HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: wismith@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (William R. Smith)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Inconsistent Details -- Trivia
Date: 18 Aug 92 16:00:30 GMT
Organization: NAS, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA

Icarus writes:

	With all the work that goes into the writing of a book, an author must
	be expected to slip up somewhere and leave in a detail that does not
	fit in with the rest of the plot.
	
		<< example deleted >>

	Does anyone know of other inconsistencies in prominent books ?
	This kind of thing is great to impress people at parties :-)



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.

I find a few of these in detective stories where I pay more attention to
minor details.  You think the editors would be more careful.



William Sburgfort Smith
Intel, SSD
From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: The nature of enlightenment
Date: 12 Aug 92 16:53:03 GMT
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

In article <JMC.92Jul29102556@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:
>In article <9207291651.AA14458@cfdev1.shearson.com> mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto) writes:
>
>			   Unfortunately, I run into too many college students
>			   like the gal who recently expressed amazement at
>			   discovering the U.S. had a Civil War in the last
>			   century.  (Yes, educated in California).

>I presume the Valley girl in question, who hadn't heard of the Civil
>War, had been educated in the ins and outs of political correctness.

He said "educated in California", not "Valley Girl".  Not all
California girls are Valley Girls.  Moreover, Vals are among
the enlightened.  See, eg, _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: rafem@gvlf7-e.gvl.unisys.com (Ralph Marrone)
Subject: Re: John Crowley books?
Organization: Unisys Defense Systems, Great Valley Labs, Paoli, Pa
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 12:11:38 GMT

In article <4306@inca.comlab.ox.ac.uk> pab@robots.oxford.ac.uk (Paul Beardsley) writes:
>I enjoyed "Aegypt" by John Crowley when it came out back in 
>1988.  Four years later, there's still no sign of the sequel 
>though - does anyone know anything about this?  I think there 
>are two John Crowley books which are available in the States 
>but not in the UK - "Novelty" and "Love and Death" (?).  Is
>either of these the follow-up to Aegypt?  Does anyone know 
>why they haven't been printed in the UK (since Gollancz have 
>reprinted Aegypt, it can't be that there aren't sufficient 
>sales).  Any Crowley fans with any information whatsoever, please
>let me know!
>
>Thanks,
>Paul Beardsley.

If I remember correctly, _Novelty_ is a slim volume containing
four short stories/novellas;  It's not the sequel to _Aegypt_.
I've never heard of _Love and Death_.  BTW a few weeks ago,
someone posted that _Aegypt_ was the first book in a four
book series.  Is this true?

Finally, I highly recommend Crowley's _Engine Summer_.  It
is a slender, beautifully written novel.

Regards,

Ralph Marrone
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: kamorgan@athena.mit.edu (Keith Morgan)
Subject: Re: Robert Anton Wilson (was: Re: Satan)
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 16:58:58 GMT

Petruz Boonekamp elegizes the redoubtable Robert Anton Wilson:
>Wilson is an Onthological Terrorist
              ^^^^^^^^^^^^

Oh, so Wilson is a shitty reasoner? That's a recommendation!




--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Keith Morgan		      | Criticism is prejudice made plausible.
kamorgan@athena.mit.edu       |                          H.L. Mencken
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: psm1@quads.uchicago.edu (patricia sayre mccoy)
Subject: Daughters of the dust
Reply-To: psm1@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Distribution: na
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 13:02:50 GMT

The Chicago PBS station just showed a movie called "Daughters
of the Dust" and I was wondering if this movie was based
on a book.  I had such bad reception that I couldn't
finish the movie, so excuse me if this information
was included in the ending credits.  Is it a book and
what is the author/title?  Thanks.
Pat Sayre McCoy
-- 
Bitnet:                   uclpsm1@uchimvs1
Internet:         psm1@midway.uchicago.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox)
Subject: Re: I need a word
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 92 04:24:33 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 

In article <1b7eac17.ARN22da@prolix.pub.uu.oz.au> munnari!labtam!eyrie!prolix!dac writes:
>Your book, Halo, wasn't that good either.  

	Do let me know if you write a better one.  On the other hand, don't 
bother; someone would no doubt mention that Hell had frozen over.
-- 
				Tom Maddox
		    	    tmaddox@netcom.com
		   "I swear I never heard the first shot"
                Wm. Gibson, "Agrippa:  a book of the dead"
From: Lisa.Levine@Corp.Sun.COM (Lisa Levine)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: The nature of enlightenment
Date: 14 Aug 92 01:14:11 GMT

The (Clayton) Cramer thread appears to have split many
r.a.b.ers into two groups--one staunchly supporting the 
right to be "politically incorrect," the other labeled "PC."

Whatever one's beliefs, I've noticed a curious thing
here and in other newsgroups: The backlash against the
perceived "PC movement" seems to stem from a belief
that the "incorrect" folks are in the minority, defending
their independent thinking from a huge horde of censorious
(drum-beating, overly-sensitive, new age) people hell-bent
on depriving them of their basic rights.  The PCers, on
the other hand, seem to feel _they_ are in the minority,
barely making inroads in "enlightening" the masses.

Each group seems to feel threatened, persecuted, and
_outnumbered_ by the other.  (What are the facts? Can we have 
a show of hands? A Harper's Index?)  Perhaps that's why so 
many discussions seem to end up on a defensive note.  (Or maybe
that's what makes for a "good discussion" in the first place?)

(Here she falls off soapbox, spits, adjusts suspenders
and lopes into sunset.) 

Lisa 



Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox)
Subject: Re: Asimov and the decay of SF
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 92 04:34:48 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 

In article <1992Aug14.065512.23061@highlite.uucp> yarvin@highlite.uucp (Curtis Yarvin) writes:
>I have seen many sins ascribed to 'sci-fi,' but never yet caught anyone
>accusing it of purpose or intent.  Nonetheless I am vaguely charmed by
>the idea.  
	
	Do get someone to explain the notion "figure of speech" to you.  It 
will probably cast light onto many perplexities in your life. 
-- 
				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: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon & Women
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 14:55:00 GMT

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?

	This triggered a memory of THE YELLOW WALLPAPER (author??!?), a 
	pre-feminist indictment of the 19th-century psychological practice 
	of denying women access to books and stimulating conversation in 
	order to give their poor little brains a rest -- when in fact all 
	they needed was to be taken seriously.  The story traces the mental 
	disintegration of a creative young woman ("high strung", according 
	to the doctors her husband hired), who goes mad after being condemned 
	to a life without reading or writing.  Her daydreams become 
	nightmarish hallucinations under the tyrrany of the men who control 
	her life.  Is anyone else familiar with this work?  My memories of 
	it are rather sketchy.  Anyone know the author?  

A woman, perhaps? Does it occur that the thesis behind this novel (?) is
quite outrageously sexist? Are women so weak that they are driven mad by
some assole who wants to play Svengali to his wife's Trilby (have I got
this right?). The fact of the matter is that by the time the 19th Century
rolled around, there were, and continued to be, a number of women writing
(I'm talking about England, of course. Christ knows what was happening in 
the Cradle of Democracy and Liberty). 

							Fido


Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Date: 12 Aug 92 11:03:37

Anecdote: I once walked out of a public lecture by Stephen Spender
that I found boring, because it seemed to me that he didn't have much
to say to his Dartmouth College audience.  The moment I chose to leave
unobtrusively from the back of the balcony was during a long
hesitation while he decided what to say next.  Unfortunately, I forgot
the seat was spring loaded, and it twanged loudly.  This further
distracted Spender, who stared at me mournfully as I made my way to
the exit.

--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: wt0b+@andrew.cmu.edu (William Henry Timmins)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,alt.folklore.urban,rec.arts.sf.misc,rec.humor
Subject: Re: Agnostics and Athiests
Date: 20 Aug 92 18:41:56 GMT
	<1992Aug20.192930.11257@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

>two things. the heaven & hell concept is a new-fangled Christian idea, and we
>Jews still consider it a little cockeyed ]:{)

	Actually, most of Christianity is borrowed. There's Osiris sun god
myth, the life symbolism of the ankh, Odin on the world tree (cross),
and so forth. Most of the later devils and angels were regional gods
which were 'converted' by Christianity (which, in of itself, is also
something common to other religions as well).

	Specifically, Judaism has (had?) Sheol (dark place where souls go),
Greco-Roman myth had Hades (with the Elysian fields for good, and other
places for bad), and so forth.

Not new-fangled by a LARGE degree.

-Me
[Pooh Bear incarnate.]
<B1 c+ f+ w g+ k+ s+ r- e+ p>
From: maverick@cs.berkeley.edu (Vance Maverick)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Date: 14 Aug 92 20:41:47 GMT
Organization: CS Division, UC Berkeley
NNTP-Posting-Host: mahogany.cs.berkeley.edu

In article <MATT.92Aug14122411@physics2.berkeley.edu>, matt@physics2.berkeley.edu (Matt Austern) writes:
|> 
|> To take one small example: whatever the "Canon" is (personally, I
|> define it as those books that get taught in introductory literature
|> courses in high school or college), I don't think there's any question
|> that the Iliad is in it, and the Mahabharata is not.  Why is that?  Is
|> it that the Iliad is an "objectively" better work?  I don't think so;
|> I think it has much more to do with the fact that, for historical
|> reasons, professors who come from Western European societies are
|> likely to relate to Greek literature more easily than to Indian
|> literature.

I think you've picked a bad example.  Western literature has been
thought of in relation to the Iliad for a very long time -- indeed,
the professors who make the decisions you're calling canon come from
an intellectual tradition in which, for a long time, reading the Greek
and Latin classics was the *only* academic preparation for modern
literature.  I doubt very much that this decision was made by
comparison, as you suggest -- professors reading the Mahabharata and
the Iliad with their fingers on their pulses, checking with which they
"relate more easily."  Having been educated as they were, the Iliad
is, for them, part of the meaning of the books they take up later in
the term.

|> it is obvious to me that whether
|> or not literature is great, or compelling, or meaningful, has as much
|> to do with the reader as with the text. [....]
|> 
|> [of the Mahabharata] I am quite sure that I, personally,
|> would get less out of it than I did out of Homer [....]
|> That has nothing to do with which book is
|> better, though; it is simply a comment on my cultural background.

I think you're being a little inconsistent here....

	Vance
From: maureenw@sco.COM (Maureen Wilkes)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re:  Unspoken Words
Date: 18 Aug 92 15:33:32 GMT
Organization: SCO Canada, Inc.

In article <24903@castle.ed.ac.uk> egpv29@castle.ed.ac.uk (JHenderson) writes:
>=>In article <10223@sun13.scri.fsu.edu> nall@sun8.scri.fsu.edu (John Nall) writes:
>=>>
>=>>  You pronounce words in your head as you read?  Really?  (I'm not
>=>>  trying to be smart, although I know it sounds like it :-) )
>=>>
>=>>  My wife does that, or at least says she does, whereas when I read
>=>>  I just see the word and recognize it, but never pronounce it, not
>=>>  even mentally.  I always assumed everyone else read that same way,
>=>>  but perhaps *I* am the one out of step :-(  Hmmmmm....
>
>This is why I've never made much progress with Tolstoy. By the end of page 1
>there are so many Mr. Thingummys that I'm completely confused.
>

Believe me, pronouncing the names in your head won't help.  Tolstoy 
requires great amounts of patience...and a pen & paper to make character
lists.  Even then, I've not been above skipping over some names until
they become essential to the plot.
Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago
Date: Friday, 14 Aug 1992 10:52:51 CDT
From: Cole Kendall <U48073@uicvm.uic.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: _Time's Arrow_, by Martin Amis
Distribution: rec
 <1992Aug13.224313.4696@informix.com>

In article <1992Aug13.224313.4696@informix.com>, proberts@informix.com (Paul
Roberts) says:
>
>I wonder what Kingsley Amis thinks of his son's work? I somehow don't
>imagine him liking the style very much, I don't imagine him saying so,
>either. Did anyone ever hear of either of them comenting on the other's
>style?
>
In K. Amis' *Memoirs* there are very few references to his family.
Beyond the occasional reference to his wife of the time (e.g. Hilly and
I, Jane and I, later Hilly and I again), he makes a number of references
to particular witty comments attributed to Martin.  In contrast, he makes
almost no references to his other son or his daughter.   I interpret
this as K. A.'s appreciation for M. A.'s talents, but it could be
that M. A. is the only other public personality in the family and K. A.
wants to be supportive.

Cole Kendall
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,alt.satanism,bit.listserv.fnord-l
From: locklin@titan.ucc.umass.edu (SCOTT C LOCKLIN)
Subject: Re: Robert Anton Wilson (Was: Satan)
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Keywords: and still is...:)
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 01:30:37 GMT
X-Posted-From: titan.ucc.umass.edu
X-Posted-Through: sol.ctr.columbia.edu

In article <1992Aug13.154854.22437@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> amartell@nyx.cs.du.edu (Alex Martelli) writes:
>majcher@acsu.buffalo.edu (Salamander~) writes:

>
>Signal to noise ratio close to 0, IMHO.  Which is why I had once proposed
>an alt.fan.raw, but it fell flat.  So now I'm haunting r.a.b - after
>all if ALL books are to be discussed here, why not Wilson's!
>--
>Alex Martelli - preferred email alex@am.sublink.org

Have you read the non-fiction? Did you get anythingout of it? If I reccomended
Nitsche would you complain as well? Too bad!
Read Nitzche's "twilight of the idols" and "the antichrist" for a good
explanation of satanic attitude. Just because it is not an official Church
of satan document does not diminish its relavance.

-Scott
From: pab@robots.oxford.ac.uk (Paul Beardsley)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: John Crowley books?
Date: 17 Aug 92 18:41:42 GMT
Organization: Robotics Research Group, Engineering Science Dept, Oxford, UK.

I enjoyed "Aegypt" by John Crowley when it came out back in 
1988.  Four years later, there's still no sign of the sequel 
though - does anyone know anything about this?  I think there 
are two John Crowley books which are available in the States 
but not in the UK - "Novelty" and "Love and Death" (?).  Is
either of these the follow-up to Aegypt?  Does anyone know 
why they haven't been printed in the UK (since Gollancz have 
reprinted Aegypt, it can't be that there aren't sufficient 
sales).  Any Crowley fans with any information whatsoever, please
let me know!

Thanks,
Paul Beardsley.
From: sbuckley@fraser.sfu.ca (Stephen Buckley)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Agnostics and Athiests
Date: 17 Aug 92 21:32:43 GMT
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada

bobb@vice.ICO.TEK.COM (Bob Beauchaine) writes:

>In article <sbuckley.714075944@sfu.ca> sbuckley@fraser.sfu.ca (Stephen Buckley) writes:
>>if it can be shown that no god exists
>>and we are the sole components involved in the generation of life, then
>>this hypothetical would be reasonable and worthy of realistic debate
>>with authentic, actual implications on life.

>  This is an interesting statement.  Could you inform me as to what
>  proof of the nonexistence of god you would accept?  Especially
>  considering that I couldn't even logicaly disprove 19-dimensional
>  Blue Bananas?  Otherwise, this entire topic is moot since you will
>  always resort to the unproveable god hypothesis when things get
>  sticky.  This is precisely why Occam's razor is seen as a useful
>  tool in theoretical science.

  well, it's all moot then. 19dbb's and god are beyond reality.  i 
contend god intervenes in reality while the 19dbb doesn't to my knowledge.
who's occam?
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto)
Subject: Re: Some Canonical Lists
Organization: Yale CS Mail/News Gateway
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 02:53:44 GMT


Mike Morris was kind enough to give us nine lists to think about.  Several
things strike me:


        1.  Mike is only 30% better read than I am -- and we are neck
            and neck in terms of the moderns!

        2.  He could beat me by another 30% if he spent less time typing
            and more time reading.

        3.  I'm surprised that he exposed his weaknesses like this :-)

            Really, No Kant, and he hasn't read LUCKY JIM, A PASSAGE TO INDIA
            (though I can think of two other Forster books I'd put on the list
            instead), All of T.S. Eliot (god -- I hope he's read THE WASTELAND,
            or at least PRUFROCK), And WALDEN (for Christ's sake -- WALDEN!).
            And what about THE GOOD SOLDIER!  Shit!  Mikey would LOVE that one.
            And CATCH-22 -- one of the funniest and saddest books I've ever
            read!  Mike!  Really!  I want these books (at least) read
            by the end of the year!  And put on HOWARDS END, if you haven't
            read it yet (and to make Francis happy, add A ROOM WITH A VIEW).
            I expect to see each of these on his list of books read for 1992,
            when he posts then in January (I'll let him slide for Kant, except
            for THE METAPHYSICS OF MORALS).  And Mike, leave some poetry
            books in the bathroom.  A.E. Housman or Yeats will do.

        4.  What idiot at UWM added Kuhn's STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS
            to the list?  It wouldn't be so bad if it were balanced with
            some of the better books on the Philosophy of Science, but
            it is the only one.  Yuck!!!!!



Mark
From: tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Date: 12 Aug 92 22:56:38 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest)


	With regard to the canon debate, a few comments:

	Anyone who thinks that canon formation takes place in an atmosphere
of enlightened objectivity simply has not been paying attention to its
history.  Through most of the canon's history, a number of extremely 
tendentious assumptions have guided the multiple processes by which some
works come to be included, others not.  For instance, it was obvious to 
most everyone until recently that works which could be read as part of
the Christian tradition were necesarily more important than those which were
not.  (And this included the Classics, of course, because the Christian 
Fathers had already demonstrated how to recuperate various Greeks and Romans
whom they deemed excellent.)

	Also, being included does not necessarily mean that a work gets read
by many people, and being excluded does not necessarily mean that a work 
doesn't get read by many people:  neither is the point.  The point is that
exclusion from the canon means exclusion from cultural centrality; to 
bring something into the canon is to certify it as worthy of the most intense
study, teaching, criticism.  As a writer of science fiction, I'm all too aware
of how this works--as was Philip K. Dick and before him, in another genre,
Raymond Chandler, who bitterly complained that he had to leave the United 
States in order to be regarded as a writer.  To look at the matter the other way
around, read the recent book on the controversy surrounding attempts to put
together a definitive edition of _Ulysses_--I think the title's _The Scandal
of Ulysses_.

	Note that the idea of a canon goes back to the early
church's need to establish which Biblical texts were central, which not,
and though the church had (and has) compelling reasons to institute a canon, 
the various branches of literary (or artistic) studies at least arguably 
do not. 

	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.

	
-- 
				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: rob@occs.cs.oberlin.edu (Rob Chauncey)
Subject: Re: Agnostics and Atheists: god REPLIES
Organization: Oberlin College Computer Science
Followup-To: rec.arts.books
	<1992Aug13.165011.319@csc.canterbury.ac.nz>
	<Aug.14.01.41.09.1992.26509@athos.rutgers.edu>
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 21:25:35 GMT
X-Posted-From: occs.cs.oberlin.edu
X-Posted-Through: sol.ctr.columbia.edu

In article <Aug.14.01.41.09.1992.26509@athos.rutgers.edu> hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu (Charles Hedrick) writes:


>   The political one is
>   that the IAB hasn't figured out yet whether it should be heaven.com,
>   heaven.org, heaven.gov, or heaven.edu.

god@heaven.mil?  Some would like to think...

What boards would he subscribe to?  He could get away with a lot in
talk.bizarre.  Possibly, too, alt.wpi.negativland.sub.genii.for.rent.
I would be happy as long as it's not alt.mormons.

@heaven.uk?  Not likely.  @heaven.nz is possible.


--
+---------------------------------------+
|Rob Chauncey - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
|rob@occs.cs.oberlin.edu- - - - - - - - |
+---------------------------------------+
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books