Naomi Novik ([info]naominovik) wrote,
@ 2006-06-02 13:25:00
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Cultural Appropriation
I am in Dublin at the moment, and so don't have an enormous amount of time to get into the discussion of cultural appropriation spinning off from Wiscon (I direct anyone who hasn't seen over to [info]oyceter's post here, which has links to other posts), but I thought I would say that I completely welcome any discussion and critique of Throne of Jade and Black Powder War in this context -- not that people need my permission, obviously, but to relieve any inhibitions that anyone might feel.

It was and remains an issue that weighs on me, especially as my POV character is from an unashamedly imperialist tradition, so I sometimes feel as though I am on a tightrope between anachronism and racism every time I bring in other cultures. At the same time, I am uncomfortable about the general lack of characters of color and different cultural traditions in mainstream fantasy and sf.

My gut feeling is that it is better to appropriate with respect than to ignore. I would rather take my characters to China and Istanbul and Africa and make mistakes and get corrected for them than confine myself to the safe Western European sandbox and pretend the problem doesn't exist. But at the same time, choosing to go play in other people's sandboxes makes it incumbent on me to be open to that correction, and to do my best not to be defensive about it.

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[info]sinboy
2006-06-02 02:01 pm UTC (link)
If you're doing work in Africa, you might want to talk to Steve Barnes, who's done some scince fiction and alt-history set in Africa or with African characters. At the least, he could point you at some resources. Given th level of detailed research I saw in Throne Of Jade, I have no doubts about any other settings being treated respecfuly.

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[info]ladyvyola
2006-06-02 02:13 pm UTC (link)
Can't speak on this point yet -- just need to give a general squee.

My order of all three books from bn.com arrived last night (I went with free shipping so I had to wait until the third book was available before they shipped). I eagerly opened the box, carefully lifted the books out, inhaled the scent of paper and ink, ran my hands over the covers, put them in order, read the blurbs on the back...

...and handed them all to my father with a "Happy early Father's Day!"

Now I have to wait for him to read them before I can get my mitts back on 'em. I will report on his reaction, he being a 69 year-old former naval officer with a fondness for history, military or otherwise, and man-crushes on Sharpe, Hornblower, and Aubrey.

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[info]gerriwritinglog
2006-06-02 02:20 pm UTC (link)
Don't be uncomfortable with what you're writing. Actually, I find it refreshing in a day and age where the effort to be accomidating to everyone and everything spreads the story a bit too thin.

You have a strong voice, strong characters, and strong grasp on culture and time period. Your books are now on my repeat read list, and I'm learning a lot from them. :)

*begs for more*

*grin*

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I think you should take the risk
[info]dakiwiboid
2006-06-02 02:38 pm UTC (link)
I've learned a lot about cultures from books written with respect and verve! Often a well-written piece of fiction can spur someone to go out and learn about that culture for real. Don't forget that.

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[info]revrb
2006-06-02 02:54 pm UTC (link)
I think it's hard to be a writer without facing built-in assumptions projected by the public. "You're a writer! You're supposed to KNOW what you're writing about!" It's difficult to have the inside scoop on what it's like to be black/gay/communist/pagan/fill-in-the-blank and be able to portay that character or worldview accurately and sensitively. That's certainly no excuse for stereotyping or plain shoddy writing ( of which you're guilty of neither of those ), but having an open mind and a unique voice is what separates the writer from the hack.

Having said that: you write beautifully, and the Temeraire books fill me with a sense of wonder and joy. That's what great writing is supposed to do. Zhuhe ni! ( Congratulations! )

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[info]chickwriter
2006-06-02 03:20 pm UTC (link)
A fascinating discussion, indeed.

For an interesting take, I recommend reading Tony Hillerman's biography, or even any interviews with him.

I was lucky enough to speak with him at Malice Domestic a few years ago, and he talks about "write what you want to know" rather than "write what you know". Very few people can argue that Mr. H has made the contemporary Navajo world his, but some don't realize that Hillerman has absolutely no ties to the Navajo communities, other than the friendships he's made via his fiction. He wanted to write using Navajo protagonists and set about doing so by doing research. I'm thinking he succeeded. ;)

IMHO, writers are *always* appropriating cultures, especially those of us that write outside the realm of the "real". After all, the Great Britian, France, China, etc. of Lawrence's and Temeraire's world is as open to interpretation as is Anne McCaffrey's Pern, or my own fictional town of Rio Seco, Texas. No matter how "realistic" we try to be, in the end, it's fiction, and it's our own filter that makes the world, even if we're writing police procedurals set in current day New York City.

Anyhow, that's my .02. YMMV

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part 1
[info]the_shoshanna
2006-06-02 03:26 pm UTC (link)
it is better to appropriate with respect than to ignore.

I agree. I also don't think that all uses of an "other" or "foreign" culture (values of "other" and "foreign" are always debatable, of course) necessarily constitute "appropriation," with all the negative weight that term carries. (No one, for instance, would accuse you of "appropriating" early-nineteenth-century English culture, for example; "appropriation" is something that someone identified with a dominant culture does to something identified as an exploited culture, pretty much by definition. And only psychos would say that your use of a male POV is illegitimate.) Personally, I'd call it "appropriation" specifically and only when it's done without respect, when the foreign culture is used merely to inject a spurious tang of exoticism, and when the elements of that culture that are used (or, often, invented; the ultimate instance of disrespect) are driven entirely by the needs of the enclosing story rather than by the other culture's own logic and coherence.

A while ago I began rereading Throne of Jade to post some specific commentary and squee, with reference to specific pages. That project has fallen by the wayside, because of the influx of work (and because I praised the book in chat without realizing you were in channel, which I decided also counted as positive feedback even if it wasn't so detailed as what I'd been planning :g:). But one of the things I had been going to call out was the moment when Laurence is introduced to the Chinese embassy; one of its members is identified as a poet, and Laurence thinks that that has got to be a translator's error. "Cultures make such a lovely chime when they collide," I was going to remark. And then later, sadly, they make a grinding cacophony...

I really appreciated the way that your resolution of the plot of ToJ combined both cultures; I found it deeply satisfying for that reason.

Also, a certain exoticism is intrinsic to, and an expected part of, the genre you're writing in. Who would deny that part of the pleasure of the Hornblower or Aubrey/Maturin books is the dense thicket of nautical terminology, the representation of shipboard life and culture, which is almost as alien to most of their readers as any court of Imperial China? The thrill of vicariously exploring other cultures is part of why I read genre fiction, whether those cultures are historical, foreign, entirely invented, tweaks of actual modern or historical cultures, combinations of same, or something else. Just adding dragons to the familiar course of history exoticises it, of course; but while I agreed with the review of Temeraire that said that one of the book's pleasures was that it didn't spend time tediously justifying the presence of dragons -- this is how they evolved, here's a quick summary of history to show how it's possible to have the same political situation in 1800 that real history had even though there have been dragons all along, blah blah -- I also find that one of the series's pleasures for me is watching you work out the implications of their existence from this point onward; we may not worry about how we got here with dragons, but we're definitely interested in where we're going with them. Is this exoticism? Arguably. Is it a betrayal of the realist setting? Not hardly.

[cont'd; comment was too long for LJ]

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part 2
[info]the_shoshanna
2006-06-02 03:27 pm UTC (link)
my POV character is from an unashamedly imperialist tradition

And one of the very few moments when I felt that I could see the authorial hand arranging things (which is different from going, "Ooh, how neat!" though the latter is also an awareness of the author's act of creation) was the bits dealing with the slave trade; part of me was thinking, "Yeah, she can't have him entirely unbothered by slavery because that would make him too unpalatable to her audience, but she can't have him too bothered by it because that would make him a wild-eyed radical in the eyes of his own culture; kind of a narrow line she's walking, there." I could see you carefully placing your feet.

In her A Free Man of Color, whose protagonist is, well, a free man of color in 1830s New Orleans, Barbara Hambly has an introductory note saying something like "I have tried to be accurate in use of the language and terminology of the time, since that is how my characters would have spoken; many of these terms are, of course, deeply offensive to modern readers." (I've loaned out my copy and can't remember to who, argh!, so I can't quote it exactly.) Reading it, I was sorry that she felt she needed to defend her use of appropriate language and representation of historical racism; how much more offensive it would have been, in my opinion, if she had not! Have Laurence and Temeraire travel to far-flung places because they are exciting and interesting and make for dramatic opportunities (and allow you to write off exotic vacations as business expenses!); represent those places as fully as you can; and have Laurence and Temeraire react to them in ways true to their own characters. And if you get something wrong -- this is fiction. It's not as though misrepresenting how a tea ceremony is performed, or something, is equivalent to chaining someone into the ship's hold. In a later book in the same series, Hambly noted that she had misunderstood and therefore misused a piece of racial terminology earlier, and would be using it correctly from then on. No big deal.

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Beware the shudder test
(Anonymous)
2006-06-02 03:32 pm UTC (link)
Naomi--

Chris Yeh here. I just recently found this site after reading about ToJ in Entertainment Weekly (my sister bought a subscription for me, I swear it wasn't me!).

As I remarked to Matt Josefowicz, "Isn't it ironic that Charles isn't even the most famous literary figure in his family anymore?"

At any rate, I just want to comment that it's very dangerous to cede one's right to do something based on the reactions of others.

Recall during the stem cell debates that Leon Kass applied what he called "the shudder test" to determine whether or not therapeutic cloning was repugnant, and therefore should be banned.

The problem is that this shudder test is horrifically subjective. People were once horrified by vaccination, yet no one would argue that we should eliminate it.

All you can do is write what you think is right, and let others think what they may.

--Chris Yeh (chris at chrisyeh dot com)

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[info]mtmiser
2006-06-02 03:35 pm UTC (link)
Hello

Bullpuckey!

Naomi this is your world. You created it as a fiction for our entertainment. You owe no apologies, nor geo/political correctness. I like it where you have taken me. Keep writing and spreading the joy of escape fantasy beneath your dragons wings. I have NO complaints...

Pretty much I am saying

Think you are a sweetie

Love what you are doing

Charles is a lucky guy

Keep it up

Long live Temerarie and the King...LOL

MORE More more etc.... SOON Sooner quickly

John

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[info]shelly_rae
2006-06-02 04:06 pm UTC (link)
I think I'm bothered more by the idea that "culture" belongs to certain people who have some sort of inherent right to it than the idea that someone might mis-appropriate a culture. Perhaps that comes from my own rather confused, exceedingly multi-cultural background. Anyway, I'd keep in mind that you're while you're writing a historical novel, it's a fantasy novel first--an then it's an alternative-history. I mean really! Dragons! I also think that people are far more alike across all sorts of cultures, than they are different. If that wasn't true then we'd really be talking about aliens, and that's a whole different genre....
Anon

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[info]mecurtin
2006-06-02 04:10 pm UTC (link)
I just finished "Throne of Jade" last night -- My Guy was between books when it showed up, so he had first dibs. Haven't talked to him about it yet, we're waiting for the Future of Fandom to finish it so she can read it unspoiled. My SFBC omnibus with the purty cover should be showing up next week. omgsquee.

I think you're doing very well with the appropriation & distancing. One thing I *deeply* appreciate is that Laurence's father is a prick but anti-slavery, while Riley is a really nice guy who depends on it. It really emphasizes (by showing, not telling) that what seems obvious & true to us was not, back then.

word-use nit: "shell-shock" is a WWI term, first recorded 1915. The condition wasn't really seen before then because battles and artillery barrages just couldn't go on for very long, so no-one was exposed to the stress of constant bombardment and battle for weeks at a time.

I assume you've read Keegan's The Face of Battle, crucial for an understanding of Napoleonic-era warfare (though sans dragons, of course!).

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[info]musicwolf
2006-06-02 04:32 pm UTC (link)
Finished Black Powder War same day I bought it and loved it. As for your ideas about the use of reality, you've already introduced military concepts that have(or will) profoundly altered military thought in your world. I say say go with it and do what you want. I've seen a number of ways that you could deal with class and racial issues in future books and how the people of the day will react to various circumstances. (Yes, I'm being vague for those who haven't read all three yet.)

In addition to the works of Keegan, there are a number of books on how culture affects warfare. The two I'm currently reading(yay for being a military history major), John Lynn's Battle:A History of Combat and Culture and Victor Davis Hanson's Carnage and Culture might help give you ideas as they also spent time on non-Western battles and thought.

All in all, I'd say keep going as you are and I can't wait for the next book!

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[info]dragon_lord
2006-06-02 05:03 pm UTC (link)
I think you handle the cross cultures very well. There was rascism at the time, just like there is today, but you don't come off as being preachy about it, but handle it much like I think anyone during that time would.

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[info]blucola
2006-06-02 06:25 pm UTC (link)
I think you're doing quite well with the balance. I was thinking of the difference between your stories and those of Edgar Rice Burroughs who wrote with an arrogant imperialistic tone and used words like "boy" to refer to Africans in the tarzan novels. There was always more a sense of melancholy at the loss of luggage than in the "boys" carrying it, for instance. I don't picture Laurence lamenting the loss of his trunk more than crewmen who might carry it on board, on Temeraire...Of course Temeraire would never go aloft without making certain everyone was safe first!

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[info]oyceter
2006-06-02 08:16 pm UTC (link)
I am planning a giant post on Throne of Jade, which I just finished, as soon as I get around to answering all the cultural appropriation comments (i.e. maybe I'll post it next month....).

But it made me think a lot, especially about me and Temeraire and kids born in one place and raised in another. I don't know if you put it there intentionally, but I had lots of fun reading it like that.

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Cultural Appropriation
(Anonymous)
2006-06-03 03:11 am UTC (link)
First of all, welcome to Ireland and I look forward to seeing Laurence and Temeraire here in the future.

While I dont feel I can comment too much on cultural appropriation, being born in a country trying to recover from 800 years of different occupations and cultural interaction, I will agree with your sentiments about travelling to other cultures and getting it wrong rather than ignoring them.

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Absolutely!
[info]tokagemusume
2006-06-03 03:53 am UTC (link)
I agree completely. Write the entire planet! If someone has more colour and detail to add or misconceptions to correct, yippee! But safety and political correctness are the sworn enemies of creativity. Besides, someone is always going to get their panties in a twist even if you come out firmly in favour of apple pie and Mom. May as well please yourself.

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[info]notrafficlights
2006-06-03 06:32 am UTC (link)
Ohhh, hot issue. But I'm seeing a lot of people in other posts talk about culture as though it is only defined by homogenised nations or ethnicities. Which is not a good thing for such a discussion. You can play in "another sandbox" and "get corrected", but it doesn't always mean the correction is going to come from a reputable source in that culture, because any culture is a mass of diverse voices and contradictions.

Which brings us back to assimilation vs appropriation. I think this is a total bullshit false dichotomy. Assimilation needs appropriation to exist. Assimilation is a kind of appropriation with a purpose of homogenisation behind it. It always fails, of course, to properly fufil this purpose (assimilation creates its own phenomenon of resistance) but it's still appropriation.

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(Anonymous)
2006-06-05 05:47 am UTC (link)
I could see all the potential problems that dealing with the representation of China could have caused: feeling that one had to be over-politically correct, or feeling that one was going to be misunderstood as racist if one said anything less than complimentary about the Chinese. I thought you handled all these tactfully and judiciously and applauded your resistance to being over-politically correct. (I am Chinese, btw.) I was amused by the descriptions of Chinese cooking, even though the New year's dish you mention -- the throwing around of bits of the cold dish -- is actually not proper Chinese but a South East Asian modern fashion I believe started in Hong Kong in fairly recent times. I share the distrust of century eggs. What was the smelly mushroom, though? I couldn't think what this was. By sheer coincidence, I was watching an HK historical drama, War and beauty (available with English subtitles), on the Jiaqing emperor and the palace politics (mainly between concubines and Empress), and filmed in the Forbidden City -- anyone wanting to visualise the costumes and setting might want to watch this...)

Congratulations again on the series. I wait impatiently for my copy of BPW to arrive....

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[info]oyceter
2006-06-05 07:11 am UTC (link)
Hi! This isn't particularly related to cultural appropriation (or maybe it is? Because it's on Chinese dragons!).

Anyhow, I noticed that all the dragons in China had very specific names ("tian" for the Imperials and "Lung" as a sort of surname for all of them), and, uh, if it wasn't too much trouble, I'd really love to know what the actual characters for all the dragon names were, because it was just so cool to see that they sort of followed Chinese naming traditions as well!

(also, I kept getting stuck in the book because I wasn't sure how to pronounce them)

But only if it's not too much trouble!

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[info]l_clausewitz
2006-06-12 11:50 am UTC (link)
especially as my POV character is from an unashamedly imperialist tradition

What the...?

I'd say that practically all cultures before the development of a global and international awareness in the 20th century saw all other cultures as somewhat inferior--the stereotypical case being civilized folk seeing outsiders as "barbaric" and the outsiders seeing the great civilizations as "decadent." And in more than just one way, they're all right because no culture is perfect. Not even our "modern global culture."

Admit it. You couldn't have written your books without infusing them with the spirit of imperialism so prevalent in the period in question, and if you had tried you would have come up with a lifeless work that I bet I wouldn't have been able to enjoy. It's not your fault that the British Empire was an imperialist power in the Napoleonic period.

I agree with [info]shelly_rae in that the silliest idea of all is the one about "culture" being seen as the inviolable property of a specific group of people. I'm a full-blooded Asian living in Asia and the people critiquing my (unpublished) stories never seem to have an issue with me writing about, say, Roman or 17th-century European cultures, but many of them seem very eager to point out any "misperceptions" I make in stories about the Javanese and Chinese cultures I've been living in since the day I was born. If that's not silly, I don't know what is. [info]adora_spintriae has also made a good point in this respect.

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cult approap
(Anonymous)
2006-06-13 04:46 pm UTC (link)
naomi, i just finished "black powder war". i tore through the three books and will have to go back immediately and reread to see how you did it. just wanted to say about that, that these books are perfectly balanced and flawlessly written, and nothing but a pleasure to read on every front.

after reading these, i'm sure you're too sensible to pay any attention to the commenters who shriek "do what you want! no one owns culture!" this is a silly and shallow point of view, and anyone who uses the term "political correctness" at all, much less entirely negatively, is surely unable to give a definition of it.

your books are perfect examples of how to write about "foreign and exotic" cultures without exploitation, stupidity, or exotification. rather than focus on silly details (pagodas, tea fragrance) you place the emphasis of your storytelling on the complex and difficult conflicts that arise from culture clash, allowing the details to follow. the much-pursued sense of wonder arises, all on its own, from the wonder and confusion the pov character feels upon being thrust into new worlds and called upon to answer impossible questions. rather than setting for yourself the impossible task of presenting the reader with ever greater wonders, you simply make the reader identify strongly with laurence and temeraire, and then let their feelings tell the reader how to feel. it's so obvious and effective, i wonder why most writers don't do it.

i'm also amazed at your ability to keep your own politics and opinions in check and let laurence have his own context-appropriate opinions and politics. amazed because, from the performance of most other historical writers, this seems to be a near-impossible task. i mostly see, in historically set fiction, characters demonized for holding common beliefs of the time, and protagonists achieving enlightened opinions even the great liberal leaders of the day would have taken exception to. it's insulting to the reader's intelligence, and is exactly the kind of sloppiness that leads to cultural appropriation, rather than cultural use.

i won't be the one to tell you to relax, though, or give you a pass. i can only imagine the amount of work you've had to put into these books and i don't want to see you slack off. ;) excellent work. you've just acquired a lifelong fan. -- claire

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Cultural appropriation
(Anonymous)
2006-08-31 10:36 am UTC (link)
I think you are being a bit hard on yourself - and on Will Lawrence! He is not, and can't be, an imperialist because Britain did not become an imperial power until well after the end of the French wars. We did have a lot of 'posessions' overseas but they had been acquired for financial reasons (in the 1750s, Britain was prepared to let France have the whole of Canada in return for a couple of West Indian sugar islands because sugar was such a profitable commodity).

I think that you have done a splendid job of portraying a Royal Navy officer of the period - Lawrence would certainly have got on well with Horatio Hornblower or Jack Aubrey, never mind the real life characters of Nelson's Band of Brothers.

Going outside Western Europe makes sense. There were no major Fleet actions in Far Eastern waters but there was plenty of naval activity. Also (leaving out their contribution to British air power at the Nile, and the possibility of some fire breathers for the Aerial Corps) the Turkish Empire controlled everything from the Adriatic to the Persian Gulf at this time so they had to be treated with some respect.

Having said that, I do hope you keep our heroes safely in the European theatre for a while round 1812. I can't see Lawrence, or any of his fellow aviators, sitting still while the Johnathans eat up His Majesty's frigates, and they are best kept clear of that most pointless of conflicts. (Given his political sympathies, do you think Temeraire would actually attack an American warship anyway?).

Duncan McDougall
Epsom, Surrey, UK

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cultural appropriation
(Anonymous)
2006-11-24 12:49 pm UTC (link)
One of the most interesting things in Ms Novak's series is seeing how an upperclass 18th century english officer grapples with his cultural expectations. I found the first book to be one of the most thrilling and intriguing stories I have read because of its exploration of Laurence's change in status from respected naval officer to 'outcast' Aerial Corps officer and the realistic way he confronts the changes this brings to his life. Perhaps the most obvious example of this is his musings from his first day at Lake Laggan, where he is forced to confront the human intelligence and authority of Celeritas the dragon training master and then the issue of women in the corps. His acceptance of both is very deftly explained in previous glimpses of his character that show him to be 1)punctillious about respecting the chain of command and lawful authority (if not always the person wielding such authority) and 2)a courteous and considerate gentleman to all, however outraged his sensibilities may be. The author has portrayed Captain Laurence's reactions entirely in line with historical tradition and his cultural background even though those reactions are also considered beyond the pale by other members of his culture and are heavily influenced by more modern ideals. Captain Laurence's reactions always seemed both in line with modern sensibilities, true to his character and what one could expect of a 'true' gentleman of his time and class. I never felt the author was projecting 20th century ideas of equality or other modern views onto Captain Laurence. Consequently, the interaction with other cultures, in particular, the slave trade in Throne of Jade, are particularly fascinating as they show how a reasonable 18th century Englishman might grapple with the idea that England is not the centre of the world - as it may seem to an Englishman. And even more, how that Englishman can still offer a realistic defence of his country while accnowledging its faults. (I find his attempts to explain to Temeraire WHY they must fight and do their duty particularly fascinating for what they reveal about the Captain and by extension England.)
Ms. Novak's Captain Laurence walks what she calls the "tightrope between anachronism and racism" in a superb manner, as his gentlemanly instincts conflict with his cultural upbringing - and usually triumph, even though they may cause him misgivings and discomfort as in his acceptance of the female members of the Aerial Corps.

That tightrope is what adds such incredible interest and entertainment to her novels for me. I hope Captain Laurence may continue to balance with such skill for our entertainment and edification in Ms Novak's future novels.

Lorien

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[info]ravenclaw_eric
2006-12-31 06:57 pm UTC (link)
George MacDonald Fraser, in his historicals, often has to deal with this sort of thing. The POVs he uses (Flashman, for the _Flashman_ series, and various Regency-era Englishmen for _Black Ajax_) were different from moderns in many, many ways---and it shows. They don't act or talk like twenty-first-century, equality-besotted, guilt-ridden Americans. Flashman uses "the N-word" and other "racial slurs" freely, and many of the narrators of _Black Ajax_ (which is about a black man, Tom Molineaux, trying for the heavyweight boxing championship of Regency England---which really did happen) speak of Tom as though he were a trained animal.

In my own LJ I have ranted about writers who insist on writing historical-based fiction (fantasy, SF, romance and historical novels) where the protagonists, at least, act like Americans in period dress. Sharan Newman has a wonderful rant about that online somewhere.

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