REVIEW - Breakfast in the Ruins by Barry N. Malzberg (2007)

Breakfast in the Ruins - Science Fiction in the Last Millennium by Barry N. Malzberg

Paperback, 400 pages, £9.99, Baen Books

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reviewed by Alvaro Zinos-Amaro

In 1983 Barry N. Malzberg’s collection of essays The Engines of the Night, published the previous year, was nominated for both a Locus and a Hugo award. It won the Locus and lost the Hugo (Isaac Asimov: The Foundations of Science Fiction by James E. Gunn won the Hugo instead). Fast forward to 2008, where history may be repeating itself: in June it was announced that Malzberg’s collection of essays Breakfast in the Ruins, a vastly expanded version of the 1982 work, was awarded the Locus award, and currently awaits its fate as a Hugo finalist. Malzberg writes that the work at hand is “about losing and losers” and that “the history of science fiction is a history of failure” [page 1]. The latter statement is a controversial one sure to provoke the outrage of some readers, but throughout the sixty essays that comprise Breakfast in the Ruins Malzberg presents numerous examples and arguments for this and other claims. Provocation is part of the book’s value, because it challenges us to articulate our own notions on what SF is and what it could be so that, at the very least, we may be able to justify why we disagree with Malzberg’s views. Breakfast in the Ruins provides a unique perspective on the world of SF publishing and offers a highly stylized and idiosyncratic critical examination of the worth of the genre and its evolution over several decades, as well the writer’s own personal trajectory. For anyone who cares about the history, philosophy and literary potential of SF, this work deserves a close look.


The book is separated into two main parts: the first consists of the text of The Engines of the Night and the second, which we will be focusing on here, collects new material  including just about all of Malzberg’s writing on SF since the original was published. This is organized into three sections: ‘Meditations’, which contains most of the ideas, ‘Writers and Other Culprits’, which includes appraisals and appreciations of other practitioners of the field, and ‘Ruthven Agonistes’ that features a short story involving the eponymous fictional SF writer (the story is a sequel of sorts to the Nebula-nominated ‘Corridors’, included in the first half).


Malzberg’s argument for the failure of SF is worth considering in some detail. Essentially, it springs from the estimation that most significant works and writers up to the late sixties originated in SF magazines. Since these magazines were “marginal at best, desperate at worst” [pages 214-215], representing unstable, narrow and low-paying markets, he concludes that SF itself was “founded upon penury, isolation, damage and failure”. The principal source quoted is the study History of the Science Fiction Magazines by Michael Ashley and Marshal Tym, which indeed provides an excellently-documented discussion of the economic conditions of magazine publishing. And though it is true that much seminal work was produced in this arena and many writers established their names in the magazines, to claim that the field itself was synonymous with them is perhaps too telescopic a view, even if qualified by saying that this was the case “through the late sixties”. The claim that SF was born in materially unstable circumstances is straightforward enough, but would be more useful in the context of SF’s sociological and cultural roles -- in terms purely of generating revenue, SF is unimaginably more significant today than during its magazine-dominated epoch.


‘Failure’ here implies a lack of success, an inability to achieve an objective. With historical hindsight, we may attribute deliberate objectives to SF, but it seems more reasonable to view it as part of a greater ongoing dialogue with technological change and social culture. The fact that this interplay continues today, no matter in what fashion, suggests success, at least as far as survival is concerned. Also, let us recall that many writers in the 1950s and 1960s set out to write stories that would combine craft with entertainment. A fair case can be made as to the unusual longevity of both SF writers and their works. If SF stories originally published forty years ago continue to be anthologized at present (even if in retrospective collections or author tributes), this speaks to the enduring value of the genre, rather than to any incipient deficiency. The very fact that a book like Breakfast in the Ruins exists and has received critical attention negates at least part of the validity of one its own theses.


What about insularity? How SF has been regarded by mainstream critics is a complex subject matter that can at best be summarized here; while there are examples of literary critics who have praised individual genre works and works about the genre, and non-genre writers who have dressed their fictions in the apparel of SF, the disconnect Malzberg alludes to is still very much in place. Whether this is a problem or a symptom of the inadequacy of SF itself again begs the question of what SF’s intent is (assuming one exists). If it is to produce literary works on a par with the canonical ‘classics’, to illuminate the human soul in an aesthetic manner otherwise impossible, we see little evidence for it achieving its visionary potential -- but one should keep in mind, though, that only time can judge success on this scale. History is replete with examples of writers who obtained little recognition or recompense during their own lifetimes but whose work is treasured today. And we have already seen evidence for changes in the Western literary canon over the last hundred years and even more recently (see, for example, The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages by Harold Bloom, A Scream Goes Through The House: What Literature Teaches Us About Life by Arnold Weinstein, and ‘Revisiting the Canon Wars’ by Rachel Donadio, September 16th, 2007, New York Times). Who is to say what works of SF published during the 20th and 21st centuries will linger on into the 23rd, or perhaps be rediscovered and hailed as masterpieces in the 25th? And how many writers operate with such lofty ideals in mind? If, on the other hand, SF’s main ‘function’ is to provoke thought, to entertain, and to capture, in fictional form, a preoccupation with Otherness and technological change, then judging it as anything but a body of work that sets out to do precisely this is unfair (which is not to say that the merit of individual works, on the level of craft, should not be subject to the same critical standards that apply to mainstream fiction).


Malzberg returns to the discussion of SF as genre later in the book, and identifies how the inclusion of a work within science fiction forces certain expectations in the audience as to its extrapolative nature [page 282]. This is not as circular as it may seem (of course one would expect an SF work to be SF, one might claim), because it may result in SF writers approaching their own creative processes in a way markedly different from how they would if the genre expectations did not exist. In other words, content dominating over form. Malzberg provides fascinating examples of works altered to fit the bill as SF (for instance, John Brunner’s Productions of Time). He also speculates that developments in SF after several social upheavals in the late 1960s and 1970s which might have caused the field to reconsider its basically optimistic stance towards the future may be analogous to developments in Judaism after the Holocaust [pages 285-287]. Whether this analogy would hold up as well with non-American SF is an interesting question.


In the catalogue of theoretical preoccupations we next encounter the notion of SF being atomized, fragmented, separated from “any kind of common history” [page 217]. Part of this follows from the preceding discussion of the field’s alleged ‘isolation’, and Malzberg himself acknowledges that specialization is a broad concept “hardly confined to science fiction; everything is atomized” [page 217]. Here and in subsequent essays he cites the preponderance of media-inspired fiction and Tolkienesque imitations, and his question of whether it is even desirable for a genre audience to be more familiar with the history of the field, and how this might change the reception of a film like The Truman Show, is an intriguing one.


A standout piece is ‘Tripping With the Alchemist’, a lengthy autobiographical outing which focuses on Malzberg’s professional involvement with the Scott Meredith Literary Agency and his personal experiences throughout his on-off-on-off employment there, as well as his ever-changing writing ambitions. A quote should be illustrative of the unapologetic candidness and black humor of this piece: “I was then just short of twenty-six, six-feet-four-and-a-half inches then as now, a sullen and recriminative two hundred pounds with the foundation of a really promising practicing alcoholism (sixteen happy years of that lay ahead of me) and was, I thought, a fetchingly and romantically bitter, altogether enterprising lad” [page 220].


Would-be writers should enjoy the technical discussions in this collection, mostly interspersed in the evaluation of other writer’s works. One that is treated separately focuses on the use of the narrative first-person [pages 251-254], and identifies several advantages and disadvantages. The latter includes an insight rarely mentioned, the notion that the first person cannot render “true characteriological change” because “the narrator is fully developed at the outset of the story as the result of the events of the story” [page 253]. The hilarious confession that the form may be used -- and was indeed once upon a time by Malzberg himself -- to “disguise gaps in research, knowledge, experience or apprehension” [page 252] is again characteristic of the author’s frankness.


Another conceptual discussion revolves around the “central conflict” or “duality” of SF [page 256], which at once deals with the “fundamental issue” of technological change in our day, and the exigencies of selling copies of books and magazines. Are these necessarily in conflict? Malzberg writes: “It is a central schism, a division which has always existed at the center of science fiction itself. Are we trying to objectify and mitigate a future or are we trying to sell copies of books and magazines and keep our audience -- over half of which is chronologically under 18 -- happy and entertained?” [page 256]. By the objectification of the future he is referring to an explicit preoccupation with the evolution of technology and how that technology “will reshape the circumstances within which it operates” [page 256]. Again, a fair question is whether this really presents a dichotomy. A certain reader’s subjective experiences can turn a commercial work designed inherently for “salability” into one of higher consciousness, and the reader may therefore find the experience altering, as evidenced by the oft-quoted fan statement that “The golden age of science fiction is twelve” (attributed to Peter Graham). Also, Malzberg’s suggested atomization of SF undermines the usefulness of this question, for if the field is indeed fragmented and split into  myriad sub-categories, who is his “we” referring to? There is no centralized consensus among writers, and each may work at cross-purposes to others, so it would be unreasonable to expect a homogenization of functionality. Modern commercial fantasy, alternate history, and cyberpunk, Malzberg writes, can all be interpreted as consequences of the irresolution of the central duality. Unwittingly, at least for some, he may therefore be making a case in favor of its sustenance, rather than its resolution. Also ironically (since his line of inquiry can be construed in academic terms), perhaps, Malzberg addresses the “academization” of SF satirically: a fictional writer, the “Old Hack”, has a nightmare in which he takes a course on SF as archetype, finds that he must discuss one of his own novels as part of an exam question, and is so confounded by the impenetrable academic phraseology that he is unable to respond [pages 292-294].


Malzberg provides reflections on SF as a phenomenon, both in terms of lifestyle and publishing taboos. He observes that while many readers begin with an earnest investigation into the content of SF, at least as many become enmeshed in the sociology of SF, fixated upon the “the community or the appurtenances of science fiction” [page 262]. However, I would point out that the transition from an engagement of ideas to an engagement of social norms is perhaps borne out of the need for emotional connection, which is most easily achieved with those with whom one has already shared intellectual commonality. While excessive engagement in the paraphernalia and lifestyle of SF may indeed be simply another path of evasion, the basic search for kinship -- an intrinsically emotional pursuit -- should not be belittled on artistic grounds. Malzberg’s discussion of taboos within SF includes three concrete examples [pages 274-280], and if nothing else speaks volumes for the realities of a product which must, after all, be sold. The first taboo is a genuine examination of how xenophobia may be “a part of a species survival mechanism” [page 276], that is to say the elaboration of an SF work in which sympathetic characters are deliberately chosen based on their prejudice and bigotry. This is an interesting notion, to be sure, and may be found in the “Inclusive fitness” theory of evolutionary psychology. The second taboo is “biological imperative”, or Freud’s “biology is destiny” [page 277], and the third is “rape as the perpetuation of biological characteristics which could not otherwise carry forth” [page 279]. One is tempted to seek out examples that either corroborate or disprove the status of these as unchallenged taboos (there is at least one reference volume, The Economics of Fantasy: Rape in Twentieth-Century Literature by Sharon Stockton, which includes mention of SF writers and might serve as a starting point).


There are also additional autobiographical treats for Malzberg fans scattered throughout this opus, though newcomers may be confused as to their significance or interest.  One is a piece on the genesis of the fourteen pseudonymous novels in The Lone Wolf series [pages 295-298], and another is the revelation that the last sentence of his novel Screen may be “the best sentence I ever wrote and maybe the best sentence published in a novel of lust in 1969” [page 359] (I encourage the reader interested in finding out what this sentence is to seek out this collection).  Incidentally, the sentence contains bird imagery, also present in the haunting Ruthven Agonistes story “The Passage of the Light”. This is, perhaps, not surprising, coming from someone who once described himself as the Golden Eagle [page 236].


Malzberg’s discussion of other writer’s works contains much of interest to genre readers, though it does tend to assume familiarity with the work.  While he may push his analogy between Asimov and Bernstein too far, his essay on Alice Sheldon skillfully places her work in the context of the external details of her life, enhancing an ironic appreciation of her fiction, and the piece on Ballard is noteworthy due to his evocation through stylistic pastiche. Malzberg deploys Ballardian metaphors (e.g., “The Actress’s Limbs Enormous, Floating, the Planes of Her Face the Landscape of Our Regard” [page 344]) while examining the themes of Ballard’s own SF work, for instance “technology as a means of concealment”. There are obligatory entries on indispensable writers and multifaceted contributors to the field (Silverberg, Knight, Jenkins, Keyes, Brown), but also ones the average SF reader may have never heard of: Cornell Woolrich, Gustav Hasford. The list of famous writers omitted is also telling. And there is a touching, unsentimental remembrance of the Prime Mover himself, the Holy Father who in his first editorial decade rendered modern SF as we know it not only nascent but pulsating with life, John W. Campbell. One criticism pertaining to this section of the book may be that Malzberg presents a lot more evidence for some claims than for others. For example, in his essay on Damon Knight he writes: “Damon was a better short story writer through the range of his work than Bernard Malamud or J.D. Salinger. I have done the research. I can defend this” [page 316]. These latter statements probably refer to close readings of literary anthologies Malzberg quotes earlier in the piece, but it would be nice to have more detail.


Whether through accident or design, Malzberg tends to write in a way that produces a plethora of quotable lines. Consider: “If writing science fiction for publication for a quarter of a century will not induce humility, nothing will” [page 208]. (He later amends this). And: “Great recrimination demands a large subject, will invent one if it does not exist” [page 234]. (Could that apply to Malzberg himself?) In his discussion of private investigator novels: “If the genre cannot struggle toward illumination, then it is not a symptom, it is the disease” [page 341]. Also: “Ultimately, history is built upon absence as much as presence; in cases like Campbell’s it can be just another specialized subdivision of fantasy” [page 365].


Published reactions to Breakfast in the Ruins have been positive. Elizabeth Hand, in her review in the October/November issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, wrote that she found the original incarnation of the book “a bracingly dark, often contentious, defiantly melancholy insider's take” and that the new version is a “delight” in which Malzberg is “both acerbic and laugh-out-loud funny: he bites the hand that feeds him”. Editor Scott Edelman, in an online editorial at Sci Fi Weekly titled ‘A Perfect Breakfast’ states that “Breakfast in the Ruins is an alternate history of SF, the story of those who fell between the cracks. It's a moving and powerful book”. But we can be sure that not all readers will enjoy such a personal, scathing book. Remembering some comments that the recently deceased writer and critic Thomas M. Disch made to him at Omni’s fifth anniversary party, Malzberg writes that Disch told him this: “You come to the subject of science fiction with a burden of despair and cynicism and then you scout around for confirming examples […]. It’s a harrowing, self-destructive exercise, a closed loop […]” [pages 210-211]. There is validity to this, specially the sense of weighty anguish.


In the closing ‘Afterword: The Last Millennium’, Malzberg describes his search for meaning as an attempt “to find the light against light” [page 389]. The heavily existential overtones that permeate many of his analyses and inquiries would suggest that he may have instead revealed darkness against darkness, though this book is no less illuminating or necessary -- indeed, quite the opposite -- for it.

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Alvaro Zinos-Amaro grew up in Europe, mostly, and despite the advice of his betters he was crazy enough to earn a BS in Theoretical Physics and study creative writing. His fiction has appeared in Atomjack Magazine and will appear in a forthcoming issue of Farrago's Wainscot. Alvaro's reviews of speculative fiction and poetry appear regularly at The Fix. Look for him and say 'Hi' at the 66th WorldCon, Denvention 3 (he will be on a panel on August 7th).