A Word For Nightfall
I happened on a pointer to a site with an interesting yet challenging title. "Young People Read Old SFF" declared itself a "test of the hypothesis" of a comment from someone else that "nobody discovers a lifelong love of science fiction through Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein anymore, and directing newbies toward the work of those masters is a destructive thing". In facing that I had to face the recollection that, while the movie Star Wars and science fiction books specifically for young readers had played their own definite roles, I'd been reading older science fiction paperbacks from the library at an early age. It might not be just a matter of "time catching up," though; it's easy enough to suppose nobody likes to contemplate that their opinions on various works of entertainment might not be the only reasonable one for others to come to.
The responses to the short stories, a good number of which I've read myself, weren't just one-note, but there was a certain emphasis to them all the same. It is possible that, with these older works having helped set the groundworks for science fiction, other things about them might start standing out and not in a good way. There have been times just of late where I've looked back at works of science fiction I've read before and felt stung that much sharper than ever by the seemingly unconscious sexism in them, to say nothing of what happens should they get around to racial attitudes. As much as I can wonder what works of popular fiction from the 1930s to 1950s didn't wind up with unexpected unfortunate bombshells like that, the whole sense of "these people were supposed to be thinking ahead" might have an effect; it's a darker variant on "pocket atomics and backyard antigravity, sure, but 'computers' are inconceivable save as multi-ton glorified calculators," perhaps. With that admitted, though, I did get to questioning some of the opinions on Isaac Asimov's "Nightfall." While it didn't quite feel like "leaping to the desperate defence of a favourite work" (although its sense of being a "thought experiment" perhaps makes it more palatable for me than some of the other "downer works" the site has already presented its young readers with), I could ask myself if the responses were missing a possible point or two.
A good number of the young commentators seemed to be more or less complaining that they couldn't get just why "being in the dark" for the first time in thousands of years on Asimov's fictional world would drive the characters in his story mad. My thought in response was that for all of the in-story discussion before the fact, it was "the Stars" revealed at the moment of the eclipse that were supposed to do it, smashing in the unexpected, overpowering scale of the universe. Again, of course, the "thought experiment" can just leave someone wondering if that would affect everyone either, but it can bring to mind the more respectable things said about H.P. Lovecraft's "cosmic horror," as opposed to the stuff more clearly linked to "fear of anyone with a different ethnic or racial background." Beyond that supposing that "Lovecraft ought to be a bit more familiar, if only as the darkest of jokes," though, I can wonder if, having lived with "the scale of the universe" longer, it's easier to just miss its invocation in the first place. I know that part of this interpretation comes from having read Alexei and Cory Panshin's The World Beyond the Hill, and can see problems to offering too many "preparatory remarks," but the chance to offer a new perspective does seem worthwhile to me. In any case, I did eventually take a closer look at the initial comment to notice that while "starting" with the older works wasn't presented as a good idea, it was still suggested to be something that could eventually be done.
This entry was originally posted at http://krpalmer.dreamwidth.org/269241.html. Comment here or there (using OpenID) as you please.
The responses to the short stories, a good number of which I've read myself, weren't just one-note, but there was a certain emphasis to them all the same. It is possible that, with these older works having helped set the groundworks for science fiction, other things about them might start standing out and not in a good way. There have been times just of late where I've looked back at works of science fiction I've read before and felt stung that much sharper than ever by the seemingly unconscious sexism in them, to say nothing of what happens should they get around to racial attitudes. As much as I can wonder what works of popular fiction from the 1930s to 1950s didn't wind up with unexpected unfortunate bombshells like that, the whole sense of "these people were supposed to be thinking ahead" might have an effect; it's a darker variant on "pocket atomics and backyard antigravity, sure, but 'computers' are inconceivable save as multi-ton glorified calculators," perhaps. With that admitted, though, I did get to questioning some of the opinions on Isaac Asimov's "Nightfall." While it didn't quite feel like "leaping to the desperate defence of a favourite work" (although its sense of being a "thought experiment" perhaps makes it more palatable for me than some of the other "downer works" the site has already presented its young readers with), I could ask myself if the responses were missing a possible point or two.
A good number of the young commentators seemed to be more or less complaining that they couldn't get just why "being in the dark" for the first time in thousands of years on Asimov's fictional world would drive the characters in his story mad. My thought in response was that for all of the in-story discussion before the fact, it was "the Stars" revealed at the moment of the eclipse that were supposed to do it, smashing in the unexpected, overpowering scale of the universe. Again, of course, the "thought experiment" can just leave someone wondering if that would affect everyone either, but it can bring to mind the more respectable things said about H.P. Lovecraft's "cosmic horror," as opposed to the stuff more clearly linked to "fear of anyone with a different ethnic or racial background." Beyond that supposing that "Lovecraft ought to be a bit more familiar, if only as the darkest of jokes," though, I can wonder if, having lived with "the scale of the universe" longer, it's easier to just miss its invocation in the first place. I know that part of this interpretation comes from having read Alexei and Cory Panshin's The World Beyond the Hill, and can see problems to offering too many "preparatory remarks," but the chance to offer a new perspective does seem worthwhile to me. In any case, I did eventually take a closer look at the initial comment to notice that while "starting" with the older works wasn't presented as a good idea, it was still suggested to be something that could eventually be done.
This entry was originally posted at http://krpalmer.dreamwidth.org/269241.html. Comment here or there (using OpenID) as you please.