In which she weighs in on Thirteenth Child

[zeborah]

A few years ago, Patricia Wrede talked a fair amount on rec.arts.sf.composition about a novel she was writing, "Thirteenth Child". It had megafauna and magic in pioneer America, and sounded very cool. Here's how she described it in one discussion:

"The *plan* is for it to be a "settling the frontier" book, only without Indians (because I really hate both the older Indians-as-savages viewpoint that was common in that sort of book, *and* the modern Indians-as-gentle-ecologists viewpoint that seems to be so popular lately, and this seems the best way of eliminating the problem, plus it'll let me play with all sorts of cool megafauna)."

And not one of us said, because I think none of us realised or thought: You can't eliminate a problem by pretending that it doesn't exist. So we carried on talking about renaming Europe (and, sporadically, about tomatoes) as if Native Americans didn't exist.

Cut to 2009. RaceFail happened and I read a whole lot of links. One was about how "Little House on the Prairie" glosses over the terrible way Native Americans were treated by settlers like Laura's family. Another was about how Elizabeth Knox's "Dreamhunter", set in a recognisably New Zealand analogue, had no Mäori at all.

A couple of weeks, a month? ago "Thirteenth Child" popped into my mind again. Maybe I was looking at her website. And I thought, "Oh, wait a minute. She erased all the Native Americans. That's... not so good...."

And a few days ago Jo Walton reviewed it on Tor.com, and a bunch of other people said essentially, "She what?" Discussion has ensued there and on various LJs and other blogs [Edit 11/5: Updated link]; I really recommend reading at least the Tor.com thread if you don't understand what the problem is, because there are people there who have explained it way better than I can.

So why am I writing this if I'm not going to talk about it?

1) Because... Well, I've known Pat Wrede online for years. Dear friends-list: I'm totally not bashing on her; she's a great person. I like her tremendously, respect her a huge amount, and owe her a mountain for all her writing advice. I know she didn't mean to hurt people; it was out of ignorance and thoughtlessness. But she still wrote what she wrote.

And it wasn't only her ignorance and thoughtlessness. It was mine too: if I'd known or thought, I could have said something then when there was time to fix it. It was that of all of us on rasfc. I wonder if it was indirectly because even then rasfc wasn't really a comfortable place for people who might have been more clued up and likely to notice and speak out about the problem.

People are asking, in various LJs, "How could no-one in the writing and publishing process have noticed?" And... I don't know how to answer that. And I don't like having been a part of that not-noticing, of that failure. But I have to acknowledge that I was.

2) And because (though I haven't yet, I think, seen this being said in this context) sometimes I see people saying that people who notice this kind of thing are just being oversensitive, reading too much into it, imagining it, making it up, shifting the goalposts, etc. As if the complaints are completely arbitrary.

So I want to testify that they're not made up from whole cloth - otherwise it'd be really odd that I'd come up with the same objection to a book I was predisposed to think highly of independently to a bunch of other people who came up with the same objection. They're not arbitrary. It's even possible for white people to learn how to predict them. Now if white people could just learn how to predict them in time to not publish the mistake....

(Comments are screened due to me still not having time to create a comment policy. I'm going to be asleep, and then at work, but I'll unscreen stuff as I can.)

ETA 12/5: I'm not in future going to unscreen any comments that include a strawman. In particular, comments arguing against a position that no-one has in fact promoted. If you think that what you're arguing against isn't a strawman, then please include a cite for where you got it from. Thanks!

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

One needs to read the book to denounce the writing. If one is denouncing the premise, one needs only read the premise.

This is true. The notion that there are premises which must not by any means be explored, their higher-order implications being politically objectionable, does not fill me with enthusiasm.

The agreement from readers is more interesting. I note the agreement on this seems to come with quite marked mutual political agreement in general, though, so it brings less information than I could have hoped. I'll have to read it myself - and wait for a broader spectrum of comments to roll in.

the Native Americans' absence had no effect on the world. (This is highly problematic, not just from a plausibility point of view, but because it implies that the Native Americans in our timeline did nothing of value and so need not be valued by us

Not to me, it doesn't. The intrinsic value of lives and actions has nothing to do with whether they benefited me, or left monuments behind. The alternative implication seems to be that their value was merely instrumental, which is clearly right out of court. I'll object to the plausibility of the scenario, if null-effect is what I draw from it - not to its notion that the alt-Native Americans have got along with their own agendas in North Asia, failing to consult the future Euro-settlers' interests at all.

Actually, the whole alt-history-with-familiarity trope seems susceptible to critiques such as yours, and I may take this idea and shake it about a bit on my own turf presently.

[zeborah]

This is true. The notion that there are premises which must not by any means be explored, their higher-order implications being politically objectionable, does not fill me with enthusiasm.

In discussions like this, it's very easy for conversations to get sidetracked, and for what people say to be forgotten while what other people think they have said lives on.

It is particularly hurtful for this to happen to people who are pointing out that the realities of their people and culture have been forgotten while stereotypes and prejudices live on.

If, then, you want to say that there's an idea you don't like, can you please make sure that someone has actually proposed that idea, and preferably link to it so we can see its original phrasing for ourselves, rather than risk turning the conversation into a game of Telephone?

Because, while someone may have proposed this notion towards which you are unenthusiastic, I haven't actually seen it myself until you phrased it above.

[caper-est.livejournal.com]

In discussions like this, it's very easy for conversations to get sidetracked, and for what people say to be forgotten while what other people think they have said lives on.

Agreed. Therefore let me specify immediately that my remark about premises that must not be explored related specifically to the quoted assertion:

If one is denouncing the premise, one needs only read the premise.

because, by my understanding, my conclusion follows necessarily from this one statement. Anybody who disagrees with this inference has fair grounds to conclude that I am blowing smoke, and I shall not defend it further.

[zeborah]

Right, got it.

I used the word "denounced" because you did, and should probably have checked how you were using it first. To me though it doesn't mean "deserving of censorship, oblivion, and/or the eternal fires of hell"; it's a lot... vaguer than that, less final? or something.

If it *does* mean that, then I'd have to go back to where you introduced the word and say that no-one really was denouncing that strongly.

Or, if they are denouncing "the premise" then we need to define what exactly we mean by that premise - as I suggested below, there's a difference between "America without Native Americans" and "Little House on the Prairie with no Native Americans"; the one makes sense and the other is really an oxymoron.

And the other angle on this is the word "explored" because a major complaint is that Pat *hasn't* explored the premise of "no Native Americans"; she just postulated it so she could explore other things without [how to write about] the Native Americans getting in the way.

These are four separate and possibly mutually incompatible points, which just goes to show that It's More Complicated Than That (which I must translate into Latin sometime for my motto).

[zeborah]

(continued, after a pause to have dinner and read more related links)

In specific, what people have been saying includes things like:

I'm not saying it's impossible to write speculative fantasy on these premises - what I'm saying is that you can't do it as background. If you write a people out of existence as background, rather than as the setup for an exploration of how the world is different without their influence, then you're almost guaranteed to be doing it for reasons that are entirely offensive.

and:

Okay, I think an author should be able to tell the story they want to tell. I really do but, sheesh, why does it always have to make me either a magical creature, an exotic savage or erase me from history altogether?

and:

That's not to say that the idea "What if America had been empty when the Europeans got there?" isn't a legitimate one to write on--it is. Apparently, you can even write some damn good fiction on it. But then, you're not writing of America any more, are you? It's not the Matter of America any longer. You're writing something else. So, for the sake of common decency, have the respect to make it be some place else, too, would you? I mean, at least that way, your readers won't have to trip over the bones of all those erased Indians.

[caper-est.livejournal.com]

One last response, because the time is near when I ought to let the matter rest, at least in this locus. I do urge everyone who hasn't already done so to follow your suggestion of reading the entire Tor thread. I will not pretend I was a blithe and serene billy at the end of it.

The second quote expresses eloquent frustration with the totality of the genre, and compelling reason for the speaker to set I'm-going-to-read-this-why? filters to full. Considered as critique, it is a much stronger argument for the addition of the desired book(s) - authors yet unknown - to the field - than for the non- or alternate-writing of Pat's. I too am waiting for those other books, and Pat's doesn't sound apt to be in close competition with 'em, either.

The other two quotes seem, functionally, to grant the premise's legitimacy with one hand and take it away with the other. As to their substance, I can't express my disagreement concisely and clearly enough to attempt it in a comment.

I shall now let these points, amongst others, stew for a bit.

[zeborah]

"I'm waiting" sounds... Hmm.

Ah. The first thing that came to mind was that it ignores the fact that you too could add such books to the field.

But also, more importantly, it ignores the fact that there are already such books in the field! See especially the recommendations around the #200 mark of the Tor.com comment thread.

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

The notion that there are premises which must not by any means be explored, their higher-order implications being politically objectionable, does not fill me with enthusiasm.

<headdesk, headdesk, headdesk>

It's not that the idea must by no means be explored, it's closer to the fact that the idea has already been explored to death, and we need some different ideas, dammit.

[caper-est.livejournal.com]

Not to extend the debate, but only to note that I will be just as happy to see the stories that spring from those different ideas as you will.

The people who are going to write them know, or will know, who they are - when the tale strikes them. In case there is any publisher or author out there who is hesitating for suspected lack of demand, I also will freely put my hand up and say, "Yes, please!"

[zeborah]

One thing I've noticed is that my ideas tend to spring from... the ideas I soak myself in. If I'm watching Star Trek, my ideas spring from Star Trek. If I'm reading Korean fairy tales, my ideas spring from Korean fairy tales. If I'm reading Yet Another Pseudo-European EFP, my ideas spring from there.

Obviously you're writing your own story right now and I'd love you to finish it so I can read it. But after you've finished it, and are perhaps looking for an idea of something else to write... maybe consider soaking yourself in stories from... whatever is "other" to you that you mightn't normally soak yourself in and see what ideas spring up for you; because I'd like to see what you'd write, too.

(I'm dealing with comments ridiculously out of order, sorry; this stuff takes brainpower and care. Getting to it.)

[caper-est.livejournal.com]

This is at such an interesting skew to the way I work. If I'm reading Yet Another Pseudo-European EFP, my ideas spring from there in precisely the sense that I kick against it. Whitebreadery, Orientalism, and other such conventions fall naturally amongst the things that get the kicking - albeit reaction remains only reaction.

Most of my current projects actually seem to be headed more into parochialism and neglected regions of Englishness, taken one way and another. Beyond that I think it is Africa, rather than North America, that lies over the wide waters for me. That has been so for a long time, though I really couldn't articulate my reasons, and I only have the haziest ideas of what will come of it.

[zeborah]

I certainly react against what I'm reading in that if I'm reading about, say, a girl who falls in love with a robot and they're persecuted and finally he dies/is deactivated and their Love is Tragic, I want to write a story where they're persecuted and they stick with it and it's pretty damn hard but no *way* are they letting society beat them. And he's an alien, not a robot, and it's on a space station, not on Earth.

--But it's still about love and persecution. And she's still Whitey McWhite and so are all her friends because my mind's dumb like that. So if I want to include non-white characters I have to do it consciously and also read more books by/about non-white people so I know what the heck I'm talking about.

[caper-est.livejournal.com]

Okay, I get you there.

Interesting question... When I say, 'whitebreadery', or you say 'Whitey McWhite', I understand a sort of generic local-default whiteness, filling the place where an actual, textured ethnicity is mostly to be found in the real world. I think Mary Anne Mohanraj made one of the best points in the last go-around, on this very subject. Do you find you have to work a lot against that?

Another interesting point is that we may be beginning with different reflex-sets. I've lived most of my life in a white-minority, fairly integrated district in one of the most cosmopolitan cities of the world. All-white societies are somewhat exotic, for me.

The WNearlyIP is actually anchored in contemporary London. What happened there was that secondary characters of various backgrounds soon came in with the setting, and this time one (black, Jamaican-British) set of them started twisting hard on the plot from angles I'm not used to, and *then* I started bouncing up against things I didn't know I didn't know. Still am. Can't go into details yet; but I'm open to the possibility that ignorance was more of a factor in the plot-stall than I'd thought.

The other and heavily-English matter is, I think, at least partly a reaction to a long leaching of texture from my own chief tribal identity, leaving it at risk of holding less and less besides 'we are the big dogs', 'we are white', and possibly, 'we are drunk'. Which, even did I care about any of these qualities and were it a safe neighbour, would not really be a connexion to be very proud of. I'm pleased to be pitching in and having a go at fixing some of the dereliction there, albeit I don't think of it as a responsibility.

Interesting how empty default whiteness crops up on the wrong side there too, isn't it?

[zeborah]

Interesting question... When I say, 'whitebreadery', or you say 'Whitey McWhite', I understand a sort of generic local-default whiteness, filling the place where an actual, textured ethnicity is mostly to be found in the real world. I think Mary Anne Mohanraj made one of the best points in the last go-around, on this very subject. Do you find you have to work a lot against that?

Yes. Possibly because I grew up in NZ, but in fiction 'normal' was either the UK or the US, and I think in my own writing I've sort of smooshed it all together. Possibly also because I watched Star Trek, which likewise files off the interesting bits. (It sometimes has an accent but I don't find phonetics that interesting; syntax, yes.)

I think it's useful, on the one hand, to be aware of what things European-derived white cultures have in common; and equally useful, on the other hand, to be aware of the differences. To make it clear that each of these *is* a culture, like everyone has an accent; there *is* no 'normal' 'default' state from which all other cultures diverge.

(I saw this early on with Star Trek and Babylon 5: the concept that humans are humans, and each alien species has a Special Trait: there's the violent ones, and the greedy ones, and the emotional ones, and the spiritual ones, and the Machiavellian ones, and so forth.)

Another interesting point is that we may be beginning with different reflex-sets. I've lived most of my life in a white-minority, fairly integrated district in one of the most cosmopolitan cities of the world. All-white societies are somewhat exotic, for me.

Ah; I did grow up in a 99% white kind of environment. Have since travelled much, but...


This is the limit of my ability to think Deep Thoughts today (iow, my brain faileth mightily now; it's been overloaded the last couple of weeks but hopefully will recover a bit over the weekend) so I shall just trail off there and thank you for the conversation.