just doesn’t happen very often: Verlyn Klinkenborg has written a piece for the New York Times that connects the eighteenth century with speculative fiction. See “When Doris Lessing Meets Lady Mary Wortley Montagu” (Dec. 8/07) for an interesting read about the ways in which we tend to position writers from the past, and how re-imagining them can offer new insights. The wry Montagu is particularly suitable for this somewhat whimsical treatment, while conversely being enough of a heavyweight to survive a comparison with Lessing.
[Xposted]
1 response so far ↓
dave mazella // December 9, 2007 at 12:52 pm |
Hi Miriam,
I was interested in this, too, when I heard of it. I liked the line about our unexamined “belief that we live on a progressive timeline of steady advancement,” and how SF conventions target this kind of myopia about the limitations to our own perspective. Montagu does seem to have a “view from nowhere,” so why not place her in the future?
DM