From: s1mbm@isuvax.iastate.edu
Subject: Re: *Any* kind of r.a.b split, or at least a *serious* discussion
Reply-To: s1mbm@isuvax.iastate.edu
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa
Date: Fri, 25 Dec 1992 21:08:49 GMT

In article <1992Dec25.091537.28480@nevada.edu>, wwhitman@nevada.edu (MICHAEL WISE) writes:
>In article <JMC.92Dec24163436@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:
>>>

>I thought I would just slide in right here. First, my exchanges with 
>Heather have not been, shall we say, pleasant. By e-mail and on the
>net, I have been told to do many interesting things with parts of my body.
>I did not intend to offend her with my reply to her post on Gertrude
>Stein's AUTOBIOGRAPHY. I am a big proponent of Hemingway, right or wrong,
>and others on the net have seen me defend him vociferously against mostly
>feminist attacks >my posts on the net have been positive. I never meant to call her a dyke;
>as she was the author of the post, I suppose she took my reference to
>dykes elevating Stein at the expense of Hemingway to mean her. Her vit-
>roil caused me to go back and re-read the AUTOBIOGRAPHY and Jeffrey
>Meyers biography of Hemingway (thus explaining my relative silence).
>I don't feel I was in error when I characterized Stein as a fat, lazy 
>lesbian with a serious grudge against the more successful Hemingway.
>He was her pupil, but he also did a great deal for her, especially 
>to help her get her work published (The Making of Americans appeared
>serially in the Transatlantic Review while Ford Madox Ford was in
>America and Hemingway was at the helm). Her experiments in style were
>unsuccessful, mostly because, as Hemingway put it, she was too lazy to
>re-write anything and make it understandable for the reader. Hemingway,
>for all his faults, worked hard to develop his craft, rising early to
>write and revise, and Stein's eminence in his eyes was diminished by
>her failure to do so. That she was fat, that she was a lesbian, is hardly
>in dispute; that she lived on her father's money is easy to determine;
>that she failed as a great Cubist art critic is supported by Braque's
>comments that she hadn't the faintest what they were trying to do. 
>
>I consider these to be facts, and on a literary subject. I fear that
>I don't get much chance to read *new* books and provide the r.a.b. with
>my opinions of them; however, I believe books are about ideas. Ideas
>come to centerstage here, and the discussion rightly centers on the ideas
>rather than the text of the book. Books are good sources of discussions
>about all kinds of issues, and people who love to read also love, not just
>to ingest books, but to discuss the issues raised by them. 
>
>I am not above trading insults with Heather; I just don't think it will 
>go anywhere. She has been villified, and accordingly she has become a
>martyr, a martyr for a cause that Mark (if he were not so sadly embroiled
>in and so tired of it) would have written a finer parody of than the MERRY 
>SPINSTERS OF R.A.B could ever hope to be. The cause to return this group
>to an idyllic past where everyone just talked about books, with the 
>corollary that people who sit on the sidelines would contribute to their
>heart's content without fear of biting satire or reprisal, is contrary
>to the very heart of this newsgroup. This newsgroup is not about books,
>but the ideas that come out of books; naturally it is open-ended, and 
>it often goes too far. But where do you draw the line? On the other
>point, I like the constant probing of my ideas (and of my grammar) be-
>cause it makes me think about what I say (and how I say it). Some of it
>is inconsequential, some of it is substantial. However, it is interesting
>to see how people react to you. I don't see this as a public forum; I 
>would never make some of the statements I make if I were actually in a 
>room with you people, because I would want you to like me. Here, I don't
>have to live with you, work with you, sleep with you, pass pleasant moments
>with you; if you don't like me, I can just turn off the computer, refuse
>to answer your e-mail, decline to defend my posts. I communicate differ-
>ently here; but I'm sure that some of you know me better than my closest
>friends, because here I can be truly honest. Scathingly honest. And I
>fully expect your reactions to be as honest. I would hate to think some-
>one was holding something back, when they have nothing to lose by being
>straight with me.
>
>I do not fault Heather for being straight with me. I fault her for wanting
>me to change my opinions so that they would be germane with hers. I can
>and have done that in conversations to save the conversation from becoming
>unpleasant. However, it is not honest, and it is not right.
>
>___________________________________________________________________________
>Michael Wise 	(wwhitman@nevada.edu)	UNLV English
>
>"Now I want you to tell me just one thing more. Why do you hate the South?"
>"I dont hate it," Quentin said quickly, at once, immediately; "I dont
>hate it," he said. I dont hate it he thought, panting in the cold air, 
>the iron New England dark: I dont. I dont. I dont hate it! I dont hate it!
>				--William Faulkner, Absalom! Absalom!
>
>
>

Give me a break.  To use value-laden words like "fat", "lazy" and "lesbian"
together while claiming to be merely descriptive is the height of
disingenuousness.  Have you taken a look at your library's holdings of
Stein's work?  To say that a person who produced such a substantial body
of *work* was lazy insults us all.  You should be so lazy!  Also, I find it
interesting how you begin by complaining about feminists attacking
Hemingway, only to narrow your complaint against a "fat, lazy lesbian."
Nice move, bub.  Maybe you think it's cute to make such gestures of
tacit conflation; I find it merely crude.

michael mcdonald
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