HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
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: 2 Sep 92 11:23:00

In article <1992Aug31.184318.361@oracorp.com> daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough) writes:

   In article <1992Aug28.051513.17019@cheshire.oxy.edu>,
   rooney@cheshire.oxy.edu (Michael Sean Rooney) writes:
   (in response to Clayton Cramer):

   >	Your appreciation of Chinua Achebe is very big-minded of
   >you, Clayton.  But pause for a moment to consider why it is that
   >non-European cultures haven't had impact on European or U.S. culture,
   >in spite of the world-wide presence of Europeans and Americans.
   >It wouldn't have anything to do with having the bigger guns, would
   >it?

   I don't think there is any kind of simple equation between military
   power ("bigger guns") and cultural influence. The Soviet Union for
   several decades had one of the most powerful militaries in history,
   yet their cultural influence on even their allies was minimal and
   fleeting.

   To the extent that popular music is considered culture, there has been
   an enormous influence by Africans and Latin Americans on U.S. and
   European culture. There has been less influence in "highbrow culture".
   Does that imply that intellectuals and academics are more racist or
   imperialist than the average American?

   Daryl McCullough
   ORA Corp.
   Ithaca, NY

Soviet cultural influence was enormous in the early years of the
Soviet Union---the romanticism of the worker and peasant run socialist
revolution and the rational socialist society.  For example, it
recruited for them numerous spies all over the world, ignited civil
wars almost all over the world and let a minor tyranny North Vietnam
defeat a major military power.  That cultural influence is still
powerful in American cultural and academic life, especially among
people who do not admit even to themselves that they are under its
influence.

Of course, Soviet crimes and blunders began to blunt this influence
almost from the first.  However, it's not gone.  Look in
misc.activism.progressive for the continued romanticism about Castro
and compare it with the much earlier romanticism about the Soviet
Union, and the more recent romanticism about the Sandinistas.

















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

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: alison@wsrcc.com (Alison Chaiken)
Subject: Solzhenitsyn's return?
Organization: W S Rupprecht Computer Consulting, Fremont CA
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 04:21:30 GMT


	I remember a few years ago in the waning days of the Soviet
Union that Gorbachev invited Solzhenitsyn to return, and Solzhenitsyn
indicated that he was anxious to under certain circumstances.  Does
anyone know if he has actually gone back, and if so, what his
reception has been by the public?

-- 
Alison Chaiken 				alison@wsrcc.com
(510) 422-7129 [daytime] 		or chaiken@cmsgee.llnl.gov
(510) 422-7300 [FAX]
Live fast, die young, leave a long publication list.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: renfro@geewhiz.ssc.gov (James Renfro)
Subject: Re: Sea Stories 
Keywords: Ramage, Dudley Pope
Organization: Superconducting Super Collider Laboratory
Distribution: usa, uk
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 14:32:23 GMT


I cannot recall ever seeing Dudley Pope titles in my local Daltons, or  
Waldenbook store, however every lover of Hornblower books will find Pope's  
stories interesting, even if his main and title character, "Ramage", is usually  
getting in trouble with the Admiralty, and is always in the famous and historic  
event, a key player, but known only to us, and a few of the First Lord's  
closest associates.  "Ramage" stories are great fun reading for one, like me,  
who have run out of fresh stories of sailors and sailing ships in the 18th  
century.  

For anybody in the UK, I would be interested in learning if Dudley Pope has any  
recently (within the past 3 years) published any new titles.  I have the first  
sixteen titles of his "Ramage" books, thanks to my wife's family in the UK who,  
until recently, looked for new titles to send me.  Lately, however, they have  
given up in frustration because there is never a new Pope book in the  
bookshops.  Does anybody know what, if anything, Dudley Pope is writing  
presently?  

Another couple of such authors whose names come to mind are Alexander Kent, and  
Rafael Sabatini (sp?).  The latter wrote, "The Sea Hawk", I think, but it has  
been since childhood that I read that. That was a wonderful tale, and was one  
of the first books I read which contained no illustrations; it needed none, for  
the author worked magic with his writing.

All email will be appriciated, and acknowledged, but up front, here is a
big THANK YOU for any information.

Jim Renfro
email to  renfro@geewhiz.ssc.gov
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu (Roger Squires)
Subject: couple Ross Macdonald queries
Date: Fri, 04 Sep 92 05:30:06 GMT
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

I've started _The Underground Man_.  It is taking place in Santa Teresa,
which I seem to recall is the same town Sue Grafton's character lives in.
Is this correct, and is this a real town in CA?

I've only read one other RM story, _Sleeping Beauty_, and both books
use natural disasters to anchor the plot.  Is this RM SOP?
He's written many other books, I notice.  Can others recommend maybe
two of the best (not necessarily Lew Archer) for me to catch next?

From the incredibly limited amount I've seen so far, I still like Chandler
better, if only for those great one-liners ("She approached me with
enough sex appeal to stampede a businessmen's luncheon") and the
slightly less pessimistic outlook of the slightly younger hero.
I'm not sure about RM and Hammett (RM & Hammett, get it?  Ha!)
Which reminds me:  What other Chandler stuff is there to read besides
the four novels in the Omnibus?

Roger Squires
rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: Why I read the Economist
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 21:48:31 GMT

In article <1992Sep1.170456.1818@cbnewsm.cb.att.com> mls@cbnewsm.cb.att.com (mike.siemon) writes:

>However, like the other American rags, _The Nation_ has the utterly
>infuriating tendency to regard all positions but their own as too
>vile and worthless to even consider -- the mere mouthings of idiots.

One exception to this generally correct generalization: THE NEW REPUBLIC.
Ostensibly a politically liberal journal (except on Israel), it often
publishes articles by conservative writers. TNR articles critical of
conservative opinion generally do not begin by assuming that conservatives
are "idiots"--they instead try to refute the conservatives' arguments
on their merits. Such as they are.



--Mike




-- 
Mike Godwin,    |"The meeting of two personalities is like the contact 
mnemonic@eff.org| of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, 
(617) 864-0665  | both are transformed."
EFF, Cambridge  |                           --Carl Jung
From: wojdylo@maths.uwa.oz.au (INFIDEL)
Subject: Re: Sea Stories 
Organization: University of Western Australia
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 10:31:31 GMT


Francis Muir writes:

William R. Smith writes:

	John Nall writes:

		BTW, this thread awoke in me a great longing to 
		read some more good sea stories. Anyone got any 
		suggestions?

	Ask Francis the Sailor Man.

[...]
	>You are Master of a 600 tonner tramping through the China Sea. 



Been there, done that.  (As a mere passenger, though.)



John W.
From: kachun@astro.as.arizona.edu (Ka Chun Yu)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Quality Paperback Book Club
Date: 25 Aug 92 19:06:12 GMT
Organization: University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

Thanks to everyone who replied.

--
*Ka Chun Yu                 * "Deputy dog dog a ding dang depa depa deputy     *
*kachun@as.arizona.edu      *  dog dog a ding dang depa depa . . ."            *
*                           *                         --"Don't Let's Start"    *
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough)
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Organization: ORA Corporation
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 18:43:18 GMT

In article <1992Aug28.051513.17019@cheshire.oxy.edu>,
rooney@cheshire.oxy.edu (Michael Sean Rooney) writes:
(in response to Clayton Cramer):

>	Your appreciation of Chinua Achebe is very big-minded of
>you, Clayton.  But pause for a moment to consider why it is that
>non-European cultures haven't had impact on European or U.S. culture,
>in spite of the world-wide presence of Europeans and Americans.
>It wouldn't have anything to do with having the bigger guns, would
>it?

I don't think there is any kind of simple equation between military
power ("bigger guns") and cultural influence. The Soviet Union for
several decades had one of the most powerful militaries in history,
yet their cultural influence on even their allies was minimal and
fleeting.

To the extent that popular music is considered culture, there has been
an enormous influence by Africans and Latin Americans on U.S. and
European culture. There has been less influence in "highbrow culture".
Does that imply that intellectuals and academics are more racist or
imperialist than the average American?

Daryl McCullough
ORA Corp.
Ithaca, NY























Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: Paul Schroeder
Subject: Re: Patrick O'Brien vs Horatio Hornblower...
Organization: BNR
Date: Wed, 02 Sep 1992 14:07:00 GMT

In article <7419@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>In article <1992Aug28.210852.21507@brtph560.bnr.ca> Paul Schroeder writes:
>>In article <25322@castle.ed.ac.uk> pws@castle.ed.ac.uk (P W Stephenson)
writes:
>>>Paul Schroeder writes:
>>>
>>>>First, IMHO a comparison between O'Brian and Forester is not appropriate. 
>>>
>>>I don't think they're quite in the same game, either.  One point which
>>>hasn't been made yet, which I think is instructive even if it's not true
>>>(:-) is that Forester was a modern novelist whereas O'Brian is a
>>>historical novelist: by which I really mean Forester wrote more from a
>>>present-day point of view while O'Brian writes as if he was a
>>>contemporary of his characters.  (Insert `in a sense' into the last
>>>sentence as many times as necessary.)  This perhaps explains why some
>>>people find his prose strange.
>
>>I agree that O'Brian is more of an historical novelist, and he uses a style
>>that borders on arcane.
>
>Now wait just a minute.  I have recently read all (so far as I know)
>of the Aubrey/Maturin novels, I have a fairly good memory of what
>they're like, and I think this is very misleading.
>
>I was bothered by the style in the first one I read (Post Captain),
>but it was a relatively minor detail that (consciously) bothered me.
>(A complete change of location could occur between one paragraph and
>the next without any transition.)  I wasn't bothered by anything
>in the style of the later ones I read.  I just don't see how anyone
>can say his style is "arcane".  (Maybe I'm just missing something?)
>
>I think there may be a style issue.  That's one reason why I think
>someone who tries O'Brien ought to start with two books.  But I
>didn't find anything about them hard to read.
>
>-- jd
>

Perhaps "bordering on arcane" wasn't the appropriate description for O'Brian's
style but I feel it is appropriate for some of the vocabulary he uses. 
Essentially, the point that I and the poster to whom I responded were trying to
make was that O'Brian's style (in both a literary sense as well as in the
approach to the genre) is considerably different than Forester's.  Forester
wrote in a relatively plain straight-forward style that moved the narrative
along in a conventional manner.  O'Brian uses speech patterns of the period and
narrative shifts that can be confusing;  at times the reader is not quite sure
what has taken place (and may or may not find out later in the book).  An
example of this was highlighted in a recent _Washington Post_ article on
O'Brian where it remains unclear as to the exact sexual relationship between
Aubrey and Diana Villiers.


Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: kamorgan@athena.mit.edu (Keith Morgan)
Subject: Re: Sea Stories
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 17:23:08 GMT

Tovah Hollander writes:

>As long as polar exploration has been added to the topic, let me 
>recommend _The Worst Journey in the World_ by Apsley Cherry-Garrard, [...]
>It describes the trip made by Cherry-Garrard
>and two of the eventual non-survivors during the winter before the polar
             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 

	Well, to paraphrase Keynes, "in the long run we're all eventual
non-survivors."


>The favorite sea story of my youth was Jack London's _The Sea Wolf_.

	This is one my favorite novels period. Perhaps I can reread it
with so much enjoyment because I didn't read it in my youth. London's
reputation has declined but he did write several perfect works and I
think _The Sea Wolf_ is one of them. A more problematic, and
politically incorrect, London sea story is _The Mutiny of the
Elsinore_. The latter London is like William Golding's _Rites of
Passage_ wherein the sea and the ship are more devices to advance the
story. BTW, I commend London's _Elsinore_ to anyone who thinks London
was a simple socialist.

	Two other good C.S. Forester novels that I haven't seen
mentioned are _The Captain from Connecticut_ and _The Good Shepherd_.
The first is set during the war of 1812 and the latter WWII. 

	Finally, again since I didn't see it mentioned explicitly, I
would mention Nordhoff and Hall's 2nd volume of the Bounty trilogy. I
think some people aren't aware of _Men Against the Sea_. This is the
story of Bligh and the castaways and their incredible journey back to
land. Bligh 's own version of this is good also.

	Happy waves,


	Keith
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Keith Morgan		      | Criticism is prejudice made plausible.
kamorgan@athena.mit.edu       |                          H.L. Mencken
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: egpv29@castle.ed.ac.uk (JHenderson)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Why I read the Economist
Date: 3 Sep 92 09:51:20 GMT
Organization: Edinburgh University

In article <12117@optilink.UUCP> cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) writes:
=>In article <25378@castle.ed.ac.uk>, egpv29@castle.ed.ac.uk (JHenderson) writes:
=>> I'm surprised to have seen no mention of the one US news magazine
=>> that is intelligent, informative, well-written, and entertaining.
=>> I refer, of course, to The Nation. The regular columns by, in
=>> particular, Christopher Hitchens, Alexander Cockburn and Edward
=>> Said are streets ahead of anything found in The Economist and its
=>> ilk.

=>Perhaps it's a matter of definition, but I don't think of _The
=>Nation_ as a newsmagazine, but a journal of political opinion,
=>like _National Review_, _Reason_, _New Republic_.  The strength
=>of such magazines isn't current news coverage, but analysis
=>(to the extent that ideology doesn't screw it up, as it usually
=>does).

I agree with you (and Mike G) up to a point, but the advantage of 
The Nation_as_a_news_magazine is that it prints stories that Time
and co. find too politically uncomfortable, for example the story of
Reagan pre-election deals with the Iranians was running in The Nation 
ages before any of the mainstream newsmags thought of printing it.
Also, any news magazine is bound to be analytical, if only in the choice 
of "news" it chooses to print. I find The Nation's analysis more
convincing than that of other periodicals.

On a different note, Francis, the only thing I picked up at the
Oxford Union was a powerful desire to emigrate!!

-- 
==================================================================
-Jeremy Henderson            |  Une souris verte
 egpv29@castle.ed.ac.uk	     |  Qui courrait dans l'herbe
==================================================================
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: n-hyland@uiuc.edu (Nancy Hyland)
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon & Women
Followup-To: rec.arts.books
Organization: School of Life Sciences, U. of Illinois
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 17:38:02 GMT

I'm new to this newsgroup & missed the beginning of the thread so I hope
that this isn't a non-sequitur :-)

Dale Spender has written and excellent book: "Mothers of the Novel: 100
good women authors before Jane Austen" I learned some startling facts in
reading the book. Women were writing good novels before DeFoe. In fact, in
the late eighteenth century (I think-- I don't have the book here at work &
I read it over a year ago) men would publish using a female pseudonym so
that their writing might get a better reception than if they published with
a man's name. Reactionary patriarchs in the nineteenth century suppressed
women's writing from becoming part of "the canon". Spender has also edited
an anthology of British Women writers. This is well worth looking into.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: kamorgan@athena.mit.edu (Keith Morgan)
Subject: Re: RE - Crowely's Sign (Guderian, Manstein)
Followup-To: rec.arts.books
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 17:19:09 GMT

In article <17uuesINNf37@agate.berkeley.edu> tedrick@whistle.Berkeley.EDU (Tom Tedrick) writes:
><<Someone ought to translate into English those of Guderian's works
><<which have only appeared in German.
>
><Actually, Guderian in the '50s put out what was reputedly to be an 
><excellent work called "Panzer Leader" which was released in English.

I doubt that I will ever cease to be amazed at Usenet cross-postings.
Here is an article on the books of two of Hitler's generals in r.a.b..
That is, of course, not unusual; however, the fact that it migrated in
here, not only from soc.culture.german but from alt.magick is a curiosity
worth marveling at. Perhaps alt.magick is not what I presumed it to be
about. Is it perhaps concerned with an occult reversal of Panzer losses?

Amazed, continually,

Keith
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Keith Morgan		      | Criticism is prejudice made plausible.
kamorgan@athena.mit.edu       |                          H.L. Mencken
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: pws@castle.ed.ac.uk (P W Stephenson)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Patrick O'Brien vs Horatio Hornblower...
Date: 28 Aug 92 16:11:40 GMT
Organization: Edinburgh University

Paul Schroeder writes:

>First, IMHO a comparison between O'Brian and Forester is not appropriate. 

I don't think they're quite in the same game, either.  One point which
hasn't been made yet, which I think is instructive even if it's not true
(:-) is that Forester was a modern novelist whereas O'Brian is a
historical novelist: by which I really mean Forester wrote more from a
present-day point of view while O'Brian writes as if he was a
contemporary of his characters.  (Insert `in a sense' into the last
sentence as many times as necessary.)  This perhaps explains why some
people find his prose strange.  I like prosey books and find the Aubrey
novels much more full of life and colour than the Hornblower ones (which
I haven't read for some years, it must be said); but then I don't really
like `the modern novel', as opposed to modern novels, all that much.
This is accusing Forester of too much, but you see what I mean (or not).
It's simply taste, as we've all been saying.

-- 
Peter Stephenson     <pws@s-a.amtp.liv.ac.uk> or <PWS@UKACRL>  (BITNET)
Dept. of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics
University of liverpool, U.K.
Tel. +44 51 794 3784 or 3791
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu (Roger Squires)
Subject: Re: Star Wars: Dark Force Rising
Date: Tue, 01 Sep 92 05:44:11 GMT
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
Distribution: na

In article <1992Aug31.201647.9096@bsu-ucs.uucp> 00bjhoyt@bsu-ucs.uucp writes:
>
>I don't think rec.arts.sf.starwars exists...

	Yes it does.  Try editing your .newsrc to include it...
	(Sorry to post.  I don't know how to email to a uucp addr.)

Roger Squires
rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu
Xref: sparky rec.arts.books:15349 soc.culture.british:12016
From: ams@vax.oxford.ac.uk
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,soc.culture.british
Subject: Re: Why I read the Economist
Date: 30 Aug 92 12:46:13 GMT
Organization: Oxford University VAX 6620

In article <jyc.715056156@Leland>, jyc@leo.Stanford.EDU (Jon Corelis) writes:
> 
>    An article in the Science and Technology section of this week's
> Economist begins, "On the face of it, Shakespeare's view of men appears
> to fit the male pied flycatcher rather well."
> 
>    As a person whose politics are somewhat leftish, I occasionally have
> some qualms about my dedicated reading of this economically conservative
> journal, but then they come up with things like this.  How do they do
> it?  I mean, are there classes at public schools or Oxbridge that teach
> you how to do this?  

Ah, yes, the Economist. I have long been convinced that some of the articles in
that journal are written by idiots. Four years ago, we were treated to a few
paragraphs explaining why Oxford's Varsity match victory that year was a triumph
for free-market economics. One has to admire the single-mindedness (not to say
monomania) of the person who wrote it, but anybody who had attended Oxford or
the other place would have known that this is just the natural order of things,
and has no more to do with economic theory than the law of gravity.

Michael.
From: gxs11@po.CWRU.Edu (Gary Stonum)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Poetry Suggestion
Date: 4 Sep 1992 02:33:02 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Reply-To: gxs11@po.CWRU.Edu (Gary Stonum)
NNTP-Posting-Host: slc12.ins.cwru.edu


In a previous article, proberts@informix.com (Paul Roberts) says:


. . . or to be more precise, writes out the whole text of
                             ~~~~~~~~~~
Tennyson's "Ulysses."  I'm impressed with the industry.  At
least on par with the long excerpts from _Wordstruck_  Or do
you guys posting from ".com" domains have access to functioning
scanners?  In which case I'm jealous.

-- 
      ||    Gary Lee Stonum                gxs11@po.cwru.edu    ||
      ||    English Department                  216-368-3342    ||
      ||    Case Western Reserve University                     ||
      ||    Cleveland, OH 44106-7117                            ||
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: AZ.EPC@forsythe.stanford.edu 
Subject: dark fantasy
Organization: Stanford University, California, USA
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1992 11:12:33 GMT



Looking for a list of Afro-American writers who specialize in
horror/fantastic/supernatural short fiction.  Must be accessible
in book form.  Any leads welcome, please post to group.


Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: psm1@quads.uchicago.edu (patricia sayre mccoy)
Subject: Magical relism
Reply-To: psm1@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Distribution: na
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 12:52:05 GMT

I got in on the tail end of the discussion on magical realism.
Did anyone post a bibliography of titles under discussion?
If so, could you please e-mail it to me?  Some of the points
under discussion sound fascinating and I have a vacation 
coming up.  Thanks.
Pat Sayre McCoy

-- 
Bitnet:                   uclpsm1@uchimvs1
Internet:         psm1@midway.uchicago.edu