Though a long time advocate of M. John Harrison (though see my relatively recent post on Harrison on Lovecraft), I have found myself somewhat blindsided by the very same quote of Harrison’s which, I believe quite rightly, this blogger has railed against
No doubt apologists will say that Harrison was being ironic or somesuch, but sadly, I feel that the attitude Harrison unreflectively demonstrates in the claim that ‘it is undignified to read for the purposes of escape’ is indicative of so much of ‘New Weird’ and the earlier ‘New Wave’ of sci-fi literature (of which, I confess, i still consider myself a fan). Especially amongst a number of these genres’ acedemic/philosophical exegetes, who would style themselves as revolutionaries without really – I mean really – having any experiential or conceptual understanding of what it means not to have come from anything other than a relatively privileged middle-class background. Shame on them. All of them.
