The first blog post I wrote and a very important one at that. Delany’s ideas about science fiction has guided me throughout the majority of the course and shaped my interpretations of the future readings of the class.
1: Delany
The most interesting point of Delany’s “About 5,750 Words” is the idea that a written work is an image that is constantly being reworked by every progressive word. From the first word in the novel, your mind is trying to piece together an image or world that the words fit into. Delany uses the example of “The red sun is high, the blue low” (7). He explains that the sentence begins in a somewhat realistic fashion with a red sun, but the second half introducing a second blue sun is what brings us right out of reality. The image of two neighboring suns in our sky breaks our rules and assumptions of how this worlds. In science fiction, the writer is allowed a broader image to create because science fiction is a world of “has not happened,” in which the reader is forced to accept every possible reality that the author presents them. This impossibility of two suns is allowed in science fiction because of this. Delany explains that there are three levels of subjunctivity: naturalistic, fantasy, and science fiction. Naturalistic fiction “must be made in accordance with what we know of the personally observable” (11). These works are supposed to be possible in our world. Fantasy is more lenient in its scope, however there are usually reasonable explanations for any deviations from our experiences. Science fiction is the least restrictive of all the levels. It moves beyond our experiences and “make[s] our corrective process in accord with what we know of the physically explainable universe” (12). This freedom allows authors to “produce the most violent leaps of imagery” (12). Science fiction is a type of writing that forces the reader to examine the images created by the author with a perspective beyond what we have experienced personally. Delany explains that in a science fiction work, we must consider if a ‘winged dog’ has forelegs or not, if the dog has working wings, if the rest of the body has modifications to support these wings, and more (12). Mysticism is a core part of great works of science fiction.
The advantage of Delany’s definition of science fiction is the raw freedom that it provides the author. The open mind that the reader is forced to have lets the author create outrageous worlds and realities that few other types of fiction can compare to. The very extremes of humanity can be explored, such as utopian and dystopian societies. These worlds can deal with how humanity deals with very different settings and technologies, or it could explore radically different human societies and behaviors. Through the use of this idea of imagery, authors can effectively create the feeling of cognitive estrangement that is core to most of the other readings.