literary vs. science fiction, and joy

[mindstalk]

My fiction reading has always been mostly SF/F. My mother hated that and would excoriate me for it, without giving a good sense of what I was missing. For my part I didn't have a clear idea of why my preferences went that way, other than being fascinated with cool worlds and magic, or something.

I'm currently re-reading Lolita with a friend, and am realizing a difference between the stuff I'm drawn to and the literary fiction I have read, guided in large part by gifts from my parents. And that difference is likable characters. Kind, possibly heroic, taking a non-sordid joy in life, people I might want to meet and walk with if they were real.

Lolita's Humbert could have been some kind and intellectually interesting person, tormented by his passion for 'nymphets', but instead he seems, so far, to be a shallow sociopath who doesn't really see any other humans as people.

Life Before Man: the three main characters aren't horrible people, but memory says the book is dominated by their dreary adulterous love triangle. At least two of them are paleontologists working in a museum, but I recall no sense of joy and fun leavening the book.

Iain M. Banks: one of the most 'literary' of modern SF writers, and I don't think he's written a human character I like. Maybe Zakalwe, he at least has drive and verve. The human members of the utopian Culture all struck me as hopelessly grumpy, or shallow; technically they're all very nice and moral people but that didn't save them.  I keep saying 'human' because his AI characters are in fact charming and likable, altruistic and funny and having a purpose to their lives.

On the flip side, the one 'literary' author I regularly re-read is Jane Austen, with, hey presto! attractive and likeable main characters, especially Liz and Jane Bennett, or Anne Elliot, or Catherine and the Tilney kids from Northanger Abbey.

Favorite SF?  Some are Bujold, Pratchett, Steerswoman, Hodgell, Liaden.  Generally with kickass characters.  Least favorite Pratchett?  Nation, Dodger, Dark Side of the Sun -- weaker in attractive characters than Discworld or the Carpet People.

Not everyone is kind; I've liked most of Brust's books, and early Vlad, or Jack Agyar, aren't brimming with kindness and heroism.  Vlad's snarky and amusing, more so than Humbert Humbert. And, well, I don't actually re-read Agyar tons...

As books/plots I consider the Liaden books kind of candy, but re-reading them is great, because the members of Clan Korval are mostly great people.

Comments

[elusiveat]

Totally hear you on wanting to read about likeable characters.

Two books of literary fiction that come to mind that I like, and that have likeable characters are _In the Skin of a Lion_ by Michael Ondaatje and _Their Eyes Were Watching God_ by Zora Neale Hurston.

[heron61]

Well said, I completely agree. Also, while 98+% of what I read is SF&F, I've had read and enjoyed literary fiction, but in all cases it's literary fiction written before WWI. In addition to almost all English language litfic written after that era having unlikeable characters, there's also the issue of the CIA using the Iowa Writer's Workshop to turn post 1930s American litfic into completely worthless crap by stripping out anything like a social conscience from it. I have no idea if that's also the reason so much litfic from that era is also exceptionally bleak, but it certainly is. From my PoV, pre-WWI litfic is a mixed bag - some of it, like Moby Dick is well done, but also very much not my thing, other works are excellent, but I've yet to see anything described at litfic from after (at latest) 1930 that was worth reading.

On a related note, I immediately thought of Tim Pratt's Doors of Sleep when I read this - the protagonist is a genuinely good and humane individual who basically decided that since he has no choice about bopping through the multiverse everytime he falls asleep, he'll do his best to help out wherever he ends up.

[mindstalk]

I did like re-reading Moby Dick as an adult, though I haven't made a habit of it. But I view it as an honorary SF novel, a detailed look at an alien world, complete with chapter-long infodumps, the book is half infodump about whales and whaling and the whale penis.

Not sure where Count of Monte Cristo falls in all this. Perhaps unlikable characters can be saved by sufficiently interesting plot. I guess Nabokov's thing might be "use of language" and I don't care enough about that. Banks has the culture, though I haven't re-read Culture books in a long time...

Interesting to hear about your WWI split, and I'd forgotten about the CIA thing.

[brainwane]

Do you want recommendations/examples of mimetic fiction that has likable characters? If you just wanted to say "here's a thing I noticed" and hearing counterexamples is annoying I'll be quiet.

[mindstalk]

Sure, hit me.

[nathanielbuildsatesseract]

Huh. This would explain why I hated so many of the works we read in high school English classes. Off the top of my head, the one's I actually liked were Shakespeare's plays, Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby, Huckleberry Finn, and Cat's Eye. Senior year we got to choose most of the books we read, which meant a lot of science fiction.

It might also explain why some people (i.e., me) enjoy books that other people hate, if their personality matrices better match certain types of character.

[mindstalk]

Could also be them putting less weight on characters they like or identify with, instead valuing exploration of psychology, or the use of language, or something.

[nathanielbuildsatesseract]

That's what I figure the ultimate motivation is, rather than any particular love (especially since my understanding is that at least some of the secondary reading curriculum is designed by committee).

[mindstalk]

Oh, I just meant why people like my parents loved Nabokov and Rushdie and other modern litfix, wasn't saying anything about curriculum committees.

[nathanielbuildsatesseract]

In that case, I'm largely just in "can't relate" territory.