America is a nation of liars, and for that reason science fiction has a special claim to be our national literature, as the art form best adapted to telling the lies we like to hear and to pretend we believe.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that science fiction reflects American culture's tendency to embrace comforting falsehoods.
Thomas M. Disch's quote critiques the fabrications prevalent in American society, asserting that science fiction uniquely captures and explores these narratives. He argues that within a culture enamored with deception, science fiction serves as a vital literature form, effectively presenting the fantasies and lies that the populace prefers to believe, allowing for a deeper understanding of both society and the self.
In practice
This quote can be used in a lecture on the evolution of American literature and its societal implications.
Most American writers don't get asked their opinion on current affairs, whereas in Europe and England, we still do. There are writers here who are the most sophisticated commentators, but they're not asked. Like Don DeLillo, who sort of forecast most of the modern world before it happened.
One of the greatest things about writing as a profession is that the words of Tolstoy, Chesterton and Dostoyevsky have lived for a hundred years and are just as powerful today. Their words have changed me just as much as the people I actually met.
Size matters in fiction, but so does lack of size. Everything else being equal, fat novels tend to be perceived as serious, very thin ones as more honest, more real. Writers address these age-old expectations by filling their big books with philosophy and cramming their little ones with feeling.
Novelists are stamina merchants, grinders, nine-to-fivers, and their career curves follow the usual arc of human endeavour.
In a utilitarian age, of all other times, it is a matter of grave importance that fairy tales should be respected.
In my case, literature is a kind of revenge. It's something that gives me what real life can't give me - all the adventures, all the suffering. All the experiences I can only live in the imagination, literature completes.
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