{"id":8874,"date":"2021-03-02T08:07:30","date_gmt":"2021-03-02T13:07:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8874"},"modified":"2021-03-02T08:21:57","modified_gmt":"2021-03-02T13:21:57","slug":"beyond-the-human-gaze-writer-jeff-vandermeert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8874","title":{"rendered":"Beyond the Human Gaze: Writer Jeff VanderMeer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Now that every issue in my complete set of the literary short story journal Glimmer Train<\/em> is on its way to true vintage status, I\u2019m taking a look at some of the essays the editors provided over the years\u2014content I\u2019d skip over to get to the stories!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the fall 2018 issue, David Naimon interviewed Jeff VanderMeer<\/a>, an award winning author in the vast realm of fantasy and science fiction, plus the landmark writing guide Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction<\/a><\/em>. Consider adding that to your list of possible birthday presents for author-friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their conversation began with a discussion of VanderMeer\u2019s post-apocalyptic novel Borne<\/em>, which includes a character that is a piece of biotechnology. Writing about non-human creatures, including animals, is a big blind spot in fiction of all types, VanderMeer believes. Writers do plenty of research to create a fictional world that\u2019s believable, but, when it comes to animal behavior, blow it completely. We perpetuate the folklore that owls are wise; he says they\u2019re not. (Don\u2019t tell Harry Potter<\/a> fans.) If an animal is cute, or if we believe it\u2019s intelligent, it\u2019s considered more worthy of attention, at least for fund-raising. We think of sharks as loners (not loaners, that\u2019s something different), when some are quite social. \u201cWe do, I think, have to get beyond the idea of trying to find human-like intelligence in other animals, because their intelligence is very different.\u201d Whoops! There\u2019s my cue to mention octopuses<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ursula K. Le Guin believed scientists\u2019 reluctance to anthropomorphize animals\u2019 behavior and emotional state has backfired. While we shouldn\u2019t ascribe human motives and feelings to them, sure, we shouldn\u2019t go too far in the other direction either, presuming they have no <\/em>intention or emotional component to their actions. \u201cIt\u2019s an act of empathy and imagination to at least try to get beyond the human gaze,\u201d VanderMeer said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

VanderMeer is a believer in the ineffable. The more you explain about the science imbedded in a story, \u201cthe less the reader usually believes it.\u201d Over-explaining signals a lack of confidence in what the story is saying. I personally like technothrillers with a generous amount of precise explanation, at least of things I can understand\u2014the assassin\u2019s requirements for the gun in Day of the Jackal<\/em>, for example. But if the science is beyond lay understanding, best to assume the reader will accept the outcome and move on, VanderMeer said. A miracle happened. Now that\u2019s <\/em>something people will <\/em>believe.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now that every issue in my complete set of the literary short story journal Glimmer Train is on its way to true vintage status, I\u2019m taking a look at some of the essays the editors provided over the years\u2014content I\u2019d … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Beyond the Human Gaze: Writer Jeff VanderMeert - do we get animals wrong?","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[62,174,51,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-authors","category-first-draft-blog","category-words","category-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2j8","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8874"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8877,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8874\/revisions\/8877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}