Quote:
Originally Posted by sjfan
Even in the 1990s our high school English teachers would bend themselves into knots attempting to make up reasons why 1984 and A Brave New World aren't science fiction and The Picture of Dorian Gray and 100 Years of Solitude (which features an actual flying carpet) aren't fantasy.
Because those are good books, and thus clearly couldn't be in those genres.
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When "1984" and "Brave New World" were written there was only one genre and that was science fiction and neither of these books were put into science fiction in book stores. Well, I wasn't actually around when "Brave New World was written and I was 8 when "1984" was written so I don't actually know that. But by 1951 or 52 when i started going into book stores they were in the fiction section.
Reviews of those books in those days sometimes referred to them as science fiction but most often that wasn't mentioned. They were considered general fiction. I haven't read the other two so I won't comment on those.
I can see why today they might be thought of as science fiction since it's no longer the same sort of genre it used to be. For the most part science fiction was written to appeal to people with an interest in science. Today it's written to appeal to people with interest in fantasy, sociology, politics and horror and sometimes science. Both books fit into today's ideas of what science fiction is, although not the ideas of the past.
Actually, the term "science fiction" didn't come into general use until the early 1950s and then it referred to pulp fiction until late in that decade and both of these books were written before then.
I think I have to agree with your teacher.
Barry