Snarkibartfast
J. G. Ballard
edit"several obits claim JGB disdained the SF label" - 1) got a cite for that? 2) so what? Doesn't change what he wrote. --Orange Mike | Talk 14:45, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
- 1) There's no need to provide citations for edit comments, but in fact I do have one. 2) You clearly added the section out of indignation at Weil's statement. If Ballard in fact shared his view, maybe it's not so outlandish after all? In fact, I think your paraphrase distorts the meaning of the original quote. You inserted "absurd", which renders it patently ridiculous, since Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World obviously are science fiction novels. What he appears to be trying to express, rather, is that Ballard didn't just write standard genre fare, and that pretending he did was a way to (in JGB's words) "defuse the threat." Remember, this is an industry guy, and he's all about how a book should be positioned and marketed, and thinking about the image each genre has as a brand.
- Given the tendentious paraphrase, the covertly POV way you're stringing together separate facts, and my strong suspicion that there is nothing there that is worth noting in an article on Ballard, I'll remove the paragraph again in another couple of days unless you can offer some rationale for why it should remain. -Snarkibartfast (talk) 21:06, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
- Thank you for the excellent cite. I don't think my POV is at all covert; I feel that we are doing our readers a disservice by acceding to the desire of marketing types to deny that science fiction works are in fact SF, and I am on record all over WP saying so. I do feel that the issue of dismissing Ballard by calling his SF "mere SF", or conversely of dismissing what SF has to say by dismissing it as "that sci-fi crap", is in fact worth noting in an article on a man whose roots were in that field. (Have you ever looked at the covers of New Worlds in the era he started selling to them?) --Orange Mike | Talk 21:32, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
- And thank you for editing in good faith. Yeah, I thought The Guardian's obit was one of the best that I read (maybe not so strange since JGB wrote for them occasionally). I personally agree with you that the line of reasoning "since this book is actually good it can't be science fiction" is both faulty and offensive (and someone like e.g. Margaret Atwood has gone done considerably in my estimation for arguing it), and that of course Ballard was a science fiction writer (or more precisely a writer who wrote a lot of science fiction, among other things). The article should make that fact clear, as well as the high stature of his work--including his SF work, and I think it currently does.
- I don't think an ambiguous statement (it's not clear that he's even saying the books aren't SF, and he may very well be speaking primarily about Ballard's more recent novels, which are markedly less science fiction-y) by some guy who's not a well-known literary critic or scholar is particularly notable, nor do I think we do anything for the "cause" by including it in the article. The best way we can fight these distortions here on Wikipedia is surely to state plainly the true facts (properly referenced) in the relevant articles, and ignore such snobbish revisionism unless it becomes genuinely notable.
- In this case, I can see a case for a section on JGB's relationship with the sci-fi genre, which appears to have been tempestuous and gone through several phases. In that context there might be a place for this quote. In its own right it simply isn't particularly significant. -Snarkibartfast (talk) 19:38, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
- It should be pointed out (and in fact is, in her article) that Atwood has backed down enormously from the original outrageous "talking squids in space" assertion, and I respect her for that. I feel that the remarks by Ballard's own editor were so appallingly revelatory that they do need mentioning in Ballard's article; but then, this is my tribe we're talking about and my POV may not be entirely N. --Orange Mike | Talk 20:30, 23 April 2009 (UTC) (and please don't call it "sci-fi"!)
- Thank you for the excellent cite. I don't think my POV is at all covert; I feel that we are doing our readers a disservice by acceding to the desire of marketing types to deny that science fiction works are in fact SF, and I am on record all over WP saying so. I do feel that the issue of dismissing Ballard by calling his SF "mere SF", or conversely of dismissing what SF has to say by dismissing it as "that sci-fi crap", is in fact worth noting in an article on a man whose roots were in that field. (Have you ever looked at the covers of New Worlds in the era he started selling to them?) --Orange Mike | Talk 21:32, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
Sticky prods
edit
Hi Snarkibartfast'! You participated earlier in the sticky prod workshop. The sticky prods are now in use, but there are still a few points of contention.
There are now a few proposals on the table to conclude the process. I encourage your input, whatever it might be. Thanks. --Maurreen (talk) 07:07, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
JGB
editSorry if you felt slapped by Pringle's errata, thanks for your work on J. G. Ballard :-) If you're not on it, you should definitely join the Yahoo mailing list - David Pringle and Rick McGrath are regulars, with Simon Sellars and other Ballard scholars stopping in occasionally. It's shockingly high quality for a mailing list. Pity the archive isn't public - David Gerard (talk) 11:41, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
- Not at all. As I said, I welcome any corrections (as well as additions and other improvements). My point was just that the dates used in the article didn't come from distrust or careless reading of JGB's autobiography, but predated its publication, and so I have no objection whatsoever to correcting them. Had the book been available at the time, I would certainly have relied on it. Thanks for the mailing list tip. - Snarkibartfast (talk) 13:33, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
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