When I think about role models, it takes a while before anything shows up in my head. What is a role model? Someone I have looked up to and wanted to be like, I guess.
The funny thing is that the first role models that show up in my head are all fictive people. It's Modesty Blaise (because she had such varied experience, first hand knowledge of extremely different environments and the wonderful skill to get along with people of all kinds -- presidents and kings as well as street kids and poor fishermen), it's Kip from Have Space Suit, Will Travel (because he got somewhere by being smart and knowing things), it's ... from A Very Long Way From Anywhere Else (because he was intellectual and did not really fit in with his peers, but found a way to be himself), and others. It was fictional characters I looked to when I shaped my ideas of who I wanted to be: smart, reasonable, open to new things, and so on. I might not live up to all of my ideals, but they are still there.
As for real people, I tend to admire everyone who is enthusiastic and really involved in things. People who make things happen.
There are also all of those people who have surprised me, and showed me new ways and attitudes. Like two of my fellow PhD students in Uppsala, who one day told me that it happens that they feel really tired and frustrated over their research -- that it sometimes seems hopeless -- and that they would then just lock the door to their office and cry for a while. Just the idea that there were others who sometimes felt like that was a revelation for me -- and the idea that you could actually talk about it was nothing short of revolutionary. I had always felt that if you could not be enthusiastic about your research all the time, you were somehow not worthy. Being frustrated and bored to the point of crying was to me a shameful secret. Maybe, just maybe, this was something that happened to others too? Even smart, successful students!
And then you go on, and another day you will be enthusiastic again, and make things happen.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Lazy fan
I haven't nominated for the Hugo awards. (I know I should, but I'm not reading enough to feel that I know what I should nominate...)
I haven't written a LoC in months. A fanzine is coming soon (in Swedish), extremely late as usual.
I'm very much behind on the correspondence for the planning of the Worldcon science and technology programme. (Unfortunately I cannot sign up to participate as a panelist myself, since I'm afraid that will be stressful for us with a two month old baby.)
But I'm going to the Ad Astra convention in Toronto in a month. And I think I'm going to give a talk on dark matter there (I only have a half confirmation). And last week I did hold an information night about the Worldcon, and maybe inspired some people to go!
Fanac cannot always have high priority, but sometimes I'll do some things. And tonight I will meet with the Fearless Fantasy Fans, to look at some boxes of books we got donated to us. There are some goodies there!
I haven't written a LoC in months. A fanzine is coming soon (in Swedish), extremely late as usual.
I'm very much behind on the correspondence for the planning of the Worldcon science and technology programme. (Unfortunately I cannot sign up to participate as a panelist myself, since I'm afraid that will be stressful for us with a two month old baby.)
But I'm going to the Ad Astra convention in Toronto in a month. And I think I'm going to give a talk on dark matter there (I only have a half confirmation). And last week I did hold an information night about the Worldcon, and maybe inspired some people to go!
Fanac cannot always have high priority, but sometimes I'll do some things. And tonight I will meet with the Fearless Fantasy Fans, to look at some boxes of books we got donated to us. There are some goodies there!
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Science fiction as myth
Via Locus Online (their "blinks" in the left column) I found the article Sci-Fi's Brave New World, about science fiction as mythmaking. This is a topic that interests me, as you might know if you have followed my blog. I have written about this here for example.
The article is written by a James A. Herrick, a name that didn't tell me anything (I'm not so good at remembering names). I liked some parts in the beginning, for example this:
I'm always astonished that people in the science fiction field are not aware of this important function of their literature: to shape our idea of the meaning and significance of science, of the future, and of our place in the world. Of course, it works just as well if you are not aware of it.
Anyway, it quickly becomes obvious that the writer of the article, Herrick, is not happy about this. He likes only one fixed set of stories, despite the fact that they are not universally helpful when it comes to interpreting the world around us.
This is where i suddenly remembered that I have read about this Herrick person recently, in the Internet Review of Science Fiction under the headline Wrong on Religion; Wrong on Science Fiction. I must say that I'm on the same side as Gabriel Mckee here: science fiction is a good medium for discussing important matters, and therefore for shaping our interpretation of things. I'm not surprised to see that Mckee also has commented the article on his blog.
It's also worth noting, again, that science fiction hardly is a homogeneous canon of ready-made myth. It's an ongoing discussion, mirroring our culture with its dreams and hopes. There are things to agree with, and things to argue against, and that's just the way it should be.
The article is written by a James A. Herrick, a name that didn't tell me anything (I'm not so good at remembering names). I liked some parts in the beginning, for example this:
The culture-shaping force of science fiction storytellers may be more significant and more widespread than we imagine. That's because they trade in myth. By myth, I mean a transcendent story that helps us make sense of our place in the cosmos.
I'm always astonished that people in the science fiction field are not aware of this important function of their literature: to shape our idea of the meaning and significance of science, of the future, and of our place in the world. Of course, it works just as well if you are not aware of it.
Anyway, it quickly becomes obvious that the writer of the article, Herrick, is not happy about this. He likes only one fixed set of stories, despite the fact that they are not universally helpful when it comes to interpreting the world around us.
This is where i suddenly remembered that I have read about this Herrick person recently, in the Internet Review of Science Fiction under the headline Wrong on Religion; Wrong on Science Fiction. I must say that I'm on the same side as Gabriel Mckee here: science fiction is a good medium for discussing important matters, and therefore for shaping our interpretation of things. I'm not surprised to see that Mckee also has commented the article on his blog.
It's also worth noting, again, that science fiction hardly is a homogeneous canon of ready-made myth. It's an ongoing discussion, mirroring our culture with its dreams and hopes. There are things to agree with, and things to argue against, and that's just the way it should be.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Elisabeth Vonarburg: In the Mother's Land
To me, it feels really silly to continue reading a book I don't like. Given how many books I have waiting, I don't want to spend any time reading anything just because I have started it.
A few chapters into the novel In the Mother's Land I found that I just was not interested in the story. I got the book from the library just because the author is a guest of honour at the Worldcon, and I was curious about her writing. The story turned out to be told at a very slow pace, and it was a lot about children (well, childreen) trying to figure out where babies come from and what functions boys have at all. Some relationships develop, and there are hints about the world around these kids. I like the idea of discovering the world through the eyes of a young person who does not know anything about it, but there was nothing that made me particularly interested in discovering this particular world.
It's obvious from the beginning that this world has very few boys and men, and this unbalance is of course going to be important. It's expressed in a way I can't help think must work much better in the original French than it does in English: all masculine words are now feminine. You are not an explorer, but an explora. Even words that to me feel neutral (in English) are feminine, if they describe a person or an animal, like the use of "childe" instead of "child", "catte" instead of "cat". This surely makes the gender issue stand out more, but it also slows down the reading for me.
Even "animal wifery" instead of "husbandry". This one does not work for me at all -- doesn't the English language have any word for the female head of a houshold, rather than just a word that means woman? Swedish has at least two: hustru (translated: "the lady of the house" perhaps -- although nowadays it's just a word for wife, in the meaning of a woman a man is married to. Hmm, it's probably etymologically exactly parallel to "husband".) and matmor ("food mother"), should there not be any better word in the word rich English?
After putting the book away for a day or two I decided to read until page 100 before I gave up. Still nothing much has happened, but I know a little bit more about how this future world works. It's a long time since a disaster that changed the earth and introduced lots of mutations. There is the Malady, which kills many children. And there is a sometimes problematic social structure, which nevertheless seems to work fairly well so far. The protagonist, Lisbeï, is now 13, and it looks like she might get some personal problems that might force her out in the world, and she is special in other ways as well that might be important for the future of her society.
But I'm still not caught by the story, or especially interested in any of the hints of conflict. Should I read on, or give up?
I looked at some plot summaries on the web (the one on Wikipedia is short but spoiler rich), and indeed it seems like Lisbeï is going to do big and important things. It might be interesting.
I don't know. I will put the book away for a while, and if I notice that I still think about it I will take it up again later. Maybe I was just not in the right mood for this story now.
A few chapters into the novel In the Mother's Land I found that I just was not interested in the story. I got the book from the library just because the author is a guest of honour at the Worldcon, and I was curious about her writing. The story turned out to be told at a very slow pace, and it was a lot about children (well, childreen) trying to figure out where babies come from and what functions boys have at all. Some relationships develop, and there are hints about the world around these kids. I like the idea of discovering the world through the eyes of a young person who does not know anything about it, but there was nothing that made me particularly interested in discovering this particular world.
It's obvious from the beginning that this world has very few boys and men, and this unbalance is of course going to be important. It's expressed in a way I can't help think must work much better in the original French than it does in English: all masculine words are now feminine. You are not an explorer, but an explora. Even words that to me feel neutral (in English) are feminine, if they describe a person or an animal, like the use of "childe" instead of "child", "catte" instead of "cat". This surely makes the gender issue stand out more, but it also slows down the reading for me.
Even "animal wifery" instead of "husbandry". This one does not work for me at all -- doesn't the English language have any word for the female head of a houshold, rather than just a word that means woman? Swedish has at least two: hustru (translated: "the lady of the house" perhaps -- although nowadays it's just a word for wife, in the meaning of a woman a man is married to. Hmm, it's probably etymologically exactly parallel to "husband".) and matmor ("food mother"), should there not be any better word in the word rich English?
After putting the book away for a day or two I decided to read until page 100 before I gave up. Still nothing much has happened, but I know a little bit more about how this future world works. It's a long time since a disaster that changed the earth and introduced lots of mutations. There is the Malady, which kills many children. And there is a sometimes problematic social structure, which nevertheless seems to work fairly well so far. The protagonist, Lisbeï, is now 13, and it looks like she might get some personal problems that might force her out in the world, and she is special in other ways as well that might be important for the future of her society.
But I'm still not caught by the story, or especially interested in any of the hints of conflict. Should I read on, or give up?
I looked at some plot summaries on the web (the one on Wikipedia is short but spoiler rich), and indeed it seems like Lisbeï is going to do big and important things. It might be interesting.
I don't know. I will put the book away for a while, and if I notice that I still think about it I will take it up again later. Maybe I was just not in the right mood for this story now.
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