You say Hav isn't alternate because you can go to a dozen places and see aspects of Hav; I say Hav is alternate precisely because you can't go to any one place that's like it.
No, what I said was that there are dozens of places like it. I live in one.
To turn it around, taking your logic to its extremes would mean The Separation isn't an alternate history
How? The Separation is clearly an alternate history because it posits a diversion from ours and, from that point of diversion, arrives at a present radically different from our own. Hav, Middlemarch and Possession don't posit such a diversion. They merely add to history something very much like what was already there, and describe a present all but indistinguishable from the real one. These are two completely different approaches - two different kinds of stories.
What you seem to be saying is that adding something sufficiently big to history makes that history alternate regardless of whether the present it brings us to is any different from ours. Quite apart from the fact that I disagree with this assertion, this does not strike me as a very useful definition. If the difference between naturalistic and SFnal fiction is that of degree, where does the tipping point lie?
I'd be more willing to entertain this argument if you were trying to categorize Hav as fantasy. In that case, the question would revolve around the ratio of real to unreal, and it is possible to argue that in Hav, the latter outweighs the former (though I'd still feel that Hav's genericness gets in the way). When it comes to alternate history, however, I have to disagree with your claim that the question hinges on degree. Hav is a different kind of story than The Separation and The Yiddish Policemen's Union.
Hang on, I thought Tel Aviv was founded at the start of the 20th century? I'm sure there were other settlements on the site beforehand (although I admit I'll be surprised if any of them were Chinese or Russian), but in at least that one sense no, you do not live in a place like Hav, because it doesn't have the same continuity.
What you seem to be saying is that adding something sufficiently big to history makes that history alternate regardless of whether the present it brings us to is any different from ours.
What I'm saying is that the addition of something sufficiently big de facto makes the present of the story different from ours. The present of Hav *is* different than ours -- everyone has heard of Hav, and lots of people go there as tourists. But the focus of the book is not on the extent of that difference.
If the difference between naturalistic and SFnal fiction is that of degree, where does the tipping point lie?
Well, in one sense this depends whether you think science fiction is a form of naturalism or a form of the fantastic, which many people have spent a large amount of debating over the past fifty years, and which I doubt we're going to resolve today. The naturalism argument -- which is Le Guin's argument in her review of Hav -- is precisely that science fiction differs in degree but not in nature from the world around us today, that degree being the invention introduced. I find that persuasive, but in another sense it doesn't matter at all; there's a gradual shading between any two kinds of fiction, which means there's always a tipping point. Is Crowley's "The Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines" fantasy? Are Margo Lanagan's stories? Is Pattern Recognition science fiction? The answer in each case -- or at least, my answer in each case -- depends on whether I find it useful and interesting to say "yes." In the case of Hav I do.
No, what I said was that there are dozens of places like it. I live in one.
To turn it around, taking your logic to its extremes would mean The Separation isn't an alternate history
How? The Separation is clearly an alternate history because it posits a diversion from ours and, from that point of diversion, arrives at a present radically different from our own. Hav, Middlemarch and Possession don't posit such a diversion. They merely add to history something very much like what was already there, and describe a present all but indistinguishable from the real one. These are two completely different approaches - two different kinds of stories.
What you seem to be saying is that adding something sufficiently big to history makes that history alternate regardless of whether the present it brings us to is any different from ours. Quite apart from the fact that I disagree with this assertion, this does not strike me as a very useful definition. If the difference between naturalistic and SFnal fiction is that of degree, where does the tipping point lie?
I'd be more willing to entertain this argument if you were trying to categorize Hav as fantasy. In that case, the question would revolve around the ratio of real to unreal, and it is possible to argue that in Hav, the latter outweighs the former (though I'd still feel that Hav's genericness gets in the way). When it comes to alternate history, however, I have to disagree with your claim that the question hinges on degree. Hav is a different kind of story than The Separation and The Yiddish Policemen's Union.
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Hang on, I thought Tel Aviv was founded at the start of the 20th century? I'm sure there were other settlements on the site beforehand (although I admit I'll be surprised if any of them were Chinese or Russian), but in at least that one sense no, you do not live in a place like Hav, because it doesn't have the same continuity.
What you seem to be saying is that adding something sufficiently big to history makes that history alternate regardless of whether the present it brings us to is any different from ours.
What I'm saying is that the addition of something sufficiently big de facto makes the present of the story different from ours. The present of Hav *is* different than ours -- everyone has heard of Hav, and lots of people go there as tourists. But the focus of the book is not on the extent of that difference.
If the difference between naturalistic and SFnal fiction is that of degree, where does the tipping point lie?
Well, in one sense this depends whether you think science fiction is a form of naturalism or a form of the fantastic, which many people have spent a large amount of debating over the past fifty years, and which I doubt we're going to resolve today. The naturalism argument -- which is Le Guin's argument in her review of Hav -- is precisely that science fiction differs in degree but not in nature from the world around us today, that degree being the invention introduced. I find that persuasive, but in another sense it doesn't matter at all; there's a gradual shading between any two kinds of fiction, which means there's always a tipping point. Is Crowley's "The Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines" fantasy? Are Margo Lanagan's stories? Is Pattern Recognition science fiction? The answer in each case -- or at least, my answer in each case -- depends on whether I find it useful and interesting to say "yes." In the case of Hav I do.
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