Austin Green

09 May 2019

Essay 1.

Literature Club: No Genre Allowed

There is no singular gatekeeper deciding what counts as literary and what does not. It is a collective reception or reaction to a text that deems it literary. Recently, a discussion has emerged questioning whether works that feature genre tropes or conventions should be allowed into this hallowed club known as literary. While there are examples of genre works that definitely do not deserve to be labeled literary, that does not mean that all genre work should be overlooked or discarded. Like most art, labeling of texts is important and helps the art find an appreciative audience. The problem however, is limiting a work to a single label or preventing the art to be seen as anything other than an initial label.

When looking over the texts we have read in the second half of our Utopian course, it is easy to add genre labels to these texts and force them into having single identities. Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed mentions a spaceship on page 2? Let’s put that one into the Science Fiction bin.  Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale? They made a show of it. File it under Popular Fiction. Atwood’s Oryx and Crake has a blurb on the back about a plague ending mankind. It goes on the Post-Apocalyptic shelf next to the Walking Dead. It can be under Popular Fiction once the show comes out; if a show comes out.

These brash categorizations serve no purpose but to limit the audience to a certain text, while also limiting the craft included between the front and back covers. It certainly does not allow them to be categorized together as utopian texts. While labeling these texts as solely belonging to one category may be a bit of an extreme, it reveals how absurd the idea of preventing them from being considered potentially literary is. Just by grouping the three texts has shown that meaning can be found when reading them together. For the purpose of our class, it was looking at them through a utopian lens, but they could easily be viewed under the lens of science or speculative fiction and readers could find and make connections between the three.

Reading these together allowed the class to see the move in utopian literature from its early guidebook-like texts to its transition to reflect more modern novels. The ideas and tropes of utopian texts still remain though. The strive for the uncorrupted world (whether through methods of good or bad) can be seen in these texts. While it may be a nightmare world for Offred in The Handmaid’s Tale, the new Republic of Gilead is attempting to create what they see as a perfect world or society. It all is a matter of perspective, which is summarized in the often repeated-throughout-the-semester motto of “Every utopia is somebody’s dystopia.” In The Dispossessed, Le Guin mirrors this sentiment right from the start. In describing a wall, she writes “Like all walls it was ambiguous, two-faced. What was inside it and what was outside it depended upon which side of it you were on.” Utopia and Dystopia are the opposite sides of the same coin. Utopias descend into Dystopias. Dystopias attempts to ascend to Utopias.

The course-site for our class describes Literature of ideas as “an occasional, often casual critical phrase describing writing that serves thought more than pleasure, or content more than style.” What authors Atwood and Le Guin do though, is offer the reader this same “Literature of Ideas” that serves thought and content, but also extends itself to also provide pleasure and style for the reader. No text is ever singularly literary. They all begin with other classifications or genres and are moved into the category of literary by the collective mass of gatekeepers. Once there, though, it is easy to look at them and think of them as always having had some magical unknown strictly literary quality; of always being there. That is not the case, though.

Just the fact a discussion is taking place over whether genre-infused or genre-heavy texts should or could be considered literary bodes well for the texts being questioned. Once the metaphorical door is opened, it is hard to close. Ultimately, in consideration of being deemed literary, genre does not matter. What matters is what the text is saying, and how it is saying it. A well intentioned novel written poorly might not stand the test of time, but the same intention provided in a deliberate, finely crafted way can elevate the intention even higher. No matter the genre, or sub-genre, or category, if the text is successfully crafted and full of meaning, it should have the possibility of sitting proudly on the shelf not just with, but as literary fiction. There is unlimited room on this shelf, and Atwood and Le Guin sit comfortably on it, as they should.

Essay 2. (Personal interest in subject)

Holding onto Humanity in a Virtual Utopia

Objective 4d. How do literature and literacy appear in utopian or dystopian cultures? Include computer literacy: What is a “virtual utopia” in science fiction and technology? How has utopian speculation, communication, and organization adapted to the Web? Does the Web itself assume utopian or millennial attributes? Can virtual reality appear utopian while actual reality becomes dystopian?

From the start of the course, one of the objectives that stood out to me was 4d. It was mainly the last question being asked that my imagination ran with. I instantly thought of examples from tv and film that could tie into this question. In a real-world utopia, power could eventually corrupt, people's wants and desires change, or the old stand-by, and the idea of every utopia is somebody’s dystopia are all examples of why or how an actual real world utopian society could probably never sustain itself. The idea of moving this virtually, where every need or want could potentially be met without any real hurdle or hassle sounds like a legitimate solution or way a utopia could finally work. There is no longer a separation of classes. There is no longer a need for even currency. Every need could be in abundance. Everyone could actually be on an even playing field. No one needs to take the unwanted jobs. No one has to do the hard work. How could it possibly be dystopian? I did not see it.

After exploring this idea in my second research post, I started to see how wrong I was. The I’m-gonna-use-this-in-each-essay phrase that repeated itself throughout the course of “Every Utopia is somebody’s Dystopia” rang true again when doing taking a closer look at what was really going on in a particular episode of a  television show titled “Black Mirror” that dealt with the exact scenario. A pair of lovers decide to spend eternity together in a virtual utopia. I concluded that post by stating “I think the idea of actual virtual created worlds we could somehow download our consciousness into may seem like an exciting way to live forever, but ultimately it would fail just as other utopian attempts do. People would eventually lose interest in being a part of it, even if every need is successfully met for them. This idea though, feels like it could only live in fiction. Even if we could find a way to copy our own thoughts and consciousness, it would be just that, a copy. A fake digital version of yourself running around, separate from the actual, real-world you.” Just like Utopias and Dystopias being different sides of the same coin, so are happiness and sadness; misery and joy. You need to experience one in order to appreciate the other. The removal of sadness or the “bad” would ultimately make the “good” meaningless within its normalcy.

As we read the texts in the second half of the course, I wanted to see if this idea of Utopian societies not truly being seen as Utopian by the members on the supposed “good” side of the flip. None of the texts deal with the exact situation that the television show does, but we can still make some connections from the course material back to the idea of if eternal existence in a virtual utopia could occur.

In Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Offred’s unhappiness becomes her norm. Instead of a Utopia, she is living in a Dystopia. The Commander though, the one living on the self-created Utopian side admits to Offred that “We thought we could do better” and that “Better never means better for everyone...It always means worse, for some.” Even on the Utopian side members are willing to admit it is not better for everyone. Here is someone fighting to build a Utopia knowing it is not truly that. The commander’s words reflect blame off of him. They thought they could do better, while admitting this better is not inclusive of everyone. He knows his own better means others will have it worse, and is ok with that. Just like in the Black Mirror episode, the Utopia falls apart in the details.

We saw this happen outlook on the side creating Utopia’s in other novels as well. In Atwood’s Oryx and Crake, Crake knew Jimmy would kill him for slitting Oryx’s throat. He even tells Jimmy “I’m counting on you.” The entire plot to end humanity was Crake’s, but he wanted no part in what came after. He was killed by Jimmy, but it could really be viewed as a suicide. He knew the reaction Jimmy would have to his actions. He could not live with himself knowing the cost of what his plan called for.

Looking forward, I think the plan to continue researching this idea further would be to move towards looking into science fiction literature for any examples of stories that line up with the idea of inhabitants forgoing real life for a like in a virtual utopia. Author Neal Stephenson has a new book coming out later in the summer titled Fall; Or, Dodge in Hell that appears to fall in line with this idea pretty directly.  Even the book's summary includes pieces found in our course objective: “Dodge’s family has his brain scanned and its data structures uploaded and stored in the cloud, until it can eventually be revived. In the coming years, technology allows Dodge’s brain to be turned back on. It is an achievement that is nothing less than the disruption of death itself. An eternal afterlife—the Bitworld—is created, in which humans continue to exist as digital souls. But this brave new immortal world is not the Utopia it might first seem . . .”I am sure that Stephenson is just the first of many sharing ideas in literature combining Utopias and virtual realities. This course has given me a solid grounding for Utopian literature, which is needed when comparing its portrayal and success in other texts in different environments.

Essay 3. Web Highlights

Exploring the Final Frontier

The Web Highlights portion of our final exam assignment gives us (the students) a good opportunity to take a look and review the final exams from the previous times this course has been offered. I always like to start with these, and see how they compare to the ideas I have for my own essay. I usually can find a few elements I may have otherwise missed that should be included in a successful version of the assignment. I decided to stick to the final exam from past courses for these reasons, and not branch out to other midterms or research posts.  My main goal was to search for common threads between them that resonated with me, and the ideas and outlooks I formed over the material during the semester.

The focus on my first essay is going to explore genre/speculative fiction as literary fiction, so I was drawn into Melissa Hodgkins’ 2015 essay “Oryx and Crake: Dystopian Speculative Fiction.” In her discussion of Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake, Hodgkins points out that the novel should not be in the midst of a tug of war between speculative or literary, as it also includes elements of “the Bildungsroman, quest romances, survivor stories and revenge tragedies.” I agree with the sentiment that labeling texts as simply one thing closes off the discussion of possibilities that can come from identifying it in other ways.  The conversation then smoothly transition into a topic we do not get to discuss much in our Literature courses: authorial intent. Most of the authors we read have long since passed, but a benefit from such a contemporary text is that the author is still around to discuss things we would only be able to guess at, like intent. Hodgkins provides a quote from Atwood, explaining what the novel is attempting to address, “The what if of Oryx and Crake is simply, What if we continue on the road we’re already on? How slippery is the slope?” Hodgkins explains how the novel connects to dystopian literature and its tropes before making these connections back to the real world. By bringing the reader through these ideas, it showed how the text of this speculative fiction novel raises itself above normal formulaic genre fair. The text becomes powerful, and its this power that allows it to sit comfortably in the literary fiction shelf.

The next final exam I reviewed was Lori Wheeler’s “Oryx and Crake: Disproving Utopia,” also from 2015. I was hooked from the opening line, “Margaret Atwood insists that her writing is speculative fiction, not science fiction or dystopian fiction.” I continued on in hope for a discussion about the distinction between the two. For me, speculative fiction encapsulates both science fiction and dystopian fiction. You cannot separate speculative from the genre. Wheeler agrees noting “Oryx and Crake is proclaimed by Atwood to be speculative fiction, but I would classify it as a utopian / dystopian blend.” While describing the methods utopian and dystopian fiction work within each other (every utopia is someone’s dystopia/ every dystopia is utopia gone wrong), Wheeler takes us back to Atwood rejecting the claims of utopian or dystopian in favor of speculative. She notes about Atwood, “Her refusal of such classifications brings an interesting perspective on what is and is not possible, but the text of Crake does not perform any differently than other definitive texts of those genres.” Separating from genre and labeling as speculative does not change the genre tropes at work in the text. Wheeler concludes succinctly with “As a single text, Crake pushes the boundaries and blurs the lines between utopia and dystopia so that critics and readers can see not only the differences, but also the similarities between the two.  As a text, it embodies the cycle of blended utopian / dystopian genres, but what is more, it asks where those genres go next.” She provides an answer for the question of what elevates this work beyond normal genre fair. Wheeler suggests Atwood pushes these genres further than they have gone before. By reaching these new territories, the book elevates itself to something no longer just genre.

Moving back in time to 2013, the next final exam I read was Amy Sasser’s cleverly titled “Will it Blend? Oryx & Crake as a Genre-busting Exemplar Novel.” Comparing the novel’s blend of genres to a viral video of the time that tried blending random things in an industrial blender worked surprisingly well for me. It will definitely blend, but Sasser wanted to clarify it would blend well. The most interesting aspect of this essay to me was the discussion of the elements of science fiction included in the story. Speaking about the genetically mutated animals, Sasser writes “From green glowing bunny rabbits to strange hybrid beasts (pigoons, wolvogs, rakunks, chickie nobs, and more), these creatures were supposed to be encompassing the best of each animals traits while breeding out the bad, but the end result usually leaves something to be desired.  These uber-scientific creations fly in the face of natural selection, and make science—and man manipulating science—the god of the story.” The previous finals did a great job of comparing Oryx and Crake with its Utopian and Dystopian tropes and ideas, but Sasser gave room to explain how it features tropes and ideas of another genre as well. The metaphorical blender is not just mixing literary and speculative, but as Hodgkins also provided, also including a mix of many other genres and conventions. Sasser concludes that Atwood was able to successfully blend these genres creating “a pleasant and sometimes frightening walk through a different world.”

While these three finals mostly focused on a single text, it gave me a good idea about what works best when discussing genre, and what moments can be left unwritten or are unneeded. The main points each final is making mirror the point I plan on making in my own final. If the use of genre was formulaic and did nothing interesting or subverting, it would not be worthy of being elevated. That said, the use of a genre and its specific tropes by no means rules out a work from being literary.