Eastercon: "It's Just a Story": China Mieville's GOH Feature

[tamaranth]

I'm writing up and posting, separately, notes on each panel that I attended at Eastercon. They're date-stamped with the date of the actual panel. I'll post an entry with links to all of 'em once I've finished writing up notes.

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Saturday 11:00: Guest of Honour: China Miéville: "For God's Sake It's Just A Story! A Reader's Guide to Ruining SF."
- On whether the author's intention matters: on whether the original context in which a work was created matters. ('No' to both.) So it's perfectly valid to interpret an old text in light of current thinking.
- Adverse reaction to political reading is based on fear of books and guilt about the society that created them. (A great deal here on the innocence or guilt of literature.)
- Authors shouldn't argue with reviewers, except about strictly factual matters. They're not qualified. Some authors are good critics of their own work: some aren't. (Later, in response to audience question: some readers have discovered aspects of CM's own work that he was unaware of. No examples though.)
- when can a reader ignore statements of authorial intent, such as Rowling's revelations about Dumbledore? All the time: if not in text, doesn't count.
- cleaning up Enid Blyton's books (renaming Fanny to Franny, for example) deprives a whole generation of children of the opportunities for dirty jokes.
- Zenna Henderson's 'People' books as Mormon propaganda
- on Lovecraft's xenophobia: "the shoggoths, which look a little bit like Russians..." Er, right.
- "Ezra Pound's poetry would not be what it is if he didn't hate Jews so much"
- The Sparrow -- a queer-friendly book that is homophobic because of the focus on fear of penetration as the worst possible thing that can befall character. (I have a big problem with this: why fear of penetration rather than fear of rape? And Sandoz doesn't think that is the worst thing that happened to him: he thinks the child's death is worse. I tried to corner China to discuss, but we got sidetracked.)

Very interesting remark from audience: "Is the worst insult to a book to say that it's not worth interpreting?"

Comments

[marypcb.livejournal.com]

wouldn't that be more generally misandrist? penetration in the biological sense being more male-on-X than necessarily male-on-male? and even if it is, doesn't that focus only reflect the fear of the character (being penetrated = becoming women and weak or Sekritly Liking It are the usual pop psychologies) rather than authorial intent about the book. I know Sandoz is a character painted in colours for us to like, but usual caveats on character/author differential.

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

CM was talking specifically about male fear of penetration by a male. I still maintain that Sandoz was a lot less concerned about that than about his loss of faith and subsequent murder. And CM very keen to stress that authorial intent counts for nowt!