tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9721761.post1145686043704716482..comments2024-03-19T07:27:06.216-04:00Comments on VOTARIES OF HORROR: Defending Agatha Christie (Not That She Really Needs It)Katherine Woodburyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14364517253667798449noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9721761.post-66793144713931951812014-07-07T11:56:08.039-04:002014-07-07T11:56:08.039-04:00The irony is that many of the "solutions"...The irony is that many of the "solutions" proposed by the "tastemakers" are dramatic shortcuts and easy to write. In particular, sad or despairing endings are typically a bigger cop out than the [forced] pollyannish ending.Joehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04450897654318345683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9721761.post-48983331131066337362014-07-03T23:27:04.810-04:002014-07-03T23:27:04.810-04:00Regarding "tastemakers" criticizing the ...Regarding "tastemakers" criticizing the tropes of "low" genre-writing, I have addressed the <a href="http://katewoodbury.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-weird-intellectual-distaste-for.html" rel="nofollow">weird intellectual distaste for the flesh</a> in a recent post. <br /><br />In regards to the belief that "the only good conceptual breakthrough is an unhappy one," C.S. Lewis pointed out that such critics will often embrace a book with a despairing or sad ending as "real life" while rejecting a book with an optimistic, happy ending as pollyannaish, unrealistic wistful thinking. Yet both reactions are based on emotional, subjective responses to events, not objective ones. Why should the first set of emotions be more "true" than the second? Katherine Woodburyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14364517253667798449noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9721761.post-33588521229165478862014-07-02T17:18:00.416-04:002014-07-02T17:18:00.416-04:00Eric Raymond provides an interesting tangent on th...<a href="http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6005" rel="nofollow">Eric Raymond</a> provides an interesting tangent on this thesis as applied to science fiction:<br /><br />"Most of the demand for non-classic SF comes not from readers but from critics/authors/editors (people who think of themselves as tastemakers) who are bent on imposing the deep norms of other genres onto the SF field. Such people are especially apt to think SF would be improved by adopting the norms and technical apparatus of modern literary fiction . . . In this view SF readers need to be educated away from their primitive fondness for linear narratives, puzzle stories, competent characters, happy endings, and rational knowability. It's not caricaturing much to say that the typical specimen of this type thinks the only good conceptual breakthrough is an unhappy one."<br /><br />He also addresses the "problem" of characterization: "One reliable way to spot one of these literary improvers in action is unending complaints about the low standards of characterization that the majority of both SF readers and writers and readers consider acceptable."Eugenehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03182644885948983861noreply@blogger.com