What to Read

The talesman’s dilemma: what tales to consume?

A Hard Choice

One thing that has bothered me for several years, is the question of what fantasy tales I ought to read. In general, a good tale is good to read, and a great tale is even better, so as one of the audience, that should be my one thought. But as a talesman myself, I worry about the influence that other talesmen’s work will have on my own.

1. We are all prone to feel the sway of a strong stylist in our art. The strong stylist has a particular way of seeing the world, interpreting it, and conveying that interpretation in the form of his work. His audience will feel the power of that interpretation and it will seem to seduce us. Because it is striking, it will stand out; because it is strong, it will seek to dominate our own way of seeing the world and interpreting it.
2. And then, even a weak stylist who tells a strong tale will have some sway over us. We will love the tale and the world of the tale, the way the world works. (I speak here of fantasy works, all of which will present us with a view onto Eartherea, the Other Earth where all magic is real and everything is possible.)
3. More, each talesman has a way of seeing the world that is wider than the way of his words. I mean his general outlook on life, which most often he adapts from the outlook he finds in his culture and time. This is another aspect of culture which we can pick up from a good talesman’s tales, though for this to work, we’d have to read a good number of his tales, or read one big one over and over again. (For an example, E. E. ‘Doc’ Smith’s Lensman series is a prime example of space opera pulp novels, and is much beloved by fans of the genre. It exemplifies the mid-twentieth century American pop ideals, that prevailed from the mid-late 1930s into the early 1960s. Though we are well past this period, it is still possible to enjoy the heady, naive ‘can-do’ spirit Smith’s tales embrace, and modern-day talesmen can be so influenced by these notions that they create retro space operas in that spirit.)

Old or New?

So, the budding talesman, who has not yet fully found his ‘voice’ or developed a mature and unshakeable way of seeing his world, may fall under the sway of the talesmen whose works he reads. Often he will even be influenced by strongly-told tales he dislikes, and be driven to create tales that ‘answer’ or ‘rebut’ those tales — this, too, is a form of influence.

We can read what is current and popular. This will inform us about what today’s editors are buying, and what today’s readers are buying and reading. But if we are influenced by all the tales that are floating around, we run the risk of creating tales in their image: just adding ‘more of the same’ to the piles. Our own tales will lack flavor or individuality.

We can, on the other hand, read what is current and obscure. This will connect us to modern-day sensibilities, that are perhaps born before their time; being influenced by these works might, then, allow us to catch the crest of the oncoming wave. These works may also have strong styles (in general much of popular tales have weaker styles and stronger talesmanship, for it is talesmanship that appeals to most audiences, and ‘style’ is often what gets in the way of understanding). These strong styles can filter in to our own approach, we will not meet or master that level, but our dishwater prose could gain a certain savor from the familiarity. But what is obscure is obscure for some reason, and it may well be that these works not big sellers for good reason; we cannot blindly sample all of them equally, but must pick and choose — somehow. The trick there is, how to know what to pick and choose. And if we know that, then we probably have developed our own sensibility, our own way of seeing the world, and something of our own style. Still, reading the obscure tales of today will at least broaden our outlook on what is possible in our genre today.

We can also read what is old and popular or what is old and obscure. Reading what is old will broaden our vistas in terms of style, word choice, and indeed may influence us in all three of the ways I noted above. We will still be influenced by our own cultural influences, of course, which are impossible to wholly avoid. So what will result may be a sort of amalgam of the old and the current. Reading what is popular from whatever age will expose us to strong talesmanship. Reading what is old and obscure is harder to justify. Again, we must pick and choose among the obscure works of any age, though to some degree time has done the picking and choosing for us here: not all obscure works will survive long enough for us to be able to find them.

In general, we might say that the best way through all this muddle is to read a bit of everything. The idea is that the more varied our inputs, the more each extreme will balance its opposites, leaving us in a place somewhere in the midst of them all, never unduly influenced by any one talesman or school or period. But we might also say that this approach will leave us creating a hopeless mishmash of all our influences, a bit of this old master, a bit of this newcomer obscurantist, a bit of this popular hack, and so on. Our own tales may well suffer from caroming wildly among all our influences, and add up to nothing but a catalog of references.

It is, indeed, a dilemma. I have not solved it yet.

(Composed on keyboard Sunday, April 6, 2008)