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This is something I think I need to talk about at length, sometimes, because in the reviews I did for The Emerald City and the ones I'm doing for the New York Review of Science Fiction I've been touching on it repeatedly. My thoughts on the subject are still developing, though, so, this will probably not be a very complete piece.
First let me say what I am not saying. I am not saying that there should be any rules about cruelty in writing. I am not saying that there is something wrong with cruel writing. I'm not saying that cruel writing is cruelty. I'm not saying that cruel writing advocates cruelty. I'm not even saying cruel writing is cruel writing.
What I am saying is that I experience the depiction of cruelty as an experience. I suffer along with the characters -- even, sometimes, when the characters are suffering off camera. Protagonist, antagonist, victim, willain, powerless, powerful, human, animal, alien, even, sometimes, inanimate -- it does not matter: I will experience that suffering.
So you can see what my issue is as a reader. No, it's not "I don't want to suffer so please don't show me any writing with suffering in it." It's "If I'm going to suffer, make it worthwhile."
So mere adventure isn't enough for me to withstand the suffering of characters, major or minor: there has to be a bigger payoff. And this isn't a dismissal of "mere adventure" as a genre in general: it's a statement of what's worth suffering for, for me.
If the perpetrator of cruelty has no other reason to do this than to establish itself as the villain of the peace -- or if the given reason strikes me as being no other than to establish itself as the villain -- that's not worth suffering for, for me. If the cruelty is in the form of exploding cars and villains falling off of rooftops so that the hero's triumph can be flashy and loud, that's not worth suffering for, for me.
Being true to life or even actually true is not enough.
Being about real problems and asking hard questions isn't enough, if the depiction of cruelty overtakes the work and the reader (or viewer) is riding a cruelty roller coaster while the problem lurks deep under the flashy story.
The thing is, and I can't emphasize this enough, I really will suffer when the entities in the story suffer. If I'm beaten to a pulp I can't think about the real-world problem you're trying to get me to think about.
At the moment the best example of a story that gets it right is "Syriana." (no spoilers follow) It's a movie, not a science fiction novel, but the way it sets up the story and brings you in, investing in the characters and establishing the moral and political problems early, by the time the torture scene rolls around I am just willing to suffer along with the character who is tortured(identification with this character is problematic, because he's part of the problem, but that's interesting in the context of the movie: instead of just wallowing in the badness of the character, Clooney is investigating, demonstrating the connections, illuminating). And by the time [spoiler] happens you're totally invested in the slight chance that it might not happen, you're enraged and grieved and involved. There's a payoff and it's bigger than the spectacle of [spoiler].
I'm deeply sorry to say that Mary Gentle's work is too much suffering for me to get through. The characters seem to exist to be tortured, and I just can't hang in there long enough to get the payoff. The books are long, too, and at least in the first couple hundred pages very dense with cruelty, so that's an investment I just can't make. I'm really sorry about this because the writing is very good and when I interacted with her online I thought she was one of the spiffiest people in the world.
So this is my limitation, okay, I understand that. But I also think that this limitation of mine is useful as a coalmine canary. If I can't get the payoff for the cruelty in your book, maybe your book is too glib about it, or too dense with it compared to character development and plot, or maybe I'm just too sensitive for it. But it's a question, maybe.
So that's me as a reviewer. I try to make it clear when I talk about this kind of thing. Like the time I said (roughly) "if a minor character with an important relationship to the protagonist gets decapitated, I want to care about it." Not "this book is too bloody." Not "this book is a mere shallow adventure." But "this book doesn't make me care enough to suffer its cruelty."
On another front, I'm going to see the Mime Troupe today! I'm making an elaborate picnic too, because I won't be cooking much the next two weeks.
First let me say what I am not saying. I am not saying that there should be any rules about cruelty in writing. I am not saying that there is something wrong with cruel writing. I'm not saying that cruel writing is cruelty. I'm not saying that cruel writing advocates cruelty. I'm not even saying cruel writing is cruel writing.
What I am saying is that I experience the depiction of cruelty as an experience. I suffer along with the characters -- even, sometimes, when the characters are suffering off camera. Protagonist, antagonist, victim, willain, powerless, powerful, human, animal, alien, even, sometimes, inanimate -- it does not matter: I will experience that suffering.
So you can see what my issue is as a reader. No, it's not "I don't want to suffer so please don't show me any writing with suffering in it." It's "If I'm going to suffer, make it worthwhile."
So mere adventure isn't enough for me to withstand the suffering of characters, major or minor: there has to be a bigger payoff. And this isn't a dismissal of "mere adventure" as a genre in general: it's a statement of what's worth suffering for, for me.
If the perpetrator of cruelty has no other reason to do this than to establish itself as the villain of the peace -- or if the given reason strikes me as being no other than to establish itself as the villain -- that's not worth suffering for, for me. If the cruelty is in the form of exploding cars and villains falling off of rooftops so that the hero's triumph can be flashy and loud, that's not worth suffering for, for me.
Being true to life or even actually true is not enough.
Being about real problems and asking hard questions isn't enough, if the depiction of cruelty overtakes the work and the reader (or viewer) is riding a cruelty roller coaster while the problem lurks deep under the flashy story.
The thing is, and I can't emphasize this enough, I really will suffer when the entities in the story suffer. If I'm beaten to a pulp I can't think about the real-world problem you're trying to get me to think about.
At the moment the best example of a story that gets it right is "Syriana." (no spoilers follow) It's a movie, not a science fiction novel, but the way it sets up the story and brings you in, investing in the characters and establishing the moral and political problems early, by the time the torture scene rolls around I am just willing to suffer along with the character who is tortured(identification with this character is problematic, because he's part of the problem, but that's interesting in the context of the movie: instead of just wallowing in the badness of the character, Clooney is investigating, demonstrating the connections, illuminating). And by the time [spoiler] happens you're totally invested in the slight chance that it might not happen, you're enraged and grieved and involved. There's a payoff and it's bigger than the spectacle of [spoiler].
I'm deeply sorry to say that Mary Gentle's work is too much suffering for me to get through. The characters seem to exist to be tortured, and I just can't hang in there long enough to get the payoff. The books are long, too, and at least in the first couple hundred pages very dense with cruelty, so that's an investment I just can't make. I'm really sorry about this because the writing is very good and when I interacted with her online I thought she was one of the spiffiest people in the world.
So this is my limitation, okay, I understand that. But I also think that this limitation of mine is useful as a coalmine canary. If I can't get the payoff for the cruelty in your book, maybe your book is too glib about it, or too dense with it compared to character development and plot, or maybe I'm just too sensitive for it. But it's a question, maybe.
So that's me as a reviewer. I try to make it clear when I talk about this kind of thing. Like the time I said (roughly) "if a minor character with an important relationship to the protagonist gets decapitated, I want to care about it." Not "this book is too bloody." Not "this book is a mere shallow adventure." But "this book doesn't make me care enough to suffer its cruelty."
On another front, I'm going to see the Mime Troupe today! I'm making an elaborate picnic too, because I won't be cooking much the next two weeks.
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