HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: mattb@ctron.com (Matt Brown)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Exit Shakespeare....
Date: 5 Oct 92 16:30:01 GMT
Reply-To: mattb@olympus.ctron.com (Matt Brown)
Organization: Cabletron Systems INc.

(Nichael Cramer) writes:

>For the historians out there: Who, for that matter, was Shakespeare's
>Shakespeare?  Homer?  Virgil?  (Surely not, say, Chaucer.)
						   ^^^^^^^
Geoffy wrote a "Troilys and Cresyde"(butchered spelling?), but I'm not sure
whether Shakespeare used it or older sources. The courtly of his time would
surely recall it, though perhaps not the everyday Globe patron. And certainly
there is a link between the earthiness of some of Chaucer's comedy and
that of Shakespeare. It has been too many years to do anything but guess,
but my guess would be that the Greek tragedies and Roman satires were the 
most likely influence on the plays (form, not topic), and that Spenser and Dante
were the more likely immediate poetic ancestors. From there it goes back to
Homer, Virgil, Ovid, etc. 

On another front, I always wondered why Shakespeare never did anything with
the Arthurian legends in play form.

Matt
From: barclay@RAIL9000.gatech.edu (Barclay Blanchard)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Literature Students/Small World
Date: 17 Oct 92 03:30:07 GMT
Organization: Georgia Tech Research Institute


One quibble...

In article <14OCT199223413002@portal.lasc.lockheed.com> le01167@portal.lasc.lockheed.com (Ron Nadel) writes:
>Now the "Lord Jim" reader mentioned that she did not enjoy the book when
>she read it, but that after she had it explained to her, she liked it better.

No, I don't like having a work "explained" to me.  I liked _Lord Jim_ after
I thought about it on my own (in terms of the theme of self-knowledge in the
novel).  I liked _Dubliners_ after the professor showed us how the form
reflected Joyce's feelings about Dublin.  (But to me "explained" implies
a) that there is one correct view and b) that I couldn't have read the book
and comprehended it on my own.)

>She apparently gained an intellectual appreciation for the book that was
>able to compensate her lack of immediate pleasure so that she liked it better
>AFTERwards.

Yeah, that's it.  But _Sons and Lovers_ is a different experience.  It's
very sensual.  And I'm awed at how well Lawrence writes from the female POV.

>I too have experienced this.  To me this is only a qualified
>seal of approval.  It's like saying "I like what the author was getting at
>intellectually, but the author failed to couch his intentions in an enjoyable
>experience."  Well then, it may as well have been an essay.  Does it then
>qualify as a "Great" novel?  I'm not sure, but I don't think so.

I disagree.  I think _Lord Jim_ is a great novel because (if I read it again)
I can get new things out of it each time I read it.  (Didn't Michael Wise
suggest that also?)

>It's like sex (isn't everything?).  

:)  Have you been reading Lawrence lately?

<sex/intellectual companionship>
Personally, I find intellectual conversation a tremendous aphrodisiac.


-- 
Barclay Elizabeth Blanchard    barclay@rail9000@gatech.edu
"I've been laughed at by some of the funniest people."
--Lissie, Alice Walker's _The Temple of My Familiar_
From: grady@public.BTR.COM ( )
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Alaska (books sought)
Date: 13 Oct 92 01:28:08 GMT
Organization: BTR Public Access UNIX, MtnView CA. For info contact: info@BTR.COM

Coming into the Country
John McPhee

Cool urbane alacrity dances among an even cooler exurban tableau...

-- 
Grady Ward  grady@btr.com  Moby Lexicons
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: francis@hekla.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Subject: The new NEW YORKER: trick or treat?
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 14:24:46 GMT

I have spent the early part of this morning drinking a gallon of
Celebes Kalossi and perusing the NYer for Oct 5, 1992. Cartoon
captions are often not enough, but how about this one:

	"Raising free-range chickens is the easy part.
	The hard part is the drive to Abilene."

Elsewhere color everywhere. Artist at large. Beisbol, &c. Listen
up, Heather. by Richard Merkin. Now there's a name. On to the Oct
19 NYer. Fashion Notes in full-page color. First Shoes from Italy.
Foto-boy, Padronino, Lil' Scrittore, U-Ro-Prep, Chianteeny, Il David,
Mister Brooms, Salsa Toes, and Balena. Two entertaining Book Reviews.
John Updike on Camille Paglia's Bits and Pieces Spun Off by a Cultural
Celebrity Newly in Orbit, aka *Sex, Art, and American Culture*. I think
Updike is in love at last with someone other than himself. The heading 
is She's Got Personality -- that sounds like Tina's contribution.
Another review, *White Goddess*, discusses Ben Macintyre's *Forgotten
Fatherland: The Search for Elizabeth Nietzsche*. A fascinating tale.
Marries the Jew-hating proto-Nazi, Doktor (sinister spelling) Bernhard
Forster, founds Nueva Germania (haha!), fails, returns to the Fatherland
to begin the reconstruction of the now loony Freddie N. The reviewer
allows us this snippet from Elizabeth Forster-Nietzsche's Journal:

	After supper we sit in the garden and look into the
	distance...There are fields, gilded with red from
	the evening sun on both sides of the river, interspersed
	with fields of lowing cattle. What a peaceful, happy
	picture this affords, nothing is alien. No, everything
	is homely...The singing of German men reaches us from a
	garden a little way off...The song is "I don't know why,
	but i'm so sad," which the german sings when he is
	particularly happy. They are singing in the distance
	with love and pride and yearning. Up into the star-studded
	southern night sky, into the mysterious gloom of the 
	jungle: "Deutschland, Deutschland uber alles, uber alles 
	in der Welt."

Isn't it glorious? The reviewer points out that Frau Forster has
forgotten that "I don't know wht, but I'm so sad" is the opening
verse of the Lorelei ballad written by that detestable Jew Heinrich
Heine. Of course, the scene is quite made up. Paraguay is a
merdier enorme. The fields are Greene, not green.

Oh yes. The perfume has gone. I am a bit nervous that Roz Chast put
n no appearance, as did not Bruce Eric caplan. Better give Tina a 
tinkle...
						Fido
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: fi@grebyn.com (Fiona Webster)
Subject: Re: Arthur Rimbaud, is that you?????
Organization: Grebyn Timesharing
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 16:11:12 GMT

Brennan Murphy asks:
>Has anybody seen Arthur Rimbuad lately?  

You might ask Patti Smith (poet/shaman/rock-singer).  She has
sex with him on a regular basis.  He's one of her "brainiac amours."

The liner notes of Smith's album _Easter_ feature a touching little
photo of Arthur and his brother Frederic, and the following text:

	one morning about a hundred years before little richard
	baptised america with rock n roll, arthur and frederic
	and their sisters isabelle and vitale labored thru the
	streets of charleville in white ribbons and cloth of blue
	to receive their first communion. close to the church it
	was arthur who broke formation and called to the other
	rimbaud children to come run with him thru the field, past
	the chapel off a bridge into the cold and finite waters of
	a river that led to the warm and infinite blood of christ.

More references available on request.  Patti Smith is a major thing
of mine.  She's led me in several interesting directions.  Before
Robert Mapplethorpe became (in)famous, for example, I thought of
him as just some guy who happened to have taken some great pictures of
Patti Smith.  I had read Rimbaud before I encountered Patti, but
not nearly as much as I have since then.

							--Fiona
From: klier@iscsvax.uni.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Once I put this book down, I could not pick it up again.
Date: 12 Oct 92 18:33:52 -0500
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of Northern Iowa

mossman@sag1.ssl.berkeley.edu () writes:
> Once again this weekend, I put down 'The Three Musketeers' and I know I won't pick 
> it up again. I can't imagine anything worse than a boring adventure story. But I
> got further this time, almost 100 pages and it seemed that action might break out
> soon. Still, seemed like that on page 20. And page 40, and........

There's a tradition called "The Book Club" on one of the local public
radio stations -- the station manager reads several books a year (30 min
at a time), complete with voices, accents, etc...   I usually try to
arrange my lab work so that I'm washing dishes in the vicinity of the
radio when the Book Club is on...

Anyhow, Doug Brown has read _several_ books that I would classify as
"puttable down"-- and they actually are fairly interesting when taken in
30 minute chunks while doing other things.  Examples? Well, Ivanhoe,
Three Musketeers, a book of poetry and essays on business management...

Kay Klier  Biology Dept  UNI
From: janines@novell.com (Janine Schenone)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Once I put this book down, I could not pick it up again.
Summary: It could kill you
Date: 7 Oct 92 19:15:46 GMT
Organization: Novell Inc., San Jose, Califonia

In article <1992Oct7.182744.14259@novell.com> janines@novell.com (Janine Schenone) writes:
>
>Henry James? He falls in my category of "I never would have read this
>if it were not required, but I'm glad that I did." I still consider
>_Portrait of a [the?] Lady_ a final novel *to have read.* 
                               ^ ^ ^

Ha ha! I meant, of course, "fine," but depending upon your opinion
of Henry James, the book could kill you. _The Faerie Queene_ left
me comatose for days.

Janine
From: le01167@portal.lasc.lockheed.com (Ron Nadel)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Baseball (was: Re: Attractiveness (was: Re: She's baaaaack)
Date: 8 Oct 92 21:26:59 GMT
Article-I.D.: portal.8OCT199214364898
Organization: Lockheed Aeronautical Systems Co. - Rye Canyon
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article <1992Oct8.162813.17381@crd.ge.com>, kassover@rumsey.crd.ge.com (David Kassover) writes...

>I would not be surprised in the least to find out that Mr.
>Doubleday had more than a casual connection with brewers and
>other refreshment oriented industrialists.
>-- 
You might be really surprised to learn that Doubleday is not the
inventor of baseball as popular myth has it.

Ron
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: ppetto@NCoast.ORG (Peter Petto)
Subject: Re: gold bug variations
Organization: North Coast Public Access *NIX, Cleveland, OH
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 12:38:48 GMT

I haven't seen a lot of biographical information about Richard
Powers. He did a few interviews in Summer 1991 in connection with the
publication of _The Goldbug Variations_ and was not very forthcoming:

    "I really don't see what connection it has with the
     work. It's not what we should be looking at. All
     that sort of thing [author publicity] just creates
     confusion about the nature of the book, deflects
     attention from what you've done. That's what always
     seems to happen in this culture: you grab hold of
     a personality and ignore the work."

That's Powers from an interview in _Publisher's Weekly_, August 16,
1991.  I found the whole text of this one online at my local library,
but I plan to dig up the original because it includes a picture of
Powers.

Another result of that same interview session can be found in the
August 14, 1991 _Wall Street Journal_ on page A6(east) or A8(west)
under the headline "Publishing: the Powers parfait"

There must be other results of that day of interviews, but I haven't
run across them yet.

Anyone interested in the Pynchon-Powers connection previously
discussed in this thread will want to take a look at the Summer 1990
_Yale Review_. On page 690 there is an extended (8+ page) review of
_Vineland_ written by Powers.

What else....there's a short story by Powers called "The Best Place
For It" on page 28 of the February 1, 1988 _New Yorker_.  I've copied
it but haven't had time to get to it yet. (I'm about 2/3 through
_Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance_ at the moment.)

Happy reading.

---
Peter Petto          |       ppetto@ncoast.org
Bay Village, Ohio    |    73125.617@compuserve.com
From: wojdylo@maths.uwa.oz.au (INFIDEL)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: She's baaaaack.....Camille Paglia
Date: 12 Oct 1992 05:26:07 GMT
Organization: The University of Westrn Australia
NNTP-Posting-Host: madvax.maths.uwa.oz.au

James Alexander Chokey writes:


>	What intellectual caliber!  What brilliance!  What insight!  I 
>never cease to be astounded by the high level of of discussion on this 
>newsgroup!  

>	*sarcasm off*

>	With people like John Wojdylo in the country, it's no wonder that 
>Australians are so often stereotyped as being rude, uncultured, boors.  


Your lucidity with the stereotypes ensures you'll have little trouble 
in making a valued contribution to discussion in this newsgroup.


John Wojdylo
Perth, Western Australia
From: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Great Sewage Scenes (was: the Novel of Ideas)
Date: 15 Oct 92 18:52:24 GMT
Reply-To: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin)
Organization: COMANDOS Project, Glesga Yoonie

jzimm@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Joann Zimmerman) wrote:
> amnell@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Marko Amnell) writes:
>> I started to read _Gravity's Rainbow_ and liked it alot.  I never finished
>> it.  I got up to the part where somebody gets flushed down the toilet and
>> ends up in a surreal sewer-system singing "the shit song" or something.
>> 'Must remember to finish it someday.
> My husband had the same sort of experience. He had been not necessarily
> zooming along through the book, until he got to the sewer scene, and some
> sort of spiritual mal-de-mer set in. He never was able to persuade himself
> to finish the book...

There is a nice ironically political down-into-the-sewage scene in Peter
Currell Brown's mid-60s novel "Smallcreep's Day" (more or less a British
car factory as it might have been seen by Kafka) and another in Daniel Evan
Weiss's "Unnatural Selection" (tasteless toilet humour about the sex lives
of New Yorkers as observed by their cockroaches).  And there are the sewers
of Jerusalem in Simon Louvish's "The Therapy of Avram Blok".  I'm sure I've
read others.  (Lots of sewer scenes in movies too, of course).  Is this a
major underground theme of late twentieth century fiction?

Incidentally, somebody here once posted looking for a copy of "Smallcreep's
Day" (long out of print and not even in the Library of Congress catalogue).
Well, I've got a spare one now.  Who were you?

-- 
--  Jack Campin    room G092, Computing Science Department, Glasgow University,
17 Lilybank Gardens, Glasgow G12 8RZ, Scotland   TEL: 041 339 8855 x6854 (work)
INTERNET: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk or via nsfnet-relay.ac.uk    FAX: 041 330 4913
BANG!net: via mcsun and uknet     BITNET: via UKACRL    UUCP: jack@glasgow.uucp
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: biesel@javelin.sim.es.com (Heiner Biesel)
Subject: Re: Nietzsche's Heir
Organization: Evans & Sutherland Computer Corporation
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 17:20:55 GMT

As  I recall, it was medium brown, and receding in his later years. I
believe he more than compensated for this by growing a truly impressive
moustache. Then again, perhaps they simply did not allow him access to
a razor in the asylum.

Regards,
       H. Biesel
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: spb0457@rigel.tamu.edu (SubGenius)
Subject: Re: Great Sewage Scenes (was: the Novel of Ideas)
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: Texas A&M University, Academic Computing Services
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 19:18:00 GMT


First of all, appy polly logies if I'm replying to previously replied-to
material, as I just picked up this thread under the new title.
+------------------------------------SubG--------------------------------+


Jack Campin writes...
>jzimm@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Joann Zimmerman) wrote:
>> amnell@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Marko Amnell) writes:
>>> I started to read _Gravity's Rainbow_ and liked it alot.  I never finished
>>> it.  I got up to the part where somebody gets flushed down the toilet and
>>> ends up in a surreal sewer-system singing "the shit song" or something.
>>> 'Must remember to finish it someday.
>> My husband had the same sort of experience. He had been not necessarily
>> zooming along through the book, until he got to the sewer scene, and some
>> sort of spiritual mal-de-mer set in. He never was able to persuade himself
>> to finish the book...
+--------------------------------------SubG-------------------------------+
The scene to which yer referrin' involves Tyrone Slothrop chasing his
harmonica down a john in a jazz club where Detroit Red (Malcolm X in his
pre-political days) and a bunch of his friends are menacing our protagonist
(Slothrop) as he is bending over the john contemplating his lost harmonica.
Once in the sewer he has some sort of spiritual experience in meeting a
lump of shit that (then future President) Jack Kennedy had passed.
Incidentally, that particular bit of _GR_ is one of the most arduous 
segments of the book as far as requiring reading stamina--the whole episode
lasts the duration of about three pages and is composed of maybe twice that
many sentences.
+-------------------------------------SubG--------------------------------+

[original material deleted]

Pynchon's first novel (_V._) has a somewhat more readable sewer motif--
one of the main characters (Benny Profane) gets a job killing crocodiles
in a sewer system previously inhabited by an insane priest who founded
a sort of religion around rats.





Yours etc.,




SubGenius


Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago
Date: Monday, 12 Oct 1992 11:05:22 CDT
From: Cole Kendall <U48073@uicvm.uic.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Books in the Time of Love

In article <Bvv4MD.3vr@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca>, msmorris@watsci.uwaterloo.ca
(Mike Morris) says:
>
>Just happened to come across this famous passage, and I
>realized a mention of it belonged to this thread:
>
>  E quella a me: ``Nessun maggior dolore
>  che ricordarsi del tempo felice
>  ne la miseria; e cio sa 'l tuo dottore.
>
>                [And that one to me: ``No greater sorrow
>                 than to remember a happy time
>                 in misery; and that knows your guide.]

This line is "quoted" in Rossini's _Otello_ (which is just ending
its run in Chicago);  Desdemona is sitting around worrying and she
hears it sung by a passing gondolier.

Cole Kendall
From: crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu (Lauren L. Crawford)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Literature Students/Small World
Date: 9 Oct 92 14:28:35 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

In article <1992Oct9.012051.6207@bohra.cpg.oz.au> jane@bohra.cpg.oz.au (Jane Lean) writes:
>>
>> People do say things like "I didn't enjoy it, but I know it was
>> good"; I regard this as an example of the willing submission to
>> authority which made Fascism possible.
>
>Sorry, I have to take issue with this one.  Something can be movingly, 
>soul-wrenchingly, beautifully written ("Good" in most people's estimation),
>and yet not _enjoyable_.  I can't think of an example off the top of my
>head, but do people know what I mean?


Yup.  The section in "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" about the mating of two
praying mantises (manti?).  It's gruesome and not enjoyable, but boy, does
it stick with you.  What a wordsmith Dillard is.

Also, I'd put the entire book "As I Lay Dying" in this category.  I didn't
enjoy it, but I knew it was good, even great.  It's not that I found it
boring or difficult to get through at all; I was riveted.  But that is
_not_ an enjoyable book.



-- 
The trick of reason is to get the imagination to seize the actual world --
if only from time to time.     -- Annie Dillard, "An American Childhood"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lauren Crawford  //  crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu
From: hilary@netwise.com (Hilary Lane)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Fictitious Fiction
Keywords: Morgenstern, Garp, Trout
Date: 15 Oct 92 14:48:33 GMT
Organization: Netwise Inc.  Boulder, CO

In article <1biansINNe2@bigboote.WPI.EDU> kat@bigwpi.WPI.EDU (Flame's Passion) writes:
>In article <1992Oct14.144505.1348@netwise.com> hilary@netwise.com (Hilary Lane) writes:
>
>>Byatt's _Possession_ is a total satire on academia and collectors. I read the
>>book seriously and thought it was wonderful, until the last 150 pages, when
>>I thought it fell apart. I subsequently read critiques of the book and
>>discovered the satire aspect. Had I read it with that in mind, I would've
>>enjoyed it that much better. 
>
>Why do you feel it fell apart?  It's been awhile since I've read it and some
>of it's a little fuzzy to me.  Please elaborate.  I also never read any
>critiques of the book, so I'm not totally up on the satire aspect of it.  I
>figured some of it out for myself, but I probably missed alot of it...
>
I think it fell apart because Byatt all of a sudden resorted to implausible
happenings. However, I don't want to give the ending away to spoil it for
those who haven't read it. But it involved graveyard diggings, storms, trees
falling and everyone ending up in one room attempting to solve the mystery
(kind of like Christie's _Ten Little Indians_). It was out of character from
the rest of the book. I also think she could've ended it sooner instead of
having several different scenes that could've ended i (like John Houston
movies). After reading the first 3/4 of the book, which I liked and thought
was cleverly written, the ending was mediocre.

As far as the reviewer I read who said she hates women: the reasoning was
that the women in the book were either not bright, unpleasant, unendearing,
shrinking violets or garish, harsh fools. I wish I remembered where I read
that review! I thought the protagonist, Rowland, was a wimp and not very
bright, either. Ash was a jerk and chauvanist. All in all, I didn't like any
of the characters, but I thought the story was an excellent read and kept me
up for a couple of nights just to see how the mystery was unfolding.


-- 
Hilary Lane
Netwise, Inc., Boulder, Colorado
hilary@netwise.com
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: tdlg9831@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Tracey Dianne Layng)
Subject: Re: food
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 21:17:22 GMT
Keywords: OK, then, books on food

chuckg@meaddata.com (Chuck Greenwald) writes:

>In article <1452@stake.DaytonOH.NCR.COM> emolinar@stake.DaytonOH.NCR.COM (Elizabeth Molinaro) writes:

>> >        I am looking for a suggested/favorite(s) booklist, the
>> >        general topic is: food.

>I found _Food_in_History_, by ?, to be a great discussion of how
>food and eating have changed through history and been affected by
>where and how we live.


I liked _Food_ by Waverly Root. It is a good book for identifying foods
you see in the grocery store, but have no idea what they are or how they are
used. He also gives some of the history surrounding each entry.

There is also a recipe book called "The World Heritage Museum Cookbook"
(or something like that) that is published by the University of Illinois Press.
It has full menus from Roman times, Greek, etc. It also gives the recipes for
most of these highly unusual dishes.

Tracey
UIUC
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: scottj@magic.dml.georgetown.edu (John L. Scott)
Subject: This is Freedom? (was: REWARD OF $US100 TO END FATWAH ON RUSHDIE)
Organization: J. Random Misconfigured Site
Followup-To: rec.arts.books
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 19:55:26 GMT
X-Posted-From: iamac-1.dml.georgetown.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: sol.ctr.columbia.edu

In article <1bisdsINN5ng@uniwa.uwa.edu.au>, wojdylo@maths.uwa.oz.au (John
Wojdylo, aka INFIDEL) wrote:
>
> Any person who claims the right to freedom of speech is dutybound to
> fight for it. If the necessary means turn out to be war with Iran, then
> so be it.

Applying some elementary logic:

IF you claim the right to freedom of speech THEN you must risk life and
limb for it.

Logically then, IF you refuse to risk life and limb for it THEN you cannot
claim the right to freedom of speech.

Doesn't sound very free to me.  Doesn't sound like much of a right to me.


--John Scott
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books