HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.literary
Date:         Thu, 13 Aug 1992 11:23:18 -0900
From:         the First and Only Nude Vaxer <FSCLL@ALASKA.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Science Fiction

Greg Jerrett makes some interesting points about
the acceptance or non acceptance of science fiction and thus Vonnegut in some
circles. He raises the issue of the problems in the genre that need to be
fixed by the genre itself and then goes on to talk about how Faulkner started
to interest him more than Farmer, etc...

My question is, what is the problem that sci-fi has that any other genre,
including academic literature, "literature," etc etc doesn't? If you want to
see great swings in quality of writing, plots, characters, etc etc you can
look to any science fiction rack at the bookstore-- but you can find the exact
same problem in any genre, or in any literary or small press mag, etc.

What is it about the genres that makes people accept the terrible writing that
is labeled as literary with a shrug, but it degrades the entire genre if it is
science fiction (or romance, western, etc...)

I am not really a fan of much sci-fi, but there are proportionately as many
wuality authors there as there are in any other segment of writing. As I call
it anyway.

chris
poet and pauper
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Date:         Thu, 13 Aug 1992 15:56:00 EDT
From:         IAN YORK <YORK@MCMASTER.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Science Fiction

There was a SF writer (Maybe Robert Siverberg) who coined the axiom: 99% of
science fiction is crap.  But then, 99% of everything is crap.
There are quite a few high quality SF writers out there.  I think perhaps what
makes SF different (and makes it sneered at - although not as much as it was)
is that to a large extent the poor writers are accepted.  They are the mainstrea
   m of SF.  Unlike so called general writing:  Harlequin Romances and Danielle
Steele are not considered serious works, even by those who read them.  In SF,
though, those who read Piers Anthony don't even know he's trash.  (Well, maybe
Anthony is a bad example.  Critics don't like him.)  But my point is that
the standard for SF is lower, even within the field.
        I could write a long essay about thin
        I could write a long essay about things that are wrong with SF but I
doubt anyone would be interested, so I'll leave it at this.
Ian
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Date:         Sat, 22 Aug 1992 14:14:00 EST
From:         Entropy Warrior <AUSBROOK@IUBACS.BITNET>
Subject:      Grisham

>Jonh D. MacDonald is only a vice in that I read him for pleasure, not for
>learning, as so much of the rest of my reading is. Who is Grisham? (See,
>even a well-read person can miss a lot!). VMS

Oh learned one,
it sounds like learning *is* your pleasure.  Maybe it only says
volumes about me that I find MacDonald as edifying as some
treatises.

Grisham wrote a best-seller called _The Firm_.  450 pages that
could have been 200.  I guess I was *very* unhappy with the
plotting of the thing.  You know how Garp claims that he can make
any story sadder?  Well, I'm in a phase where I think I can make
(almost) any plot better.  And in the word explosion, I just
think it's rude to write senselessly long books.  Most of
MacDonald's books are gems.  I gather that Grisham has another
sprawling monster on the market.  Avoid it at all costs.

-Mka
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Date:         Sat, 22 Aug 1992 16:17:00 EST
From:         Entropy Warrior <AUSBROOK@IUBACS.BITNET>
Subject:      Plangans Interrogator

Interrogator Lewis and Short has as wizard.  Plangans should be
Plangens--plango, plangere, planxi, planctus.  It means to beat
and make a noise, as in waves on the shore.  Figuratively, to
beat the breast as in mourning.

So what--the breast beating wizard?

Just a try.
-Mka
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Posted-Date: Thu, 13 Aug 92 17:08:58 EDT
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.literary
Date:         Thu, 13 Aug 1992 17:08:58 EDT
From:         MM <mbm@PACSCL.UARC.UPENN.EDU>
Subject:      Seamus Heaney

Here is the first stanza of his poem, "Wheels within Wheels" from his
collection called _Seeing Things_.

The first real grip I ever got on things
Was when I learned the art of pedalling
(By hand) a bike turned upside down, and drove
Its back wheel preternaturally fast.
I loved the disappearance of the spokes,
The way the space between the hub and rim
Hummed with transparency.  If you threw
A potato into it, the hooped air
Spun mush and drizzle back into your face;
If you touched it with a straw, the straw frittered.
Something about the way those pedal treads
Worked very palpably at first against you
And then began to sweep your hand ahead
Into a new momentum--that all entered me
Like an access of free power, as if belief
Caught up and spun the objects of belief
In an orbit of coterminous longing.
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From: lharris@upei.ca (Lora Harris)
Subject: new threads
Organization: University of Prince Edward Island
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 19:29:54 GMT

(Nope, I don't mean new clothes!)

Hi folks, I'm new here.  My background is not arts (no flames please!), I'm 
a lowly tech who loves to read.

	In response to a complaint about lack of traffic, one of you 
suggested actually talking about a book instead of the lack of traffic -
blindingly creative thought there :^).

	So has anyone here read Rabelais?  Is he considered literature?  
And what am I to make of all of his pagesandpages of lists of contradictory 
adjectives?

	Any suggestions as to what to get next time I'm at the library?

				-Zant 
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Date:         Thu, 20 Aug 1992 12:20:00 EST
From:         Entropy Warrior <AUSBROOK@IUBACS.BITNET>
Subject:      New poetry list

>     I'm out here, but I was wondering the same thing.  Has everyone
>deserted for the new poetry list?  Or have i been abandoned?


New poetry list, Leslie?  Do tell.  Where is it?  Can I get there from
here?

-Mka
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Date:         Thu, 20 Aug 1992 22:19:00 CDT
From:         S1MBM@ISUVAX.BITNET
Subject:      Re: Byatt

Amusingly, Tim, you and I seem fated to have strong disagreements regarding
literary works.  I not only *love* *The French Lieutenant's Woman* but have
taught it to undergraduates with some success; I find it one of the most
successful forays into the difficult techniques of metafiction I've encountered.
I put down *Possession* well unfinished because it seemed rather mechanical and
lifeless to me.  Even so, I am considering giving it another try.

I hope that no one will feel compelled to ignore *FLW* as a result of your post.
   For me, it is by far the most satisfying contemporary novel on matters Victor
   ianand evolutionary; a genuine tour-de-force.

mm
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Date:         Thu, 20 Aug 1992 12:16:13 EST
From:         Entropy Warrior <AUSBROOK@UCS.INDIANA.EDU>
Subject:      RE: hello?

>It's quiet out there, Sarge.
>Yeah.  Too quiet.
>        Is there something screwed up with my reception or with the network,
>or is anyone

At last count folks were discussing the wonders of Hardy and
Fitzgerald with a thread of Ursula *K.* Le Guin running in and
out.  If action is what you want, Ian, try subscribing to WORDS-
L@UGA.  If you go away for a weekend you're likely to find 300
posts in your box Monday morning.  Their an interesting bunch of
folks--A Bandwidth Pid, a Czarina . . . even an Entropy Warrior.
Just be a little careful at the beginning--other than annual goat
roasts, they also are always ready for an ad hoc newby roast.
Once you brave the fire, they *can* be friendly--Le Pig included,
when she's not in flamethrower mode--all the way from East
Podunk, Texas.  At the moment the hunt is on for a missing
Wordsler--he was travelling and seems to have dropped off the
map.  (The world is flat after all.)

-Mka
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Date:         Fri, 21 Aug 1992 11:10:20 EDT
From:         Tim Johnson <PH408014@BROWNVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Can you Camus?

From _The Fall_ :

  It is quite true that I always lived free and powerful.
  I simply felt released in regard to all for the excellent
  reason that I recognized no equals.  I always considered
  myself more intelligent than everyone else, as I've told
  you, but also more sensitive and more skillful, a crack
  shot, an incomparable driver, a better lover.  Even in the
  fields in which it was easy for me to verify my inferiority -
  like tennis, for instance, in which I was but a passable
  partner - it was hard for me not to think that, with a
  little time for practice, I would surpass the best players.

As always, Camus reveals his profound insight into human nature.
But, Camus doesn't give the whole story.  Perhaps it was because
he himself *was* more intelligent than most people, or perhaps
it was the role he had chosen for this character.  In any event,
this gentleman lawyer looked with condescension on his compatriots,
and where he could not, created walls of illusion to protect his
ego.  But I think that is uncharacteristic of humans - or maybe,
such harmless illusions are characteristic only of the best of them.
It is far more common to find people who try to belittle the
accomplishments of others.  Steve Morrissey has a song on his
album _Your Arsenal_ entitled "We Hate It When Our Friends Become
Successful."  How true.  Where do you suppose Dan Quayle gets his
inspiration for attacks on the so called "cultural elite?"
  There is a Gary Larson _Far Side_ comic strip which sums
it up even better than Morrissey's song.  In the first frame,
primitive man is enviously watching a bird fly by.  In the
next frames, he flaps his arms and struggles in vain to fly.
Finally, he gets an idea - puts his mind to work - and you see
him busily constructing something.  In the last frame, the object
he has built is revealed as a bow, and he has killed the bird.
What a great species.  Our envy brings us venom.  And we work
with such delight to destroy what we can't have, or those whom
we can't better.

                          -Tim


(maybe this should be cross-posted, too.)
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Date:         Sat, 22 Aug 1992 13:12:27 EST
From:         Entropy Warrior <AUSBROOK@UCS.INDIANA.EDU>
Subject:      Re: On reading as a process

>critically important (though I, like most, have my vices - like
>detective/thriller stuff, John D. MacDonald ...). But, can any of us

Why is MacDonald a vice?  Grisham is a vice--you only have to
read every third page.  MacDonald wrote short masterpieces--the
James M. Cain of his time.

6950?  Do you really keep count? *Amazing*.

I miss Meyer
-Mka
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Date:         Thu, 20 Aug 1992 15:40:30 EDT
From:         Tom Frenkel <FRENKEL@CPMAIL-AM.CIS.COLUMBIA.EDU>
Subject:      Re: hello?
Comments: To: LITERARY@ucf1vm.cc.ucf.edu

> Date:          Thu, 20 Aug 1992 14:30:04 EDT
> From:          Tim Johnson <PH408014@BROWNVM.BITNET>

> Last week I read
>
>   Byatt, _Possession_
>   Kundera, _Book of Laughter and Forgetting_
>   Camus, _The Fall_
>   Thurber, _My Life and Hard Times_
>   Gabriel Garcia Marquez, _Love in the Time of Cholera_

You read all of this LAST WEEK  ????
                                            --Tom
-------
Tom Frenkel,    Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center,
161 Ft. Washington Ave.,  DAP-1310,  New York, NY 10032-3784  USA
Internet:  FRENKEL@CPMAIL-AM.CIS.COLUMBIA.EDU
<<< Opinions expressed not necessarily those of my employer >>>
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Date:         Wed, 19 Aug 1992 17:20:00 EDT
From:         IAN YORK <YORK@MCMASTER.BITNET>
Subject:      hello?

It's quiet out there, Sarge.
Yeah.  Too quiet.
        Is there something screwed up with my reception or with the network,
or is anyone






out there?  I haven't got any messsages from the network for
several days.  If anyone's out there, let me know.
Ian
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Date:         Thu, 20 Aug 1992 22:33:00 EST
From:         Entropy Warrior <AUSBROOK@IUBACS.BITNET>
Subject:      FLW (was Byatt)

>I hope that no one will feel compelled to ignore *FLW* as a result of your post
.
>For me, it is by far the most satisfying contemporary novel on matters Victor
>ianand evolutionary; a genuine tour-de-force.
>
>mm

Ditto

-Mka
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Date:         Thu, 13 Aug 1992 18:10:00 EDT
From:         IAN YORK <YORK@MCMASTER.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Science Fiction

Tom, you're right, it was Sturgeon, and it was "anything".  My memory is
going.
Ian
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Date:         Thu, 20 Aug 1992 21:24:00 EDT
From:         IAN YORK <YORK@MCMASTER.BITNET>
Subject:      Thurber/ Byatt

>. . .  But let's not complain about the lack of traffic, let's start some
>traffic.  And could we possibly avoid such topics as "desert island books."

Actually, I wasn't complaining about the lack of traffic; after the blizzard
effect we were getting I thought there was a glitch and I simply wasn't re-
ceiving the network.  Anyway, that seems to have solved the problem.
        Of your list, I've read Thurber and AS Byatt.  I've read quite a bit
of Thurber's.  I think he is one of the major minor writers.  In one of his
stories, in a collection called Lanterns and Lances, he read an obituary of
some writer including the phrase "a major adventurer in the wilderness of the
imagination" or something like that; he suggested his own obit would call him
"just another vagabond in the backwoods of the mind."  I have to say that
there is some truth to that - but it's also typical of his wonderful way with
a phrase.  (The same collection had a fairy tale that started off: "One day an
ogre who had eaten a clock and fallen into the habit of eating clocks was in
the clockroom of his castle when his ogress and her ilk knocked the door down
and shook their hairy heads at him."  Say that aloud and see if you ever for-
get it.)  But his work, I think, is deliberately superficial.  I'm aware that
I'm criticizing him for not being something he had no intention of being.  In
his area, he was a wonderful craftsman and an elegant writer.
        I read _Possession_ a year or so ago, and a couple months ago I put a
request on the list to know what else of hers to read.  I regret to say I've
forgotten what the reply recommended.  I thought Possession was an excellent
book.  At times it seemed a little too carefully put together; I thought I
could see a flow chart in the background, with all the loose connections care-
fully tied up.  I understand she has an academic background, and perhaps this
fits with that.  Still, it may be a prejudice, and a foolish one, to want
untidyness in a novel.  It's interesting that after a year I can still remem-
ber the plot and the characters clearly - the sign of a good writer - but no
phrases or examples of her writing style have stuck.  Her writing is so clear,
completely unlike some other writers.  Is that typical of the rest of her
writing?
        Perhaps examples of the reverse type of writer - whose style over-
shadows the plot - are Jeannette Winterson and Angela Carter.  Both are just
as good (he says judgementally) as Byatt, but you come away with completely
different pleasures.  (And talk about untidyness - nothing but loose ends!)

        I think the list has been pretty good of late.  I found the Russian
writer discussion fascinating.  I couldn't join in as I hadn't read the books,
but I was prompted to read Kafka and Dostoevsky.  But not all in one week.
I too have to get my experiments to work.  Everyone out there: keep up the
good work.

        Ian
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Date:         Thu, 13 Aug 1992 11:16:25 -0900
From:         the First and Only Nude Vaxer <FSCLL@ALASKA.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: writers

Writers (the listserv) does not hold well with poetry-- most of the people are
not interested in it. It is more geared towards short fiction, and especially
science fiction and fantasy, though not limited to just that,

There is a lot of irrelevant traffic-- and the person that unsubscribed after
65 messages about Stephen King was seeing something that flares up every once
in a while (once every two months I would guess). In general the bandwidth is
quite high, but there ARE some good writers and some good things said. You
just have to sift through it. If you are interested in a high info ratio with
little chatter, writers is NOT the place! Like I said in a previous posting,
there will be days when your mailbox qill be loaded with miscllaneous chatter,
so be prepared!

I often delete whole groups of messages unread if that tells you anything!

chris
poet and pauper
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Date:         Fri, 14 Aug 1992 09:43:39 EST
From:         Entropy Warrior <AUSBROOK@UCS.INDIANA.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Ursula Le Guin

>Le Guin is her married name, and I think she keeps the K around for the
>sake of her parents,the Kroebers(?) who were semi-famous anthropologists
>at Berkeley.

What I meant was, why does everyone always *refer* to her as
Ursula *K.* Leguin--even in posts where shorthand often takes
over.  I mean I've noticed it even when people talk about her
live.  Maybe it's a dumb question.

--Mka
Killing yourself because philosophy has nothing to do with real
life is like killing yourself because you can't play a tune on a
carrot.
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Date:         Sat, 22 Aug 1992 08:37:23 EDT
From:         Daniel A Perlman <dap@WORLD.STD.COM>
Subject:      Trollope
Comments: To: Literary <LITERARY@ucf1vm.cc.ucf.edu>

I've started the Pallisers.  I just read "Can You Forgive Her?"  I thought
Trollope would be great late summer reading.  He reminds me a little of
19th C beach reading.  I enjoyed "The Warden" and "Barchester Towers", but
most of his writing reminds me of Dickens at his broadest. (Maybe
Pickwick Papers).

Is anyone else out there besides me still reading these 900 page tomes?

Dan Perlman
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Date:         Sat, 22 Aug 1992 12:13:36 EDT
From:         Tim Johnson <PH408014@BROWNVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: hello?

>Tim, have your read *Long Day's Journey into Night*?  I think that in this
>work O'Neill does acheive a tragedy of high order, at least watching the
>film version with Katherine Hepburn convinced me of this.

  Haven't read that.  My initial experience with O'Neill (that
is, "Desire Under the Elms") convinced me that I wasn't much
going to like him.  A friend of mine was disposing of some
O'Neill - "A Moon for the Misbegotten" and a collection of
plays recently - and so, because so many people urged me to
try him again, I took "Moon for the Misbegotten," but not the
collection.  Now I wish I had taken both.  I have been told
that "Mourning Becomes Elektra" is his best.  (By a good friend
who reads a whole lot faster than I do.  ;-)

                              -Tim
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Date:         Sat, 22 Aug 1992 15:59:03 EST
From:         Entropy Warrior <AUSBROOK@UCS.INDIANA.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Grisham

>the books.  I would not call him a great writer, and agree with you that
>his plots (and descriptions) need tightening up. Perhaps that will come
>with experience, perhaps not.

It won't come with experience, I think, because of the
vacationing crowd he writes for--but maybe.  I don't think he'll
mess with success.

I certainly did not mean to say or imply that what I put out
about Grisham is any more than opinion.  I was putting it out
there for comparison's sake with MacDonald.  That's the problem
with the medium--no way to do tone.  It's all opinion anyway,
isn't it?

-Mka
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Posted-Date: Wed, 12 Aug 92 17:43:06 EDT
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Date:         Wed, 12 Aug 1992 17:43:06 EDT
From:         MM <mbm@PACSCL.UARC.UPENN.EDU>
Subject:      Where is talkin?
Comments: To: literary@ucf1vm.cc.ucf.edu

g.  Here I am, waiting to hear what is to become of the idea of a poetry
discussion group, whether we are to hijack a list or start a new one or
what, and instead of talking literary I had to go over to belief-l and
rant and rave over controversial topics, etc., when I also needed my fix
of specialized interests. I am astonished and dismayed. Was everyone out
sick today? Can anyone explain? Michael B.
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Date:         Fri, 14 Aug 1992 03:46:00 EST
From:         MARGARET WRIGHT <MWRIGHT@TRINCC.BITNET>
Subject:      RE: Science Fiction

        My field of study is the 19th century (I am a Trollopian) but
a number of years ago my niece took a course in contemporary literature which
included The Moon is a Harsh Mistress which I read and find it has stayed with
me.  No character development which seems to be true of sci fi in general but
it was and is a fascinating book.

        If 99 per cent of sciece fiction is crap I would say the same of 19th
century poetry.  Can anyone today really read the works of the "Sweet singer of
Hartford"?  Yet Lydia Sigourney was once important enough to have a street named
for her!

        A hundred years from now sci fi may well make it as a genre course -
especially if it becomes a dead genre.  It isn't just dead poets that make the
canon.  If Riders of the purple sage can be taught for college credit in a
genre course on Westerns then science fiction will eventually be considered
respectable.

                Maggie Wright
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Posted-Date: Wed, 12 Aug 92 21:55:26 EDT
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Date:         Wed, 12 Aug 1992 21:55:26 EDT
From:         MM <mbm@PACSCL.UARC.UPENN.EDU>
Subject:      White Noise
Comments: To: literary@ucf1vm.cc.ucf.edu

There are quite a few places in the book where we are no longer in the
world of realist fiction, but somewhere else, related but very different,
quate a bit stranger. I really couldn't speak on very specific devices
he uses. Michael B.
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