I still don't get it

[redbird]

I picked up a copy of M. John Harrison's novel Light because it was a Tiptree winner (the year before I was on the jury). I not only didn't like the book, I couldn't see why it won the Tiptree.

Prompted by rysmiel's review of the book, I finally got around to seeing what that year's jury said about it. I still don't get it. Partly I don't see what they saw in the book, and partly I don't agree that what they saw explores or expands gender.

Comments

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

About Light: I think it's one of the great Tiptree winners, and I also understand that Harrison isn't to everyone's tastes. As you know, I have the privilege of reading the jury deliberations as they unfold, so I saw how some people took to Light instantly while others were much slower to make the leap. In the end, it was a completely unanimous choice.

What struck me as gendered, more than any other single thing, was the way Harrison controls and manages attention to various plot elements, if you will, the way he chooses to shed light. I'm not a horror aficionado, but I've read my share of "serial killer of women" books, some of which (i.e., Thomas Harris's first two in particular) I have a very high opinion of. Perhaps this helped me to see the way Harrison backgrounds and trivializes that aspect of his novel, while everyone else who has ever written about it foregrounds and eroticizes it, even the great writers in that genre.

That's just a piece, but it's the piece that sold me, and the one I can remember at this remove.