Week Thirteen: Literary Speculation

by - 8:47 PM

Photo of Margaret Atwood  by Rannie Turingan
This week we are considering the way in which the mainstream of literary writing has embraced the impulse of speculative fiction and sometimes its genre codes and markers as well. Its the quality of writing that makes such works literary, but often these works provide many unexpected pleasures because they are free of the expectations associated with specific genre. There are two basic types of literary speculation, one in which the writer is writing within the codes of genre but has literary pretensions or at least a literary result. This writer is usually associated with the genre but creates work that crosses over into the literary mainstream. Such writers as Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut, or William Gibson are writers of this type.  The second type is when the writer is usually associated with mainstream literary work but chooses to use some of the tropes or codes of specualtive genre in a work. Such writers might include Doris Lessing, Michael Chabon or Margaret Atwood.  Atwood's novel, Oryx and Crake is this week's spotlight novel. You can read that if you choose.

 If you don't read the Atwood novel I would like you read one of these short stories:  "The Distance to the Moon," or "The Aquatic Uncle" by Italo Calvino; "Seventh Voyage" by Stanislaw Lem. 

 Next week we will be discussing satirical science fiction, and the future of speculation.

 Here a link to this week's Activity Page.

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1 comments

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