There’s a troubling amount of material in favorite pulp adventures that don’t do well under that examining microscope, and I think pointing it out is worthwhile.

Of course, doing so isn’t always harmonious. The thing that strikes me about concerns of being too “politically correct” is that it’s almost never about someone’s analysis being wrong (it certainly happens, or at least interpretations differ). It’s more often that the accusing person feels threatened — as though someone else’s examination or interpretation of fiction takes away meaning and pleasure in their life.

What a strange idea. If such a thing is so easily taken, how valuable was it in the first place?

Hey tchernabyelo: I was actually headed toward the “that was then, this is now” thing when I started writing, and I think it’s a valid point. But I guess I can’t go all the way on relativism either, and there were other people writing at the same time or earlier who had more realistic takes on race (like Dashiell Hammett, whose black characters don’t tend to be monsters or matrys). But, however we do it, I think we have to find a way to separate moral judgements from esthetic ones. (That sounds a little pompous when talking about S&S, I guess, but I can’t think of a better set of terms.)

Hey Bill: I know what you mean. Sometimes I have to put a book aside and wait for the right reader to show up. (And sometimes he never does: a few books have been sitting in my “to be read” stacks for a long time.)

Hey Dave: Writing definitely changes the way I read. But sometimes I find I have to fight that, just read like a reader. Not sure if that means anything.

Hey John: I think this is true. There’s no way to escape either reader, so we might as well try to make both happy. The trouble is, they don’t always like the same thing–the sophisticated reader can often be a problem to the naive reader in this regard, as he gets so many of his ideas from other people.

NAIVE READER: Shiny spaceships and robots of death! Let’s buy this book!

SOPHISTICATED READER: But this book where nanotechnology is used as a pretext for flaunting the author’s graduate school work in American literature comes very highly recommended! We will buy this book, if you please.

NR: I hate you! Get out of my head!

And so the long day wears on.

Unfortunately, this has made some stories far less enjoyable than they would have been prior.

I attribute this change to the desire to improve my own writing. Of course, some stories simply sing, and they silence the sophisticated reader entirely with their near-magical prose. For those, I am gladly willing to wait until I’m done before I dissect them.