XVI: The Art of the Tale w/ Naomi Kanakia

This week we hosted Naomi Kanakia, a literary critic who writes about the health of the prestige publishing ecosystem and the value of reading the Great Books on her Substack Woman of Letters. She is also an accomplished speculative fiction author, with stories published in major outlets like Clarkesworld and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.Our discussion focused on the short story as a form, both in general and within the context of speculative fiction. We also discussed sentimentality in literature, the surprisingly messy origins of the novel, and, of course, Scott Alexander. Whether you’re a new reader from the Scott Alexander post or you’ve been listening to us for a bit, we’re happy to have you! Thanks for listening!TIMESTAMPS00:00:12 - Introduction00:00:52 - What is a “tale”?00:02:06 - How has the way that we tell stories changed?00:04:44 - Do the novel and the short story still have life left in them?00:07:48 - Short stories as an indicator of institutional trust00:09:59 - Scott Alexander as a literary author00:11:51 - Short stories as “assassinating the reader”00:16:46 - Misdirection and realism in the tale00:19:22 - Storytelling formats that are lost in cultural translation00:20:24 - Predecessors to the novel that have gone extinct00:24:02 - Is Moby-Dick a novel or a really elaborate whaling facts book?00:25:50 - Ted Chiang's “The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling”00:26:46 - Are we moving from a written to an oral culture?00:30:36 - Sentimentality in speculative fiction00:33:43 - Naomi would like to see sentimentality come back to high literature00:36:37 - Have sentimental novels been crowded out by other forms of entertainment?00:38:31 - Are biographies the new sentimental novel?00:40:51 - The ridiculously sentimental moment in Death's End by Cixin Liu00:43:56 - Chengdu WorldCon and its consequences00:46:32 - Treating literary conventions as inevitable00:49:51 - The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement by Eliyahu M. Goldratt00:51:05 - The “shadow canon” of science fiction and its potential longevity00:55:29 - Conclusion and final recommendations00:56:09 - Synthesized Sunsets Backstage begins01:00:22 - Gordon thinks that classic books are in some ways worse for modern audiences than their contemporaries01:06:35 - Have we made mysteries worse for ourselves by getting too good at solving them?01:07:22 - Kevin's article "The Most Underrated Speculative Fiction Writer of the 21st Century is... Scott Alexander?"01:12:08 - “IT WAS YOU WHO MADE MY BLUE EYES BLUE” by Scott Alexander01:15:08 - How much does Scott Alexander's nonfiction enhance his fiction?01:16:59 - Scott Alexander is really good at injecting ideas into the idea space01:18:54 - Conclusion and final recommendationsLINKS* Yoon Ha Lee’s interview about “assassinating the reader”* “On Mars, everyone truly finds their level” by Naomi Kanakia* Katherine Dee on the Internet as an oral culture* “Sort By Controversial” by Scott Alexander* Naomi Kanakia on the “shadow canon”* “IT WAS YOU WHO MADE MY BLUE EYES BLUE” by Scott Alexander* “Book Review: Albion’s Seed” by Scott Alexander* Naomi Kanakia’s profile on Lightspeed (story forthcoming) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit synthesizedsunsets.substack.com/subscribe