BANDERSNATCHES

by Steve Steinbock

Caveat

I wanted to write a post-script to this week’s Bandersnatch, but the trouble with post-scripts is that people usually don’t read them until after they’ve read everything else, if they read them at all.

After writing this week’s Bandersnatch, I read Rob’s Tune It or Die column of this week. Rob pointed out the inconstancy and downright hypocrisy of saying “books can change your life” on one hand, and “it’s just fiction” on the other hand.

Rob is right. And the column you’re about to read may seem to contradict some of what Rob was saying.

I think that books can and do change people’s lives. If Harriet Beecher Stowe’s awful novel actually did have some impact on ending slavery in the US, then it’s a good thing she wrote it. Perhaps, if there is a common message in the Venn Diagram of this week’s Tune It and Bandersnatch, it is that manipulating the thoughts and beliefs of others is dangerous, and that censorship and propagandistic fiction are two of its ugly faces.

And I Approve of This Message

They say one should never discuss religion and politics in polite company. Phooey. I’m always discussing religion and politics, and I’m always in polite company! The trick is to discuss without preaching one’s politics or religion.

The same goes for good fiction.

As I opined last week, when an author uses fiction as a bully pulpit, the result is bad fiction. (I’m surprised nobody challenged my assertion from last week that Uncle Tom’s Cabin a lousy piece of fiction).

I once read somewhere, or possibly imagined reading, that Detective Fiction is inherently conservative because of its undercurrent of justice and or preserving societal order, while Science Fiction, with its utopian and dystopian visions of the future is inherently liberal. I’ve thought about that often, but I’m not sure I buy it. Few things in life are so black and white. Detective fiction’s common motif of corruption (e.g. the crooked cops and decadent rich in Chandler’s writing) provide plenty of fodder for anyone wanting to upset the status quo.

The politics of authors will often trickle into the fiction. That’s neither a good nor a bad thing. It just is. Characters are, of course, entitled to their own views. No reason we should discriminate against them just because they’re imaginary.

Can you imagine a protest held by fictional characters? That would be worse than the recent Hollywood writers’ strike.

Sayers and Carr, to pick two Golden Age mystery writers, were both what we today would call “Conservatives.” They differed greatly on issues of the Social Order, and Sayers’ was a bastion of early feminism, but in broad terms, their attitudes about war, economics, and justice reside neatly in a Red State mentality. But I can’t think of an instance in which political views invaded their storytelling.

One of my favorite overtly political fictional detectives is Roger L. Simon’s “Moses Wine,” a Berkley radical turned P.I. In the thirty-five years since The Big Fix was first published, Wine has had a chance to age (pun not intended) and evolve. His creator, in fact, has made something of a 180 degree turn in his own political allegiance. While politics and political issues are pervasive in his books, Simon never preaches in his fiction. (On his blog, on the other hand, Simon is not so restrained). Simon is too busy telling a good story, and solving crimes.

Many a good fiction writer may be driven by political views. But seldom is good storytelling.

That’s my opinion. Now tell me yours.