The New Weird - Ann VanderMeer [157]
Cheryl Morgan: Labels are marketing gimmicks. I've been asked to be on a panel about the New Weird (although it isn't called that) at Wiscon.
The main reason the panel exists is that China is one of the [Guests of Honor] and lots of eager Americans want to know where they can find "more like this". So, yes, Jonathan, it may be a load of old cobblers from a literary theory point of view, but it is also an opportunity to sell more books, and perhaps even secure a US publishing contract or two. So who wants me to claim them for the New Weird?
Rick: I could live with that as an alternative interpretation, but then it becomes an in-crowd in-joke. MJP: I think there's scope for debate about carts and horses here. Structure is often something that is only seen in retrospect. Depending on the method favoured by the writer, it is not unusual for structure to be the last thing on an author's mind. In these cases it emerges from the struggle and the resolution. Completion occurs and then, later, the structure is perceived.
Robertson: Hmm ― labels certainly marketing gimmicks, and with my marketing hat on New Weird vs. useful label, clearly defined area of fiction appealing to clearly defined target marketplace etc.
But I don't like talking about fiction like this, hold onto notion that you write what you need to write and that the great struggle as a writer is not to write like a part of a school but to write like yourself. Other considerations certainly present, but secondary.
If people can be recognisably grouped, it's I hope because they share concerns / strategies / effects / etc, because they share these they create fiction that has a common mindset ― that overlaps with each other ― not because they've taken a market driven or insecurity driven decision to do so. I hope that you are a certain type of person, with certain interests, certain concerns, therefore become a certain type of writer as a natural expression of where you are. Perhaps naive ― certainly economically so.
Therefore label useful as a means of identifying that sharedness, but something that comes after the writing, not before it or driving it. Rick ― totally agree ― structure (at least, critical structure) often retrospective ― a post rationalisation of something that was intuitive when carried out.
But naming is power (as [M. John Harrison] points out) because it defines the thing named, includes certain things / people / etc, excludes certain things / people / etc. But if the name doesn't work it will be shortlived. There has to be an interaction, a sense of appropriate relationship. If the name is wrong, created for short term political reasons, whatever, it will drop away. Hype great but temporary, it never lasts, it's quality that endures.
Strahan: Hi Mike ― "The old dog learns to amuse itself wherever it can, sometimes by learning new tricks, sometimes by the copious use of irony, sometimes both." I certainly saw the irony [in] it, and even wondered if there was more than a little desire to struggle against the labelling impulse by throwing more labels out there just to mischievously confuse the labelers.I don't think I've heard of a single [New Wave Fabulist] who was pleased with or felt some connection to the label. I don't even think [the editor Peter] Straub had anything to do with it, so it's a little unfortunate it is gaining any currency.
No, I wasn't attempting to be reductive or to in any sense belittle the achievement of any of the writers mentioned in this forum. What I was suggesting though, is that the endless search by a small-ish group of commentators to label and sort what is happening in the genre is a) reductive itself and b) ignores the fact that many of those writers are wholly or in part influenced by existing traditions.