Gene Wolfe: "I think it [science fiction] matters a lot, because it’s mind-opening" (entrevista)

Para muitos leitores de fantasia e ficção científica o nome de Gene Wolfe dispensará quaisquer apresentações - o autor da célebre tetralogia The Book of the New Sun, de The Fifth Head of Cerberus e The Island of Doctor Death é considerado por muitos um dos melhores autores do fantástico contemporâneo, com a sua prosa inconfundível e os seus narradores muito pouco fiáveis. Numa longa entrevista a Jason Pontim para a revista MIT Technology Review, Wolfe fala sobre a sua já longa carreira literária, sobre as suas influências e preferências, sobre a fantasia e a ficção científica enquanto géneros literários, e até sobrea sua experiência como engenheiro e como editor de uma publicação técnica. Alguns excertos:

Jason Pontin/MIT Techonology Review: Why does science fiction matter?

Gene Wolfe: I think it matters a lot, because it’s mind-opening. That’s its great virtue. Ordinary fantasy opens minds, but not nearly as much. The Oz books [1900–1920] may open someone’s mind a little bit. Alice in Wonderland [1865] is kind of mind-opening. But a lot of science fiction is much more so. For instance, I could write a story in which a man has a conversation with his gun. I might do that sometime. Prince Valiant had his singing sword, and I always thought they could have done more with that than they did.

JP/MITTR: Many people say that science fiction matters because it is about contemporary society—that it is a kind of satire.

GW: Unfortunately. It’s true that a great many people think that it must be.

JP/MITTR: You mean: it needn’t be so.

GW: You could write a book about a landing on Mars in which a landing on Mars is a metaphor for something that is going on now. You could also write a book about a landing on Mars that’s a landing on Mars.

A entrevista completa pode ser lida online na MIT Technology Review.

Fonte: SF Signal