HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: br105@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Jeffrey A. Del Col)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Kafka's "Metamorphasis"
Date: 4 Oct 1992 02:41:20 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Reply-To: br105@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Jeffrey A. Del Col)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


In a previous article, le01167@portal.lasc.lockheed.com (Ron Nadel) says:

>In article <1ai3k3INNkar@agate.berkeley.edu>, peterme@ocf.berkeley.edu (Peter Merholz) writes...
>
> 
>Boy!  Kafka would be turning over in his chrysalis if he could see this. 
>Kafka did not write stories just for entertainment!  Estrangement and identity
>problems were a theme of his life and work - read The Trial for more.  I see
>this and hear this all the time, when someone says that I'm too analytical
>about something, either they missed something and that's their best defense,
>or the interpretation touches on a realm that is cause for discomfort.  And,
>I'll admit that sometimes one can be too reductionist.  Sometimes.
>
>In any case, what did you expect from a course on "psychology and literature"?
>when you toss out the basis of the course (psychological analysis) in favor 
>of the superficial part of the work, it should come as no surprise that you 
>would run into problems!  Sounds like the professor did not give enough 
>background and preparation that would aid in discovering the imago hinted at in 
>the larva as it were.
>
>I too took a course on psychoanalysis and literature, and without some good
>preparation on psychological thinking etc., a student cannot be expected to
>divine too much of the psychological content.
>
>Meanwhile, maybe we could start a list of Great Writers who wrote literature 
>to merely entertain, and we can call it the Roll of Tellers Who Made With No 
>Intentions. 8^}
>
>Ron

Kafka and his friends are reported to have laughed quite heartily when
he  read his stories out loud to them.  They clearly found them amusing.

"The Metamorphosis" **is** funny.  This non-entity of a fabric salesman
wakes up to discover that he's become the insect he's been all along.
It's preposterous; it's absurd; it's frightening, but it is funny.
If we can't laugh at a society that reduces us all to potential hive
dwellers the alternative is tears or madness.  I think that may be part
of what Kafka was up to.

J. Del Col
-- 
Jeff Del Col      *    "Got a gypsy woman givin' me advice,      
A-B College       *     Got a whole lotta tricks keepin' here on ice."    
Philippi, WV      *          ---Got My Mojo Workin'--  P. Foster
                  *         
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Subject: Re: You Gotta Love Camille Paglia...
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 02:22:35 GMT

Heather Henderson continues the Subject:

	..if only because she describes herself as "a pornographic nun".

She? 
This cannot be.
In fact, er..
She's Virago Intacta!

						Fido the Magnificent
From: c60b-2hz@web-3e.berkeley.edu (Nathaniel Meyers)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: lit quiz
Date: 1 Oct 1992 22:01:02 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Distribution: usa
NNTP-Posting-Host: web-3e.berkeley.edu
Keywords: duo character style

Wait a minute.  You aren't considering the Book of Genesis with God
deducing who ate from the tree of knowledge a detective story, I hope.
From: vks0@bunny.gte.com (Vijay Samalam)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Literature students
Date: 29 Sep 92 14:53:54 GMT
Distribution: world,local
Organization: GTEL

In article <1992Sep29.080103.7103@nevada.edu> wwhitman@nevada.edu (MICHAEL 
WISE) writes about Hemingway

> How-
> ever, the style of writing, short, terse, objective, devoid of 
adjectives,
> is a style we are taught in an abstract way to value.

I was struck by the above statement. Is it really true ? The average 
reader, at least judging by the bestseller lists, does not seem to be 
particularly
fond of the lean and spare style.

Regards,
-Vijay

************************************
Vijay K. Samalam        fiat experimentum in    
GTE Laboratories          corpore vili                    
Waltham , MA 02254
e-mail vks0@gte.com INTERNET
************************************
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: jkimball@src.honeywell.com (John Kimball)
Subject: Re: Laura Ingalls Wilder
Organization: Honeywell Systems & Research Center
Date: Fri, 25 Sep 1992 18:13:15 GMT

In article <Buw0MA.HIJ@acsu.buffalo.edu> mec@acsu.buffalo.edu (Marie E. Copertino) writes:
>	Are there any Laura Ingalls Wilder buffs out there?  I just
>read a very disturbing article on the relationship bet. LIW and her
>daughter, Rose Wilder Lane... it shed some very unfavorable light on
>Laura's personality later in life, and her influence over Rose.  ...

When I read Laura's diary of the Wilders' covered-wagon trip from DeSmet to
Mansfield, the introduction and postscript by Rose seemed (at least
implicitly) to cast an unfavorable light on some of Laura's behavior during
that period.  That was a very trying (read: hellish) period, and so my
reaction was "Oh, so Laura was (gasp!) human."  It did confirm to me that
the Little House books, written when Laura was quite old, were a rather
rose-colored view (no pun intended) of how the family got along with each
other during their trials.

(I'd be interested in a reference to the article mentioned.  We've read all
the Little House books to our daughters -- I'd never read them or seen the
TV series myself.  And we've travelled to Walnut Grove and Mansfield.
Walnut Grove is just a little rural town -- the town museum is basically
stuff rifled from people's attics, not much that's interesting. However,
Plum Creek is fascinating, particularly if you bring along kids familiar
with the stories; we were there on a summer afternoon, and it really felt
as if it had not changed at all since the dugout was there and Laura and
Mary played by the creek side.  Mansfield has a good museum, including Pa's
fiddle and several of the handwritten manuscripts.  Laura and Almanzo's
house is also interesting -- the little innovations and customizations that
Almanzo thought up and built into the house show his creativity.

(By the way -- we have found it quite useful to read "The Long Winter" when
on a long camping trip.  Your own little inconveniences start to pale ...)
From: lnh@soliton.physics.arizona.edu (sometimes a Wombat)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Laurence Sterne's _Tristram Shandy_
Date: 29 Sep 92 16:46:53 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Society for the Appreciation of Janni Lee Simner

SubGenius writes:
>I've noticed that Penguin has introduced ... the elimination of the
>endnote dingbats and ...

Since my only exposure to a dingbat is as an iron tree-stump underneath
a shabby stuffed cockatoo, I find it's presence inside a penguin to be
somewhat confusing.  What, I wonder, does one look like in that
location?  I and my cousin, occasionally a Numbat, are anxious to
learn.

Or maybe I should read news BEFORE grading labs, instead of after.

	the long-hauling red inker, Mr. E-----
--

                           \  "Absence diminishes small loves and increases
LNH@physics.arizona.edu     \  great ones, as the wind blows out the candle 
insanity needs no disclaimer \ and blows up the bonfire." --La Rochefoucauld
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: spb0457@venus.tamu.edu (SubGenius)
Subject: Re: Books in the time of school
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: Texas A&M University, Academic Computing Services
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 00:44:00 GMT

Meg Worley writes...
>What got me throught high school?  *A Child's Garden of Pot* (I
>think that was the name -- I ditched my copy at some point along
>the way), the ever-handy guide to growing marijuana.  Bucked me
>up not only mentally but financially as well.
>Rage away,
>meg

+---------------------------------------SubG----------------------------------+
I discovered that the muhrrywanna was much more fun than the books written
about it.

But then again, that might just be me.













Priggishly,
Yours etc.,





SubGenius


Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto)
Subject: Re: Pedantry, and Ignorance Flaunted (Was:  Re: lit quiz)
Organization: Yale CS Mail/News Gateway
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1992 04:55:36 GMT


gwr@hedonist-1.lanl.gov (Graham W. Redgrave) writes:
 
>|> It was certainly around in Ancient Greece -- Plato gave a number of
>|> sidekicks to his Socrates character.  Thaetetus is my favorite.
 
> Mine too, though I think it's Theaetetus (yeah, I know, it's Greek, so
> who cares how it's transliterated ;-).  What was it II^atwv compared to
> pouring oil.  Did he say that T's mind was as fluid as pouring oil...
> I loved that image; I'll look it up when I get home, but if someone knows
> what the comparison really is, I'd love to hear.
 
Graham might well be right about the name.  I wasn't sure about the spelling, 
but was not posting from home, so I couldn't look it up.
 
I don't remember the oil pouring analogy, but taken as literature, this
might just be the prettiest of Plato's dialogues.  It IS the dialogue
which contains the midwife analogy.  In it, Socrates tells the young man
that his mother was a midwife.  He explains that a midwife must have bourne
children, but out of respect for some goddess who was (Diana?) must also be 
past her childbearing times.  He then explains that he practices the art of
his mother -- but that it is a birth of ideas in others which he fosters.
What goes unsaid is that he felt he once gave birth to great ideas, but is
past his time.  It is beautifully stated.
 
Mark
From: igb@fulcrum.bt.co.uk (Ian G Batten)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Enforced Shakespeare?
Date: 6 Oct 92 11:32:48 GMT
Organization: Fulcrum Communications

In article <12621@optilink.UUCP> cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) writes:
> Shakespeare's plays are one of those reminders that, regardless of
> one's culture, there is literature of lasting value.

Which is why quite a lot of Shakespeare was left unperformed for 300
years, of course.

ian
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: kamorgan@athena.mit.edu (Keith Morgan)
Subject: Re: More Notes from the Decline
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 17:10:38 GMT

Mike Morris, in response to Fiona's descriptions, indignantly denies
the allusions and then asservates that Republicans don't read.

To which I reply: piffle and twaddle.

Regards,

Keith
 
--
Keith Morgan		 |I've always had a secret desire to harangue
kamorgan@athena.mit.edu  |a crowd of people for 10 hours in the
		         |sweltering heat. It's the origin of my
		         |fascination with public language.
From: rsdean@apgea.army.mil (Robert S. Dean <rsdean>)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: WWII Novels?
Date: 28 Sep 92 15:11:59 GMT
Organization: ATE1 S7=255 S11=55 V1 X1 S0=0

euargb@eua.ericsson.se writes:
>I found Nevil Shute's novels from the period quite enjoyable.
>Most of his books center on people, not the war itself, though.
>Five black hen's, Requiem for a Wren, Pied piper etc.
>
>


Judging from the title, Five Black Hens must be the Swedish translation of
_A Town Like Alice_, or _Legacy_.  An excellent book, covering events in
the war, but written in the early 1950s.

Shute's war novels include:

Ordeal (or What happened to the Corbetts)--written before the war as a 
     projection of the effect of bombing on the civilian population.  This was
     topical then in much the same way that a book on World War III (say, Red
     Storm Rising) would be today.  It holds up fairly well considering that
     its events never happened.

Pied Piper--an old man and a group of children escape from France in June 1940.
     Not really one of my favorites.

Landfall--a Coastal Command pilot is mistakenly accused of sinking a British
     submarine early in the war.  Seems in many respects like a first draft
     of Pastoral, but readable.

Pastoral--The trials and tribulations of the crew of a Wellington bomber
    mid-war.  One of my Shute favorites, and the book that hooked me on the
    author.

Most Secret--derived in part from Shute's actual war work, with an Admiralty
    department of exotic weaponry.  Told as four "braided" stories about the
    main characters, and concerns their adventures with a fishing boat carrying
    a disguised flamethrower as its main armament.  OK, but not great.

A Town Like Alice (or Legacy)--mostly about a young woman who emigrates to
    Australia in the late 40's, but a long segment on her life as a prisoner
    of the Japanese in Malaya during the war, which was based on a historical
    incident which actually happened to a group of Dutch women in Indonesia.
    One of his best. (IMHO, of course)

Requiem for a Wren (or The Breaking Wave)--a rather depressing story of a young
   woman who was essentially a combat-fatigue casualty of the war.  I don't get
   the urge to reread it often (best to be depressed before starting), but
   handled with the usual Shute touch.  Shute's bad days are better than a lot
   of other authors' good days.

The Chequerboard--like Most Secret, told as four stories of seperate people
   bound together by chance.  Written from the perspective of 1948, it covers
   a lot of the events that happened to the characters during the war.  I like
   this one, although the method of chopping up the stories is not handled as
   smoothly as it could have been.

I believe the entire Shute corpus is in print in paperback in the U.K. at the
moment, but they are tough to find in the U.S., where A Town Like Alice and
On the Beach seem to be the only ones currently stocked (irregularly at that)
in your typical B. Walden's.

Rob Dean
From: rnewman@bbn.com (Ron Newman)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: The unpronounceable Paglio
Date: 6 Oct 92 18:51:34 GMT
Article-I.D.: news.ld3o1mINNe2f
Distribution: world
Organization: Bolt, Beranek & Newman, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Host: spcsun25.bbn.com

In article <1992Oct6.144754.1399@morrow.stanford.edu>, francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir) writes:
|> Is there any agreement on the "proper" pronunciation of Miss Paglio's
|> name? I suspect there are many who only see the name without any sound
|> atteched -- and perhaps that is how it should be. I know how the Brits
|> will say it. For them it must be
|> 
|> 		PAG-lee-oh

Are you talking about Camille Paglia?
Note that her name ends with "a" not "o".

When I've heard her introduced at lectures, they've said "PAHL-ya".

-- 
Ron Newman		rnewman@bbn.com
From: jzimm@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Joann Zimmerman)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: How I Spent My Summer Vacation
Date: 29 Sep 92 16:06:53 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX

In article <1992Sep23.133953.27778@grebyn.com> fi@grebyn.com (Fiona Webster) writes:

>Joann Zimmerman writes:

>>I had to pass up the 25-volume Dumas set...

>I was just wondering about this the other day, as I daydreamed
>idly about all the books I'll inherit when my father kicks off.
>He has one of those huge Dumas sets.  Why did you want it?  Tell
>me more, so I can look forward to this acquisition.

Why Dumas? Because I've always been at least a mild fan of his, and
depsite this predilection, I'd not read half the books in the set. Not
in any of the libraries I've patronized over the years. And besides,
the best way to get me to read a book is for it to park itself on the
shelf, next my non-functional fireplace, where all new arrivals to my
collection seem to live, in that half-world before they are read and
then absorbed into the seething masses on the other shelves.

I am reminded, by the way, to ask if anyone else has noticed the
gradual disappearance of older books from public library shelves? If I
buy them at library sales, they can no longer be in the libraries.
Only university libraries seem to have, say, anything beyond _Count of
Monte Cristo_ and _Three Musketeers_.


-- 
"But there is a limit to human patience; and of research, as of other
carnal pleasures, there cometh satiety at the last." 
                                                  --Bernard Berenson
 ...!cs.utexas.edu!ccwf.cc.utexas.edu!jzimm   
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: gary@colossus.cgd.ucar.edu (Gary Strand)
Subject: "Colossus" trilogy
Organization: Climate and Global Dynamics Division/NCAR, Boulder, CO
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 20:38:46 GMT


  Just a question. Did Dennis Feltham Jones ever write the 3rd book in the
  "Colossus" trilogy, the title being "Colossus and the Crab"? 

  The first book, "Colossus", enjoyed some degree of success and was even made
  into a movie. Alas, it was about 15 years ahead of its time. Indeed, there
  are parallels between Colossus and SKYNet of the "Terminator" movies. The
  second book wasn't near as successful, so far as I can determine. Alas, I
  do not know if the 3rd book was ever written.

  Any clues?

--
Gary Strand                      Opinions stated herein are mine alone and are
strandwg@ncar.ucar.edu            not representative of NCAR, UCAR, or the NSF
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: baker@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Andrew Baker)
Subject: Re: She's baaaaack.....Camille Paglia
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University.
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 23:46:26 GMT

In article <MATT.92Sep28160654@physics.berkeley.edu> matt@physics.berkeley.edu writes:
>
>I did, however, read an exchange between Paglia and Naomi Wolf in _The
>New Republic_ a couple of months back, and Paglia came across as 
>very vindictive and unpleasant, far more interested in ridiculing Wolf
>than in holding any kind of discussion.

And what does Naomi Wolf have to say that is at all interesting?
Oh how horrible it is that some women are prettier than others, that
men notice this, and that women notice men noticing this.  What is there
to discuss?  It is just not an issue at all for people who don't start
off with Wolf's leftist egalitarian premises.

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto)
Subject: RE: She's baaaaack.....Camille Paglia
Organization: Yale CS Mail/News Gateway
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 03:27:59 GMT


hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu (Heather) writes:
 
> BTW, many prominent women authors have published in Playboy.  It's a
> nice subversive thing to do, in my opinion.  Imagine all these guys who
> buy the magazine to ogle the Playmates and wind up reading the work of
> some creative, intelligent woman.
 
I wonder what makes Heather think they read the articles.  This reminds
me of a story told by some comedian during the early 80s.  He complained
that Reagan's cuts kept some company from producing braille editions of
Playboy.  "Imagine," he said, "Now the only people who really DO read Playboy
for the articles can't do it."
 
> Having spent my entire life between the two camps, I have noted with
> great interest that conservatives seem, on the whole, to be more
> willing to engage in intellectual debate than "liberals", who are
> often so hostile to opposing viewpoints that they dissolve into
> incoherent rage when their doctrinaire opinions are challenged.
 
Has Heather been hanging around Sonoma State?  I know LOTS of liberals who
are not hostile to opposing viewpoints.  Hell -- I AM one.  But (hee hee)
Heather is welcome to her opinion.
 
Mark
 
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: fehr@ms.uky.edu (Jeff Davis)
Subject: Re: Books in the time of school
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 19:31:58 GMT
Organization: Austerlitz, Gershovitz, and Carmichael

kate@cactus.org (Katherine M. Catmull) writes:
> As for books: I have an old habit of asking people "What's the book that
> got you through high school?"--you know, the book that kept you going,
> made you strong; that you re-read when in need of bucking up, perhaps
> even returned to in college like a teddy bear once in a while, maybe even
> occasionally now . . .
>

Too early in high school and I didn't read anything that wasn't assigned.
Reading doesn't come easy to me due to the lingering effects of 
dyslexia. But reading Keats' Odes somewhere around junior year...
that was IT. "Beaded bubbles winking at the brim..." Those were enough
to get things going, and I've never really given them up. The combination
of going from not reading much to reading mainly poetry -- since the
act of reading is so difficult -- gave me odd habits in reading that
really don't quite match how I see myself. And it really didn't 
match the world class noodge I was back in high school. So, "teddy
bear" is an apt phrase...liking the stuff that no one else did really
did buck me up when a bucking up was needed.


-- 
Coach Jeff Davis <davis@keats.ca.uky.edu> Season: 1-5 Lifetime: 1-7
Ask me about my 1 game win streak!
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: wismith@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (William R. Smith)
Subject: Re: Books in the time of school
Organization: NAS, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 92 15:30:11 GMT

Katherine M. Catmull writes:

	As for books: I have an old habit of asking people "What's the book
	that got you through high school?"--you know, the book that
	kept you going, made you strong; that you re-read when in need
	of bucking up,


At first I couldn't think of a book that fit that description.  I read
mostly non-fiction except for class assignments, and selected parts
of "Lady Chatterly's Lover" and "Peyton Place", but that's another
thread.

Then I remembered a novel that I must have read four and possibly five
time in the first three years of high school, "Mister Roberts".

Most of the action takes place during World War II aboard the cargo ship
USS Reluctant, which sails between the South Pacific islands of Ennui and
Tedium and back again - for years.  Much like being in high school.
Home, tedium; school, ennui.

Mister Roberts, first officer of the Reluctant, wages a subtle war
against the inept captain.  He is a hero to Ensign Puliver and the
champion of the men on board.  Only he brings any meaning to the boredom.

The struggles against authority by subtrifuge hit a very responsive
chord in my high school mind.  How to cause just enough trouble to stay
out of trouble occupied my thoughts much of the time.  Selected passages
from "Peyton Place" occupied the rest.  But that's another thread.



William Sburgfort Smith
Intel, SSD
From: ecl@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Doomsday and Women Mystery Writers Lists?
Date: 29 Sep 92 17:02:42 GMT
Organization: AT&T

Someone suggested that these lists (or pointers to where they can be
FTP'ed from) would be useful aditions to the rec.arts.books FAQ.  If
you have a comprehensive list for either one, please send it to me.  Do
NOT post it--that will just start everything up again!  Anything I get
will be in the November FAQ (I will be gone most of October, so unless
it arrives really fast, I won't have a chance to include it in the
October one).

If you have such a list and it's long enough to make a separate FAQ
that you will maintain (a la the alternate history list of Robert Schmunk),
let me know so I can reference it.

(And please don't send me "Is thus-and-so included?" type questions until
I post the first version.)

Evelyn C. Leeper  |  +1 908 957 2070  |  att!mtgzy!ecl or  ecl@mtgzy.att.com
--
"IQ describes how big your gas tank is, but it doesn't tell if you're
running on empty." -- Harvey Newstrom (hnewstro@x102c.ess.harris.com)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books