a reactionary dodo fantasist like me! Couldn’t get me brain round it!

Juliet E McKenna pwnd a lot of the old hat arguments about that, here:

http://www.julietemckenna.com/articletolkien.html

Which came out of a panel she was on with China Mieville once.

So while SF might not have the sales, it has nowhere near the contempt THE fantasy has! (Which, perverse as I am, lets me know I am doing something right in investing my passion in it!)

Apart from that silliness, and the Aldiss quote about fantasy being more acceptable because it’s viewed and non-threatening kids stuff where there’s always a happy ending, umm… Actually, I rather like the metaphor about SF being considered the Disreputable Uncle but think it should be extended such that fantasy is the Dotty Aunt.

As for living in the world of science fiction, we have our Dick Tracy wrist communicators (but better ones) but we don’t have his flying garbage cans let alone the flying cars. Nor do we have Moon Maid as a daughter-in-law.