HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: ve3pak@micor.ocunix.on.ca (Alayne McGregor and Brett Delmage)
Subject: Re: Michael Strogoff
Organization: M.B. Cormier INC., Orleans (Ont)
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 00:52:54 GMT

In article <1992Jul28.172448.23872@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU> spg@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Stephen P. Guthrie) writes:
>I'm just reading Michael Strogoff by Jules Verne, and I find it a departure
>from his usual science-fiction themes (and better, imho). Did he in fact
>write other books in this vein or was this the exception?
>Is this considered to be one his best novels?

The books Jules Verne is best known for in the English-speaking world are
his science fiction novels. However, he was an extremely prolific author,
and wrote quite a few adventure novels (i.e The Begum's Fortune or The Demon
of Cawnpore).

I don't know of any Verne novels set in Russia other than Michael Strogoff.
I loved it when I was a child, but haven't read it for years. It was certainly
one of my favourites (together with The Mysterious Island, From the Earth
to the Moon, and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea).

I have read that translators have not done justice to Verne, expurgating
and bowdlerizing his work. I must try them in the original French one day.

Alayne McGregor
alayne@ve3pak.ocunix.on.ca
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: kamorgan@athena.mit.edu (Keith Morgan)
Subject: Spoilers - a correction
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 15:56:14 GMT

My post summarizing the responses to the query on spoilers has an
error of attribution: The theory of "willful forgetting" originated
with Fiona Webster not Barbara Hlavin.

r.a.b. archivists take note

--Keith

--
Keith Morgan		      | Just because your voice reaches half-
MIT Libraries                 | way around the world doesn't mean
kamorgan@athena.mit.edu	      | you are wiser than when it reached 
                              | only to the end of the bar. Ed Murrow
From: chucks@uars2.acd.ucar.edu (Chuck Smythe)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Asimov and the Decay of SF
Date: 28 Jul 92 15:51:44 GMT
Organization: Ntl Center for Atmospheric Research, Atmospheric Chemistry

In article <1992Jul26.175737.17862@morrow.stanford.edu> francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir) writes:

>Physicists and, in particular, theoretical physicists, not only, for the
>most part, take themselves too seriously, but a number of them even believe
>in a Higher Truth. One fine exeption was Richard Feynman who, from time to
>time was also able to see his work as great artistry rather than great 
                                       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>science. In a way I suppose he might have thought that all good science was
 ^^^^^^

I quote from one of his lectures (word for word? After thirty years? Surely
you're joking!)

	"The scientific method consists of just this: experiment is the
	ONLY test of truth."

			RPF, circa 1962.

Consider also his essay "The Nature of Physical Law".  I don't see how your
description of his attitude toward his work will stand up, Francis.  I suspect
that just about all physicists think there is a single, objective truth about
physical reality. ("Higher" truth? What does that mean?)  Whether we mere
mortals can come up with a single, accurate, unambiguous description of that
truth is another question, of course. 

			Chuck Smythe
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto)
Subject: Re: The nature of enlightenment
Organization: Yale CS Mail/News Gateway
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 14:28:07 GMT


cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) writes:

> What does this mean?  Are you implying a misogynist attitude to my
> other postings?

No, I find Clayton's apparent intolerance of the opinions of others is
not limited to women.

> By the way, what is the politically correct way to describe, in one
> word, an eight year old black male?  "Pre-man"?  "Non-female"?

I should have written 'I find it similar to the use of "Boy" when
referring to black men.'  Could Clayton REALLY not know what I meant
by this?

Mark
From: kalkin@ccs.northeastern.edu (Daniel J Sullivan)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Last Lines / Knowing the ending
Date: 23 Jul 92 13:55:15 GMT
Organization: College of Computer Science, Northeastern University
Originator: kalkin@damon.ccs.northeastern.edu


>  "He loved Big Brother."

  Does knowing  the plot ending ruin the novel....

  I had this very same debate back as a junior in high school with a close
  friend.  We had an english teacher with the habit of discussing upcoming
  plot events in novels before we were assigned to read certain sections.

  I was a firm believer that it really didn't matter if the ending of the
  novel was known before hand.  So to prove my point I picked up his copy
  of 1984 and read the last couple of sentences.

                   "... He loved Big Brother."
          
  The look that came over my friends face was awful.  He never finished  
  the book and still blames me to this day ( a good 10 years later).  Every
  so often in social gatherings he brings up this story to haunt me.

--
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: packer@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov (Charles Packer)
Subject: Re: Bathroom reading
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.4-b1  
Organization: Dept. of Independence
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 11:37:00 GMT

I *gotta* say it...this subject turns up with some regularity
in this newsgroup.
Xref: sparky rec.arts.books:12947 rec.arts.sf.misc:2188 rec.humor:24411 alt.folklore.urban:19674 alt.religion.kibology:3189
From: rcasey@zeus.calpoly.edu (Rosalie J Casey)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,rec.arts.sf.misc,rec.humor,alt.folklore.urban,alt.religion.kibology
Subject: Re: Agnostics and Athiests
Date: 24 Jul 92 07:57:17 GMT
Organization: California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

>>My perspective here is that atheist seems to be derogatory and agnostic more
>>positive in the sense that I find in my experience atheists out to prove that
>>God doesn't exist while agnostics don't think there is a God, but they don't
>
>Let's not forget the Apatheists.  We don't know and we don't really care.
>-- 
>Even paranoids have enemies. -- Jim Pastore

	If you had a bet to take, either for a god and go to 
'eternal bliss', or that there is no god and take your chances...

where would your money be?
------
no sig , to cheep
rcasey@iris.calpoly.edu
From: maverick@cs.berkeley.edu (Vance Maverick)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Unspoken Words
Date: 29 Jul 1992 18:45:11 GMT
Organization: CS Division, UC Berkeley
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: cork.cs.berkeley.edu

In article <1992Jul29.172927.14030@athena.mit.edu>, kamorgan@athena.mit.edu (Keith Morgan) writes:
|> 
|> Any other confessors out there?

Yes.  In 11th grade, we read _Hamlet_ in English class, and when the
teacher asked for volunteers to read a soliloquy, I raised my hand.  To the
immense amusement of my classmates (this was a boys' school) I
mispronounced "whore", on the model of "whale" rather than "whole".  I
tried but failed to persuade them that I knew the word by sound rather than
spelling....

	Vance (still a geek after all these years)
From: anlyyao@igc.org (An-Ly Yao)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: SF: carrot on motorcycle
Date: 29 Jul 92 13:20:00 GMT
Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1446700008:000:812
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!anlyyao    Jul 29 06:20:00 1992


About 15 years ago I read the German translation of a quite funny SF story.
A guy is just about to be booked for friting grafity on a restroom door, when
a thin green line appears before him, through which he escapes into annother
Universe. Actually its only one part of the Universe, that is, a experiment
created by some kind of god. That god is quite angry about the unexpected
pollution (the escaped guy) in his experiment, and sends carrot like being
on a heavy motorcycle after that guy to clean up the whole mess. etc etc.

ok ok, there are some typing errors in this message, but I am to lazy to
change friting into writing using IGC's message editor.

Anybody out there, who knows the book?

sorry for my Gerrrman English
Goetz

anlyyao@igc.org                                         Seoul 1992/07/29
From: mapd1@syma.sussex.ac.uk (Nigel Ling)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Asimov and the Decay of SF
Date: 29 Jul 92 16:34:35 GMT
Organization: University of Sussex


>tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox) writes:
>
>> joannee@fscott.UUCP (Joanne Eglash) writes:
>
>>> I have a friend who claims that my love of literature is "a mere
>>> hobby" and that "reading any kind of fiction would be a waste of
>>> my time."  He's a scientist (specializes in an esoteric branch of
>>> biology that I can't even remember how to spell, let alone
>>> understand :-), and he refuses to read ANY novels.  He reads only
>>> books by scientists (and yes, I've seen him check their credentials
>>> on the book jacket -- a doctorate from Yale or Harvard is approved
>>> worthy of his reading time).
>
>>       Your friend is a snob and a provincial.  He is probably beyond anyone's
>> help, yours included.  If he thinks that only science is worth reading, and
>> only science done at Harvard and Yale at that, he is also deluded in very
>> fundamental way.

Worse than a snob I would say. This sort of attitude does not
particularly surprise me though. I used to work in theoretical 
astronomy (supposedly the "clever" stuff :> ) and came to the
conclusion that many scientists are pretty narrow, and very dreary
company too. Anyone who believes literature is a waste of time is,
I believe, either extraordinarily ignorant or a fool, more so if
that person is supposed to be well educated. For some reason science
is often viewed as the preserve of the "clever". Scientists may be
clever at their subjects, but in all other walks of life most are
just ordinary people with no special talents.

Well, that's what I think.

Nigel
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu (Roger Squires)
Subject: Re: gopher
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 92 01:05:38 GMT
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

Someone mentioned 'gopher' awhile back, and I have found one place
it can be accessed:

	telnet  consultant.micro.umn.edu
	And once connection is established, login as 'gopher'

This looks very convenient, as it is menu driven, and I especially
liked how you can access the library catalogs of many many universities
and the Library of Congress just by choosing a menu item, and it will
automatically connect you to those systems!  Take a gander at it.

Roger Squires
rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: evanh@sco.COM (Evan Hunt)
Subject: Re: Young Adult Books
Organization: The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc.
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 07:19:53 GMT


calvo@nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov (Sherri Calvo) writes:
>them to me. Another series I got into the same way was a group of 
>books the titles of which all ended in "Shoes". I must have read 
>"Ballet Shoes" dozens of times.

These are by Noel Streatfeild. The "shoes" titles are only the American
titles - they all had distinct titles in England. Among the best - _Skating
Shoes_ and _Circus Shoes_
-- 
"Seen in this light, leaving the shoe behind her is obviously an act of
 rebellion against the dictatorial regimentation of the domineering fairy
 godmother." - Alma Bond, PhD, in "Oral Sadism and the Vegetarian Personality"
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto)
Subject: Re: Explanations of endings.
Organization: Yale CS Mail/News Gateway
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 13:37:43 GMT


pete@marsh.cs.curtin.edu.au (Peter Staples) writes:

> I've just finished reading Huxley's Brave New World. At the end
> of the book when John . . . [ending of book deleted]

> While I'm on the subject of endings.... two other books I have read
> recently spring to mind.

> Patrick Suskind's Perfume  . . . [ending of book deleted]

> John Fowles Magus  .... does anyone want to explain that ending? I
> realise the book is about manipulation... but I still didn't like the ending.

> It's getting to where I'm scared to read a last chapter!

If Peter keeps giving away the endings of books, then I, too, am scared
to have him read the last chapter.


Mark
From: sichase@csa2.lbl.gov (SCOTT I CHASE)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Agnostics and Athiests
Followup-To: rec.arts.books
Date: 31 Jul 92 19:30:51 GMT
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory - Berkeley, CA, USA
Distribution: na
Reply-To: sichase@csa2.lbl.gov
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.3.254.197
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.3-4   

In article <10050@vice.ICO.TEK.COM>, bobb@vice.ICO.TEK.COM (Bob Beauchaine) writes...
>In article <25032@dog.ee.lbl.gov> sichase@csa3.lbl.gov writes:
>>Come on, now.  Ask the pope how old the Earth is.  What do you think he will
>>say?  I have met plenty of fundamentalists who argue that the fossils were
>>just put there by god to make the Earth look old...
>>
>  Err, I believe that the Vatican made the pronouncement some
>  decades ago that the Big Bang theory was not thelogically unsound.
>  As for the Pope's personal opinion, I have no idea.

Just to set the record straight - I never claimed that the Pope actually 
believes that the Earth is 6000 years old.  Rather, I was trying to point
out that the religious establishment is afraid to offend the fanatics
who believe these things by clearly making rational statements on the
issue.  I had in mind the repeated sightings of the Virgin Mary in 
trees, candle wax, etc., that crop up every few months in the US.  When 
the religious leaders in this country are asked if the cow really
did sing Psalm 23 while an image of the Virgin Mary appeared in the mold
at the bottom of the feed trough, then never say "No."  They say "Who 
are we to decide?  Miracles can take decades to validate."

I have since been informed that John Paul II have actually made an 
explicit statement to the effect that the Earth is "millions of years old"
and that modern cosmology is not inconsistent with believe in divine
creation, etc.  He made the statments to a meeting of scientists
and theologians.  I doubt if he would have the courage to make the 
same statement to a random crowd of people the next time he tours the U.S.

-Scott  
--------------------
Scott I. Chase			"The question seems to be of such a character
SICHASE@CSA2.LBL.GOV		that if I should come to life after my death
				and some mathematician were to tell me that it
				had been definitely settled, I think I would
				immediately drop dead again."      - Vandiver
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto)
Subject: Re: Robertson Davies
Organization: Yale CS Mail/News Gateway
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 16:36:44 GMT


Francis Muir writes:

        Mark Taranto writes:

                Crawford Kilian writes (of Davies):

                        Everyone sounds like a damn U of T academic, and it
                        becomes increasingly hard, therefore, to take him
                        seriously.

                I never knew of this rivalry between Western Canadian academics
                and those damn U of T academics.  (and besides, none of
                Davies' characters sound like Texans :-)

        Kilian wrote "U of T", not "UT". I took it that he was refering to the
        University of Toronto.

As a friend of mine likes to say "No shit, Sherlock!"  Check out the
smiley.  I, of all people, know a Toronto/Taranto reference when I see one.


Mark
From: dmpowell@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Darin M. Powell)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Great American Novel
Date: 28 Jul 92 17:09:35 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY

In article <1992Jul27.212638.19130@Cadence.COM> vince@cadence.com (Vince Gibboni) writes:

>spb0457@zeus.tamu.edu (SubGenius) writes:
>>
>> You didn't put _Gravity's Rainbow_ up there in bold letters, underlined and
>> with little splats ("*") around it.
>>
>
>    Yes, I can't say enough about _Gravity's Rainbow_ - just read a few 
>    pages and suddenly the idea of reading absolutely _anything else_ 
>    seems breath-takingly interesting. I brought _GR_ along on a flight
>    to London once and had to put it down after about about five pages 
>    because I suddenly realized just how fascinating those airline magazines 
>    are, and the Flight Safety Booklet, and the ingredients on that packet of 
>    Ketchup... Yes, I never truly enjoyed reading a packet of Ketchup
>    before I found _GR_. And the best thing about it is that it lasts a 
>    lifetime - to this day I still enjoy not reading _GR_, and I plan to
>    not read it frequently in the future. In fact I find not matter how many
>    times I don't read _GR_, I still find something new in it.


	Bravo! I tried to read Pynchon once, to see what all the
	fuss was about.  From what I can tell, he's overrated.

	Darin Powell
	Syracuse University
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: doom@leland.Stanford.EDU (Joseph Brenner)
Subject: Re: Books by Hunter S. Thompson
Organization: DSO, Stanford University
Date: 27 Jul 92 03:42:54 GMT

Ah, Hunter S. Thompson... 

Well, the one, ultimate, infamous HST book to read is _Fear
and Loathing in Las Vegas_, a crazy (hopefully?) exaggerated
story of our depraved journalist Raoul Duke (later
plagarized by Gary Trudeau), out to *cover the story*,
whatever it might happen to be.

(There's a Vintage Books edition, from 1989, A Random House
edition from 1976.  I actually read it in the original
serialized form in _Rolling Stone_, I guess around 1971). 

I also really liked _Hell's Angels : a strange and terrible
saga_.  Thompson talks about how some politician decided he
could score points using the Angels as boogeymen, and the
New York Times bought his story without question, and thus
the Angels reputation was born.  A strange and terrible
saga, indeed.

Of course, Thompson, being a good journalist, also hung out
with a bunch of the Hells Angels for awhile, bought himself
a bike, got himself hospitalized "going over the high side",
and ended up running away from them in fear of his life...

(There was a Balantine edition, copyright 1967.)

I was less impressed with _Fear and loathing: on the
campaign trail '72_.  It's a collection of articles he wrote
at the time, while covering the '72 election.  Mostly it was
kind of dull, with only a few interesting bits... probably
much like the '72 election itself.    (Warner books, '83)

I haven't read a lot of his recent stuff... his irregular
column in the _Examiner_ was okay, but mostly a rehash of
things said before.  Maybe P.J. O'Rourke is the new Thompson.  

(There's a friend of mine who's still really into Thompson,
though.  He showed me some news clips from around his drug
bust of a few years back: Thompson turned to the press and
said "Let me do a Nixon," and gave 'em the two handed peace
sign, arms outstretched.  Thompson also said something like
"Today's pig is tommorow's bacon", which impressed my freind
so much he wrote a song around it.  I think you can probably
still order a tape though chaney@leland.stanford.edu if
you're interested.)
From: jahb@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (JENNIFER A. HEISE)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Little Men
Date: 22 Jul 92 02:54:22 GMT
Organization: Lehigh University

In article <BrrA0s.8xJ@news.cso.uiuc.edu>, levine@symcom.math.uiuc.edu (Lenore L
evine) writes:
>Little Men (by Louisa May Alcott) was the first "adult" (that is, non-primer)
>book I read, when I was about five or six. I believed Plumfield was real
>and wandered all around the neighborhood looking for it.
>
>My question is: Has anyone read the book recently? How well does it
>stand up?
>
Last winter, I went on an Alcott kick and reread Little Women-- Beth still
brings me to tears, however corny it may seem, and Laurie & Jo's last fight
also. Then I reread Little Men and Jo's Boys.
Little Men stands up better than you would expect. In fact, better than any of
them except 8 Cousins and Rose in Bloom. Little Women doesn't need to stand
up, it just IS. Little Men seems to be a prototype of some modern progressive
school.
My boss said she hated it when she read it, because Jo had dwindled into "just
a wife." Did anyone else have this impression?

-- 
Jennifer Heise                           Net: jahb@lehigh.edu
Reference Dept.,                         Phone: (215) 758-3072
Fairchild-Martindale Libraries #8A,  Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA 18015

"You know I don't know so many things, but I know what's been goin' on:
They put in a nickel, and they want a dollar song"
From: wismith@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (William R. Smith)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Great last sentences
Date: 21 Jul 92 15:54:12 GMT
Organization: NAS, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA

Jon Corelis writes:
>
>>   The one that always sticks in my mind is the end of Farewell,
>>My Lovely:
>


The mind sticker for me is Crumley's "And One To Count Cadence".  The
title is from a soldiers' prayer:

	Fuck'em all but nine.
	Six as pall bearers,
	Two as road guards,
	And one to count cadence.


This isn't the last line.  Its on a page by itself at the front of the
book.  A colleague who was in the "Brown Shoe" army recognized it at
once.

So, I remember the front of the book, the end of the book, and several
startlingly vivid scenes from the middle of the book.



William Sburgfort Smith
Intel, SSD
Xref: sparky rec.arts.books:12857 rec.arts.sf.misc:2144 rec.humor:24274 alt.folklore.urban:19506 alt.religion.kibology:3160
From: cadams@athena.cs.uga.edu (Clark Adams)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,rec.arts.sf.misc,rec.humor,alt.folklore.urban,alt.religion.kibology
Subject: Re: help please, when did Isaac Asimov die?
Date: 23 Jul 92 01:38:15 GMT
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens

In article <1992Jul22.191303.20390@hpcvaac.cv.hp.com> billn@hpcvaac.cv.hp.com (bill nelson) writes:
>jheath@CERIS.Purdue.EDU (Jim Heath) writes:
>: >>
>: >>NOT Isaac!  He's up there raising H*** with someone!
>: >>
>: > 
>: > Ah, a-hem, that would be *down* there.
>: 
>: But do atheists _go_ anywhere when they die?
> 
>I would not say that he was an atheist. More correctly, he just did not
>accept any "Devine text" as literal truth. 
>
>Bill

He has said he was an atheist humanist.  Until he died he was President
of the American Humanist Association.  Also, at a speech he gave in New Jersey
a few years ago, which a couple of my friends were able to attend, he
said that there came a point early in his life when he matter-of-
factly-accepted atheism as he previously had religion.

Conatact the American Humanist Association in Amherst, NY or The Freefom
From Religion Foundation (P.O. Box 750, Madison, WI 53701) to verify
this.
From: hla@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Helen Ashman)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Ahasuerus
Date: 30 Jul 92 12:21:47 GMT

In <m=kmrd_@lynx.unm.edu> rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu (Roger Squires) writes:

...
>Who is Ahasuerus?  There is no entry in 
>the Smaller Classical Dictionary, nor in the
>back of the Webster's Unabridged, so 
>I'm confident someone here will know.

Some fiction on Ahasuerus:

* The Wandering Jew, by Stefan Heym,
published ?Picador
Tracing a 15century lutheran disciple's friendship with the Lightbringer
and eventual damnation. I really enjoyed this one.

* My first Two Thousand Years,  Paul Viereck and George Eldridge
published early 1940's (from memory).
Slightly crazy story of the Wandering Jew's travels since the
Crucifixion.
Xref: sparky rec.arts.books:12903 rec.arts.sf.misc:2169 rec.humor:24358 alt.folklore.urban:19606 alt.religion.kibology:3173