Question of plausibility in Small Rain.

[David Morris]

Humanize, de-humanize, whatever.  I havn't a clue what these words are supposed
to mean.  But I think I do understand what WillZant is getting at.  Science
fiction (generally, not all) is more concerned with things than with people. 
The characters are there in order to play out a scenario that centers on, or is
enabled by, some sort of technology.  Rarely do the characters become very
"real."  The same can be said about Pynchon's characters, however they are
subjected to scenarios dealing with issues other than technology.

David Morris

--- John Bailey <johnbonbailey at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >From: William Zantzinger <williamzantzinger at yahoo.com>
> >
> >It sure does read like Sci-Fi at times and why shouldn't it.
> >  Fantasy, fairy tale, Romance, Gothic Romance  and science fiction have
much in common. Think of Swift or Pynchon. Pynchon defends Sci-Fi in his
Luddite essay. One of the complaints that critics of Pynchon are always
bringing up is his failure to create human characters. We should note that this
is a critique of Sci-Fi generally. Of course the excuse, if we want to insist
that it is an excuse, is that the technological world of the sci-fi characters
has de-humanized them.
> >
> 
> Science fiction is a very humanist genre. It humanises technology, science,
politics etc. It personifies abstract concepts and literalises ideas which can
only be talked around in realist fiction. It is almost completely concerned
with humanity and obsessively dissects what it means to be human. It just does
this in a non-realist manner (it's more complicated than that, of course). If
characters are 'de-humanised' in SF, the world they inhabit is made alive,
animated, made human and transcendent at the same time. This is how I see P's
works as related to science fiction.
> 
> I'm not that into science fiction writing, though, for these same reasons. A
literature which is the opposite of humanism would be well worth reading, in my
eyes. I guess concrete poetry might come close.

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