In which we tackle sex

Sometimes one finds oneself in a curious confluence of ideas that starts the brain fluids flowing, although not necessarily to any conclusion. To wit, in this last week I happened to listen to a podcast about James Triptree Jr., one of the pioneering women in SF, I’m in the middle of listening to The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin, and on my Kindle I am finishing up reading The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders (a juror of the Otherwise Award, originally named after Triptree). There’s no rhyme or reason to this confluence. It’s just happenstance. 

 

One interesting thing is the difference 50 years makes in SF writing in general. I’ve remarked before about LeGuin worriting (I love that word) a theme to death, and while her content is anything but stodgy, her writing is definitely of another time. Anders, on the other hand, is as modern as today: the book just won the 2020 Locus for best SF novel. I’ve always been fascinated by the styles in art that define a moment in culture. The 1960s simply are not the 2020s. I’m not talking about the content so much as approach. Storytelling is both faster and more elliptical. Literary brushstrokes are shorter, looking one way close up and another way from a distance. Stories are told differently. My favorite way to explain the stylistic differences is to reference comics (or, if you prefer, graphic novels), which have a similar continuum. Take a look at 1950s Batman, and then take a look at 2020 Batman. Faster, more elliptical, shorter brushstrokes, a completely different gestalt. Art—all art—is moving that same way (at the moment).

 

As readers, we can enjoy the past and the present. It keeps us on our toes. As critics, we can try to explore it all in depth, to figure out what makes it tick. And as students of life, cogitating on a woman writer with a feminist slant whose success had to come with a male pseudonym, a feminist writer slicing and dicing ambisexuality in what has become an SF classic, and a prominent present-day trans writer creating a story where men barely play a role and the key to the story is another species entirely? 

 

As I said, it keeps the juices flowing.