fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2659 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2659 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

__________________________________________________

02.

__________________________________________________

03.

__________________________________________________

04.

__________________________________________________

05.

__________________________________________________

06.

__________________________________________________

07.

__________________________________________________

08.

__________________________________________________

09.

__________________________________________________

10.

__________________________________________________

11.

__________________________________________________

12.

__________________________________________________

13.

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 062 secrets from Secret Submission Post #380.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - posted twice ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Oh yeah. It's kind of strange talking about it in a thread where we've both been positive about Vance and recommended him, but you're definitely right about the problematic aspects. Very old fashioned views on gender, and I don't think it's even necessarily just shades of racism - I think he was actually just a pretty conscious supporter of colonialism and imperialism.

Like, you mention The Gray Prince, which is kind of a fascinating example for the same reasons it's atypical, because the politics is much more on the surface. You said barely-veiled racism, but you could be more precise - it's thinly-veiled apologia for Rhodesia. Apologia of a very specific sort, to be sure (I have a lot of thoughts about this) but still apologia (and IIRC he had visited Rhodesia shortly before he wrote the story). And it's one of those things where once you notice it, you can see a lot of similar things throughout his work, although much more submerged. There's a lot of stuff like that.

I think he's still worth reading, for all that. You don't have to agree with him on any of that stuff, and the style and the fervid imagination and the irony and the humor are still there. And I definitely agree that it's almost a period piece, something out of a specific time in history and a specific milieu, turned into material for science fiction. Hell, at the very least he's much more straightforward and honest and intelligent about it than a lot of science fiction writers of his generation were.

Also, that's a pretty amazing guess on his biography - he did, in fact, serve in the Merchant Marine, I believe in southeast Asia.

Edited 2014-04-15 04:34 (UTC)

The Asia guess was because of the Yip in the Cadwal trilogy. The way the species is presented, in appearance, their population growth and their casual cruelty, it's obvious they're a stand in for some Asian peoples or other. Vance never exactly descends to outright racism. More often, the cultural differences are a source of twisted humour. The Yip find humans as unknowable as humans do the Yip in their turn. And the greatest evil in the book ends up being caused by humans. The Yip find humans as randomly cruel and bizarre as the humans do them, and both are right.

There's always sailing in a Vance book. It's a motif of his. At first I thought it was just a hobby (it probably is as well) but there's too much detail on a more professional level (like in Night Lamp) for it to be anything else.

There's also a certain type of woman Vance goes for in the books. Short haired (a cap of curls is the frequent description), petite, young, with an unformed, almost pre-pubescent body. That's another cause for concern, how lovingly he describes his heroines' lack of womanly growth. Although they're also usually strong, independent characters it's a little unsettling. Older women with larger figures, or god forbid, a mature sex life, are usually presented as evil shrews.

I decided not to find out too much about Vance's biography precisely because I feared I might find out details like the Rhodesia thing. I'm guessing it was a commentary on the rise of local black polititians there who refused to know their colonial place. It's one of his weaker books, for sure. It suffers from Vance himself not being as nuanced in own his argument as he usually is. Now I know that it's about Rhodesia I'm sad. Although I've met white people from Zimbabwe, in this day and age, who are still a whole lot more racist than this dated book.

Some of my favourite books of his are where there's an environmental storyline (like the Cadwal books, and some of his short stories). He does that very well and feels even ahead of his time. It's the economic and political pressures that he deals with well. Human weakness that has nothing to do with the unspoilt nature itself. Although nature itself in his books is also dangerous and terrifying.

I agree he's a period piece, and a reminder that attitudes about colonialisation were complex and also accepted by intelligent people. Like when I read Aristophanes, and the place of slaves and women is just taken for granted, even if it's humorously and intelligently explored.

I've never met anyone who was even more into Vance than me before.

[ SECRET POST #2659 ]

Re: Fantasy/sci-fi book recommendation?

Re: Fantasy/sci-fi book recommendation?