HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: le01167@portal.lasc.lockheed.com (Ron Nadel (x2025))
Subject: Re: Asimov and the decay of SF
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: Lockheed Aeronautical Systems Co. - Rye Canyon
Distribution: na
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 92 20:55:43 GMT

In article <5521@transfer.stratus.com>, jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com writes...
> 
>So which are you claiming it is here?  You said above that 
>you didn't think Le Guin did a good job with the characters
>(with which I strongly disagree. It is one of the best treatments
>of character in SF), you must feel that people like it because of
>its slant.  Does this mean that you think those of us who
>like Le Guin like her because here "plots flatter [our] choice
>of beliefs"?  Sorry, but that doesn't hold water. My political
>slant would probably be called "slightly to the right of center" in
>most areas but I love much of Le Guin's work. 
> 
>--
>Jim Mann            

Hey!  You're not Crawford Kilian!!  8^/

Seriously.  I acknowledge that I am in a minority in my opinions of Le 
Guin's work.  First of all, I am well aware of the fact that she is 
constantly in demand as a lecturer on literature and writing etc and is 
well respected.  Dispossessed did nothing for me, although most of my 
colleagues where I work loved it and recommended it highly to me, and I 
finally read it on my brother's strong recommendation.

What can one do when faced with such a popular work that left one cold?
What every other self-respecting critic would - ridicule the thing, and 
then look for faults in those who loved it.

Now, although I'm really exagerating a bit there, but only to point out the
pattern we all take when we don't agree with someone else, I am sincere in my
feelings about the book.  Although there were interesting characters, I 
don't think they were examples of high literary skill.  Now, give me the 
characterizations of Dostoyevsky, or Conrad, or Mishima, or McMurtry, to 
name a few.  Le Guin's characters may have been much more interesting than 
those found in your garden variety SF novel, but to me an interesting character
does not mean excellent characterization - although is something to be 
apopreciated to be sure.  And my remark about readers'identifications with the
slant of a novel clouding their judgement was really in response to someone's 
trenchant explanation that a person must be some male who is threatened (because
they're _not-correctly-politically-or-socially-oriented_) by a mature female's bold
expression to not appreciate said female's art.  I won't maintain that reader's
who loved Dispossessed did so only in response to some resonance with its slant.

To me the book was dull and I disagreed with a strong recommendation 
earlier in this thread.  I wonder if there is any other soul out there who 
also did not like this book (for god's sake speak up now!)?  

If not, then I'll go back and read the book again until I like it.


Ron
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Dangerous What?
From: lay@mdcbbs.com
Date: 20 Aug 92 10:34:48 GMT
Organization: M&E (Division of EDS), Cypress CA
Nntp-Posting-User: lay

Janice Miller (jmiller@mica.webo.dg.com) writes:

> Perusing one of Mike Morris's lists, I came across the following:
> 
>>  81. Choderlos de Laclos, _Dangerous Acquaintances_
> 
> Is this right?  Has the title really been translated that way?  It
> just doesn't seem . . . well . . . sleazy enough.  More like Pinocchio
> falling in with the thieves than a steamy story of seduction and
> betrayal.
> 
> Isn't "liaison" a synonym for "acquaintance" in English, as well as
> in French?

Not really.  In French, the primary definitions of "liaison" are "joint",
"junction", and "connection", but one of its major secondary definitions is
"love-affair" -- which is  exactly the steamy, sleazy meaning I think you're
looking for.  One might very well have a "liaison" with an "accquaintance",
but any French speaker would know EXACTLY what you meant -- and would probably
urge you to be discreet.

The title of the book in French is "Les Liaisons Dangereuses".  I've never
seen it translated into English in any way other that "Dangerous Liaisons".
Maybe this is an older British translation of the title: leave it to the
Brits to make even seduction, adultery, betrayal, and revenge boring ;-)

Ron Lay
lay@mdcbbs.com
rlay@france.sun.com
Xref: sparky rec.arts.books:14905 alt.horror:3430
From: cass8806@elan.glassboro.edu (KYLE CASSIDY)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,alt.horror
Subject: Re: The Dream of Unknown Kadesh
Date: 20 Aug 92 15:07:41 GMT
Organization: Glassboro State College, Glassboro, NJ

In article <!0!nb3q@lynx.unm.edu> rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu (Roger Squires) writes:

>As a result of the recent mention of H.P. Lovecraft, I picked 
>up several volumes of his short stories and have have found them

etc.

the story is actually titled "the dream quest of unknown kadath" and 
probably doesn't appear in your list because it isn't really a short story; 
rather it is an eery novel depicting Randolph Carter's journey through the 
netherworld. now, as to when it was written ...

by the way -- today is H.P. Lovecrafts birthday; he's 103.

party at my house -- we're going to watch the GOP convention, HPL 
himself could never have written anything so horrifying....

kc
Xref: sparky rec.arts.books:14548 rec.humor:25960 talk.religion.misc:13931 sci.skeptic:14266
From: rybicki@uctvax.uct.ac.za
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,rec.humor,talk.religion.misc,sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: God
Date: 13 Aug 92 17:04:02 +0200
Organization: University of Cape Town

In article <1992Aug12.142848.14999@cas.org>, sdr57@cas.org writes:
> In article <1992Aug10.191549.14245@linus.mitre.org> m23364@mwunix (James Meritt) writes:
>>In article <1992Aug10.183411.13270@cas.org> sdr57@cas.org writes:
>>}In article <1992Aug10.142955.4467@linus.mitre.org> m23364@mwunix (James Meritt) writes:
>>}>In article <sbuckley.713175264@sfu.ca> sbuckley@fraser.sfu.ca (Stephen Buckley) writes:
>>}>}m23364@mwunix (James Meritt) writes:

[deleted]

>>}>Isaiah:
>>}>5:26 And he will lift up an ensign to the nations from far, and will
>>}>hiss unto them from the end of the earth: and, behold, they shall come
>>}>with speed swiftly.
>>}>...........................................................................
>>}
>>}Gee, in my copy this reads:

[deleted]

STOP THIS NONSENSE NOW.

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT I MEANT, ASK ME - DON'T WASTE YOUR [=MY] TIME DEBATING
TRIVIALITIES WHEN YOU CAN GO DIRECT TO SOURCE.

GOD (Ms)

as communicated to:
 _________________________________________________________________________
|                                 |                                       |
|  Ed Rybicki                     |    Now you've got the hang of it      |
|  Dept Microbiology              | There's nothing you can't do with it  |
|  University of Cape Town        |         If you're very into it        |
|  PB Rondebosch 7700             |         You can't go wrong....        |
|  South Africa                   |                                       |
|  fax 27 21 650 4023             |              - Mad John               |
|  ed@micro.uct.ac.za             | (Ogden's Nut-Gone Flake, Small Faces) |
|_________________________________|_______________________________________|
From: cjh@tinton.ccur.com (Christopher J. Henrich)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Deja Vu Revisited (P. O'Brian, FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD)
Date: 13 Aug 92 22:37:11 GMT
Organization: Concurrent Computer Corp., Tinton Falls, NJ
Originator: cjh@newton.tinton.ccur.com

I just read Patrick O'Brian's _The Far Side of the World_.
This is in his series about Captain Jack Aubrey and
Dr. Stephen Maturin - in the same time and scene as the Hornblower
books but perhaps better written.  Near the end, I began
to feel that I had read this before, though I'm sure I hadn't.

(SPOILERS TO FOLLOW)





The deja vu (deja lu?) started with the episode in which Jack and
Stephen fall overboard and are rescued by a group of Polynesian 
Amazons (for want of a better name).  It got very strong with the
final chapters, in which a few of the crew are stranded on a small
island with increasingly hostile American sailors (the war of 1812
may or may not be over), and rescued with not a paragraph to spare.

Did O'Brian put similar incidents in another novel, perhaps
_Desolation Island_?  Did somebody else do likewise (Bolitho or some
other Hornblower look-alike)? Or am I just getting soft in the head?


With confused regards,
Chris Henrich
From:  (jmhodapp@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Inconsistent Details -- Trivia
Date: 20 Aug 92 16:18:44 GMT
Organization: haphazard, at best

In article <1992Aug18.160030.1467@nas.nasa.gov>, wismith@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (William R. Smith) writes:
> 
> Icarus writes:
> 
> 	With all the work that goes into the writing of a book, an author must
> 	be expected to slip up somewhere and leave in a detail that does not
> 	fit in with the rest of the plot.
> 	
> 		<< example deleted >>
> 
> 	Does anyone know of other inconsistencies in prominent books ?
> 	This kind of thing is great to impress people at parties :-)
> 
The Book of Lists (I or II, I can't remember) has about 15 of these. The Robinson
Crusoe, of course, as well as the Sherlock Holmes inconsistancy.  
Watson was had a war wound (bullet) in the leg in one story, his
injury had moved to the arm in a later story (I believe that there were
not  2 such wounds) Anyone out there have an old Book of Lists?

Jon  jmhodapp@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu
===============================
"I hope they don't try to arrest me over the phone.  I'm a pretty dangerous
dude when I'm cornered."
"Yeah, you go to pieces so fast everyone has to duck to avoid the schrapnel."
From: yarnot@csusac.csus.edu (Jan Yarnot)
Subject: Oh, come ON!
Summary: enough already
Organization: Moi?
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 92 01:38:21 GMT

I've been gone for 10 days (a report to the r.a.b.ble will follow tomorrow:
Suffice it to say that my biblioholicism is still quite healthy) and had put
"Athiests[sic] and Agnostics" in my KILL file long before I left.  I left the
Resident Expert, 15, to archive r.a.b. for me, so I wouldn't miss anything
(good save, Mike M.  I wasn't sure *where* you would go with that!)  And
DARNIT, people, there were STILL 13 (out of 79 new messages) of those messages.
Hasn't the topic been done to death?  Come on, now, shut up!  I'd have thought
by now it would be safe to eliminate the Kill command.  
 
 
A slightly related note: one of the reasons I had that on Kill (and the 
interminable Motie discussion on r.a.sf.written, too) was the fear that
trying to archive ten days of r.a.b.blehood would blow my account out of
the system, and, in fact, we were on warning #2 when I cleaned house today.
You have to understand, the ins and outs of "rn" are mysterious to me, and
moreso to the R.E.  She put everything in one mammoth file, and I haven't
a clue how to save the bits I wanted to keep.  The upshot of which is, I
hope some kind soul will send me the lists.  I have access to most of Mike's,
apart from the U of M one, but the collated 8 lists in particular was new to me
and I would be interested in having it.  Thankie kindly.


-- 
---Jan Yarnot, net.grandma.-- | A lifetime of smirking behind your hand
                              | is a lot better than a few seconds of
                              | triumph.
CSUS depends on my every word.              Kinsella, _Box Socials_
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: AZ.EPC@forsythe.stanford.edu 
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Organization: Stanford University, California, USA
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 01:09:35 GMT

>learn to live with structures more flexible than a canon, more inclusive.
>Perhaps we could view these structures as horizontal, not vertical, and we
>could also respect the idea that there is nothing all of us must read.  As
>Northrop Frye (whose ingenuous notions of a canon have been mentioned in this
>discussion) noted, you can recognize the canonical nature of a work by the
>fact that you're embarrassed not to have read it; I'm suggesting that this
>response has become simply irrelevant, that we must all define our own canons.
>
>        While we're at it, we might do so with a broad, generous notion of
>person and genre so that we do not exclude writers because of who they are or
>works because they come from despised literary forms.
>
>
>--
>                                Tom Maddox
>                            tmaddox@netcom.com
>                   "I swear I never heard the first shot"
>                Wm. Gibson, "Agrippa:  a book of the dead"


Right on!
From: zeleny@husc9.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Liberals, Little Girls, and Boolean Logic
Date: 16 Aug 92 17:57:56 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc3.1992Aug16.135756.14792
Organization: Harvard University Science Center

In article <+d7mgcm.tmaddox@netcom.com> 
tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox) writes:

>In article <1992Aug13.152226.14700@husc3.harvard.edu>
>zeleny@husc9.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny) writes:

>>>Cramer versus the Z-man!  This oughta be interesting!  Bets, anyone?

MZ:
>>Whether he chooses pen or pistol, keyboard or cutlass, Mr Cramer has
>>all the chances of a fart against a hurricane.

TM:
>	A very bad smell against a bunch of hot air blowing very strongly--
>what does it matter who triumphs?

How characteristic of Mr Maddox' bloated, dyspeptic, cheesy public
persona to conflate a malodorous byproduct of bodily decomposition
with an irresistible force of nature!

>-- 
>				Tom Maddox
>		    	    tmaddox@netcom.com
>		   "I swear I never heard the first shot"
>                Wm. Gibson, "Agrippa:  a book of the dead"


cordially,
mikhail zeleny@husc.harvard.edu
"Nous donnons la mort, nous saurons la subir."
Xref: sparky rec.arts.books:14868 rec.humor:26466 rec.arts.sf.misc:2624
From: jcbbalt@rocky8.rockefeller.edu (JCB Editor)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,rec.humor,rec.arts.sf.misc
Subject: Re: Agnostics and Athiests
Date: 19 Aug 92 15:05:12 GMT
Article-I.D.: rockyd.1992Aug19.110513.20287
Reply-To: jcb@rocky8 (JCB Editor)
Organization: Rockefeller Univ.,N.Y.C 10021

In article <jdecarlo.181.712514213@mitre.org> jdecarlo@mitre.org (John DeCarlo) writes:
>
>Well, personally I think of "atheist" as "a-" "theist", where a theist 
>believes in and cares about the existence of a deity or deities.  Therefore, 
>an a-theist is someone who either actively doesn't so believe, or someone 
>who simply doesn't care.
>
>John "Who cares if deities exist?" DeCarlo
>
Actually, an atheist, who doesn't believe in the 
existence of one God could still be a monotheist and
believe in the existence of many. 
carson
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,alt.horror
From: rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu (Roger Squires)
Subject: The Dream of Unknown Kadesh
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 92 00:30:16 GMT
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
Followup-To: rec.arts.books

As a result of the recent mention of H.P. Lovecraft, I picked 
up several volumes of his short stories and have have found them
quite refreshing, perfect for the odd 15 or 20 minutes of free time
(_The Shadow over Innsmouth_ was especially chilling).

The volume _The Tomb and other tales_ has a nice chronology of all
his stories with the dates, as "set down by the author himself."
Desiring to read them in date order, I soon noticed
that _The Dream of Unknown Kadesh_ is, of course, not on the list.
Can someone supply me with the date for this story?  Thanks.

Roger Squires
rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu
From: lieser@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com (Ed Lieser)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: REQUEST: "KILL your TV" songs
Date: 20 Aug 92 16:39:37 EST
Organization: Test PLease ignore

In article <86447@netnews.upenn.edu>, crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu (Lauren L. Crawford) writes:
> About that subject line.  Didn't Wendy O'Williams sing (if you could
> call it that) a song by that title?  And perform it onstage with 
> a chainsaw?  

I dunno, but Ned's Atomic Dustbin does a song called "Kill Your Television"
on their "God Fodder" album.  Only about a year old.

Ed
From: kaneko@icsi.Berkeley.EDU (Seiji Kaneko)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Anybody read these trash books?
Date: 21 Aug 92 19:14:13
Organization: International Computer Science Institute
	<1992Aug21.182558.8136@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU>
NNTP-Posting-Host: axiom.icsi.berkeley.edu
In-reply-to: amorgan@Xenon.Stanford.EDU's message of Fri, 21 Aug 1992 18:25:58 GMT

>>>>> On Fri, 21 Aug 1992 18:25:58 GMT, amorgan@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Crunchy Frog) said:
|> 	Re: Lem's _Eden_
>   I read this one recently, and  recommend it highly.  It starts somewhat
>   slowly, and might seem formulaic (the characters are refered to by their
>   vocation, i.e. The Engeneer, The Navigator, etc.), but in the end it all
>   makes sense, and is well worth the time.  It will also be helpfull if you
>   take into consideration the circumstances under which Lem was writing
>   (post-Stalinist Poland, late 50s), and what the target of the book was. 

|> Huh?  I thought he was and is still writing today.  In fact I thought
|> that _Eden_ was published fairly recently (last 4 years).  Am I full of
|> it?

Lem wrote _Eden_ in early 60's. I think it was published in 1960.
And I also recommend it.
I don't know his lastest work, but I think he is still writing. (I 
heard BBS broadcasted his interview last year.)
His work in 80s includes _Imaginary Magnitude_(translation avaliable).
Am I correct?

Seiji
--
Seiji Kaneko  kaneko@icsi.Berkeley.EDU,kaneko@sdl.hitachi.co.jp
..................................... 76270.2466@compuserve.com
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig)
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 92 00:05:52 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 

heath@athena.cs.uga.edu (Terrance Heath):
>	Y'know, its kinda funny. All this talk about "the canon", and
>Yet I don't think any of us has an idea exactly which literary works
>the thing contains.

Red herring.  We don't know 'exactly' which works the canon contains
because it's not that well defined.  The canon consists of those works
which show up on enough of the right must-read lists.  

Which is to say that there is a central core of works concerning which
there is relatively little debate, surrounded by a large number of
borderline cases.

The question is further fuzzed because the canon has multiple layers:
There are books that everyone should read, and there are books that
everyone pursuing a particular interest in depth should read.

The fact that this discussion has been proceeding at length with no
apparent misunderstanding among the people using the word 'canon'
supports my belief that the question is a red herring.

-----
Dani Zweig
dani@netcom.com

   God helpe the man so wrapt in Errours endless traine  -- Edmund Spenser

Xref: sparky rec.arts.books:14822 alt.religion.kibology:3534
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,alt.religion.kibology
Subject: Re: I need a word
From: thf2@ellis.uchicago.edu (Ted Frank)
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 13:37:53 GMT
Reply-To: thf2@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations

In article <h2dy_gk@rpi.edu> kasprj@rpi.edu writes:
>In article <1992Aug18.051155.7735@leland.Stanford.EDU>, jchokey@leland.Stanford.EDU (James Alexander Chokey) writes:
>|> In article <1992Aug18.021437.18935@morrow.stanford.edu> francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir) writes:
>|> >JAREA@UKCC.UKY.EDU writes:
>|> >
>|> >	I always thought Synecdoche was a city in New York State
>|> > 
>|> >That may be, but there are two Notasynecdoches, one in East Texas, and 
>|> >the other in Louisiana. They are both pronounced different and funny.
>|> 
>|> 	I'm not sure, but I think that Jarea's comment may have been a very
>|> witty joke.  There is a city in NY called Schenectady (I think I got the 
>|> spelling right.)

Not only that, but I think Francis was referring to Nachidoches!  Wait!
We could be on to something here!

Film at 11.
-- 
             ......................................................
             ted frank | thf2@midway.uchicago.edu | std disclaimers
             the university of chicago law skool, chicago, illinois
             you can't throw me to the lions -- i'm charlton heston
Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago
Date: Friday, 14 Aug 1992 11:00:55 CDT
From: Cole Kendall <U48073@uicvm.uic.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Anybody Else Read History?
 <1992Aug13.220752.25501@leland.Stanford.EDU>
 <1992Aug13.230230.3067@leland.Stanford.EDU>

In article <1992Aug13.230230.3067@leland.Stanford.EDU>,
jchokey@leland.Stanford.EDU (James Alexander Chokey) says:
>
>        Like my friend and colleague, Eric Rauchway, I too read history--  as
>part of my job.

This comment made me realize that I, too, read history as part of my
job.  For my personal reading, I all too rarely read history.
I read mostly fiction, with some criticism and political writing.
For my job, I mostly read journal articles.

Yet part of my recent research involved understanding some reasonably
technical aspects of the way that mutual savings banks are regulated.
This led me to the library, where I found a surprisingly large number
of volumes concerning the history of the savings bank industry (many
sponsored by the industry).

I became engrossed in stories of the Rev. Henry Duncan, the Scot who
founded the first savings bank in 1810 and Thomas Eddy who brought
the idea of the savings bank to the U.S. in order to help the
"lower classes." (For a prePC history, see *Savings and Savings
Institutions* James H. Hamilton, 1902.)

And now I realize that I read history as part of my job.

Cole Kendall
From: twain@milton.u.washington.edu (Barbara Hlavin)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Deja Vu Revisited (P. O'Brian, FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD)
Date: 14 Aug 92 15:36:16 GMT
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle

In article <1992Aug13.223711.12903@tinton.ccur.com> cjh@tinton.ccur.com 
(Christopher J. Henrich) writes:
>
>The deja vu (deja lu?) 

Some years ago The New Yorker had a carton that remains one of my 
favorites.  It is a Steinberg-like (maybe the artist *was* Steinberg) 
sketch of a framed mirror, a book, and an uncorked wine bottle.  The 
caption:  "Deja vu, deja lu, deja bu." 

--Barbara 
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: marcy@sqwest.wimsey.bc.ca (Marcy Thompson)
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon & Women
Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Surrey, British Columbia, CANADA
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 20:25:16 GMT

In a recent rec.arts.books article, Mike Morris wrote:
>
>But, England not being the center of God's creation (the centre, I'll
>grant you) how about American novels?-
>    Men
>       Melville, Twain, Hawthorne, Cooper, Crane, James
>    Women
>       Stowe, Alcott, Cather 

Warning: I'm about to go off on a tangent. 

In my lifetime, I have seen lots of folks refer to Louisa May Alcott 
as part of the canon of 19th century American writers. In so far as 
the canon relates to what is taught at university, I'd like to ask if 
anyone on this list was ever assigned a book by Lousia May Alcott in 
a standard Literature course (say a survey course or a first- or
second-year lit course). 

The reason I ask is that while I *do* know of specialized courses
(American Women Writers, The Influence of Whitman on American Letters,
and Books Based on Earlier Books) which have assigned her books,
I have never heard of a standard course which includes her work.

As a result, I am puzzled when I see her on the list of canonical
authors. Is it just that in the course of my formal education I
only happened to encounter professors who disdained Alcott for some
idiosyncratic reason, or is it something else? 

(What else it might be I don't purport to know. I just wonder if
anyone else has noticed this phenomenon.)

Marcy

-- 

Marcy Thompson		
  SoftQuad (West)			
    marcy@sq.com