Sunday, May 7, 2017

Week 13: Literally Speculation

For this week I read the first story from Italo Calvino's Cosmicomics series about the evolution of the universe called  All at One Point. This work was particularly interesting because it personified all the elements of the big bang and expansion of the universe to create a character driven retelling of scientific fact. While undeniably science as well as undeniably fiction, (Ph(i)NK₀ is not in fact a wife kneading dough for noodles) I find it hard to confidently proclaim this as a work of the science fiction genre. True the short story does take place in space but it fails to meet any of the other genre markers such as; alternate time setting, aliens or mutants or even androids, futuristic tech, new science, new political systems like a dystopia, ESP, or even AUs. There is a little bit of suspension of disbelief and arguably some speculations but even then its missing enough genre markers that were you to market it a a science fiction genre piece people, coming into it with pretty concrete expectations, would most likely be confused or disappointed. That being said, it doesn't necessarily have the more serious speculative or even academic tone a lot of literary writing has seemed to embrace because, despite the rather science heavy subject matter, the personifications gives the words a whimsical flare. All at One Point certainly finds itself in a gray area that, in my opinion, leans a bit more towards the literary end of the spectrum.

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