Mr Lethem leads the way

I don't know about you, but I have pretty much given up on expecting governments to do anything sensible. Furthermore, the big companies are motivated solely by proft, but then that is their raison d'etre, so it's no good complaining about that. And organised religion has shown itself to be deeply flawed. It therefore falls, it seems to me, to individuals to save the world.

One man who, in my opinion, is heading in roughly the right direction is the novelist Jonathan Lethem. He is the author of the novel Motherless Brooklyn, which I read with some interest a while back. And now he has just published a new novel, You Don't Love Me Yet. And in the case of this novel, he intends to deal with the film option and the ancillary rights in a rather unusual way.

To get the full details, you will have to read Jonathan's own account of what he is proposing to do, but basically he is offering film producers a free option on the book in return for two per cent of the budget (eventually) and an undertaking that, after five years, all the ancillary rights to the film and the novel will pass into the public domain.

'In other words,' says Lethem, 'after a waiting period during which those rights would still be restricted, anyone who cared to could make any number of other kinds of artwork based on the novel’s story and characters, or the film’s: a play, a television series, a comic book, a theme park ride, an opera – or even a sequel film or novel featuring the same characters. For that matter, they can remake the film with another script and new actors.'

Now this, you have to admit, is unusual. The question is, is it a smart move? Is it smart commercially, in the long or the short term? Because Jonathan does not make himself out to be a philanthropist -- he has to make a living. And is it smart in terms of reptuation, public interest, and creative interest? Is there a single film producer breathing who will not snort with derision at this naivety?

We shall see. In the meantime, it is certainly refreshing to find someone who is not so tight-arsed about copyright that he phones his lawyer every time someone quotes three sentences from what he has written.

Mr Lethem is also, by the way, the author of the most scholarly and fascinating essay that I have ever read on the subject of influence, copying, plagiarism, the use of famous characters in new works, et cetera et cetera. I particularly like his story about Muddy Waters telling how he 'wrote' the song 'Country Blues'.

'It becomes apparent,' says Lethem, 'that appropriation, mimicry, quotation, allusion, and sublimated collaboration consist of a kind of sine qua non of the creative act, cutting across all forms and genres in the realm of cultural production.' Think Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story.

And, when you get to the bit about Jefferson and the American constitution on the question of copyright, you might like to compare it with the ideas of Macaulay.

Kelly Link: Stranger Things Happen

Kelly Link is a fantasy writer. Or -- some say -- she writes slipstream: which is allegedly a combination of science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery, and realism. Anyway, whatever the style/medium is called, Link mostly writes short stories and novellas, and in her field she has won just about every prize going: Nebula, Hugo, and so forth.

Link has, naturally, her own web site, with lots of free stuff on it, interviews, a biography, and more.

Stranger Things Happen is Link's first collection of short stories, and it comes labelled with praise from Neil Gaiman and Jonathan Lethem (on the front cover), and from a whole posse of critics in the preliminary pages. The book is now in its fifth printing; it was published by Small Beer Press, which is a company run by Link and her husband.

The blurb for the book offers the following: 'The girl detective goes to the underworld to solve the case of the tap-dancing bank robbers. A honeymooning couple become participants in an apocalyptic beauty pageant. Sexy blond aliens invade New York City. A young girl learns how to make herself disappear.'

So far so good. This looks right up my street. On the face of it, this collection offers just the sort of stories that I might have written myself. And did, actually: see King Albert's Words of Advice.

But oh dear. What a disappointment. Couldn't get on with this book at all.

I began at the beginning, and, as is my wont, made notes as I went along. Notes read: A poor choice for the first story in a collection; not too impressed. Second story: Not for me.

Then I began to dip into later stories, still without any luck. V. weird story; not v. satisfactory. And of the last one I tried (I never finished the book): Ambiguous; not clear what happens. Mysterious and atmospheric but doesn't work very well.

And then I found the answer to the question of what was wrong. In the acknowledgements section, at the back of the book, we find the following:

I was a member of various workshops while writing these stories: I owe a lot to the instructors and members of the MFA workshop at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Which explains a great deal.

Well, everybody to their own thing. But there is just something about these MFA-trained people (Trained? Ha!) which gets right up my nose. You might enjoy Kelly Link. I didn't.

Yesterday I made the point that you cannot guarantee that winning a prize means anything much, even in a genre which you normally enjoy. At best a prize list offers just a pious hope that a book might, perhaps, entertain. And as far as science fiction is concerned (a genre known to some of its less pompous adherents as skiffy) I am definitely beginning to suspect that something untoward has happened.

It has been pointed out here more than once that skiffy is held in the deepest contempt by members of the orthodox literary establishment. Almost every month, Dave Langford's Ansible newsletter has a section entitled 'As Others See Us', in which he quotes the latest snobbish and ignorant statement which proves my point. Usually such sneers make reference to the alleged skiffy fascination with 'bug-eyed monsters'.

Understandably, many of those who write, publish, and read skiffy have become just a mite sensitive about this. They have grown weary of their friends and relations sniggering at them, and they yearn for respectability. So what they have begun to do, consciously or unconsciously, is award prizes to work which could, on a dark night, be mistaken for literary stuff. They are doing this in the hope that, if they do it often enough, and shout loudly about it, they might one day be admitted to the Groucho club and get to meet Marty and Salman and all those other guys. Then they will be able to hold their heads up high in decent company.

Well, blow that for a game of soldiers. I'm not going to sign up for that. If I have to choose between skiffy with literary pretensions and skiffy with bug-eyed monsters, I will gladly choose the latter, any day of the week.

Alien was, after all, a pretty good movie. And I have no problem whatever with the latest series of Dr Who: outstandingly good Saturday night entertainment by any standards. Though I am, like all right-thinking persons, heartbroken that Billie Piper is leaving the cast. Rumour has it that in next Saturday's episode she gets (sniff) killed off.

I am not sure that I shall be able to watch it. But if I don't, I won't be reading Kelly Link instead.