Dan Hartland

Yeah, just putting a pin in it in case useful later.

(Apropos of nothing, with you on this, we should probably work to ease out the phrase from any hypothetically more substantive discussion that might occur as a result of a I’m sure theoretical deployment of the term.)

The shonky idea that seems to have led to this latest talk about canon is (?) that not to read certain texts is to have an absence in your reading, to lack “essential” knowledges. What I think is interesting is that, as you say, the choice *not* to read is powered by, is itself, a form of knowledge.

Yeah, completely agree it’s a cycle!

“An effective hell to consign writers to” is the SH Criticism Special brand?

Only commissioned if all ten books are totally fictional.

You pitchin’, bub?

I hope I speak for everyone when I say ogodpleaseno.

I mean, strictly speaking, no one published it then!

I mean, *I* think the tangents are the point. But if you’ve read the Wilson translation and still hate the poem, it’s over. There is no better way in!

Have you read Pat Barker’s Iliad novels? They may work for you where the source doesn’t.

Right, exactly. You have knowledge about these texts/authors that isn’t derived from reading their books and which informs your decision not to read them. Which is a (righteous) form of critical awareness, right? Yours is not a “gap” based on “ignorance” but on *a form of critical engagement*!

Chat’s over, gang. Turn out the lights.

But you know *why* you don’t want or feel the need to read them, right? (I mean, I know I do!) If so, that’s your critical awareness at work, I guess - we don’t have to read this stuff, but do we need to know about it, even if all we’re doing with that knowledge is avoiding it?

Heh. And among the points of evidence used to support said perception?

I mean, you’re not wrong! But the overlaps and tessellations are of interest nonetheless.

Haha, be careful what you wish for!

Interestingly, an endless object for the ire of genre readers is the writer from “outside the community” who doesn’t understand how the tropes work!

💯, thus “if”! Needless to say, “total” is impossible for any one person. An individual critic can replace that for “more complete”, “more useful”, whatever. Or, sure, can be explicit that their work does another particular (“limited”) thing. Of course, the wider discourse may then move to fill in …

You raise questions of The Market, and yeah. The sales pipeline shapes a profusion of reading options and also benefits from keeping us buying new. Reviews in this context risk relegation to “what’s your next read?” etc. Obvs there’s more to lit than this (as there’s more to it than dead white guys)

Oof! Out of interest, which translation are you reading?

Important can be a loaded word that gets discussion off-track quickly, but it’s … *interesting* to read older work, right? Informative, instructive, enjoyable, entertaining and so on.
Or at least can be!

Someone who knows what’s happening now is invaluable. Someone with chapter and verse on eg Le Guin or Butler or Cordwainer Smith is good, too! *Hopefully* the perspectives can be fused into some sort of wider view. If a critic’s aim is to produce as total (helpful?) a view of a work as possible …

Anyway. I have a Snap! Criticism coming out soon about genre history. None so zeitgeisty.

Outside of SF, wide and deep reading is often de rigeur in literary conversation. Spec fic would be poorer for abandoning “canons” (read: lists of cool stuff we wrote a while ago) entirely - not least because we can only write better histories and read more futures if we … y’know. Look at the past.

I can be a bit of an historicist in my readings (sorry, gang), so I often lean on literary lineages. I think they’re useful and valuable, and that critical work is best when it places texts in context. Other approaches are available, and the contexts and canons we build change all the time. But!

That said, to suggest that some older works are *good* or *useful* is surely axiomatic: abolish recency bias etc. Maybe your next new favourite book, or the key work that will unlock your thinking on Trope A or B, is more than 20 years old. It might disprove an assumption or theory of yours, too.

I’m quite sure we shouldn’t be demanding that anyone read anything for any particular reason. To insist that a given older work “matters” may or may not be true; a canon earns its keep by proving that to be the case and convincing - not requiring - readers to engage with a text or writer.

I am reminded that a certain critical podcast had a canon discussion a while back.

The key, I think, is that canons are renewable and plural. They are also tools for added understanding and enjoyment rather than repositories of shibboleths or passwords.

I was so thankful to chat with @octavia-cade.bsky.social and @danhartland.bsky.social recently for @strangehorizons.bsky.social. Here, we discuss our roles as reviewers of work addressing hard times.

Narrative can seem insufficient, but sitting with that sense of futility is part of our story, too.

Reeent’s Park sign enough that AI needs to log off 4-chan.

I don’t think we disagree at all! My point is exactly yours: that BookTok demonstrates an enthusiasm for, and an interest in, reviewing and criticism which mainstream venues have seemingly failed to harness.

The speed seems key, yeah! I mean, in some ways, a lot of what you say about how communities self-select sounds not wildly different to the factors involved in the editorial positions taken by literary magazines. But as others have noted in this thread, the medium seriously shapes the outcomes.

In fairness, that seems to me a trend in criticism more generally, too - though I’m sure the emphasis is different across the various venues/media.