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Jump to navigationJump to searchAgainst All Authority: Anarchism and the Literary Imagination by Jeff Shantz (view source)
Revision as of 11:29, 17 December 2011
, 11:29, 17 December 2011no edit summary
The examination of Joyce stretched the notions of anarchism a little, I felt, but in a very interesting way; as did the chapter on African writers (and Soyinka in particular).
I was a little disappointed with the Schantz's treatment of LeGuinLe Guin, the one author on his list that I am a life-long fan of. Although he uses the case of Le Guin's to introduce the role of anarchist thought in speculative fiction, and shows the specific features of Le Guin's visions using the very apt example of ''The Dispossessed'', he then covers ''Eye of the Heron'' (possibly the weakest novel Le Guin ever committed), approaches the [[The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula LeGuinK Le Guin|The Left Hand of Darkness]] in a very limited fashion (Le Guin's speculations go well beyond notions of socially constructed genders and into the biology itself) and completely ignore her large fantasy output.
The penultimate chapter on ''DIY Anarchy'' covers current North American anarchist literary production. It is notably less ''lit-crit'' than the preceding ones and draws on voices of the current zine authors and communities. It offers an interesting summary of the attitudes and challenges faced by those who attempt to combine writing with their anarchist activism and it also (perhaps inadvertently) shines a light on what might be termed a fascinated disgust with which the participants in the DIY scene view the commercial or mainstream literary world. This attitude perhaps prevents them from seeing that less separates the commercial writers from them than they might like to imagine: from the co-operative writing that is common in for example science-fiction to their own presence on commercial platforms like Amazon.
Not for a general readership, but with a possible audience outside the strictest academia, ''Against All Authority'' is indeed as its author wished, a valuable opening in the exploration of the intersection between anarchist ideology and literary production. It made me want to re-read Le Guin's ''Dispossesed'' and led me to the fascinating offerings of the [http://www.akpress.org/ AK Press].
[[:Category:Noam Chomsky|Noam Chomsky]] is the poster-child of North American anarcho-syndicalism and a required reading for anybody interested in revolutionary thought. [[:Category:John Pilger|John Pilger]] made it his life's task to offer stories of the dispossessed and forgotten crushed by the global cogs of power. [[:Category:Ursula LeGuinK Le Guin|Le Guin]] is worth reading regardless of political persuasions. One author that very openly explores political options – including a lot of anarchist but not particularly feminist versions - is the Scottish speculative fiction writer [[:Category:Ken MacLeod|Ken MacLeod]] although we don't have reviews of the ''Fall Revolution'' series in which the political speculation is at its most vigorous. Speaking of Scottish sci-fi, [[:Category:Ian M Banks|Iain M. Banks']] Culture presents a world with a strong anarchist streak.
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