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common fund of imagery

Lu via David Langford, cet extrait de la critique du livre The Stone Gods de Jeanette Winterson par Ursula K. Le Guin (critique parue dans The Guardian) :

“It’s odd to find characters in a science-fiction novel repeatedly announcing that they hate science fiction. I can only suppose that Jeanette Winterson is trying to keep her credits as a “literary” writer even as she openly commits genre. Surely she’s noticed that everybody is writing science fiction now? Formerly deep-dyed realists are producing novels so full of the tropes and fixtures and plotlines of science fiction that only the snarling tricephalic dogs who guard the Canon of Literature can tell the difference. I certainly can’t. Why bother? I am bothered, though, by the curious ingratitude of authors who exploit a common fund of imagery while pretending to have nothing to do with the fellow-authors who created it and left it open to all who want to use it. A little return generosity would hardly come amiss.”

On est toujours dans cette déjà vieille histoire des écrivains sérieux qui se mettent à faire de la science fiction en prétendant ne pas en faire, mais ce que j’aime bien ici sont les mots “common fund of imagery” et  “left it open to all who want to use it”, témoignant d’une vision formidablement saine de comment fonctionnent les idées.

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