HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox)
Subject: Re: Asimov and the decay of SF
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 92 03:46:34 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Distribution: na

In article <5504@transfer.stratus.com> jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com writes:
>>My only question is, why the hell are you reading sf?  It is not a 
>> literature of character nor does it intend to be--i.e., it's not as  
>>though sf writers are generally trying to do character and getting it wrong.

>But much of the best SF does do well with characters.  

	And I didn't say otherwise.  Some sf does well with character, 
but sf is not a literature of character.  And one can write *very* good sf
without doing well with character.  J. G. Ballard has some interesting ideas 
on this, several to be found in the Re/Search issue on him.  He talks about
human beings caught up in the consequences of technology--i.e., not just
character but character changed, warped, mutated, destroyed, enhanced by its
own products.  In that same issue, I think it's Martin Bax who talks 
(metaphorically) of the impact of the hardware of the century on the human
software.  And Ballard believes that's different from simply doing the novel
of character, in which he's not interested.  Writers such as DeLillo, Pynchon,
and Burroughs, even Updike and Margaret Attwood, have caught on that this is 
an interesting and appropriate thing to do in our time.
-- 
				Tom Maddox
		    	    tmaddox@netcom.com
		   "I swear I never heard the first shot"
                Wm. Gibson, "Agrippa:  a book of the dead"
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: jmiller@mica.webo.dg.com (Janice Miller)
Subject: Dangerous What?
Date: 18 Aug 92 17:24:43
Organization: NSDD, Data General Corp., Westboro, MA

Perusing one of Mike Morris's lists, I came across the following:

>  81. Choderlos de Laclos, _Dangerous Acquaintances_

Is this right?  Has the title really been translated that way?  It
just doesn't seem . . . well . . . sleazy enough.  More like Pinocchio
falling in with the thieves than a steamy story of seduction and
betrayal.

Isn't "liaison" a synonym for "acquaintance" in English, as well as
in French?

--
--
Janice Miller                           janice_miller@dg.com
Network Systems Development Division
Data General Corporation
Westboro MA
Xref: sparky rec.arts.books:14550 alt.satanism:1749 bit.listserv.fnord-l:1007
From: robert@revcan.rct.ca (Robert Presland)
Subject: Re: Agnostics and Athiests
Organization: Revenue Canada, Taxation; Office Communications Division
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 14:16:57 GMT

In article <sbuckley.714031443@sfu.ca> sbuckley@fraser.sfu.ca (Stephen Buckley) writes:
>life, i could do whatever i want with it.  but 2 things.  one is i don't
>believe humans create life.  i believe god does.  human beings can have
>sex but god creates the life.  :)  two is if you can prove to me that i
>can create life, which entails proving god is not creating life [but
>both of those are empirically unverifiable], then i would discuss your
>hypothetical as reality--until then tho, it's just hypothetical.  and since
>i'm not god i cannot do what i will with his creation.  his will rules.
>and his will is to love him with all my heart, mind and soul, and to love
>my neighbours as myself.

Hm... Humans don't create life.  I';m not so sure about that.  In a court of
law, nothing exists until it is proved to exist, I think this is a valid
train of thought, so I don't proceed to debate the existance of god, but for
me, since I have seen no concrete evidence that god does exist, I must believe
that god does not exist, and in that position then, since humans proceed to
reproduce, the result of that act must have come from the act itself, hence
humans create life.  But not only humans do this, all living creatures on earth
reproduce, so it would almost be appropriate to suggest that every living thing
can produce anoither living thing in it's image.


-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Internet: robert@revcan.rct.ca                Hell On A Disk BBS
  FidoNet: Robert Presland (1:243/27)           (613) 569-0290 * CSP/V32b
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: br105@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Jeffrey A. Del Col)
Subject: Vollman"s Novels
Reply-To: br105@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Jeffrey A. Del Col)
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 92 00:40:54 GMT


I've just ordered YOU BRIGHT AND RISEN ANGELS and would appreciate
any opinions of it and other work by Vollman.

J. Del Col
-- 
Jeff Del Col      *       "I'm never lonely,...living in my heavily      
A-B College       *   populated solitude, a harum-scarum of infinity        
Philippi, WV      *   and eternity, and Infinity and Eternity seem to          
                  *   take a liking to the likes of me." Bohumil Hrabal.       
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,rec.humor,alt.folklore.urban,rec.arts.sf.misc,alt.religion.kibology
From: tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox)
Subject: Re: Agnostics and Athiests
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 92 03:51:10 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 

	What I admire most about this thread is its universality.  It manages
to be inappropriate to every newsgroup it appears in; it is likewise 
uniformly tedious.  

	And the subject line is misspelled.  

	My deepest admiration to the evil genius who concocted it.  Or, if
no evil genius is involved, then to the Dostoevskyeanly perfect idiot.


-- 
				Tom Maddox
		    	    tmaddox@netcom.com
		   "I swear I never heard the first shot"
                Wm. Gibson, "Agrippa:  a book of the dead"
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: wallis@aristotle.ils.nwu.edu (Mindy Wallis)
Subject: Re: Anybody Else Read History?
Organization: Institute for the Learning Sciences
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 21:39:14 GMT

In article <1992Aug14.165711.10624@nas.nasa.gov>,
wismith@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (William R. Smith) writes:
> 
> Mike Lopke writes:
> 	
> 	I've read most of Mitchner's works.  Do you have any
> 	recommendations or favorites?
>  
> I too have enjoyed Michner's fiction.  You might enjoy the Flashman
> series by George MacDonald Frazer.  

I recommend Robert Graves' books: _I Claudius_ and _Claudius the God_,
_King Jesus_, and _A Wife to Mr. Milton_.  I also recommend all of the
books by Mary Renault about ancient Greece.  In a less serious vein you
might also try _Silver Pigs_ (the author's name escapes me) - it is about a
private detective working in ancient Rome.

 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mindy
wallis@aristotle.ils.nwu.edu
Institute for the Learning Sciences
Northwestern University
From: danoc@earlybird.Eng.Sun.COM (Dan O'Connell [CONTRACTOR])
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Processing
Date: 12 Aug 1992 22:13:30 GMT
Organization: Unmitigated Gall, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Host: earlybird

S.L.Fagg@bnr.co.uk writes:

>	   If a train station is a place where trains stop,
>	       then what does that make a workstation?

And
	   If a food processor is something that chops up food,
	       then what does that make a word processor?

Dano
From: kassover@rumsey.crd.ge.com (David Kassover)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Inconsistent Details -- Trivia
Date: 19 Aug 92 00:41:36 GMT
Organization: Who, Me?

In article <1992Aug18.160030.1467@nas.nasa.gov> wismith@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (William R. Smith) writes:
...
>
>In Sue Grafton's "A Is For Alibi" Kinsey Millhome the female detective
>leaves her keys in her car to make a quick get-away if needed.  A few
>pages later she uses the keys to pry open a window in the basement.
>
>When I first read it I whipped back to reread the part where she left
>the keys in the car.  Yup.  She left'em.

Why is it necessary that Milhone have only one set of keys, or
that she keep her car key on the same ring?

Furthermore, I suspect that she's smart enough to carry an extra
key or two, which can be sacrificed if necessary.

Let's try for some that are *hard* to explain.



-- 
David Kassover             "Proper technique helps protect you against
uupsi!khazad!kassover	          sharp weapons and dull judges."
kassover@aule-tek.com                   F. Collins
kassover@ra.crd.ge.com
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: msmorris@watsci.waterloo.edu (Mike Morris)
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Organization: University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 18:14:33 GMT

                                    Thursday, the 13th of August, 1992

Terrance Heath writes:
           Those who are currently challenging the inflexibility of the
  current canon are usually accused of ascribing contemporary political
  ideals to age old universal "standards", as if there are no political
  ideas which have been with us since time immemorial and which ought
  not be challenged.  The canon is, by nature, political in terms of
  those works and authors included and those excluded. If inclusion and
  exclusion are not wholly based upon the political foundation of the
  very idea of a canon, then they are at least significantly affected by
  such a foundation.

I disagree with you and with Tom Maddox on this. It is only by using
a very loose definition of the word ``political'' that you can say this.
The Great Books set itself is defined much more objectively and reasonably
than either of you allow.

                Mike Morris
         (msmorris@watsci.uwaterloo.ca)


Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: maureenw@sco.COM (Maureen Wilkes)
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon & Women
Organization: SCO Canada, Inc.
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 15:31:07 GMT

In article <Bt6vGF.AF9@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca> msmorris@watsci.waterloo.edu (Mike Morris) writes:
>                                    Tuesday, the 18th of August, 1992
>
>Francis Muir writes:
> Maureen Wilkes writes:
>  
>  	Mike Morris writes:
>  
>  		But the thing I think is unfair overwhelmingly is past 
>  		societal discrimination between men and women, past
>  		discouragement that women should even think of trying to 
>  		be writers--- not any present desire to exclude women 
>  		from canonization because they are women.
>  
>  Will you present some evidence for this notion please?
>
>Well, I'll let Maureen present some evidence for the notion that
>I wrote this,

I'll do no such thing!

 but, assuming you really want evidence that there has been
>some sort of discrimination against women, I think you need only
>start listing canonical writings of men and women.

(list deleted)


>
>I would claim, though, 2 facts are clear: (1) Women have been
>underrepresented in the canon with respect to population; and (2) In the
>one genre where women have written alot, women are canonized
>about equally with men (19thC English novels).
>
>For an explanation of (1), you have your pick of (I think Dani
>Zweig first listed these as the three choices):
> (A) There is a deliberate conspiracy among modern white male professors
>     not to read all the many works that women actually produced.
> (B) Past discrimination (when *I* say ``discrimination'' I do
>     not mean necessarily to imply some intolerable injustice---there
>     are many reasons for discrimination to take place) against
>     women being authors.
> (C) Unconscious discrimination against female authors by the same
>     white male professors in (A).
>I've seen no one here arguing (A) very seriously. Personally, I think
>that (B) overwhelms (C). I also think (2) provides some evidence for this
>(more evidence to be had when you start considering what happens with
>canonizing 20th C works). 

I think if there was ever a conspiracy, it was a conspiracy of ignorance.
As for the white male professors, leave the poor sods alone!  They have enough
crippling insecurities without giving them a bad PR rap of this magnitude.
If they've excluded female/ethnic/martian writers from their courses, it's
probably because they simply didn't know any better -- and weren't terribly
motivated to search beyond what THEIR professors had taught.  It doesn't 
make it right, and it doesn't mean that we should ignore it and continue on
this way, but let's leave the conspiracy theories to Oliver Stone.  
To assume that professors are fonts of eternal wisdom is to make a very
bad assumption indeed.  It's unfortunate that society has worshipped them
as such.  

So....read any good books lately? ;^)



                      Maureen Wilkes
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: dacosta@prl.philips.nl (Paulo da Costa 42147)
Subject: Re: Unspoken Words
Organization: none
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1992 15:03:47 GMT

In article <1992Aug15.151245.21100@morrow.stanford.edu> francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir) writes:
:Joel J. Hanes writes:
[...]
:	I refer you to the essay, "Such, Such Were The Joys" in the
:	_Collected_Essays_ of George Orwell.  Orwell was a
:	"scholarship boy" at a low-tier-but-aspiring public school;
[...]
:I believe Tom is confusing a thing and its caricature. It is precisely
:my point that Orwell's school was not a "great Public School" but one
:of the many rather dreadful wannabes. [...]

Orwell was "a scholarship boy" at _Eton_. "Such, Such Were The Joys"
refers to the preparatory school (or whatever you call you) where he
was before going there.
-- 
-- Paulo da Costa           /\/\   Minha terra tem palmeiras   /\/\
-- dacosta@prl.philips.nl   \/\/   Onde canta o sabia'...      \/\/
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: zola@hardy.u.washington.edu (jestem oczarowana)
Subject: Apology (was Re: Looking for a book list.)
Summary: oops. shooting off my mouth. 
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 18:21:58 GMT


To Edward O'Brien and rabble:

argh.

I wrote in an unprovoked flame:

>
>How completely embarrassing.  I was going to say that I hope to hell
>that you are not actually teaching anywhere, and then I notice your 
>mail address!  I have my suspicions that they might just let you loose
>on some poor unsuspecting freshmen.  I am thankful that I am past any
>chance of ending up in a class of yours.  If you can't be bothered to
>care about the reading list why do you think anyone would bother to
>care about listening to you TALK about the books, or read them, or come
>to class....   I would like it known that there are some great people
>in the U.W. English Department, they are not at all represented by this
>type of attitude.  I will do what I can to warn any baby lit heads away
>from your course.   oh GRRRRRRRRRR.
>
>No, I do not think that I am over reacting (based on what you posted.)

A few people suggested that since Mr. O'Brien did not specifically
say that he was teaching, that perhaps he was really just looking for
book suggestions.  Which, upon further correspondence turned out to be
the case.  

I apologize profusely.  A good suggestion that I received was "If you are
wrong you better apologize in public for being an insufferable bitch."
I apologize for shooting my mouth off and being an insufferable bitch.

Sorry, Edward, this *is* the right place for a discussion of books.  I 
reacted so quickly because there has been a tendency of the grad students
here to pull that kind of thing (horrible teaching to undergrads).  I will
be more careful in the future.    

Again, I was wrong.
-Rebecca
From: dstein@oak.math.ucla.edu (David Stein)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Date: 13 Aug 92 14:37:02 GMT
Organization: UCLA Mathematics Department


   Professor Kilian exresses the need for shared references and common
experiences in defense (presumebly) of the need for a literary cannon.

   Let me note that there is no need for a central set of references
that every individual shares in order to assure that there is something
culturally in common between any _two_ members of a society.

   To give a simple example, assume you are teaching a Shekspeare lit
class of 15 students.  You ask them to write down all Shekspearean
works they have read.  It is possible that there is no single work that
all the students have read, but that any two students will have 
read something same.  Thus a reasonable discussion about Shekspeare
is already possible between any two students in your class.

  I think there are many instances where people feel they
share something in common yet can't quite define what it is.  The 
point might be that they have nothing _specifically_ in common,
except the fact that any _small_ group of them are likelly to find
something in common.  Many artistic movements come to mind, as well
as notions such as Central Europe, etc.

   Also note that a literary cannon reduces the ammount of texts
that a culture actually shares.

   Say you are a Minister of Education, and you would like to ensure 
that all Canadian children have read something in common (yeah, forget 
the French).  Assume practical considerations limit each child to read
9 books in Elementary school.  You could choose these 9, _or_
you could choose 18 of them and assure that each is read by at least
half of the kids _and_ that any 2 kids will have at least 3 books
in common. (Note this is stronger then choosing only 3 `cannon' works.)

   Sorry to be getting too numberish--yes I do realize life is not a
deterministic puzzle.  It's just that I can express myself more precisely
when using math.

   I think that any sufficiently diverse culture gets beyond the point where
a significant amount of literary texts can be read by almost all it's members.
But this is not neccesserily a loss, nor does it mean the death of the
culture.

 - David

--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm not a native speaker of English, so I'm not sure what I wrote.
Flames will be ignored unless you post them in perfect Czech.
================================ - David (the metamathician) - ===
From: hypes@hpdmd48.boi.hp.com (Gary Hypes)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Male-male love in Tolkien (was Re: C.S. Lewis)
Date: 15 Aug 92 20:24:02 GMT
Organization: Hewlett Packard - Boise, ID

Well, let's see... Perhaps the whole "ring" theme is actually an
allegory for rite of sexual bondage... Shelob comes to stand for JRRTs
fear of being consumed by Mother/Woman... The towers are all phallic
symbols... and we ALL know who the "elves" are, wink-wink... and dwarves
are always involved in some kind of "underground" activities...

C'mon, guys; JRRT has written at length about the why and wherefore of
the Ring trilogy and what to read into it and what not to read into it.
(His worst fears were that someone would think he was writing an
allegory about Hitler. I'd imagine he's fairly spinning in his grave
over suggestions he was implying homosexual relationships...)

Like Freud said, some times a cigar is just a cigar.

- Gary Hypes -
From: heath@athena.cs.uga.edu (Terrance Heath)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Date: 13 Aug 92 17:14:31 GMT
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens

In article <f84mn9p.tmaddox@netcom.com> tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox) writes:
>
>	With regard to the canon debate, a few comments:

[much intersting stuff deleted]

>	In fact, given the necessary cultural pluralism of our times, we might 
>learn to live with structures more flexible than a canon, more inclusive.  
>Perhaps we could view these structures as horizontal, not vertical, and we 
>could also respect the idea that there is nothing all of us must read.  As 
>Northrop Frye (whose ingenuous notions of a canon have been mentioned in this 
>discussion) noted, you can recognize the canonical nature of a work by the 
>fact that you're embarrassed not to have read it; I'm suggesting that this
>response has become simply irrelevant, that we must all define our own canons. 
>
>	While we're at it, we might do so with a broad, generous notion of 
>person and genre so that we do not exclude writers because of who they are or
>works because they come from despised literary forms.

	At last, a voice of reason.  


-- 
"Black men loving black men is THE revolutionary act!"
			-Joseph Beam_
Terrance Heath 
heath@athena.cs.uga.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: msmorris@watsci.waterloo.edu (Mike Morris)
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Organization: University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1992 22:48:21 GMT

                                Sunday, the 16th of August, 1992

Keith Morgan quotes Robertson Davies about reading Thackeray
multiple times in one's life.

I think 3- or 17-time readability is a quality that most
books don't have. I also think there's going to be broad
agreement among readers about which books are the 17-time
readable ones. In other words, Tom and Matt, I think that
this quality is objectively judgeable. 

              Mike Morris
       (msmorris@watsci.uwaterloo.ca)


Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: engelson-sean@CS.YALE.EDU (Sean Philip Engelson)
Subject: Homosexuality in the Bible (was Re: Agnostics and Athiests)
Organization: Yale AI Mobile Robotics Project
Distribution: na
Date: Mon, 3 Aug 1992 19:36:54 GMT


In article <92656@bu.edu>, manes@bass.bu.edu (Michelle Manes) writes:
|> In article <11511@optilink.UUCP> cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) writes:
|> >
|> >> Nowhere in the Bible does it say the homosexuality is a disease. Yet the 
|> >
|> >Your ignorance is showing again.  It does list it as a sin, along
|> >with many others.  If you choose to disagree about the validity
|> >of the Bible, fine, but don't pretend that it's not in there.
|> 
|> Can you give us a reference on this one?
|> Not to pick nits or anything, but I was a pretty obnoxious
|> boag (born again) for many years.  I have nearly read the
|> bible (notice no capital -- it doesn't deserve it) cover
|> to cover.  Many books more than once or twice.  The closest
|> I remember is the "not spilling your seed" stuff.  In other
|> words, homosexuality is wrong because all sex should be for
|> the purpose of procreation.  Thus, anti-birth control and
|> masturbation sentiments as well.  Do you have something
|> specific -- book chapter, verse?  I burned all my bibles
|> but I have access to many a library.

Check out Leviticus 20:13:
	And a should a man lie with a male as with a woman, they have both 
	done an abomination, they shall surely die, their blood is upon them.

Sounds like a sin to me.

-- 
Sean Philip (Shlomo) Engelson		Im eshkachekh Yerushalayim, 
Yale Department of Computer Science		Tishkach yemini;  
Box 2158 Yale Station			Tidbak leshoni l.chiki
New Haven, CT 06520				Im lo ezkerekhi...
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Subject: Re: Unspoken Words
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 1992 15:12:45 GMT

Joel J. Hanes writes:

	Tom Maddox writes:

		Fido writes:

			The great Public Schools in England are not
			renowned for the body of facts they impart -- 
			Manchester Grammar will do that much better -- 
			but for their acute sense of social behaviour. 

		Or, as it seems to some (including many who've attended 
		them), they're renowned for their often successful attempts 
		to turn children into snobs and shits.

	I refer you to the essay, "Such, Such Were The Joys" in the
	_Collected_Essays_ of George Orwell.  Orwell was a
	"scholarship boy" at a low-tier-but-aspiring public school;
	his memories are of hunger, brutality, sneering class-consciousness,
	lonliness and emotional abandonment.  His prose is admirably
	suited for recounting such and experience.

I believe Tom is confusing a thing and its caricature. It is precisely
my point that Orwell's school was not a "great Public School" but one
of the many rather dreadful wannabes. The Public School system as it has
evolved is truly an affliction of horrifying proportions, but that says 
nothing about the models.

						Fido