Vinh’s post was one of the first I read when I first revisited HCommons to read the instructor feedback and the effort that he put into his writing stood out to me. That isn’t to say that the other blog posts had no effort put into them, but that Vinh’s was, from my perspective, particularly well written. I’m able to admit now that my fixation on one particular aspect of Delany’s writings made me lose focus on his overall message, so Vinh’s summary of the text brought Delaney’s other points more into focus for me. It gave me a fresh perspective on the text and helped me better understand Delaney’s main points. I also thought his writing style was very succinct; he was able to convey his main points with a minimum amount of words. I always had trouble trying to condense my rambling thoughts into only the significant parts, so this really stood out to me.
Vinh Nguyen 8/31:
1: Delaney
The most interesting point of Delany’s “About 5,750 Words” is the idea that a written work is an image that is constantly being reworked by every progressive word. In science fiction, the writer is allowed a broader image to create because science fiction is a world of “has not happened,” in which the reader is forced to accept every possible reality that the author presents them. Delany explains that there are three levels of subjunctivity: naturalistic, fantasy, and science fiction. Naturalistic fiction “must be made in accordance with what we know of the personally observable” (11). These works are supposed to be possible in our world. Fantasy is more lenient in its scope, however there are usually reasonable explanations for any deviations from our experiences. Science fiction is the least restrictive of all the levels. It moves beyond our experiences and “make[s] our corrective process in accord with what we know of the physically explainable universe” (12). This freedom allows authors to “produce the most violent leaps of imagery” (12). Science fiction is a type of writing that forces the reader to examine the images created by the author with a perspective beyond what we have experienced personally. Delany explains that in a science fiction work, we must consider if a ‘winged dog’ has forelegs or not, if the dog has working wings, if the rest of the body has modifications to support these wings, and more (12). Mysticism is a core part of great works of science fiction.
The advantage of Delany’s definition of science fiction is the raw freedom that it provides the author. The open mind that the reader is forced to have lets the author create outrageous worlds and realities that few other types of fiction can compare to. The very extremes of humanity can be explored, such as utopian and dystopian societies. These worlds can deal with how humanity deals with very different settings and technologies, or it could explore radically different human societies and behaviors.
A disadvantage of the focus on the images created through words is how easy it is to be exhausting in the author’s prose. While these mystical realities are being created, long winded explanations are detrimental to the experience. Delany uses the example of the translation of a work Leonardo. The long and detailed Trench translation costs the reader six to seven times the mental energy for the same sentence compared to the shorter Gurney translation (10). The author’s ability to be concise improves the reading experience.