HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: harper@oracorp.com (Douglas Harper)
Subject: Re: Dashiell Hammett
Keywords: Red Harvest, mild spoiler
Organization: ORA Corporation, Ithaca, New York
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 21:01:04 GMT

In article <1992Oct6.173124.18391@eff.org> mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin) writes:
>In article <1992Oct5.224337.5642@oracorp.com> harper@oracorp.com (Douglas Harper) writes:
>
>>Now, can anyone tell me what the insult "fish eater" from the same book
>>means?
>
>Could you reproduce the sentence in which the term appears?

I'm back from the library with _Red Harvest_ (and four other books;
wouldn't you know it?), ready to quote the sentence in context.

A mild spoiler follows:

From near the end of Chapter XXV (pp. 181-2 in the 1972 Vintage edition):

	    "You come first," Reno ordered, "with your mitts on the top
	of your head.  The others come out one at a time, same way,
	after you.  And half a minute apart is close enough.  Come on."
	    We waited a moment, and then Pete the Finn appeared in the
	dynamited doorway, his hands holding the top of his bald head.
	In the glare from the burning next-door house we could see that
	his face was cut, his clothes almost all torn off.
	    Stepping over wreckage, the bootlegger came slowly down the
	steps to the sidewalk.
	    Reno called him a lousy fish-eater and shot him four times
	in face and body.

(I thought it would be something of a spoiler to tell that Pete and
Reno are alive that late in the book.)

-- 
Douglas Harper | harper@oracorp.com | +1 (607) 277-2020
From: mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Posting private mail
Date: 16 Oct 92 16:59:18 GMT


 
I am not pleased that my private e-mail has been posted.  I have asked
John W to apologise for posting my e-mail to him.
 
My pointing out his example of catechresis was meant in a lighthearted
way -- caused by our recent exchange about the word.
 
My statement to John that I enjoyed his articles where he discussed books
more thoughtfully, and that I had hoped that he would say something more
substantive about HOWARDS END was said in earnest.
 
While I do not condone much of what John does in this newsgroup, I've
always thought that he had a certain kind of integrity, which I do admire.
I am sad that I was wrong about this.

Mark
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: cb@tamarack13.timbuk (Chris Brewster)
Subject: Re: Alaska (books sought)
In-reply-to: barb@zurich.ai.mit.edu's message of 13 Oct 92 00:59:09 GMT
Organization: pubs
	<BARB.92Oct12205909@chamarti.ai.mit.edu>
Date: 13 Oct 92 12:06:23 CDT

Barb Miller writes:
...
   And any potential cheechako should probably get from the library a
   copy of the more famous works of the poet Robert Service.  "The
   Cremation of Sam McGee" and suchlike are minor masterpieces of a genre
   that people don't think too highly of these days, but familiarity with
   them will expose you to a certain aspect of the spirit of the place,
   particularly since you will hear stories equally as strange, presented
   to you as fact. ...

I agree that a visitor to the north should read Service as well as Jack
London, but note that much of their lore is actually from the Yukon.
The difference between Alaska and the Yukon confused people during the
1898 gold rush and still confuses people.  By the way, anyone who gets
that far north *should* visit Dawson, Yukon, the destination of the gold
rush.  A strange, fascinating place.

Chris Brewster
cb@cray.com

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Subject: Re: a fun thriller: Ridley Pearson's _Hard_Fall_
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 20:10:37 GMT

Fiona Webster writes plaintively:

	On the subject of current themes for thrillers, is anyone else 
	finding it strange that so many have to do with radical 
	environmentalists? [...] Surely even with the demise of the
	hoary spy-vs.-spy Cold War novel, there are more plausible versions of
	bad guys afoot than rabid environmentalists or rabid anti-environ-
	mentalists.  

It could be worse. Consider Abortion and Animal Rights.
	
	What do I know, though?

All that which is fit to print?


							Fido
From: fuller@athena.cs.uga.edu (James P. H. Fuller)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: This is so bad i could not put it down
Date: 12 Oct 92 23:51:19 GMT
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens

francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir) writes:

>William McGonegall has been described as "the Ossian of the ineffably absurd",
>and it is true that his oeuvre -- if you can call it that -- defines doggerel.
>But barrie saw him as a tragic figure. For many, many years he was the subject
>of an elaborate popular charade. At his public recitals throughout especially
>Central Scotland he was given extravagant receptions that led the poor man
>to believe in his own genius. 

     Music by Florence Foster Jenkens in the interval?

                                                 -- jf
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: speterse%peruvian.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (soren--Ms. Jackson if you're nasty)
Subject: Re: Once I put this book down, I could not pick it up again.
Date: 7 Oct 92 16:53:10 MDT
Organization: The Erland Cult

Celine *Journey to the End of the Night*

I did finish it, but it was a real struggle.  I can certainly see why
he's so well thought of, I saw the influence on all kinds of later
French writers, I (generally) sympathized with the relentless cynicism;
but for some reason, I REALLY had to force my way through it.

I suspect it had more to do with when I read it than anything else:  I
had just finished a really hard academic quarter, and I probably needed
something quite a bit lighter, more colorful, and more escapist (and I
promptly went on a huge science fiction/fantasy binge that I am only now 
getting out of.


Incidentally, *Journey* was only the second hardest struggle I had to get
through a book.  If we want to start a thread about books-that-are-well-
thought-of-that-I-haven't-a-clue-why, I hearby nominate William Hope Hodgson's
*The Night Land*.  I had no problem with the fake-medieval dialect he wrote
the book in, except for the fact that he used it to pad out a really sloppily
executed pulp novella to 500 pages.

--
    "From your signature it is obvious that you are a homosexual"
soren f petersen           :        i AM NOT          :    --Doc
speterse@peruvian.utah.edu :  THE university OF utah  :
"How could I dance with another/When I saw him standing there"  --Tiffany
From: wojdylo@maths.uwa.oz.au (John Wojdylo)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Only Connect
Date: 8 Oct 1992 08:18:41 GMT
Organization: The University of Westrn Australia
NNTP-Posting-Host: madvax.maths.uwa.oz.au

Mark "Does he mean the hole or the whole?" Taranto writes:


>proberts@informix.com (Paul Roberts) asks:
> 
>> And while we are at it, what does "Only connect" mean? I think it is
>> some kind of catchphrase, but it doesn't make much sense to me. Anyone?
> 
>It is from E. M. Forster's HOWARDS END.  It is on the cover page, but is also
>a theme that runs through the book:
> 
> 
>In what is probably the best known passage in the book, Forster writes
>of Margaret and Mr. Wilcox:
> 
>        She would only point out the salvation that was latent in his
>        own soul, and in the soul of every man.  Only connect!  That
>        was the whole of her sermon.  Only connect the prose and the
>        passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen
>        at its height.  Live in fragmants no longer.  Only connect, and
>        the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to
>        either, will die.
> 
>Later, he writes:
> 
>        "Not any more of this!" she cried.  "You shall see the connection
>        if it kills you, Henry!  You have had a mistress -- I forgave you.
>        My sister has a lover -- you drive her from the house.  Do you
>        see the connection? . . .  Only say to yourself: 'What Helen
>        has done, I've done'."
>


Does "being connected" in the sense of Forster entail one has to be as
scatterbrained as Margaret?

Stupid bitch.
From: mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Baseball Books?
Date: 16 Oct 92 18:18:52 GMT


hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu (Heather) writes:
 
> So if there are baseball fans lurking out there in the
> r.a.b.ble (and I know there are some), let me ask:  What are your
> favorite baseball books?
 
EIGHT MEN OUT by Eliot Asinov.
 
It is the story of the Chicago Black Sox scandal, and is a well written
and interesting book.  It left me thinking differently about the scandal.
Buck Weaver should be completely exonerated, and put into the Hall of Fame.
 
The movie, directed by John Sayles is also very good.
 
Speaking of John Sayles, he has also written a baseball book (fiction)
called THE PRIDE OF THE BIMBOS.  The Bimbos are a barnstorming softball
team who travel around the country playing sideshows at carnivals & getting
into trouble.  Their star shortstop is a hard-drinking, cigar-chomping
midget.
 
(should I be calling him a "little person" or "vertically challenged"? :-)
 
Mark
From: fuller@athena.cs.uga.edu (James P. H. Fuller)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: the Marko variations, I - III
Date: 14 Oct 92 01:56:02 GMT
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens


I wrote:

> speak up for the Bear-guy.  I LOVE _Beowulf_.  The range of emotional colors
> in _Beowulf_ is exactly the same as in Robert E. Howard's Conan novels,
> which I also love for precisely the same low, bestial reasons.  Beowulf
> and Conan alike transport you back to the days when you *could* solve all
> your major problems with a grunt and a bludgeon.   


amnell@klaava.helsinki.fi (Marko Amnell) wrote:

> It is my understanding that many Americans still do, but with a gun.


   Temporarily, no.  I lent my Kalashnikov to Bobby Fischer when he accepted
a match in Lower Slobbovia.  I expect to get it back soon since he clearly
doesn't need it against Spassky, but it still may come in handy if he runs
into any Jugs.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------


amnell@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Marko Amnell) wrote:

>Well, surely the most unreadable `good' book in English (if one can call
>it English) is _Finnegans Wake_, right?  Or else _Beowulf_.


tdlg9831@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Tracey Dianne Layng) objected:

> I, too, liked _Beowulf_. Especially Grendel's mother. 


and Marko replied:

> Yo' mama!  Are you talking about the original Old English version?  I
> had the language, not the content, in mind, my dear Tracer-bullet.


     You mean you *don't* understand Englisc and Brytwylsc and Scyttisc
and Pyhtisc and Bocleden?  My gracious.  You mean if I told you to bend
over and mynte se manscatha manna cynnes sumne besyrwan in sele tham hean,
and then wod under wolcnum to thaes the he winreced, goldsele gumena
gearwost wisse, faettum fahne you wouldn't have any idea what I'd said?
Heh, heh, heh, heh, heh.  Too bad you can't type the thorns and eths in a
seven-bit character set....

------------------------------------------------------------------------


amnell@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Marko Amnell) writes: 

> Tocqueville would surely eat his words were he alive.  I see you hail
> from Georgia, so maybe you should have stuck up for your Confederate dunces
> instead.

> One more excellent reason why I left North America for belle Europe.  

     
     Cop wanted to see your green card, did he?  


                                                  -- jf
From: cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: More Notes from the Decline
Date: 13 Oct 92 21:28:28 GMT
Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA

In article <5469@balrog.ctron.com>, mattb@ctron.com (Matt Brown) writes:
> Tom Maddox's Republican reading list:
> 
> >piffle and twaddle.
> 
> >	The fuckers are obviously deranged.  Who knows what or if they read? 
> >Anti-abortion tracts and _Reader's Digest_, perhaps--thinking about it gives 
> >me the willies.
> 
> You mean the "Willy Horton`s", right?
> 
> Matt
> I'd put money on Ollie North's book and William F. Buckley spy thrillers,
> myself.  Or Creation Science. And to get in touch with the commoners,
> People Magazine.

Do you not know any Republicans?  I know quite a few.  What sort of
books do they read?  Stephen King novels.  History books by Barbara
Tuchman.  _Moby Dick_.  _Rise and Fall of the Great Powers_.
Books on sailing.  Why, I even know one Republican that reads 
"creation science" books, occasionally.  But the snotty elitist
tone makes me wonder how far removed Mr. Brown and Maddox are from
ordinary Americans.

It's not like Republicans are an obscure, rare, seldom met
minority group.  They are about 1/3 of the adults in this country,
many of whom are struggling to remain middle class.  They don't
agree with a lot of the liberal ideas, but that hardly means that
they are aliterate, or are limited to comic books.
-- 
Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid}!optilink!cramer  My opinions, all mine!
Lesson learned from Gov. Wilson's signing of AB 2601: if you don't get 
your way, have a riot.  Next time, Gov. Wilson will cower appropriately.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: al@iris.claremont.edu (Aotearoa)
Subject: Re: Borders Bookstores sold to K-Mart
Organization: Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA 91711
Distribution: na
Date: 13 Oct 92 22:01:48 GMT

Are there any Borders Bookstores in Southern California?
Any other good bookstores with large selections you could nominate
in this area would also be appreciated.  I know of a few Bookstars,
but am always looking for more.  If we could just get Powell's to
open a few stores down here...

Please respond by e-mail.  Thank you.
-- 
Michael L. Medlin      al@iris.claremont.edu
"There's a man on the shoreline with a white parrakeet
 Trying to make his bird go home"
 --Peter Jefferies, "On An Unknown Beach"
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Subject: Ted Williams vs Joe DiMaggio
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 21:44:13 GMT

Heather Henderson writes:

	Mark Taranto writes:

		I also mentioned the book SUMMER OF 49 -- which deals 
		with an aging DiMaggio & Ted W, and the great rivalry 
		between the Red Sox & the Yankees.  Since I was already 
		familiar with Ted Williams, the book left me with a 
		greater respect for Joe DiMaggio.  I knew all about Ted 
		Williams -- but didn't really know that much about Joe D.

	Yeah, yeah, Mr. Coffee, Old Man and the Sea ("But I fear the 
	Indians of Cleveland"), Marilyn Monroe, etc. etc. gimme a break.  

Or as Peg Leg Paglia would say, PLEASE....

							Fido
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: Fictitious Fiction
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Keywords: Morgenstern, Garp, Trout
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 21:47:35 GMT

In article <1bfbaqINNjl2@bigboote.WPI.EDU> kat@lagrange.WPI.EDU (Flame's Passion) writes:

>A.S. Byatt's book _Possession_ (I think) makes reference to poets and poems
>that never existed.  I'm not sure, though.  The story centers around a study
>of Randolph Ash and his affair with Christabel LaMotte.  This study was done
>by the two main characters.  Anyway, I'm not sure if Ash and Lamotte are
>fake or not... Byatt makes them quite believable.

They are, in fact, invented poets.

>Anyone else read this? I found this to be a fascinating book.  It combines
>a good story with some wonderful poetry.

The poetry could be better; the story is truly wonderful.



--Mike



-- 
Mike Godwin,    |"I can solve this Orient Express thing without
mnemonic@eff.org| breaking a sweat. It's that simple."
(617) 864-0665  | 
EFF, Cambridge  |                           --Hercule Perot
From: cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Alaska (books sought)
Date: 13 Oct 92 21:35:52 GMT
Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA

In article <BARB.92Oct12205909@chamarti.ai.mit.edu>, barb@zurich.ai.mit.edu (Barb Miller) writes:
# And any potential cheechako should probably get from the library a
# copy of the more famous works of the poet Robert Service.  "The
# Cremation of Sam McGee" and suchlike are minor masterpieces of a genre
# that people don't think too highly of these days, but familiarity with
# them will expose you to a certain aspect of the spirit of the place,
# particularly since you will hear stories equally as strange, presented
# to you as fact.  Although on second thought, perhaps it's best to
# encounter this poem for the first time as my brother did, recited by a
# whitewater raft guide to fill in a quiet space between rapids, or as I
# did, told by a park ranger at the end of a campfire program.  It may
# go down more easily in the wilderness where it doesn't compete with
# our more sophisticated entertainment mechanisms.
# 
# If it does turn out that you move there, I hope you will find Alaska
# as marvelous as I did.
# 
# Barb Miller

Poetry usually leaves me cold -- perhaps even frostbitten.  I can
(and usually do) admire the skill of a poet, without enjoying the 
poem.  Yet there a few poems that I can become enthusiastic about.
"Ozymandias" is one.  "The Cremation of Sam McGee" is the other.
(But then again, I'm always being told in this group that I belong 
to another century, anyway).

I must admit, however, that I've missed something very powerful,
in hearing "The Cremation of Sam McGee" first in a warm living
room in Southern California, instead of around a campfire in the
wilderness.

-- 
Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid}!optilink!cramer  My opinions, all mine!
Lesson learned from Gov. Wilson's signing of AB 2601: if you don't get 
your way, have a riot.  Next time, Gov. Wilson will cower appropriately.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: marcy@sqwest.wimsey.bc.ca (Marcy Thompson)
Subject: Re: Once I put this book down, I could not pick it up again.
Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Surrey, British Columbia, CANADA
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 17:52:40 GMT

In a recent rec.arts.books article, miner@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu wrote:
>
>Has *anyone* ever said _Jude the Obscure_ was great?  I thought it was
>considered one of his duds.

And so we wander back to Mark's question about books n the time of love...

When I was young and impressionable, I was quite taken with a young lady 
with blonde hair and soulful grey eyes. As we were backpacking on "the Long
Trail" in Vermont during the first autumn I ever spent in New England (knowing
that I grew up near San Francisco, some may say, during the first autumn of
my young life), she tried mightily to convince me that _Jude_the_Obscure_
was the crowning achievement of English Literature to date.

And I was so taken, that I tried very hard to be convinced. I listened to
her read passages aloud to me after walking up and down stone mountains
for eight or nine hours. Forevermore, _Jude_the_Obscure_ will be associated
in my mind with sunsets viewed from the tops of various Vermont mountains,
ablaze with the colours of autumn. That doesn't mean the book has any
redeeming value that I can see.

Marcy

-- 

Marcy Thompson		
  SoftQuad (West)			
    marcy@sqwest.wimsey.bc.ca (preferred) or marcy@sq.com
From: daq@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM (Doug Quarnstrom)
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 18:58:36 GMT
Subject: Re: Point of Technicality (Was Re: Anti-Arab racism on the net)
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, Fort Collins, CO, USA
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books

In rec.arts.books, afadel@nyx.cs.du.edu (Ayman Fadel) writes:

> So actually what he said was that it was permissible to kill
> him.  He didn't say it was a good thing to kill him no matter
> what consequences resulted from such an action.  Nor did
> he say it was obligatory for Salman to be killed.
> 
> I'm sure from the Liberal's perspective this distinction is
> meaningless,

It is meaningless from any perspective that assumes it is
not permissible to kill a man for writing a book.

> but it does make a difference for people who
> know about these things.

The difference is unimportant, regardless.  It is NOT permissible
to kill a man for writing a book.  Period!

>  And for the sake of accuracy, I would
> hope people would begin referring to al-khomayni's ruling on
> the permissibility of killing Salman, not "Death Sentence" or
> "order to kill Salman."
> 

Murder is murder whether one orders it or just tells people he
influences very strongly that it is ok for them to do it.

Rushdie should not have to live in fear.

These are my opinions and possibly not those of HP.

doug
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: fi@grebyn.com (Fiona Webster)
Subject: Re: How good is Barker's "Damnation Game".
Organization: Grebyn Timesharing
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 19:36:48 GMT

Someone named "Duner" asks a question that surely belongs in our FAQL:
> Also what is the book that "Hellraiser" was based on?  Was there a book called
>  "Hellraiser" or what?

The movie "Hellraiser" was based on Barker's "The Hellbound Heart," a 
short novel (vs. long short story) collected in _Night_Visions_3_,
edited by George R. R. Martin.  _NV3_ was released as a Berkley
paperback in 1988, under the title _The_Hellbound_Heart_.

							--Fiona W.

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: spb0457@rigel.tamu.edu (SubGenius)
Subject: Re:  Once I put this book down, I buried it  [Talkin' _Catch-22_ Blues]
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: Texas A&M University, Academic Computing Services
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 19:03:00 GMT

Ed Lieser writes...
>Speaking of which, "Catch-22" often appears on lists of favorite books
>for various people.  I made it about halfway through, and finally got
>so frustrated I quit.  The "joke" was funny at first, but eventually
>became very tiring and finally, irritating.  I guess I felt the book
>was at least twice as long as it should have been.  I doubt I'll pick
>this one up again - too much other stuff to read.
>Ed Lieser

+-------------------------------------SubG--------------------------------+
I suppose I should file this one under "no accounting for tastes."

Ya see, I usually use _Catch-22_ as a "book for non-readers,"  i.e. some
schmuck knows that I usually have a couple gross of books (there are no puns
to be found therein.  Anything you can see that looks like a pun there is
really a fragment--uh, appy polly logies--FIGMENT of yer imagination, and
is probably an indication of latent homosexuality, probable bedwetting,
presence of an Oedipus or Elecktra complex and pinko communism to boot, so
get off it, okay?  Other guys might like to go for cheap, cutrate puns like
that, but not me.  No way.  I completely deploy...ah...DEPLORE such tactics)
on or (more likely) about my person wanders into the Fortress of Solitude
and tries to nick a book off me.  "So," the non-reader might look me 
crooked in the eye and ask me, "Got any books?  I mean GOOD ones, not those
li'ur'ature things."  So I tap the back of my favourite head against the
nearest wall for a couple minutes to get into the right mindset, then 
try and recommend something for the neurologically flaccid.  "Um," (notice
how I've picked up their dialogue!  That Newtonian psychotherapy must be
working!  "Try this."

`This' is usually something erudite (recondite and several other adjectives
that sound vaguely smutty but aren't) enough to find its way onto my shelves
(or more to the point my piles [once again sounding like something it really
isn't.  Really]), but might nevertheless might prove rewarding to someone
with only a hatfull of neurons actively firing (as opposed to passively
firing, I suppose) at any given moment.  In the past I've always found
_Catch-22_ to be a reasonably good choice for `this,' although in the
future I'll take your comments under advisement.  

Funny thing is, I never noticed it being too long.  Always ended in just
the right place near as I could reckon.  Otherwise there'd be all these
blank pages at the end....












Yours etc.,





SubGenius