I'm not a science fiction reader ...

[tamaranth]

"My intention was that the book would read like a science fiction novel to a science fiction reader, and that it would read like a mainstream novel to a mainstream reader, which is the point, that you bring your own perceptions to everything in a very compelling sort of way. So, it's always tricky for me, because I don't want to dodge the question, and I don't want to hide the fact that I envisioned the novel in a certain way, but I also don't want my vision to determine the way other people envision it." (author interview, Strange Horizons)


I'm going to put this in numbered points for ease of argument.

1. I've just finished Sarah Canary, by Karen Joy Fowler. This is the third or fourth time I've tried to read it: previously, I've bounced off it. Not sure why.

2. Long long ago in a galaxy far away the early days of Acnestis and my very earliest forays into SF fandom, I remember hearing this novel discussed as SF. I don't remember details of those discussions. Aside: this may indicate I'm immune to spoilers ...

3. Reading with the knowledge that it was SF, I found the SF content vague and arguable. Which is not to say it's not an SF novel: just that the evidence for SC being something other than a stray, mute female is circumstantial.

4. The element that I picked up on as most SFnal (Chin's final conversation with Harold, with its implications of migration) doesn't seem to be mentioned in any of the criticism.

5. Is Harold right about being immortal, then?

6. The quotation at the top of this post, from Fowler, irritates me, but I'm not sure why. Perhaps it's the assumption that one is an SF reader or a mainstream reader. (In which case I suspect I'm a mainstream reader, because I didn't react as an SF reader.) Perhaps it's the passivity: if anyone has a right to shape how a work is perceived, it's the author of that work. Does Fowler want to be all things to all readers? It's a neat trick but I'm not convinced that Sarah Canary pulls it off.

7. On the other hand, it's an impressive novel whichever way one reads it.

Comments

[pigeonhed.livejournal.com]

One of the crucial feminist themes of Sarah Canary for me was the way each person who encounters her judges her and interprets her nature in the way they want her to be. That the same loosely applies to those who expect and therfore get SF, and those who don't is an interesting parallel.

For me it could be SF but there is nothing there that says it cannot not be SF, and therfore the default as I see it is that Sarah canary is not SF.