I'm also tired enough to be slightly incoherent, but this may be why I loved the first Kushiel trilogy, but found the Jacqueline Carey book set in quasi-china really annoying. There just didn't seem to be the same amount of background knowledge playing into the writing.
Why oh why does everyone have to have a freakin' red-haired culture? (Nothing against redheads, obviously :) And the weird-colored eyes! Why, why, must everyone show their specialness by having weird-colored eyes
( ... )
And yeah - this is why I couldn't deal with Kay's Byzantium - because one of his major themes was "Look at those Christians arguing about the Trinity? Aren't they contentious idiots? What kind of moron would go to war over something that minor?" And, look, I'm not saying you need to believe in the Trinity to write about late antiquity, obviously. But you need to have a solid understanding of why those doctrinal arguments were incredibly important at the time and meaningful and how they shaped all of later Christianity. I guess what I'm saying is that you need to respect the culture you're borrowing from, in the sense of "respect" as distinct from "tolerate." One of the reasons I probably won't ever write fic in certain eras is that, well, I have trouble respecting Victorian English gender and class ideologies.
If I ever write a red-head culture, I will address the fact that you CAN'T HAVE a redhead culture unless it's practicing extremely strict outsider-exclusion and eugenics. Because the redhead gene is RECESSIVE.
Probably that would be an interesting culture, but not necessarily a very nice one.
Orichalcum and Ladybird have already essentially made this point, but I'll take the bait anyway. :)
I think cultural collage is only contingently bad. I think it is easier to write a fantastical reflection of a real society because the perspective works. I think a writer would need a pretty high level understanding of cultural, social, and historical dynamics in order to make a culture that seems plausible. One where the seams aren't obvious. To pick up on Ori's point about gender: gender seems to me to rarely be the way it is without a reason. To oversimplify horrendously, economics initially drive the gender roles, which then get ossified into society. IF you create a collage where the economic system and the gender roles are at odds, and don't acknowledge that and come up with a plausible historical explanation for why that is, you end up with an unsatisfying world.
I would be okay with either monoculture (though unlikely given the pseudo-Scythian setting) or collage, but in Hoffman's book the worldbuilding sits limply like a failed mushroom on a damp piece of plywood. Meh. I kind of don't care where writers start as long as it has a bit of internal logic!
Ticky, here, because it's like she did just enough research to acknowledge that Scythian territory was amidst a bunch of cultures, but not enough either to mimic or to invent for herself any ways in which they would exist, coexist, interact, contend...except (a) gang rape, intermittently and (b) being mistaken for a bear. Meh. :P
I actually like a some of Hoffman's other work (I've read Practical Magic and The River King) because I think she's a beautiful prose stylist. That said everything I've read has been set in contemporary times, which does not necessarily predict good world building skills.
Very random response: to me this feels similar to why Unitarianism never worked for me that well. It never felt like it had depth. Similarly modern syncretist schools like Wicca. (Without intending any disrespect to folks who practice either. We're just looking for different things, presumably
( ... )
Comments 15
Reply
Reply
Reply
And yeah - this is why I couldn't deal with Kay's Byzantium - because one of his major themes was "Look at those Christians arguing about the Trinity? Aren't they contentious idiots? What kind of moron would go to war over something that minor?" And, look, I'm not saying you need to believe in the Trinity to write about late antiquity, obviously. But you need to have a solid understanding of why those doctrinal arguments were incredibly important at the time and meaningful and how they shaped all of later Christianity. I guess what I'm saying is that you need to respect the culture you're borrowing from, in the sense of "respect" as distinct from "tolerate." One of the reasons I probably won't ever write fic in certain eras is that, well, I have trouble respecting Victorian English gender and class ideologies.
Reply
Probably that would be an interesting culture, but not necessarily a very nice one.
Reply
Reply
I think cultural collage is only contingently bad. I think it is easier to write a fantastical reflection of a real society because the perspective works. I think a writer would need a pretty high level understanding of cultural, social, and historical dynamics in order to make a culture that seems plausible. One where the seams aren't obvious. To pick up on Ori's point about gender: gender seems to me to rarely be the way it is without a reason. To oversimplify horrendously, economics initially drive the gender roles, which then get ossified into society. IF you create a collage where the economic system and the gender roles are at odds, and don't acknowledge that and come up with a plausible historical explanation for why that is, you end up with an unsatisfying world.
Reply
Ticky, here, because it's like she did just enough research to acknowledge that Scythian territory was amidst a bunch of cultures, but not enough either to mimic or to invent for herself any ways in which they would exist, coexist, interact, contend...except (a) gang rape, intermittently and (b) being mistaken for a bear. Meh. :P
Reply
Even if the book was dreadful, at least some good writing came out of it!
Reply
I didn't know till afterwards that this Hoffman also wrote Practical Magic.
Reply
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment