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Posted-Date: Sun, 26 Jul 92 15:05:54 EDT
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Date:         Sun, 26 Jul 1992 15:05:54 EDT
From:         MM <mbm@PACSCL.UARC.UPENN.EDU>
Subject:      books for freshman writing
Comments: To: literary@ucf1vm.cc.ucf.edu

George, how is that board? I probably shouldn
't even ask, as I already am on too many. I don't object to students having
models. Models may be presented as books, though, which were not conceived
and are not presented as textbooks. I have used some good anthologies, and
with the constraints on xeroxing these days there is no alternative, really.
But the less "schoolish" surroundings that the model has--questions for
discussion, etc.--perhaps the less likely that writing and "school subject"
will necessarily undergo an equating. As a writer and reader, I try to
ask myself if it is the kind of book I would like to have and read. A
text which teaches the modes of writing will probably not go over too well,
while good models of these modes, presented without a lot of extraneous
material, might. Some of the Intro. To Literature anthologies nowadays
are full of great stuff. Mike.
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Date:         Thu, 23 Jul 1992 09:11:00 PDT
From:         naomi seeger <ECZ5SEE@UCLAMVS.BITNET>
Subject:      re: life of dostoyevsky

hmm.  i'm not saying your facts are wrong, i'd just like to add what i
was told in my dostoyevsky class in college.  now, it was 5 years ago,
so maybe yes, maybe no.

  FD wasn't involved with a radical student group, it was a literary
group with radical leanings.  belinski, i think, was a member.  that's
when FD published _Poor Folk_, or whatever the most recent translation
of the title is.  belinski is attributed, perhaps apocryphally, with
coining the term "naturalism" as applied to literature.  the story goes
that when he read _Poor Folk_ he was so overcome, all he could say was,
"it's so natural."  believe it or don't.
  FD's stint in prison was brought about by his association with this
literary group, rather than any political sentiment or action on his
part.  in a crackdown, guilt by association was enough to get him a
death penalty. now, what i heard was that the sentences of all the
prisoners in his group had been commuted (to 7 yrs hard labor?), but
with typical warden humor (what we have here, is a failure to
communicate), all the prisoners were lined up in front of the firing
squad, the whole ceremony gone through, and then, at the very last
moment, instead of the order "fire" they were told of their commuted
sentences.  bloody awful.  supposedly, the man in line next to FD
went crazy on the spot.  FD went to siberia and worked out the term
of his sentence.
  as for FD's epilepsy starting at that point, there are many stories
of when it started.  some reports have it starting when he heard of
his father's death.  others say he had it long before.  he definitely
had a troubled relationship with his father, a doctor who chose to
work in a poverty stricken local hospital while FD was young.
  i remember this little tidbit from his early days in the literary
group.  a short man (?), he had i think a painful shyness that
made it difficult for him to put himself forward.  others saw
merely his gruff exterior and his lack of interaction, and assumed
the worst and wrote him off as arrogant, with a "he thinks he's too
good for us" attitude.  typical.

naomi seeger
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Date:         Tue, 28 Jul 1992 16:05:23 CST
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From:         Melanie Willis <GS0383%SPRINGB.bitnet@SIUCVMB.SIU.EDU>
Subject:      Father Zossima

I would like to respond to the person who said that the premature decay of
Father Zossima's body was Dosteovsky's attempt to portray the monk as the
antithesis of what he was actually supposed to be: pious, holy and pure. I
disagree: I think Dosteovsky was trying to show God's lack of respect for
mankind's conventional beliefs, one of them being the belief that a holy man's
body will not quickly decay. Of course he left the situation very ambiguous
and up the reader to decipher. The question is: would a thinking man(or woman)
discount the monk's purity and piety merely because his body began to reek on
a hot day? Doesn't the satisfaction of the jealous monks confirm the fact that
only the small-minded would be swayed by this circumstance? I cannot see how
any corruption can be found in the portrayal of the elder that Dosteovsky
gave. He was a good man, and I think Dostoevsky meant him to be that.

Still, I am the one who brought this subject up, and I still don't quite
understand it. Why did Alyosha leave the monastery after this event? Is there
some part of the story I am forgetting? Someone please enlighten me.

Melanie Springfield, Illinois

Statistics & Research Consulting
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Date:         Wed, 22 Jul 1992 10:09:47 CST
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From:         Melanie Willis <GS0383%SPRINGB.bitnet@SIUCVMB.SIU.EDU>
Subject:      No Subject

I love Russian literature.  My favorite is "The Brothers Karamazov" (hope that
is spelled correctly).  I read it once and then a year later read it again.  Wh
at really puzzled me is the part where the elder's body begins to reek prematur
ely.  I don't understand what Dosteovsky is trying to show - I mean, does he fe
el that the monk was too proud, trying to be too god-like?  And the stench is a
way of showing that the elder really was human too?  Please respond.

Statistics & Research Consulting
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Posted-Date: Tue, 21 Jul 92 19:32:40 EDT
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Date:         Tue, 21 Jul 1992 19:32:40 EDT
From:         MM <mbm@PACSCL.UARC.UPENN.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Legacy of England
Comments: To: literary@ucf1vm.cc.ucf.edu

Michael Bruce McConald,
	I meant that most people on the left would have a hard time under-
standing an Indian speaking positively of the opportunity, as though the
best outcome might have been if England had succeeded.  From the example
you give, I see that as might be expected, results are complex--is the
book you refer to a good one?  What books on colonialism would you recom-
mend?
Mike
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Date:         Wed, 22 Jul 1992 14:45:00 PDT
From:         Michael Bruce McDonald <MCDONALD@OREGON.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Russian writers

I would think that the comparison with the protagonist of *The Idiot* was
a flattering one, for that protagonist is clearly shown to be too good for
this world (if also a bit schmaltzy) . . . the "idiocy" in question is
merely epilepsy, which also set Dostoyevsky himself apart from his peers,
for FD saw epilepsy not just as an ailment but as a practically metaphysical
signifier of some fundamental *difference*.

MBMcDonald
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Date:         Wed, 22 Jul 1992 10:28:53 -0500
From:         Eric Baum <PBR_EVB@FANDMA.BITNET>
Subject:      Jonathon Carroll

This is one of those screaming-into-the-void posts. A friend recently
loaned me a copy of Carroll's "Sleeping in Flames", which I found to be
rather interesting. Outside of the fact that he lives in Vienna and won't
return to the US, I can find virtually nothing about him. Does anyone have
any info on him?

*************************************************************************
E. V. Baum
Production Coordinator
Franklin & Marshall College
Lancaster, PA
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Posted-Date: Fri, 24 Jul 92 00:18:33 EDT
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.literary
Date:         Fri, 24 Jul 1992 00:18:33 EDT
From:         MM <mbm@PACSCL.UARC.UPENN.EDU>
Subject:      ubject: Dostoyevsky
Comments: To: literary@ucf1vm.cc.ucf.edu

Naomi, thanks for adding to what I could remember.  I'm you sure you are
right about the specifics of the the group he belonged to.  I had forgotten
about his timidity, and had not realized that there were these other
hypotheses concerning his epilepsy. Michael B.
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Date:         Fri, 31 Jul 1992 02:19:00 PDT
From:         Michael Bruce McDonald <MCDONALD@OREGON.BITNET>
Subject:      Tolstoy's ghost

is angry and in the machine, and is going to screw up our posts until
Tim of Brown retracts his assertion that Levin is a "farm animal."

Your Christian Conscience
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Date:         Fri, 24 Jul 1992 18:07:51 EDT
From:         Tom Frenkel <FRENKEL@CPMAIL-AM.CIS.COLUMBIA.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Richard Brautigan
Comments: To: LITERARY@ucf1vm.cc.ucf.edu

> Date:       Fri, 24 Jul 1992 13:53:00 EDT
> From:       IAN YORK <YORK@MCMASTER.BITNET>

> I was deeply and personally upset when he committed suicide some
> years ago; I had felt as if he was a good friend of mine.

I hadn't realized that Brautigan committed suicide.  Do you know the
circumstances?
                            --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:         Sun, 26 Jul 1992 01:10:00 PDT
From:         Michael Bruce McDonald <MCDONALD@OREGON.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: spoiling Ann Karenina

Nicely said, the other Tim.

the other MBM
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Date:         Fri, 24 Jul 1992 13:53:00 EDT
From:         IAN YORK <YORK@MCMASTER.BITNET>
Subject:      Richard Brautigan

Tom:  with regard to Richard Brautigan.  I read his Trout Fishing in America
a long time ago and loved it so much I was willing to forgive almost anything
from him.  I've read and re-read much of his stuff (although I haven't read
all of it) so much I am not a reliable critic.  I was deeply and personally
upset when he committed suicide some years ago; I had felt as if he was a
good friend of mine.
        Anyway, I'll try to take an objective approach to his stuff.  I think
his best work is his short short stories: Trout Fishing in America is the
prototype.  Don't read these as stories;  treating them as poetry is more
effective.  Although they lack the conventional trappings of poetry, they
convey an intense emotion or transfer a moment of life.  They are snapshots
rather than movies.  What I have read of RB's "novels" didn't work as well.
I got the feeling that the book as a whole was supposed to do what the short
shorts did, but the length diluted it.  Also he is (I think) often making
an elaborate joke:  _The Hawkline Monster_ is a Gothic Western, _Dreaming of
Babylon_ is ostensibly a detective novel but doesn't really have a coherent
plot.  He deliberately set them up so that they can't possibly work on the
superficial level, in other words.
        I think his best and most consistent work is his last: _The Tokyo-
Montana Express._  Then _Trout Fishing in America._  _In Watermelon Sugar_
is probably his other well known work; I suspect it is more of a period
(i.e. sixties) piece, but is still worth reading.  All of his stuff has at
the very least flashes of wonderful language.
-Ian
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Date:         Sun, 26 Jul 1992 12:13:26 EDT
From:         Tim Johnson <PH408014@BROWNVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Lermontov

Someone mentioned Lermontov -  _A Hero for Our Time_ is his
major contribution.  If anyone is considering this, I'll
second the earlier recommendation - but with one caveat:
you should get the Nabokov translation.  *Especially* if
you are a fan of Nabokov.

Those of you familiar with his work _Pale Fire_ will find
yourself with an odd feeling of deja vu in reading this.
Certainly Nabokov is never as excessive as his fictional
editor, but one has the sense in reading it of being in a
theater with Nabokov sitting next to you and offering comments
(often irreverent) on the screen play as it unfolds.  Don't
read this novel without reading the introduction and notes
that Nabokov provides.

                           -Tim
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Date:         Thu, 30 Jul 1992 18:14:52 EDT
From:         Tom Frenkel <FRENKEL@CPMAIL-AM.CIS.COLUMBIA.EDU>
Subject:      Vacation
Comments: To: LITERARY@ucf1vm.cc.ucf.edu

I'll be going on vacation; back Monday Aug. 10.  This list is one of
the *few* things I'm going to miss...  :-)
                                                --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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Posted-Date: Wed, 22 Jul 92 14:20:59 EDT
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Date:         Wed, 22 Jul 1992 14:20:59 EDT
From:         MM <mbm@PACSCL.UARC.UPENN.EDU>
Subject:      Technology
Comments: To: literary@ucf1vm.cc.ucf.edu

Kyle, Your point is well-taken, that our literature is a creation, to some
degree, of technology.  However when we "look for some kind of thematic or
formal qualities of the literary texts that somehow 'reflect' or 'represent'
the influences of technological development," we are not at all conceiving
of literature as pure--quite the contrary--we are seeing it, as you say,
liable to reflect technology.  If we thought it were pure and in an un-
touchable realm, we wouldn't even bother to investigate the question.
But the literature that is created by an imagination, and the book that ends
up in my hands, are not exactly the same things, so there are two ways of
looking at it--how the artifact gets produced; how the creation itself may
be influenced by technology.  Rereading your last sentence, I would have to
agree that this aspect you bring up is indeed often overlooked. However, to
study how technology might influence literarature does not presupposee pas-
toral, simplistic ideas about "bad" technology. Does it?
Mike
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Date:         Sat, 25 Jul 1992 02:01:57 CDT
From:         "Mark Banaszak (s946573.umslvma)" <S946573@UMSLVMA.BITNET>
Subject:      re: further dead fish digressions (sounds like a Richard
              Brautigan title)
              24 Jul 1992 08:23:57 -0400 from <moylek@MCMAIL.CIS .MCMASTER.CA>

_The Mismeasure of Man_ is a great book and S.J. Gould    drives that old
arguement home about nature versus nurture, but take a gander at _Ways with
Words_ from Shirley Brice Heath.  Best book about how people learn that I know
of.  I wish I had more time for language studies.
mb
p.s. The action on this list lately has been zah-zah.
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Date:         Wed, 22 Jul 1992 11:49:23 CST
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From:         Melanie Willis <GS0383%SPRINGB.bitnet@SIUCVMB.SIU.EDU>
Subject:      Herman Melville

Has anyone there read Moby Dick?  I read this last year, mainly because I didn'
t have anything else to read at the time, and I was surprised to find how much
I enjoyed it.  I started having dreams about being on a whaling ship.  I did fi
nd parts of it tedious, such as when he went on and on explaining the different
 kinds of whales and the killing and cleaning process.  But I'll never forget t
he thrill I felt when at the end they finally came upon the great whale, and Ca
ptain Ahab calls out, "Are you feeling brave, boys?"  (Or was it "lads"?) I am
truly shocked that this book was not appreciated during Melville's lifetime.  I
 don't understand it.  How sad for him.  Please respond if you also enjoyed thi
s book.

Melanie
Springfield, Illinois

Statistics & Research Consulting
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Date:         Wed, 22 Jul 1992 13:58:00 EDT
From:         IAN YORK <YORK@MCMASTER.BITNET>
Subject:      Russian writers

        Several years ago I was having a coffee with this girl who mentioned
that I reminded her of the hero of the book she was reading at the time.
What was the book I asked (thinking Wow . . . Rambo?  Odysseus? . . )
_The Idiot_, she replied, sending me off home with smoke trailing from the
port wing.
        So I've been afraid to read most of the Russian writers in case I
end up reading The Idiot and finding out for sure whether it was an insult
or a compliment.  (All I've read is Nabokov who I doubt counts as a classic
Russian writer.) However, I've been feeling so left out over the last few
days that I'm willing to take a chance.  Will someone tell me (gently) if the
last few shrivelled shreds of my ego are about to be further trod upon?
Thank you.
-Ian
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Date:         Wed, 29 Jul 1992 09:14:00 EDT
From:         "NAME 'Anne McKeage, Archivist, x2928'" <MCKEAGE@MCMASTER.BITNET>
Subject:      sarum

I enjoyed Sarum by Edward Rutherford from beginning to end. What I
found most intriquing about the story was the idea that parts of
England have been settled so long and that until very recently people
didn't move around very much, so families could continue to exist in a
given area for 1000`s of years. Rutherford plots family traits over
generations, for example artistic talent or cunning.

I found it evocative of what Zola was interested in with his series of
novels, trying to plot family traits over a few generations. Depravity
seemed to be his marker though.

I enjoyed Russka. It attempts to do the same thing. I agree that the
Medieval period stood out in my mind in both books. One idea from
Sarum that so intriqued me was that a stone, carved in the image of a
beloved prehistoric woman was encorporated into the building of that
cathedral by an ancestor how many 100's of generations later.

Anne McKeage
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Date:         Thu, 30 Jul 1992 13:49:00 PDT
From:         Michael Bruce McDonald <MCDONALD@OREGON.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Year's End

Why do I get the uncanny feeling that the Wilbur poem was actually
written by Frost?  Guess I'm just a curmdugeon, but the poem is a
bit too manipulative for my taste, and I wince at the notion of
New Year's bells "wrangling" with the snow.  I like the line about
fraying into the future, however.

"And Mm."  *Finnegans Wake*, 115.
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Date:         Thu, 23 Jul 1992 13:20:16 EDT
From:         Randy Money <LIBRBM@SUVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: No Subject Given

_The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers_ by John Gardner
is a fine work so long as you attend more to what he says about craft
than about art.  If my memory serves, he had idiosyncratic ideas about
art, most of which were interesting.  He also ends the book with a list
of writing exercises that one of my writing friends says he's found
useful and helpful.

Gardner also wrote _On Moral Fiction_, but I haven't read it.


Randy
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Date:         Sat, 25 Jul 1992 14:50:00 EDT
From:         Tim Johnson <PH408014@BROWNVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Dostoevski

>     While we're on the subject, what about the short novel "The Double"?
>     Golyadkin, the hero of "The Double," is a lowly civil servant who
>     awkwardly and unsuccessfully persues the daughter of his employer.
>     After some cruel rebuffs, a strangeness enters Golyadkin's world and
>     another Golyadkin, his absolute double, appears on the scene.  Where
>     the old Golyadkin had fumbled, the new one was adroit.  He is soon a
>     favorite in exactly the ways the old Golyadkin yearned to be.
>
>     Most critics disliked this story, but I didn't.

  I thought this was a great short story as well.  I found it very
compelling.  And again, I think demonstrates how capable Dostoevsky
was at exploring psychology.  I also found "The Crocodile" a great
short piece of satire.  I highly recommend it, as well.

                                          -Tim
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Date:         Wed, 29 Jul 1992 02:32:00 PDT
From:         Michael Bruce McDonald <MCDONALD@OREGON.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Of Levin and Ivan

Tim at Fort Knox, thanks for a funny and illuminating post on good, evil,
and the Houston bus station at 3 am in August (glad that *my* light in
August ain't there!).

M McDonald
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Date:         Thu, 23 Jul 1992 14:17:45 EST
From:         DZL <livewell@SIAM.ORG>
Subject:      Jeremy Irons as Kafka
Comments: To: finkelst@SIAM.ORG, LITERARY@ucf1vm.cc.ucf.edu

          Sue,
          Did you know that there is also an older movie version of
          _The Trial_ directed by Orson Welles?  I've never seen it,
          but I know it is out on video.  Anthony Perkins (yes, Psycho
          himself) plays the lead.  It got excellent reviews when it
          came out.
          --Dave L.
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