Teaching Science Fiction

James Sallis informs us that:

When teaching science fiction, I always suggest that to fully understand a story, one must know the period in which it was written. A story written in the 1940s, for instance, may well come from a different mind-set and from wholly different conventions-- effectively from another world -- than our own. One has little trouble getting the story of ''Invasion of the Body Snatchers," or even understanding in large part the sources of its power: fear of being taken over, the threat of loss of self and identity, the primal fear of sleep and what it may steal from us. But how greatly is that understanding enhanced by the knowledge that, written and first filmed in the heyday of the Cold War, ''Body Snatchers" is as much as anything about the great Communist takeover?

Sallis seems to be suggesting that science fiction in particular requires from later readers a knowledge of "the period in which it was written" because it more intensively reflects the social anxieties and concerns prevalent during that period (although this does clash with Sallis's further contention, in the next paragraph, that SF often "taps into grand themes and archetypes"). Presumably, Invasion of the Body Snatchers might still reach current readers because it examines "the threat of loss of self and identity," a "universal" theme, but our "understanding" of the novel will be deepened if we are aware of the way it also embodied the local and contemporaneous fear of "the great Communist takeover."

Doesn't Sallis have it exactly backward? Isn't it our appreciation of something like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the cultural codedness of which is by now surpassingly obvious, and was probably apparent enough even at the time, strengthened when we realize it is also--indeed, mostly--about such things as "the primal fear of sleep," etc.? Sallis himself seems to indicate as much later in his essay when he writes of the way in which the "art of the thing takes over" in good fiction, but why does he then also insist that calling attention to the codednes, returning us to the "period in which it was written," is such a revelatory act? That a work of fiction might have contingent ties to the social realities of its time is surely not surprising. How does an acknowledgment of those realities "enhance" our reading in any important way? Unless you think the social context is likely to be more interesting than the book itself?

The problem here probably lies in the extreme vagueness of Sallis's use of the word "understanding." Does he mean simply that we "understand" that the social context exists? This seems more a matter of fact than of interpretation. Knowing this fact surely doesn't help us much in deciding whether something like Invasion of the Body Snatchers is worth our attention. Does he mean that considering the social context is a means of "understanding" in a more concrete sense, that it is an act of literary criticism per se that illuminates a feature of the work otherwise only dimly perceived? But wouldn't identifying such a work as primarily a political allegory only diminish its appeal, affix it to its historical "period" so firmly as to make reading it mostly superfluous, literally an "academic" question? To me, James Sallis makes reading science fiction seem more like an effort to uncover "mind-set" and debate "conventions" than a potentially satisfying reading experience.

Comments

[Ian]

I think that having a understanding of the historical context -- a New Historicist approach -- for a piece can enrich the reading experience. But it's only one particular reading and not the only reading available. There's Sallis' limitation. The same strains that were present at the time Invasion was written are still present now. If you're on the right side of the spectrum, it's terrorism that threatens. If you're not on right side, it's the right that threatens, religious fundamentalism, in my view.

I think this is why George Clooney's new movie dramatizing the McCarthy period is going to be particularly allusive. I think he chose it to because it offers a kind of cover. If criticized that his film is criticizing the fascist Bush, Clooney can say, I'm making a historical piece, there's nothing in it about Bush.

[Robert Nagle]

Another good work to use as an example: 1984. It was mandatory high school reading for me because schools wanted us to beware of the evils of communism. I dutifully read it and felt the fear.

Interestingly though, when I reread the book after living/teaching in 2 communist countries, I found the book much more relevant to contemporary US culture than anything dreamed up by Soviet officials. The ideology and theory now seems somewhat dated, but the novel seems to be less about collectivism than the act of resisting social messages and mass media repetition. I work at a company that plays CNN headline news (and commercials) in almost every communal room. Workers are bombarded with live unfiltered speeches by politicians and images glamorizing SUV usage, various cruise lines and investment companies. I am reminded of 1984 everyday.

(BTW, Mark Crispin Miller has a great diatribe about TV and 1984 in Boxed In. The problem, he argues, is not that Big Brother is watching us, but that our eyes remain glued to finding out what Big Media Celebrity is doing on the boobtube).

It can be interesting to read about the social context in which a work appears (ex. discuss the effect of Goethe's Werther on the suicide rate or Rushdie's book on Islamic fundamentalism). But there is also a risk of creating a media feeding frenzy; isn't the point of literary study to focus on textual issues rather than on why something became popular? You end up talking more sociology and less narrative.

As long as a work's historical context does not dominate a literary discussion, I see little harm in it. Yes, Body Snatchers gives a good opening for a discussion of McCarthyism, but spend too much time, and then people lose interest. For better or worse, younger generations miss the contextual allusions and instead spend more time locating a parallel in their own own time period. That is good.

Compare to Animal Farm, which is easier to read, more allegorical and (ironically) more fixed to a certain historical event. Which of the two is more inclined to be subject to reinterpretation over generations? Animal Farm as fable doesn't have much going for it except the hilarious parallel with the Bolshevik Revolution. 1984 tries to portray a credible world, a coherent philosophy and a way of coping with mind control. Which of the two is more likely to endure? A charming fable or a realistic nightmare?