I will venture the hypothesis that prior to the 20th century novels were sometimes political, that during the 20th century the political novel was marginalized, and that in the early 21st century the novel has become political again.

In my view, part of the reason the 20th century literary novel is non-political is exactly because of political meddling with the form. There were political novels, many of which were propaganda and read very poorly now, and novels of character. I am thinking here of Dos Passos’s work, after Hemingway arranged Dos Passos’s humiliation in Spain.

In a very odd sf novel, Jack of Eagles (which I do not recommend), James Blish, author and critic, once made the point that you can’t put yourself in a possible world where what you want is true and at the same time expect your study of that world to lead to useful predictions. You can’t get predictions: only projected wishes. Long years after last reading that book, it seems to me that this might be a critique of propaganda in fiction and poetry: if an author bases a novel on political predictions, the story can only give back those political predictions. Such a novel can’t speak meaningfully of the possibilities of character, only, like a religious story of sin, speak of the Harm That Will Befall When Characters Break The Rules.

The pols either wanted the form to serve their purposes, or wanted no interference with their propaganda. The great communist propagandist and publisher Willi Münzenberg (1889-1940) was one of the major figures here. But the CIA seems also to have meddled in post World War II arts in the Western Bloc, though I know little of the details. And the meddling killed the art. But the meddling seems to be over, and the mainstream political novel has made a resurgence.

Political in the popular sense of political which includes the kind of human events that are not necessarily institutional, that can sometimes be violent, but which are always about a “power”-ful way of arranging social relations.

As for novel names, please see below (I am only naming one per each author; most are in Wikipedia; almost all have written more than one political novel):

Miguel Angel Asturias – El Senior Presidente (authoritarian rule)

Alejo Carpentier – Explosion in a Cathedral (against revolutions)

Gabriel Garica Marquez – The Autumn of the Patriarch (authoritarian rule)

Roberto Bolano – The Part about the Crimes (in 2666 – about the murder of Mexican women in the border work-towns)

Abd Al-Rahman Munif – Cities of Salt (about the way in which oil transformed Saudi)

Marjane Satrapi – Persepolis (The Iranian revolution)

Naguib Mahfouz – The Cairo Trilogy (the political transformation of Egypt in early 20th century)

Anton Shammas – Arabesques (creation of Israel and the lives of Palestinian citizens of Israel)

Shahrnush Parsipur – Touba and the Meaning of Life (political transformations of gender in 20th century Iran)

Ghassan Kanafani – Men in the Sun (Palestinians’ predicament)

Elias Khoury – The Gate of the Sun (Palestinian refugees’ predicament)

Nawwal Al-Saadawi – Woman at Point Zero (political imprisonment)

Rawi al-Hage – De Niro’s Game (civil or not so civil war)

Orhan Pamuk – Snow (Islamism, nationalism, Kemalism, coup-d’etats)

Ala Al-Aswany – Chicago (diasporic politics)

Sahar Khalifeh – Wild Thorns (masculinity in war)

Etel Adnan – Sitt Marie Rose (feminnity in war)

Tayyeb Salih – Season of Migration to the North (Colonialism)

Assja Djebar – Fantasia Trilogy (colonisation and decolonisation)

Chinua Achebe – Things Fall Apart (colonisation and decolonisation)

Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche – Half of a Yellow Sun (the Biafran war)

N’gugi wa Thiongo – The Wizard of the Crow (fantastic satire of kleptocracies in Africa)

Mushin Ahmad – The Reluctant Fundamentalist (9/11)

Salman Rushdie – Shame (Pakistan post-independence)

Romain Gary – White Dog (racism in 1960s US)

Friedrich Dürrenmatt – the Physicists (politics and ethics of science)

Ariel Dorfman – Death and the Maiden (torture)

Lyonel Trouillot – Street of Lost Footsteps (devastation of Haiti)

This post caught my eye: Pohl appears to have applied that nearly unavoidable kittehz captioning phenomenon to yield some insight into the use of animals as subjects in clinical trials by inverting the relationship between Schrodinger’s cat and our erstwhile, nominal observer. I think.

http://www.thewaythefutureblogs.com/

Still kickin’ it, old school

How does the nature of narrative apply to the exercise of power? That’d be the more accurate question. And who said I was referring only to right wing scifi writers? Three quick responses:

The virtually endless examination of literary strategies conducted in the shadow of power and in the context of social conformity has everything to do with “the generally far right wing authors of American scifi.” What part about the way narrative lit across the board and texts in general actually work did you not pick up on? Fiction as a whole and science fiction as a genre employ the same devices to persuade your average dullard and stubborn conformist alike. Distracting and entertaining the villagers—by which I refer as much to the urban cogniscenti as the rural rube—- while slipping in social messages that when uttered out in the open would be deemed shocking, ridiculous, illegal or heretical is just the most general description of storytelling in and of itself.

Doesn’t really matter what the politics of the author are, or what the specific genre is. If the story takes place in Denmark rather than England or Middle Earth rather than Middlesex, if it’s set on a desert island or in an unfamiliar kingdom or deep into the future, or takes place a long time ago in a galaxy far far away—- authors weave a storyline to release the conscious defenses crutch-like beliefs ideologues and average folks lean on in the light of day. Writers of all stripes are better able to persuade you and those you disagree with using age-old narrative tactics in general and and the less-subtle plot devices of science fiction specifically. Along the way, authors can evade persecution by enforcer and priest alike.

You seem awful eager to omit any recognition of the applicable pith within that universal trait.

Second: American science fiction is hardly defined by or limited to authors with a right-wing agenda. Upthread someone mentioned Frederik Pohl, and he’s one of many that satirized consumer culture and conformist society, or warned of totalitarian regimes.
http://www.enotes.com/short-story-criticism/pohl-frederik

Pohl’s protagonists were often men in grey flannel suits, corporate executives, ad men, who represented the middle class culture of the near future. They worried about paying bills and getting raises. Cogs in great corporate machines, these characters often came to recognize the horrors their companies were helping to produce. . . . Pohl focused on mundane life in future cultures, asking us to reflect on social, economic, and cultural trends that might link his apocalyptic societies to our own.
http://web.mit.edu/m-i-t/science_fiction/profiles/pohl.html

Andrew Ross has written of the Futurians: “Their injection of social consciousness into the fandom world had an enduring effect at a time when the pulp stories were beginning to address the future of authoritarian social orders. Graduating to the ranks of professional editors and writers at the end of the decade, they eventually formed something of a counterculture operating against the established power of the field’s publishers and editors.

To underscore that point a bit: you seem unfamiliar with American science fiction. To say nothing of 20th century political history.

Third, you seem to be confusing the artist with the artifact. Is it the case that a novel that weaves a story around a totalitarian political regime is necessarily promoting such a political order? Uh, no. Instead, the author might be demanding that readers take a little responsbility, and confront what kind of social, cultural and political order they can in good conscience support.

Fourth:I’m not sure we can make the case that every libertarian author is actually, in point of fact, a right-wing science fiction writer. Let’s recall the closed, nay oppressive, social and political order of the 1940s, 1950s—- and which extended in signficant ways into the 1960s and 70s. In that context, writers advocating for individualism and for limited government would be taking a conservative position—- and as a liberal (progressive) I can wholeheartedly agree with those values for all the right reasons. And you should as well.

In short, political repression was a serious threat from the 40s through the 60s, and its remnants still had to be contended with in the 70s, when its remnants were still felt on a visceral level.

In that context, clumsy or crude sci-fi plots were not likely to be seen as such, and as a blunt instrument were more likely to get the message across to a general audience. In that context, it may be that a writer with legitimate conservative values could oppose an oppressive culture and a repressive political regime with a fervor equal to any writer of liberal bent.

We benefit from the luxury of a more open society, but that clouds our vision and renders hindsight at best unreliable.

Which applies to the generally far right wing authors of American scifi, how? They were worried that their equally right wing neighbors and equally right wing political regime would……..do what, precisely?

*with the addition of other means, thanks Carl

I can’t think of a definition of “politics” that would include Oedipus Rex, but exclude, say, Lord of the Rings.

I can’t think of a definition of “politics” that would include Oedipus Rex, but exclude, say, Lord of the Rings.

There we go!

Neatly puts an end to the (apparently uninformed) ’ Science Fiction is Not Political Debate.’ There’s an entire body of academic literature dealing with the necessity to go allegorical in one’s writing to evade censorship as well as more dire political consequences. The novel and fiction itself, as well as eventually science fiction (Lem), can be seen at various points as tactics to get one’s message across a) via subterfuge to readers whose conscious political/social orientation left them unwilling to entertain explicit or explosive political messaging, and b) without costing the author his or her life.

If that’s not political, I don’t know what is.

Just sayin.

My recollection is that there isn’t any clear explanation of a relationship between the
unprecedented lethality of the worms, and the presence of the asteroid. The urge to
assume such a link is strong. But then we’re not even sure the asteroid is radioactive:
IIRC it just gives off heat. And if it were radioactive, why not just have the radiation
kill the divers ? Rather than futz around with the worm stuff ?

I dunno, maybe it was a deliberate satire on stupid conspiracy thrillers, but the
appropriate tone and details got lost in translation.

As an American, let me nominate the Chinese novel, To Live, by Yu Hua. Admittedly, I read it in translation.

The scene where the communist official’s wife experiences complications during labor, and the resolution of that scene, is bitingly inspired.