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Had to share...
Mar. 13th, 2006 10:22 pmI got a kick out of this exchange from "Unreal Estates," a transcript of a conversation between CSL, Kingsley Amis, and Brian Aldiss that's reprinted in On Stories:
Lewis: If only the modern highbrow critics could be induced to take [sci-fi] seriously...
Amis: Do you think they ever can?
Lewis: No, the whole present dynasty has got to die and rot before anything can be done at all.
Aldiss: Splendid!
Amis: What's holding them up, do you think?
Lewis: Matthew Arnold made the horrible prophecy that literature would increasingly replace religion. It has, and it's taken on all the features of bitter persecution, great intolerance, and traffic in relics. All literature becomes a sacred text. A sacred text is always exposed to the most monstrous exegesis; hence we have the spectacle of some wretched scholar taking a pure divertissement written in the seventeenth century and getting the most profound ambiguities and social criticisms out of it, which of course aren't there at all.... It's the discovery of the mare's nest by the pursuit of the red herring. [Laughter] This is going to go on long after my lifetime; you may be able to see the end of it, I shan't.
Amis: You think this is so integral a part of the Establishment that people can't overcome--
Lewis: It's an industry, you see. What would all the people be writing D. Phil. theses on if this prop were removed?
Amis: An instance of this mentality the other day: somebody referred to 'Mr Amis's I suspect rather affected enthusiasm for science-fiction....'
Lewis: Isn't that maddening!
Amis: You can't really like it.
Lewis: You must be pretending to be a plain man or something.... I've met the attitude again and again. YOu've probably reached the stage too of having theses written on yourself. I receved a letter from an American examiner asking, 'Is it true that you meant this and this and this?' A writer of a thesis was attributing to me views which I have explicitly contradicted in the plainest possible English. They'd be much wiser to write about the dead, who can't answer.
And anyone who's read much lit theory knows EXACTLY what he's talking about. :D
Lewis: If only the modern highbrow critics could be induced to take [sci-fi] seriously...
Amis: Do you think they ever can?
Lewis: No, the whole present dynasty has got to die and rot before anything can be done at all.
Aldiss: Splendid!
Amis: What's holding them up, do you think?
Lewis: Matthew Arnold made the horrible prophecy that literature would increasingly replace religion. It has, and it's taken on all the features of bitter persecution, great intolerance, and traffic in relics. All literature becomes a sacred text. A sacred text is always exposed to the most monstrous exegesis; hence we have the spectacle of some wretched scholar taking a pure divertissement written in the seventeenth century and getting the most profound ambiguities and social criticisms out of it, which of course aren't there at all.... It's the discovery of the mare's nest by the pursuit of the red herring. [Laughter] This is going to go on long after my lifetime; you may be able to see the end of it, I shan't.
Amis: You think this is so integral a part of the Establishment that people can't overcome--
Lewis: It's an industry, you see. What would all the people be writing D. Phil. theses on if this prop were removed?
Amis: An instance of this mentality the other day: somebody referred to 'Mr Amis's I suspect rather affected enthusiasm for science-fiction....'
Lewis: Isn't that maddening!
Amis: You can't really like it.
Lewis: You must be pretending to be a plain man or something.... I've met the attitude again and again. YOu've probably reached the stage too of having theses written on yourself. I receved a letter from an American examiner asking, 'Is it true that you meant this and this and this?' A writer of a thesis was attributing to me views which I have explicitly contradicted in the plainest possible English. They'd be much wiser to write about the dead, who can't answer.
And anyone who's read much lit theory knows EXACTLY what he's talking about. :D
