（外文电子版资料）Robert Scholes - As The Walls Crumble.pdf

VERSION 1.0 dtd 032900 ROBERT SCHOLES As the Wall Crumbles Robert Scholes is a professor of English at Brown University. Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1929, he received his B.A. from Yale in 1950, his Ph.D. from Cornell in 1959. He has written many books and essays on literary theory and on modern fiction. His most recent works are Structuralism in Literature (Yale, paperbound, 1975) and a study of science fiction entitled Structural Fabulation (Notre Dame, 1975). For some time in literary circles-or circles with literary pretensions it has been possible to acquire virtue automatically by uttering hostile noises at the mention of science fiction, with the vehemence of the noises in direct proportion to the noisemakers ignorance of the subject. I regret to report, however, that this particular path to meritorious eminence is becoming beset with pitfalls for the unwary. There are people around who have read the stuff and are just militant enough about it to challenge such casual remarks. Something is going on here, of which this change in behavior is a symptom. The wall between sf and mainstream, between fans and critics, is coming down. It is not coming down all at once, like the walls of Jericho in that old sf tale about the sun standing still. Oh, no. It is being dismantled brick by brick, and the whole job may never be completed. But holes are appearing here and there, and communications are being sent back and forth. From my point of view, as an academic critic (a man who likes to talk about books and accepts money from universities for doing so) the great benefit of all this is that the literary riches inside the wall are becoming more accessible. And a lot of whats in there is too good and too important to be left to the fans. The rest of the world needs it too. When people ask me, more or less politely, Whats so hot about science fiction, huh? -and they do ask, more and more, all the time I answer, more or less politely, Literary