“I don’t think science fiction is a very good name for it, but it’s the name that we’ve got. It is different from other kinds of writing, I suppose, so it deserves a name of its own. But where I can get prickly and combative is if I’m just called a sci-fi writer. I’m not. I’m a novelist and poet. Don’t shove me into your damn pigeonhole, where I don’t fit, because I’m all over. My tentacles are coming out of the pigeonhole in all directions.”
– Ursula K. Le Guin
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BrokenTune.booklikes.com/post/1761779/post
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She wrote fantasy more than science fiction, but it makes it no less pretentious of her. Writing sci-fi or fantasy makes you no less of a writer. It just determines where the fans can find you on the shelf at the bookstore. If she and others like her would have just claimed any of the specialized subgenres for what they were, that “pigeon hole” might have seemed more prestigious and less limiting as pop culture got trained. My two Republic credits for whatever they’re worth.
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That’s not what I got from the quote (or the interview) at all. She had made peace with the fact that her fantasy/sci-fi writing was labelled as sci-fi. What I understood she got at was that while a book may fit into a category, an author – on she in particular – does not. She wrote criticisms and essays, a translation of a Taoist book, and other stuff – Lavinia was historical fiction.
So, what I got from this was a criticism of trying to limit an author’s capability by putting a label on the author as a whole, which could prevent other readers from exploring that author.
And I agree with her there.
I always thought of her as a sci-fi writer and didn’t even discover my love for her essays until very late because of that preconception.
I still just can’t read her fantasy/sci-fi works – they just don’t work for me. (Tho, I’ll keep trying.) Her essays on the other hand … can’t get enough of them!
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Labels are for marketing and quick categorization. They not shoehorns. Never have been. But when people go hunting for books, they’re going to their favorite section to browse all the offerings, which means she could be found in various sections. That’s a good thing. Makes it harder to find her by accident if all of fiction is just one giant section, just as it would be for nonfiction. I don’t disagree with the idea of what she’s saying, but it’s essentially a non-issue. A lot of sci-fi writers back in the day used to say the same thing because sci-fi was looked at as a “lesser” genre. Well… not so much anymore because writers pushed the issue and made it popular.
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And that is what she goes on to applaud further along in the article.
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Ah. Well, there you have it!
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Again, my reading here is different. I cannot agree with applying the marketing strategy of a single work to the author as a whole.
And to me this is what she was getting at, too.
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I don’t agree with that either, which is why I would put different genres in different categories so people could find it. Readers of one find her, like her work, explore, learn she’s done other types of writing, and expand their horizons accordingly. That’s why I think this is a non-issue. From where I’m sitting, she’s most disparaging that more people haven’t found her other works. But who can say? I hear the same kind of gripes in the music industry too.
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