Writers and Critics
Dec. 17th, 2006 05:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ksmithAt least one other LJer has blogged about Michael Crichton's revenge against Michael Crowley, who wrote an article critical of Crichton's book STATE OF FEAR. For those who came in late, Crowley felt Crichton's science questionable and his prose potboilery. Crichton took his revenge by adding a minor character named Mick Crowley to his latest book, NEXT, and making him an underendowed child rapist.
This has been blogged about elsewhere. While reading the entry on Firedog Lake on the subject, I was treated to some of the usual "how they see us". When referring to the fact that Crichton has never been "a particularly gifted wordsmith", TRex goes on to add:
As is too often the case with science fiction authors, readers are so caught up in the "Gee-whiz! Neato!" aspects of what they're reading that they fail to notice that the characters are stock, the dialogue is clunky and stilted, the plotting is abysmal, and that the narrative thread limps along like a Pontiac with three flat tires.
I would say, as an aside, that this is also an issue with pop fiction in general, but I'm biased, and anyway, that's beside the point. In any event, Crowley posted his response in the online edition of NEW REPUBLIC. Thus did I learn about "the small penis rule",
As described in a 1998 New York Times article, it is a sly trick employed by authors who have defamed someone to discourage their targets from filing lawsuits. As libel lawyer Leon Friedman explained to the Times, "No male is going to come forward and say, 'That character with a very small penis, 'That's me!'"
(No comment as to how one would prevent a woman from suing for defamation. Small tits? Plastic surgery? Aren't we worth defaming?)
::Steers the bus back onto the essay road...::
So Crichton has played by that rule, and has thus allowed Crowley the chance to change the game in midstream, for Crowley ends his calm, even-handed article with the following:
Crichton launched his noxious attack from behind the shield of the small penis rule because, I'm sure, he's embarrassed by what he has done. In researching my article, I found a man who has long yearned for intellectual stature beyond the realm of killer dinosaurs and talking monkeys. And Crichton must know that turning a critic into a poorly endowed child rapist won't exactly aid his cause. Ultimately, then, I find myself strangely flattered. To explain why, let me propose a corollary to the small penis rule. Call it the small man rule: If someone offers substantive criticism of an author, and the author responds by hitting below the belt, as it were, then he's conceding that the critic has won. (Bolding mine)
Because it's all about who wins.
That's why you never answer critics--or at least file off the serial numbers, or let your readers/fans fight the good fight for you. Because acknowledgment, especially when emotionally-tinged, grants too much power to the critic. In his article, Crowley was able to allude to the decline in sales of Crichton's books, and to provide readers the mental picture of "the smoldering Crichton, alone in his darkened study, imagining in pornographic detail the rape of a small child." The failing writer, too much in touch with the seamy side of his creations. Financial and emotional underendowment. The small penis rule wielded as a scalpel instead of as a club.
Because there are ways you can do it while seeming quite, quite civilized, and don't think Crowley doesn't understand that.
This has been blogged about elsewhere. While reading the entry on Firedog Lake on the subject, I was treated to some of the usual "how they see us". When referring to the fact that Crichton has never been "a particularly gifted wordsmith", TRex goes on to add:
As is too often the case with science fiction authors, readers are so caught up in the "Gee-whiz! Neato!" aspects of what they're reading that they fail to notice that the characters are stock, the dialogue is clunky and stilted, the plotting is abysmal, and that the narrative thread limps along like a Pontiac with three flat tires.
I would say, as an aside, that this is also an issue with pop fiction in general, but I'm biased, and anyway, that's beside the point. In any event, Crowley posted his response in the online edition of NEW REPUBLIC. Thus did I learn about "the small penis rule",
As described in a 1998 New York Times article, it is a sly trick employed by authors who have defamed someone to discourage their targets from filing lawsuits. As libel lawyer Leon Friedman explained to the Times, "No male is going to come forward and say, 'That character with a very small penis, 'That's me!'"
(No comment as to how one would prevent a woman from suing for defamation. Small tits? Plastic surgery? Aren't we worth defaming?)
::Steers the bus back onto the essay road...::
So Crichton has played by that rule, and has thus allowed Crowley the chance to change the game in midstream, for Crowley ends his calm, even-handed article with the following:
Crichton launched his noxious attack from behind the shield of the small penis rule because, I'm sure, he's embarrassed by what he has done. In researching my article, I found a man who has long yearned for intellectual stature beyond the realm of killer dinosaurs and talking monkeys. And Crichton must know that turning a critic into a poorly endowed child rapist won't exactly aid his cause. Ultimately, then, I find myself strangely flattered. To explain why, let me propose a corollary to the small penis rule. Call it the small man rule: If someone offers substantive criticism of an author, and the author responds by hitting below the belt, as it were, then he's conceding that the critic has won. (Bolding mine)
Because it's all about who wins.
That's why you never answer critics--or at least file off the serial numbers, or let your readers/fans fight the good fight for you. Because acknowledgment, especially when emotionally-tinged, grants too much power to the critic. In his article, Crowley was able to allude to the decline in sales of Crichton's books, and to provide readers the mental picture of "the smoldering Crichton, alone in his darkened study, imagining in pornographic detail the rape of a small child." The failing writer, too much in touch with the seamy side of his creations. Financial and emotional underendowment. The small penis rule wielded as a scalpel instead of as a club.
Because there are ways you can do it while seeming quite, quite civilized, and don't think Crowley doesn't understand that.
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no subject
Date: 2006-12-17 11:43 pm (UTC)And isn't it interesting to see how "outsiders" perceive SF/F? It pops up in threads over at Absolute Write sometimes, how fantasy is such a small part of the market and it's because we're all writing about dragons and wizards and Tolkein knock-offs. Wouldn't it be nice if people actually read a bit before running their mouths?
no subject
Date: 2006-12-17 11:52 pm (UTC)It seems so forgiving, so calm and nice. Until you read it carefully and see how someone with some wordsmithing talent can drive it in right up to the hilt.
And isn't it interesting to see how "outsiders" perceive SF/F? It pops up in threads over at Absolute Write sometimes, how fantasy is such a small part of the market and it's because we're all writing about dragons and wizards and Tolkein knock-offs. Wouldn't it be nice if people actually read a bit before running their mouths?
For a time I considered responding, but figured it would prove the blogging equivalent of pounding sand down a rathole. I mean, Crichton is a clunky writer and SF has more than its fair share of those. But I've read horrible popfic and horrible mystery and romance and for crying out loud, did you read the article containing excerpts from the year's worst lit'ry sex scenes?
They're calling Crichton a science fiction writer, which I think is interesting becase afaik, his stuff is sold as general fiction. I can hear the Atwood Defense now...
no subject
Date: 2006-12-18 12:26 am (UTC)Didn't Atwood finally admit she was writing SF? I got into a big debate with a friend in grad school about that. She simply refused to let me label The Handmaid's Tale as science fiction. We compromised with speculative fiction. I still don't understand her distinction there.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-18 01:57 am (UTC)I think Atwood did finally admit to having buried the body behind the woodshed. About time, too.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-18 07:07 pm (UTC)I've always considered "speculative fiction" the newspeak/PC term for "science fiction," but I don't know if Ms. Atwood sees it that way.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-18 08:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-18 12:11 am (UTC)If only all sf writers were shelved where Michael Crichton gets shelved. I've only read one of his books, Disclosure, and that was because I was on a 2 week bus tour of Europe and it was the only one available. I found the story compelling but the prose clunky and the characters flat.
I don't read reviews of my work, and don't ever intend to. Life is too short. The only opinions that matter to me are those of my agent, my publisher, and readers.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-18 01:53 am (UTC)I read Andromeda Strain years ago and recall liking it. I read Jurassic Park about the time it came out, and that drove me nuts in places. Cardboard characters aside, page after page of polemic uttered by a character that is supposedly sick unto dying had me wishing a velociraptor would break down the door and finish him off.
I doubt any of our editors would have let us get away with that. I wonder if Crichton has achieved the dreaded no-edit clause?
no subject
Date: 2006-12-18 01:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-18 01:47 am (UTC)I'm guessing that 1% of Crichton's sales would keep me in handbags and skincare for the rest of my days, but the water's deeper at his end of the pool and the sharks are a bit larger.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-18 04:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-18 04:22 am (UTC)Don't have the knack for the topical Big Idea, though, or the FTL plot. Having those can allow you to brush a lot of other less-than-good stuff under the rug.
I think it was at the last Windy I attended that Robert Sawyer said that publishers are on the lookout for the next Crichton, but some of the SF writers that might fit the bill won't write science as the bad guy. Crichton writes paranoid thrillers, and if you think science can be a good thing, his way of thinking may lack appeal.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-18 04:27 am (UTC)Not egooey at all. Crichton's books are BigMacs. Yours are good steak.
but some of the SF writers that might fit the bill won't write science as the bad guy.
Bingo. Crichton, especially latter day Crichton, appeals to the science "Luddites" among us.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-18 02:59 pm (UTC)