I saw a post today warning people against reading Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s 1892 classic “The Yellow Wallpaper.” This confused me, as I believe the only people ever to be in danger of reading that story are high school juniors, and I’m pretty sure all of them are busy finding new and better ways to avoid their online schoolwork, like the kids in Wuhan who flooded their homework app with so many 1 star reviews it was deleted, which feels like a particularly funny detail from a Steven Millhauser speculative history. Still, I’ve been thinking a lot about “The Yellow Wallpaper.” It wasn’t a story I enjoyed reading while it was going on, but the ending’s always stuck with me, the image of our protagonist crawling on the floor attempting to free herself from behind the wall. At the time, I thought it was gendered. After conferring with other women and girls, I’ve learned it’s just me.
In trying to think of similar works about the theme of isolation, nothing particularly fantastic came to mind. I know Blindness is flying off the shelves (digitally, of course, to prevent contamination), but what came to my mind were more books such as Catcher in the Rye, Hamlet (yes I know it’s a play), and The Bell Jar (my personal favorite). I thought of Carmen Maria Machado’s “Inventory,” of course, but also the more grounded “The Resident” and “Difficult at Parties.” If we keep in mind that all fiction is fantastic, since none of it is real (except maybe The Bell Jar, but that isn’t the point) then I’ve come up with a fun fantasy list, but unfortunately all of my selections are rooted firmly in reality, but then again, how is reality any less fantastic? Is it not fantastic that I was able to have a video phone call today, like on The Jetsons? I keep imagining time traveling to 1892 and explaining that my sister lives over 350 miles away from me but that I still have the opportunity to talk to her every day. I bet they’d think it’s even more fantastic that I don’t take that opportunity every chance I get.
I think what is or isn’t fantastic can change for every person every day. When I first started at Sweet Briar, I was totally uncomfortable with anything having to do with what the Bible would consider magic, but then just today (I think– time doesn’t have a solid grip on me right now) I was explaining to someone how my tarot cards tried to tell me weeks ago that we would be moving to online classes, and I’m sure other people have similar stories. The idea of what is or isn’t fantasy varies too much from culture to culture and person to person for it to be a solid concept, and I’m excited to see what stops being fantasy for me in the future.
Rachel: I laughed out loud at your “The Yellow Wallpaper” joke about high school juniors. Nice to have a laugh in this strange time. It has occurred to me that the degree to which speculative fiction accurately anticipates future inventions and culture might have as much to do with an author’s understanding of human desire and aspiration as it does technological development. And right now, more than ever, the desire to be connected is s very great. Social media seemed to offer endless opportunities for such connection, but I expect this pandemic will expose how deeply unsatisfying it is.
I think my biggest litmus test for how successfully I view speculative fiction is the aspect of humanity it chooses to focus on. I think part of what led to Star Trek’s (I’m blogging from my phone and it won’t let me italicize, sorry!) staying power is its sense of optimism. Millhauser, in his own odd way, does the same thing, where in addition to the large scale problems, he goes into the titular dome being used as a means of tackling climate change and preventing weather disasters, or the families in “The Tower” starting and continuing the climb with intention of making things better for future generations. I think there’s some good media which focuses mainly on the negatives, but I think even among these they are more than anything stories than human resilience. (The specific examples I am thinking of are Fahrenheit 451 and 1984, and how much better the former is than the latter.)
I really like your point about how what is fantastic varies from culture to culture; now I can’t stop thinking about the ways in which other people around the world might be viewing the coronavirus–perhaps, for some, it is just a normal day, but for others, it seems like the end of the whole world.