Episode 162: Transcript
Episode: 162: Every Town Deserves a Library (with Ken Liu)
Transcription by Alexander
Annalee: [00:00:00] Well, it's officially cozy season here in North America, which, as I'm sure you know, means pie. And this is a particularly great season for me, personally, because I love pumpkin pie so much. Tell me about your pie feelings, Charlie Jane.
Charlie Jane: [00:00:20] You know, I feel like this has been a minor source of conflict in our relationship in the past because I just don't like pumpkin pie that much. Like, I grew up in New England. I ate pumpkin pie all the dang time in the fall and winter. And I just it's not my thing. I'm not I'm not into it. I don't like hate it. I feel like if you give me pumpkin pie and put a lot of whipped cream on top or ice cream.
Annalee: [00:00:42] Okay, but what kind of pie do you like? Let's not focus on the negatives here. Let's not focus on your defects.
Charlie Jane: [00:00:47] I was working my way from the negative to the positive, which is one of my processes, as you probably know. Yeah, I love most kinds of pie like so much like blueberry pie, apple pie…
Annalee: [00:01:01] Blueberry pie is righteous.
Charlie Jane: [00:01:02] During the pandemic, you made some slumps and some cobblers that I was like…[crosstalk].
Annalee: [00:01:09] I made a buckle…I made a blueberry.
Charlie Jane: [00:01:09] The buckle was incredible. You know, I like a key lime pie a lot. Like, oh, my God, give me a key lime pie. And I am like there. A Boston cream pie, like a chocolate pie. I am like all about that…
Annalee: [00:01:20] Chocolate peanut butter pie?
Charlie Jane: [00:01:22] Chocolate peanut butter pie. You know, I'm just going to have a moment of mourning. There used to be a restaurant in my neighborhood actually walking distance from my house that was just a pie restaurant. They did savory pie. They did sweet pie. They did like every kind of pie.
Annalee: [00:01:38] I know. RIP.
Charlie Jane: [00:01:38] I can't remember what it was called, but it closed a long time ago.
Annalee: [00:01:42] I loved that. Well, also there was Mission Pie and…
Charlie Jane: [00:01:45] There was Mission Pie. Oh my God…
Annalee: [00:01:47] I mean, the thing is, is that Mission Pie became another really great restaurant called Reem, which we love. But the other pie place, RIP, whose name we've forgotten, became like a really terrible restaurant that we're every time we pass by, I'm sad.
Charlie Jane: [00:02:02] I walked by the location of that pie restaurant whose name I can no longer remember, and I just shake my fist. Why are you here instead of the pie place?
Annalee: [00:02:09] They did the amazing chocolate peanut butter pie as opposed to Mission Pie, which I think was more sort of traditional. Mission Pie would give you like a lovely berry pie. Their pies were just like off the charts. Amazing. To go back to the highest form of pie, pumpkin pie, I've made many iterations of pumpkin pie. I've made them entirely from scratch where I like bake the pumpkin and make the filling.
Charlie Jane: [00:02:34] It is truly astonishing.
Annalee: [00:02:34] Make the crust. I've also bought pumpkin pie and sweet potato pie from Arizmendi, which is our local co-op bakery here in San Francisco, which I frickin' love. I think nowadays they mostly have sweet potato pie, but honestly I can't always tell the difference between sweet potato pie and pumpkin pie, which is probably my failing as a person. But I really like to season the pumpkin myself and I don't buy frickin' pumpkin spice. I put in the cinnamon and if I wanna put some cardamom in there, I can just do that. I like spicy cinnamon, so it's good to have a zing. I know that you can't fully appreciate this, but pumpkin pie is my jam. I am so happy right now.
Charlie Jane: [00:03:16] No, I mean, when you make pumpkin pie, I'm happy to eat it. I feel like yours are definitely by far the best pumpkin pies I've ever eaten. Sorry, Mom, if you're listening to this.
Annalee: [00:03:25] I'm sure she makes good pumpkin pie.
Charlie Jane: [00:03:28] You know, I mean…I love your pumpkin pie, your pumpkin pie is good. I think my mom just didn't like cooking and she felt like she had to do it. This is my theory about my mom. But the point is, I am now realizing that there is pie grief in San Francisco, that all our good pie places are gone and that this is a tragedy.
Annalee: [00:03:48] I mean, it's actually not true. There's a lot of great pie places still here, including Erez Mindy, but also there's a lot of other new pie places that are incredible.
[00:03:59] So anyway, you are listening to Our Opinions Are Correct, which is a podcast about science fiction, science, and the reason why you accidentally left a paperback book in the fridge for three days. Today, we are going to be talking about the meaning of libraries in fiction and in real life, because there are so many iconic fictional libraries, from the planet-sized library in Dr. Who, which I guarantee we're going to get into, to the libraries where all the angels hang out in Wim Wender’s classic movie Wings of Desire. We're going to talk about all of it and also how those ideas affect real life libraries.
[00:04:38] And later in the episode, I'm super excited, Charlie Jane has an amazing interview with Ken Liu about his new translation of the Chinese classic Dao De Jing. And on our mini episode next week for patrons only, we are going to be talking about a Brazilian time travel show that you're trying to get me to watch, Charlie Jane, what's it called?
Charlie Jane: [00:05:00] Back to 15 or De Volta aos 15.
Annalee: [00:05:03] Amazing. I am ready to be convinced. I mean, I have to admit, I'm kind of already biased in favor, but I appreciate a good argument. And by the way, Charlie Jane, tell us how our episodes come to be.
Charlie Jane: [00:05:15] You know, just the same way that Annalee bakes the pumpkins and bakes the spices themselves, and does all the things from scratch, we make this podcast – this podcast is hand-crafted. It is made by us for you.
Annalee: [00:05:28] It’s true.
Charlie Jane: [00:05:28] And like, we don’t have any corporations helping us. We don't get like a kit that has like all the elements of a podcast and we don't get any advertising. We have zero advertising from like big corporations or even small corporations on this podcast. We're just supported by you, our listeners. And the way that happens is through Patreon. Patreon makes you a bigger part of our community. It makes you more a part of like the process of making this podcast happen because we'll hang out in Discord with you. We share more of our thoughts in like mini episodes in between our regular episodes. It’s just like, you’re much more involved in the podcast and you’re helping to keep it going with your financial support. So, we really love and appreciate our Patreon supporters. They are really important to us. We love them so much. If you have even a few bucks to kick in, it means a lot. You can find us at patreon.com/ouropinionsarecorrect. Okay, let’s go to the library.
[00:06:20] [OOAC theme plays. Science fiction synth noises over an energetic, jazzy drum line.]
Annalee: [00:06:54] So I want to start by talking about the libraries and our imaginations and then wind up by I'm thinking about how these ideas kind of infect the way we view libraries in the real world.
[The Librarian sound clip ] [00:07:04] You are about to begin a wondrous adventure from which you will never be the same. Welcome to the library.
Annalee: [00:07:15] So that is, of course, Bob Newhart from the very first Librarian movie, which was called The Librarian: Quest for the Spear. It's from 2004. It's the first of three straight-to-TV librarian movies that eventually became a series that ran for four seasons that was called The Librarians. And a spinoff just started this year called Librarians: The Next Chapter. It was on The CW for a while. Now it's going to be on TNT, which kind of makes sense because all of the straight-to-TV movies and the previous show were on TNT. So we've had a 20-year franchise devoted to heroic librarians. How did this happen? And what does this show tell us about how we think about libraries?
[00:08:06] I want to just say a couple of things because I just rewatched The Librarian: Quest for the Spear.
Charlie Jane: [00:08:12] The first movie.
Annalee: [00:08:13] The first one, last night, where Noah Wiley, the main character, is still looking very young and baby-faced. And all of the politics of the film feel very of yesteryear. But what I would say is that it's a show that is about a library, but it is a secret library. No one can go in there except for a few chosen ones. It is guarded literally by guns. They have armed people who we later learn are not the military because this is not a military installation. The police don't know about it. The government doesn't know about it. I don't know who's funding it. I was taking notes and I was like, who is funding this operation?
Charlie Jane: [00:08:56] It's the CIA.
Annalee: [00:08:57] Basically… No, it's not because at one point they talk about how the CIA doesn't know about it. It's kind of the opposite of a real-life library. It's not open to the public. It's guarded. It's also full of artifacts as well as books. So it has kind of a Warehouse 13 vibe. And the librarian, there's one librarian in the movies, in the TV series, they wind up saying there's like more than one librarian. And the librarian is kind of a chosen one who has all the answers. So it's an interesting take on what a fantasy library is.
Charlie Jane: [00:09:28] Yeah, I mean…I've never actually seen any of The Librarian or The Librarians. And I've always wanted to watch the TV show because I feel created by John Rogers, who I just adore, and who always makes consistently amazing television. So I really want to watch The Librarians TV show that started in 2014. One of these days, I feel like that's going to be my jam because it feels like it's more recent. It's probably a little bit more culturally aware about certain things.
Annalee: [00:09:58] Maybe not.
Charlie Jane: [00:10:00] I mean, we should watch it. We haven't watched it yet. I'm dying to watch it. I kind of trust John Rogers. I feel like he has not steered me wrong so far. So I'm excited to check that out. I feel like the thing about The Librarians as a franchise, as like a 20 year kind of like entity, is that it plays into this idea as librarians, as like keepers of secrets, as keepers of knowledge. And it's kind of like this quasi mystical notion that librarians have access to like hidden secrets or that they have like the secret knowledge or whatever, which I think is both good and bad.
[00:10:34] I think it's actually kind of a weird way of thinking about librarians. I think it's not entirely how I want to think about librarians or how librarians necessarily want to think about themselves because you're right. Librarians are all about like sharing with the public and sharing, you know, information and making things available. And like this idea that like, “Ooh, there's a hidden archive. Ooh, there's blah, blah, blah.” It makes for good kind of fantasy TV. It's good for like bringing a kind of National Treasure vibe to things. But it's not really about like why we love libraries or librarians.
Annalee: [00:11:06] Yeah, it also has kind of a Raiders of the Lost Ark vibe, especially the movies where they're often kind of dealing with artifacts and treasure. And there's a lot of really cringy Orientalist tropes. So warning, if you're interested in going back and watching The Librarian, you're going to need to get ready for that.
[00:11:25] I wanted to mention a few subplots that we see in stories about librarians that are sci-fi or fantasy. Well, maybe not subplots. I guess I should say these are more like tropes.
Charlie Jane: [00:11:37] Tropes. Yeah.
Annalee: [00:11:37] Yeah. And like one of them is the idea of the rebel library. The library is like full of knowledge that can like set you free and is like forbidden knowledge. I think my favorite example of this recently is Sarah Gailey's novella Upright Women Wanted, which is a post-apocalyptic story, kind of an Old West story. And there's a group of rebel queers who have literally a wagon, a covered wagon full of basically like a lot of the books are queer books. And they kind of go around from town to town and like spread knowledge of, you know, freedom and queerness to those who need it. And they're constantly having to outrun the bad guys and getting into shootouts. It's great. Gailey is fantastic at evoking this kind of world.
Charlie Jane: [00:12:25] Yeah, I love them. Yeah.
Annalee: [00:12:26] And then there's another trope, which is a special magical book that's discovered in a library. So classic example would be the Necronomicon from H.P. Lovecraft slash cosmic horror lore.
Charlie Jane: [00:12:42] It's always the Necronomicon.
Annalee: [00:12:43] Yeah. And the Necronomicon shows up in tons of stuff that has nothing to do with Lovecraft, including Army of Darkness. And it's just like an evil book that's full of spells. There's a book like this in the Doctor Strange movies. There's like often just like the one book. The series A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness starts with like a special book being discovered and the Bodleian, which is of course already a special library.
[00:13:09] Another trope is like we were talking about that libraries are kind of the sacred repository of all knowledge. You get that in tons and tons of stories.
Charlie Jane: [00:13:18] Oh, yeah.
Annalee: [00:13:18] There's the Citadel Library in Game of Thrones.
Charlie Jane: [00:13:21] There's like the trope that you often see. I feel like it's in Sandman. It's in a bunch of things. There's the trope of like there's a magical library that has books that were never written or books that haven't been written yet. Or, you know, I feel like there's like magical libraries that contain all knowledge or all possible knowledge are like a huge thing in fantasy. And then, you know, the last season of Discovery, they visit a library that's like hidden inside a nebula or something.
Annalee: [00:13:46] Yes.
Charlie Jane: [00:13:47] You know, I feel like it's just if you're doing an Easter egg hunt or if you're looking for some secret forbidden stuff, you're going to go to a magical or fancy outer space library.
Annalee: [00:13:58] Yeah. And it's kind of it plays with the idea of a sacred space. I mentioned at the top, the movie Wings of Desire, which in German is called Himmel über Berlin. And it's about set in the 90s in Berlin when the country was still divided and angels hang out in the library. And that's like where angels hang out is… The library is their favorite place. And so it kind of associates libraries with the sacred.
[00:14:26] And then the final trope that I want to mention, which I think is actually really important, is this idea of libraries as being the last bastion of civilization.
Charlie Jane: [00:14:36] Oh, yeah.
Annalee: [00:14:36] Which is obviously a huge trope in Foundation where they have this library that's going to prevent them from falling into the dark ages. But you see it in a lot of places and it's often heavily tied to the idea that there's certain kinds of knowledge that need to be protected. And they usually are sort of like the knowledge of the white Western canon. Not always. I mean, sometimes it's a different context, but a lot of times it's kind of about protecting the canon. Like, you know, “They're going to come for our classics. They're going to replace them with Toni Morrison. Oh, my God.” So sorry, I'm just like recapitulating.
Charlie Jane: [00:15:15] No, it is a conservative kind of fantasy sometimes for sure.
Annalee: [00:15:19] It's often a conservative fantasy. Yeah. And I feel like these ideas from fiction, like really cloud our understanding of how real life libraries work and like what the reality is. And to think about real life libraries, I want to start with a really key idea that comes from a library studies scholar named Fobazi Ettarh. And it's called “vocational awe”. I'll link to her essays about it in the show notes. They've been really important essays for librarians and thinking about this stuff.
[00:15:50] And “vocational awe” is basically just the idea that like libraries as institutions are inherently good. Librarians are basically angels. And it kind of assumes that there's no way to criticize libraries or librarians. And that's actually like a really big problem. And here's how Fobazi critiqued vocational awe in a podcast called Imagine Otherwise.
[Sound clip of Fobazi] [00:16:15] By thinking of libraries as inherently good because they provide access to all, we ignore the fact that in many cases, the policies show that they're not actually giving access to all people. The undesirable, whether it be back in the time of segregation where libraries weren't open to black people, or now with the policies against the homeless or the mentally ill, any population that is seen as undesirable, the policies are used against them. If we're saying that libraries are inherently sacred because they're safe spaces, they're only safe spaces for the privileged and sanctuaries for those who are deemed worthy. And to say that the field is beyond critique because it is the last bastion of democracy when it in fact upholds and continues to uphold white supremacy and ignores valid critiques actually in and of itself chips away at the democratic values that libraries espouse to hold.
Annalee: [00:17:31] I think this is really important because in real life, as she's pointing out, libraries are not perfect at all. And historically, they have not always been places of peace or democracy. They've excluded lots of people. Librarians don't always fight against book bans. Sometimes they participate in them.
Charlie Jane: [00:17:49] Right.
Annalee: [00:17:49] And I think a lot of our fiction about libraries kind of adds to this vocational awe problem, especially like if you think about The Librarian series, The Librarian and then The Librarians, it's kind of about recreating that toxic vocational issue. This library in The Librarians, it's not a bastion of democracy. It's controlled by a secret group, like an armed group. It is totally inaccessible to the public. During the show, it actually, the library doesn't even, it's like disappeared in space and time. Barely anyone can get to it. And eventually, that library almost becomes something like the TARDIS. It becomes sentient. It's not really a repository of public knowledge. It's just kind of almost like a spaceship. It's like a source of power for this elite few. And yet, this is probably the public's most prominent image of heroic librarians is coming from this show, which is all about vocational awe. So I think it's kind of a problem in culture.
Charlie Jane: [00:18:57] Yeah, and some of it is that there's this kind of, and I'm guilty of this too sometimes, where I'm like, “Oh my God, librarians are the greatest heroes.” And like, I do believe that. I think librarians are incredibly heroic, especially in underserved communities. And libraries perform all sorts of important functions in the public sphere. At the same time, if you're already creating a narrative that's about mysticism or about like, “Ooh, forbidden knowledge” or “Ooh, this is a special place” it's easy to dial it up to the point where you kind of lose a crucial aspect of the library that you touched on earlier, which is accessibility.
[00:19:27] Libraries are public spaces. They should be open to the public. They should be places where people can go and like, you know, check their email on a computer or like, you know, hang out. Like when I was a kid, I just hung out at the library all the time.
[00:19:44] One of my favorite shows of recent years, an animated show called Summer Camp Island, which sadly was canceled and removed. So I don't even know where you can watch it now. It was taken down off of Max. But in Summer Camp Island, there's a library on the island, which is like a magical island full of monsters and things. And the kids just go and hang out there and they learn stuff and they read stuff. And they're like, “Ooh, I found a cool book about this.” But it's not like the library is any kind of like mystical place. It's just a regular library on this island full of monsters. And they go there and learn cool things.
Annalee: [00:20:15] Yeah, I was thinking about, you know, the episode where previously where we talked to Maggie Tokuda-Hall about book bans and how libraries - far from being sacred magical citadels - are really vulnerable to attack. And it made me think about how, how is book banning ever portrayed in any of these fictional libraries? Like rather than seeing like librarians fighting back against book banning or fighting to open their libraries to the public, instead you get stories about the Necronomicon, which literally the story of the Necronomicon is an argument in favor of book banning. Like, “Yes, the Necronomicon should be banned. And like, do not let anyone check that book out.”
[00:21:01] And I feel like, again, we've kind of got it bass-ackwards here with like how we're representing libraries. Like I really want to see representations of libraries that are more like, I don't know, like Abbott Elementary, where it's like, yeah, it's a great place. The school is wonderful, but like it's constantly under attack. It's constantly underfunded. Like it's all about how do you deal with being part of like a real institution where people are burning out, you know, and where…
Charlie Jane: [00:21:30] Oh my God. Yeah.
Annalee: [00:21:31] Vocational awe like used kind of weaponized to make people feel like they shouldn't ask for more money because they have such a sacred job.
Charlie Jane: [00:21:39] Oh my God. That is actually a thing that I think about a lot. The thing of like, we amp up the idea that your profession is noble and beautiful and that, you know, it's so great that you get to do this as a way of like underpaying and mistreating workers. Like that is the thing. I posted one time a quote about that on Tumblr and it became like my most popular. It’s got 200,000 responses and notes and likes on Tumblr because people connect to that so hard. And so many people are falling into that trap of like, “Oh my God, I'm so lucky to get to do this. I should just, you know, put up with whatever low pay and abuse I'm given.”
[00:22:13] I would love to see an Abbott Elementary style show about libraries. I would also love to see more fantasy and science fiction showing libraries as just like public spaces where, you know, you can learn stuff, but also it's a community space. And that's the thing that we need to fight to protect. I feel like there's a rich seam of storytelling there that has barely been tapped by science fiction and fantasy. And in fact, this is kind of firing me up and making me want to write something.
Annalee: [00:22:41] Yeah.
Charlie Jane: [00:22:42] So, you know, six months from now, if I have something that's published about a library in a city where it's like about just protecting that public space, you will know that this episode has helped to inspire that.
Annalee: [00:22:52] That would make me so happy because what if the magic of the library was tied to its connection to the public instead of tied to secrecy. And like the more people who access the library, the more powerful and wonderful the library becomes.
Charlie Jane: [00:23:11] Oh my God, I love this.
Annalee: [00:23:13] And the better supported the librarians are, the better the library becomes. Because that's the thing that I really want to end on is just reminding ourselves like libraries are not magical. They are under threat. And they're staffed by real people who are dealing with burnout and low pay. And they don't work with angels. They don't get to have magic. They have jobs. And, you know, we can have awe for libraries as an ideal, but we also need to remember to, you know, pay librarians, like support libraries with our municipal budgets and our state budgets and treat them with respect and make them open to the community.
Charlie Jane: [00:23:58] Hell yeah. Okay. We're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to talk to Ken Liu about the Dao De Jing.
[00:24:04] OOAC session break music, a quick little synth bwoop bwoo.
Charlie Jane: [00:24:07] Now, we're incredibly lucky to be joined by Ken Liu, who is the translator of Laozi's Dao De Jing: A New Interpretation for a Transformative Time – and also the author of the Dandelion Dynasty tetralogy, and the short story collection Paper Menagerie and Other Stories. Welcome Ken.
Ken: [00:24:27] Thank you for having me, Charlie Jane.
Charlie Jane: [00:24:29] Yeah, it's such a thrill to have you here. So in the introduction to your new translation, you mentioned that, you know, during the pandemic, you were unable to do, you know, creative writing, which I think happened to a lot of people, including myself for a little while there. Did translating the Dao De Jing help you get back to writing your own fiction? Has the way you write science fiction changed either because of doing this translation or because of other stuff that's changed for you?
Ken: [00:24:53] Oh, that's such a great question. I mean, I get into this a little bit in the book where I talk about the origin of it. During the pandemic, there was this really dark period of time where I was trying to figure out how to tell stories when everything that I believed didn't seem to be falling apart. And the short version of it was working with the Dao made me rethink about my relationship to language and meaning in a much deeper way than before. And, you know, writers tend to have this tendency, I think, that because work with the medium of language and words, we tend to think that words are totalizing - that if something cannot be put into words, it's not real, right?
[00:25:40] We're sort of taught when we're writing fiction that, you know, we have these characters and ideas in our heads, but until we can turn them into words on the page, the reader won't be able to get that. And that's good writing advice that you have to actually get the idea in your head, the character in your head onto the page. And using words to evoke that is an important skill. But I think the converse of that is you end up feeling that language is everything, and that if something is not captured in words, it's not real, which is absolutely not true.
[00:26:12] Lots of things are not captured by words, and they're real. And that's one of the things about the Dao De Jing that I found to be particularly moving, that Laozi, you know, somebody who writes very beautifully, tries to, again and again, ask the reader to be skeptical about language. He does this by explicitly telling the reader that you can't trust everything in words, but he also does it by illustrating throughout that words are not the end all be all of meaning. And I found that incredibly moving. And then I do think that in my own writing, I ended up really taking that to heart.
[00:26:47] You know, I later on wrote a story called The Passing of the Dragon, which is published by Reactor magazine. That's one of my favorite stories from last year that I wrote. And it is very much about how the words that you use can only evoke meaning, but it's not the same thing as actual meaning. And that's both a good thing and possibly a bad thing, depending on your perspective.
Charlie Jane: [00:27:10] Yeah, I feel like for a lot of people who are not as familiar with Daoism and the Dao De Jing, they just boil it down in their minds to the Dao that can be spoken is not their true Dao, which is kind of, you know, the Daoism for dummies version of what you just said in a weird way. Obviously, there's a lot more to it than that, which I'm excited to get into.
[00:27:28] So when you came out of that period of not being able to write, you created a neural network trained on your own writing called Robocan. And you kind of worked with this neural network to create a wonderful short story called 50 Things Every AI Working with Humans Should Know. So, you know, obviously, since then, this was like, you know, a few years ago, since then, the topic of AI and writing has become a lot more complicated, or, you know, thorny, I would say. So have you kept working with Robocan and how do you feel about the current debates about people using like chat GPT to write fiction? And also, did working with a somewhat incoherent AI feel like maybe a form of divination or translation in itself?
Ken: [00:28:10] Oh, that's fun. That's a really great fun take on this. I think you're way smarter about this than I am. So I like the way you framed that. That is beautiful. Let me put it this way. Robocan is not very smart, right? So one of the things you learn about neural networks, you know, very soon after you start working with them is that their, their, quote unquote, intelligence is directly correlated with the size of the training set, the data that is being fed up. Now, no matter how much you write, a single human being is not going to output that much linguistic output in the grand scheme of things. So I had trained Robocan on everything I had ever written, but it was not very smart. It was an idiot. It babbled out ridiculous stuff. And if you read the story that, you know, you're, that you refer to, you'll realize that I was using the little bits and pieces of semi-coherence being output by Robocan as really just a set of seeds around which I can structure the story. And I wouldn't say they're completely irrelevant, but, but I would say that they are more like pieces of, you know, found poetry or whatever that you incorporate into something that you craft yourself. They are, they are seeds around which the larger structure that you have to actually grow.
[00:29:33] I've since obviously not worked with Robocan much, because I don't think that approach of using just my own work as the seeds of, as the training data for neural network will ever amount to anything. You just require so much more data. But at the same time, I have done a lot of experimentation with modern neural networks and AI. And then I think it's actually very complicated. This whole question of, is this interesting? Is this art? Is this something that artists can actually use? I think this is a way more complicated question than might appear.
Charlie Jane: [00:30:05] Yeah. So I can't help comparing your translation to the classic version that I have from John C.H. Wu, which I think is from the sixties, maybe, I'm not sure. And, you know, John C.H. Wu translates the start of chapter 38 of the Dao De Jing as I'm just going to try to recite it.
[00:30:23] “High virtue is non-virtuous, therefore it has virtue. Low virtue never frees itself from virtuousness, therefore it has no virtue. High virtue makes no fuss and has no private ends to serve. Low virtue not only fusses, but has private ends to serve.”
[00:30:42] And you translate that same passage as the follows. “Those with high De do not flirt their virtue, for they have true De. Those with low De do not deviate from virtue for they don’t have true De. The former don’t do, and don’t think much of doing. The latter don’t do, but think they got much done.”
[00:31:01] So, you know, I feel like of those two, your translation is a little bit more spare and simple. And I feel like I get more meaning out of it. Like the idea of like the latter don't do, but they think they got much done. That kind of has a ring of truth to me. It feels like it captures more of the playfulness of Laozi's writing and the love of paradoxes and rhetorical faints and everything. So can you talk about that difference and why maybe you aim for a simpler style in your translation? And also finally, the choice to not translate terms like “Dao” and “De” into like English words in your translation.
Ken: [00:31:35] Well, this goes back to generating meaning by copy, right? Copying is how we actually generate meaning. And translations are basically copies. They're copies done with a purpose to create meaning. And different translations will interpret different aspects of the truth out of the original. And that's what makes them so interesting to compare.
[00:31:55] Obviously, the two translations you read emphasize very different truth from the original. And they try to interpret them and create different copies. This is why different interpretations end up being in this really fun conversation with each other, because they do, in fact, emphasize different things. Now, I chose to emphasize a particular aspect of the original text that I found to be interesting to me, which is this sort of spare equality in the language, but also a kind of insistence that language itself is inadequate for meaning.
[00:32:27] And therefore, the best way to show that is to make language absurd, to use the same words multiple times in different meanings, to force the reader to realize that words aren't playful. They are just tools. They are not precise. They're not perfect. And you have to sort of play with them and look between them for the truth, if you will. And that's what I wanted to try to do with my own translation to sort of emphasize that aspect of it and get it out.
[00:32:56] And also, in terms of the choice, not to translate words like Dao and importing them directly into English, I've come generally to this sort of feeling that translations should, whenever possible, not translate words that are clearly specific in their own context, in the source context, and are not exactly equivalent to a target word. I mean, I think anybody who studies multiple languages, especially classical languages, and who have a lot of experience with translation, know basically that translations are not possible. And in fact, even words that we think have exact equivalents are not equivalents.
[00:33:37] When words are anchored by very specific concrete things, like an orange, right? So if, you know, somebody says the Chinese word “Chéngzǐ”, and then you have an orange, the two can be said to be exact equivalents. But even then, when the orange takes on a metaphorical sense in either language, the exact equivalents don't apply anymore. But insofar as they name the same name, the same concrete thing. You could say they're equivalents.
[00:34:02] This is very, very much not true when we're talking about abstractions, like “Dao” and “De”, or “virtue” and “the way”, which are often, you know, used as translations. These are not, they're not bad translations by any means. They get at some aspect of the equivalents, but they're not exact equivalents. The Daoists developed these words, “Dao” and “De”, into very specific things. They become basically jargon, if you will, in the Daoist universe. So in that case, trying to import them into English and to use words like “virtue” or “the way”, I think, gets at some aspect of what the words mean. But I think they also sort of fool you into thinking that these words are more meaningful, quote unquote, than they are.
Charlie Jane: [00:34:50] Or more specific.
Ken: [00:34:51] Yeah, that’s right. I prefer to leave these words the way they are, and then just to ask the reader in context to appreciate the more specific meanings that these words do have in the context that they're being used. It's sort of an acknowledgement that there are no other simple words in English that captures all aspects of it.
Charlie Jane: [00:35:13] Yeah, I mean, I studied Asian languages, and I was at one point, I could read like a Chinese newspaper or a novel in modern Chinese without too much trouble. I could read like the Renmin Ribao or, you know, works by Lu Xun or Laozi or whatever. But classical Chinese is so much more dense. And it feels like I could never read classical Chinese. It feels like a different language to me in a lot of ways.
Ken: [00:35:36] I mean, it is a different language. I mean, in the same way that if you know modern Greek, you wouldn't be able to read classical Greek.
Charlie Jane: [00:35:42] Yeah, for sure. So, you know, I feel like part of what I get from your introduction and from the notes in your translation is that the Dao De Jing is really, it's important in Chinese culture. It's important in like a lot of concepts in Chinese culture. Do you think for people who read your work or read other work from Chinese diaspora authors, understanding the Dao De Jing is going to help understand some of the concepts or some of the cultural assumptions in the work?
Ken: [00:36:07] I would think so. This is not something that can be precisely articulated. I mean, you can sort of get some of this by sort of making analogies from our world. Right? So, for example, right, if you read works done in English, almost all of them make extensive allusions and references to Greco-Roman works in Greek and Latin. And if you know nothing about these authors, you will lose a lot of the layers of subtlety in there.
[00:36:34] So, for example, I mean, anything, honestly, I mean, you read any sort of sci-fi, they're full of neologisms crafted out of Greek and Latin roots. And if you know nothing about that cultural background, you know, some of this seems really weird to you. Or you see the fact that our space program, you know, is named after Greek gods. Why are the Apollo missions called that? Right. Why? Why do we have Mercury missions? And if you don't know the background of all that, this will all seem very strange to you. So that kind of cultural background helps inform the way that modern works are read.
[00:37:10] And I think for folks who are not familiar with classical Chinese works like the Dao De Jing and so on, a little familiarity will unlock some references. You know, I often put in a little tale from Zhuangzi or something into one of my stories. And if you know Daoism, you know, a lot of these allusions will be much more meaningful.
Charlie Jane: [00:37:31] Yeah. So for a lot of American science fiction fans, their first exposure to Daoism comes from Ursula K. Le Guin, who references Daoism a lot in her stories and novels. How do you feel about the way Le Guin represents Daoism in her work?
Ken: [00:37:45] Le Guin is actually a really incredible, how should I put this, practitioner, I guess I would say, of Daoism in her work. You know, she was exposed to Daoism very early on and she made a lifelong study of it. In fact, she has her own translation of the Dao De Jing that readers should look up.
[00:38:01] Now, what's so fascinating about Le Guin's relationship to Daoism is that she did not, as far as I know, speak Chinese. Or I don't think she would have considered herself an expert on classical Chinese either. Her translation was not done directly from the source, but rather from interpretations written by others. But it's a masterful reinterpretation. And you can see that there are things that she does in her translation that I think somebody who's steeped in Chinese culture or who studies Chinese language and culture will not do.
[00:38:35] I want to be very careful about the way I phrase this, because in the current climate, sometimes we sort of think that that's inauthentic or somehow that's a bad thing. But I want to...
Charlie Jane: [00:38:44] Appropriated…
Ken: [00:38:45] Right. I want to invite people to sort of be a little bit more broad-minded in this, which is, I think the issues with appropriation and so on and so forth are much starker when the person engaged in a superior cultural position is seen as the only voice or one of the most authoritative voices on that culture of lesser power. I think that's where most of the problems occur. But when that dynamic is not in play, when there are multiple interpretations and multiple within-system interpretation in cultural interpretations, and then you have one or a few out-culture interpretations, I think that can be actually illuminating in those cases, because the power dynamics is very different. Now we're talking about multiple voices and multiple perspectives that don't exist just within the source culture on something. And it's not threatening to overwhelm the source culture or to, as you put it, appropriate it.
[00:39:42] If that's not really at play, then sometimes we can gain a lot of insight into these interpretations in the same way that I would argue that modern interpretations of the Odyssey or the Iliad have offered quite a lot to the way we understand these works, even though we're doing them from a totally different position and a different cultural relationship to those works.
Charlie Jane: [00:40:05] Yeah, so like six years ago, I think I went to a conference in Hong Kong called Melon HK, where I met a bunch of like, for the first time, in most cases, I met a bunch of Chinese science fiction writers like Xia Jia, Wang Kanyu, Chen Qiufang, people whose work I've since come to really admire. And you've played a big role in bringing some of these authors to the US by translating their works. Can you speak to, you know, how do you feel about how this has gone for you? And do you think that there still needs to be more work done in terms of like introducing some of these authors to, you know, American and European readers?
Ken: [00:40:41] Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think I really like the way that you framed that, because I think the emphasis that you're placing here is on individual authors and individual works. And that's how I prefer to emphasize, you know, I...
Charlie Jane: [00:40:54] As opposed to seeing Chinese science fiction as a kind of monolith or something.
Ken: [00:40:58] Yeah. Exactly. I started the work of doing translation, you know, I had no interest or experience in translation. And I basically started because I wanted to help my friends in China reach readers in the English speaking world, because I found their works as individuals to be deeply fascinating. To me, they will always remain individuals and friends and their works are appreciated in the same way I appreciate your work, the same way I appreciate as individuals, right? I read your book and I’m reading Charlie Jane doing her own thing, and she is experiencing – she’s sort of presenting to us her own understanding or interpretation of the universe. This is what great artists do – they reinterpret the universe into this new thing that allows us to see aspects of it that have not been seen before, right? I think that’s what we hope to do, right? That’s what we do.
Charlie Jane: [00:41:54] That's the goal.
Ken: [00:41:55] That’s the goal. I read your work and I get this, I read one time news work, I get this, I reach into a friend's work, I get this. And I say, let's share this. You know, a translation will never be the same as the original because it's an interpretation. But interpretation is where the meaning happens. Interpretations are creations of meaning. They are a separate work of art. So I wanted to bring my friend's works to more readers. So in so far as all of my friends now have more readers abroad and many of them have built viable careers in English, I think, you know, I'm really happy that I got to play a little role in that and allow them to bring them to readers that would otherwise not be able to read their work. I think that's just… I'm really, really happy that I got to do that.
[00:42:42] The part that I'm not so happy about, though, is the fact that so much of the interpretation of their work has focused on their Chinese-ness, this idea that there's something called Chinese science fiction and that they need to be understood and interrogated as somehow representing Chinese strategic thinking or Chinese worldview in some way. I mean, there are, you know, plenty of otherwise serious scholars who would make ridiculous claims in their op-eds and saying that, you know, by reading this one science fiction story by one single author, I can competently claim that I understand the Chinese soul. And I can, you know, all sorts of comments on Chinese strategic thinking about the world, which is, you know, preposterous. I mean, how would you or I feel that if our works were interpreted as, you know, giving hints about an American strategic thinking about the world?
Charlie Jane: [00:43:38] I wish my work represented American strategic thinking. That would be that's a world I want to live in, although…
Ken: [00:43:44] It would be lovely, right? So the absurdity is in the very phrasing of it. And yet, you know, over and over again, what I see is when people are interpreting these works, they emphasize the Chinese this they're like, well, this is different from us. They don't emphasize the individuality of the authors, which is very disappointing to me. You know, something like Chen Shifan's Wayside is interesting and awesome.
Charlie Jane: [00:44:05] Oh God, I love that book.
Ken: [00:44:05] Right. It's Chen Shifan. It's his own unique interpretation of the universe. It's not because he's Chinese that the work is interesting. So to me, that will always be the most annoying part, which is people take my friend's work and they reduce them to something like, you know, a type, you know, they’re persistently reduced to just types as opposed to being appreciated for their individual qualities.
Charlie Jane: [00:44:32] Yeah. So just wrapping up, what are you working on now?
Ken: [00:44:36] I am working on a new novel. So, yeah, I know I'm having so much fun. The last thing I did was The Dandelion Dynasty, which took me 10 years to finish. And, you know, I'm super I'm super proud of it. And it's in fact, gosh, I remember launching the book with you when we were on that tour, you know, in San Francisco.
Charlie Jane: [00:44:58] Oh my God, that was super fun.
Ken: [00:44:59] I know. That was so so fun and so long ago. And, you know, took me 10 years to finish that series. And that was that was a lot of fun. And it really is a big part of my life. But I had to recover from that for a couple of years. But now I I've recovered, thankfully, and I'm working on a new book. It's a near future tech thriller. And it's very much about the sort of thing that we are taught. We were talking about is about meanings, about interpretations, about what does it mean to be an artist in the age of A.I., what does it mean to be somebody who tries to do good? What does it mean to be a hacker with art? I'm trying to write a near future tech thriller that's basically like five minutes into the future. But it's, you know, it’s got all the fun, exciting stuff that I find really interesting. And hopefully, you know, readers find it interesting, too. I've created a heroine who I really like. And she's going to have some great adventures.
Charlie Jane: [00:45:55] That sounds amazing. I love that. I can't wait to read that. So finally, where can people find you online?
Ken: [00:46:00] So they can go to my website, which is probably the best place. It's kenliu.name. Or you can go to kenliu.com and it will just redirect to the same place, which is easier. But the canonical URL is kenliu.name. And if you go there, you can sign up for my newsletter. It's a sub stack. But I give information about my upcoming publications appearances and I do giveaways and all sorts of fun stuff. So that's probably the best place to find me.
Charlie Jane: [00:46:27] Awesome. OK, cool. Well, thank you so much.
Ken: [00:46:30] Thank you so much, Charlie Jane. It's always fun.
[00:46:32] OOAC session break music, a quick little synth bwoop bwoo.
Charlie Jane: [00:46:36] Thanks so much for listening. If you just stumbled on us, you can find us wherever you find podcasts. Please leave a review. It really helps. We have social media accounts on Mastodon, Bluesky, on Patreon, on Instagram, on Patreon. On Patreon, we are patreon.com/ouropinionsarecorrect. Most other places we’re Our Opinions. Thanks so much to our incredible producer and engineer Niah Harmon. Chris Palmer and Katja Lopez-Dickels for the music. We'll be back in two weeks with another episode. But if you're a patron, we'll have a mini episode next week and we'll see you in Discord.
Both: [00:47:07] Bye.
[00:47:10] [OOAC theme plays. Science fiction synth noises over an energetic, jazzy drum line.]