HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: Paul Schroeder
Subject: Re: Patrick O'Brien vs Horatio Hornblower...
Organization: BNR
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 19:55:01 GMT

In article <1992Aug25.232006.21407@nas.nasa.gov> wismith@amelia.nas.nasa.gov
(William R. Smith) writes:
>John Nall writes:
>	Being a devoted Hornblower fan, I immediately rushed down to
>	the local Public Library and found three books on the shelf by
>	O'Brien.  Pictures of sailing ships and such on the cover.  Oh,
>	boy! Couldn't wait!
>	
>	Well.....I was sadly disappointed ...
>	I thought that the O'Brien books were not even in the same
>	ballback as the Hornblower series with regard to fast-moving action,
>	vivid descriptions of life at sea, etc., etc.
>
>	Why am I posting this?  Hell, I don't know.  Seems like I should
>	tell *someone* what I thought about it.  
>
>
>
>
>I'm glad you told me.  I too was (am) a Hornblower fan and have given
>serious though to rereading the series.  When someone first posted about
>O'Brien I put him on my to-read list.  When a couple of other people 
>posted that he wasn`t up to Forester, I moved him down a notch.
>
>With your post, I think he'll slip a little more until I clear the
>decks of other to-read items.  (notice the nautical reference).
>
>Some technical management book I read in the last few years had
>a reference to Hornblower.   It may have been "Peopleware"
>by Lister and DeMarco.  They were discussing Hornblower's management
>style where he observes new individuals under his command and then
>decides what level of responsibility he can trust them with.  In
>time of crisis Hornblower has his response team ready with the "right"
>people.
>
>Reading that after all the years since I'd read a Hornblower made me
>want to get "Middshipman Hornblower" and start at the beginning of
>the series.
>
>
>Willia Sburgfort Smith
>Intel, SSD
>
>

First, IMHO a comparison between O'Brian and Forester is not appropriate. 
Forester attempted (and succeeded) in writing high-quality adventure novels
that accurately depicted the British Navy during the Napoleonic War.  O'Brian
has attempted (also successfully IMHO) to create a literature using the same
historical and social context.  While Forester's character's, including
Hornblower, are "flat", a primary focus of O'Brian has been in the development
of the Aubrey and Maturin characters.  Accordingly, I am not surprised that
many die-hard Hornblower readers are disappointed with O'Brian;  he is not
really very similar to Forester.  To restate comparisons I have made before,
O'Brian writes about the sea in the sense that Conrad wrote about the sea, and,
like le Carre, uses a fiction genre as a vehicle for creating serious
literature.  For what it's worth, O'Brian ranks among my top 3 or 4 favorite
contemporary novelists.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,rec.arts.sf.written,alt.postmodern,alt.cyberpunk
From: pwebb@void.ncsa.uiuc.edu (Peter Webb)
Subject: Re: Debil Postmoderns Cyberpunk
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 17:50:21 GMT

: 
:     My question, then, is whether there are any science fictional
: works that may be reasonably termed postmodern.  In particular, I 
: would like to know if there is any connection between Cyberpunk 
: or _The Movement_ and postmodernism.  
:

I'd suggest you read "Storming the Reality Studio," edited by Larry McCaffery.
It begins with an essay on PostModernism in SF and Serious Literature and
continues with many excerpts from PostModern works.  I don't have the book
at work, so I can't post the ISBN or publisher.

				Peter Webb (pwebb@hks.com)
From: crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu (Lauren L. Crawford)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Names
Date: 26 Aug 92 15:13:05 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

(Lauren L. Crawford) writes:
>
> I used to live in the Philippines, home of fabulous names.  I worked with
> a woman named Ding Dong Delacruz.  My bank teller's name was Bam Boom
> Hippolito.  Another woman I worked with was named Strawberry Shortcake.
> My landlady's daughter's name was Princess Daisy (named after the schlock
> novel and miniseries).  I could go on and on.  Remember, this is the 
> country whose (former) president's son's name is Bong Bong.  
> 


Oh, how could I forget the best of all:  the highest-ranking church official
in the Philippines is (what else?) **Cardinal Sin**!  I think his first
name is Jaime or something.


-- 
Lauren Crawford  //  crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu

Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things.
            -- J. Danforth Quayle  
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Subject: Sea Stories 
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 05:20:52 GMT

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.

That's Frang na Mara to you, old darling. 

First, one from the North Sea.  "One of the most famous of all thrillers 
and one of the best of all thrillers" is how the Irish Times described 
Erskine Childers' *The Riddle of the Sands*, and whom am I to argue with
such a respectable journal? Alas, poor Erskine got caught up in the
troubles and found himself shot dead. The 70th Anniversary of his execution
at Beggar's Bush Barracks falls on the 24th of this coming November. "The
enduring appeal of this book lies not only in its spellbinding and tangled
drama,... but also in the hauntingly atmospheric backdrop provided by the
fogbound seas and treacherous sands in and around the Frisian Islands".
Well, that's a bit of blarney of course, but it is a fine book and difficult
to believe written in 1905.

The second, also from the North Sea. Arthur Ransome's *We Did Not Mean To
Go To Sea*. A frighteningly accurate tale of an accidental passage from
Harwich, a small port on the East Coast of England, to Flushing, in Holland.
I have never read a book that more accurately depicted what a rough
North Sea passage under sail is really like.

The third is a true tale about a circumnavigation of England (yes,
England) in 1869 in a 21 footer. No motor, of course, and what makes
this tale almost unbelievable is the author's insistance on sleeping
on shore every night. *The Cruise of the Kate* by E.E.Middleton.

My fourth is quite different.

*Ocean Passages For The World*.  Prepared by the Hydrographer of the
Navy (the real one, the Royal Navy). As they say, "Ocean Passages is 
written for use in planning deep-sea voyages". You are Master of a
600 tonner tramping through the China Sea. Ocean Passages will remind
you of the problems ahead, and suggest solutions. 

Francis Muir
FELIX
Port of Redwood City
From: tovah@panix.com (Tovah Hollander)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Sea Stories
Date: 27 Aug 92 17:49:20 GMT
Organization: PANIX Public Access Unix & Internet, NYC

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

As long as polar exploration has been added to the topic, let me 
recommend _The Worst Journey in the World_ by Apsley Cherry-Garrard,
a survivor of the Scott Expedition.  If you find the entire book a
bit daunting (he's not a *great* writer), the chapter called "The Winter
Journey" is worth the time.  It describes the trip made by Cherry-Garrard
and two of the eventual non-survivors during the winter before the polar
assault.  Midwinter.  Real cold.  All for the purpose of collecting some
penguin eggs.

And let's not forget _Three Men and a Boat_ ... no, wait, sorry, wrong
thread.


-- Tovah Hollander
   tovah@panix.com -or- tovah@onion.salad.mssm.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: vrkaramc@mtu.edu (Karamchedu)
Subject: Re: Time for Burgess?
Organization: Michigan Technological University
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 22:22:47 GMT

spb0457@zeus.tamu.edu (SubGenius) writes:
>Karamchedu writes...
>> 
>> Interesting to come across someone who is reading Burgess (the first one I
>>know apart from whom I've suggested to read Anthony Burgess).   I read some
>>of his books: The Enderby series, Clockwork series, 1985, Piano Players,
>
>[deletia]
>
>+-------------------------------------SubG-------------------------------------+
>"Clockwork series"?  Since when is there a sequel to _A Clockwork Orange_.
>Closest I can think of is _Clockwork Testament_, which was actually an Enderby
>novel.
>
>
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------


I'm sorry about that. You're right.

Raj.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>-SubG
>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,rec.boats
From: stefan@leland.Stanford.EDU (Stefan Michalowski)
Subject: Cape Horn bibliography (partial)
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 92 17:00:02 GMT


on rec.arts.books, nall@sun8.scri.fsu.edu (John Nall) writes:
>...
>To wind this up, what I would *really* like to find is some fiction 
>or non-fiction about sailing in the Cape Horn area.  The Dana book has 
>a good section on it, as does the Slocum book.  In fact, even Mitchner, 
>in "Hawaii" has a good section on it.  But I want more! More!

You want more? We got more!

Here are some Cape Horn titles from my collection, all first-hand
accounts of Cape Stiff adventure in big square-riggers. They are
of varying literary merit, but if you like salt water, you'll enjoy
them all.

"Rolling Round the Horn", Claude Muncaster
"The Cape Horn Breed", "All Hands Aloft", W.H.S. Jones
"Cape Horn Passage", W.M. Hutton
"A Gypsy of the Horn", "A Stately Southerner", Rex Clements
"Round the Horn Before the Mast", Basil Lubbock
"The Life and Death of the Duchess", Pamela Eriksson
"Square-Rigger Days", C.W. Domville-Fife
"Mother Sea", "Pully Haul", Ellis Karlsson
"By Way of Cape Horn", "Grain Race", "Falmouth for Orders", Alan Villiers
"A Mate in Sail", James Gaby
"The Log of a Limejuicer", James P. Barker
"The Log of a Shellback", H.F. Farmer (sic)
"Master of the Moving Sea", Gladys Gowlland
"Under Sail", "Log of the Sea", Felix Riesenberg
"Home from Callao in a Hoodoo Ship", W.M. Watt
"First Voyage in a Square-Rigged Ship", Frank Worsley
"Heavenly Hell", Richard Sheridan
"Deep Water", Pryce Mitchell
"The Long Voyage", H.C. deMierre
"White Sails Crowding", C.M. Butlin
"The Tall Voyagers", Claire Rankin
"The Last Grain Race", Eric Newby

"Under Sail Round Cape Horn" Gunther Schultz (outstanding pen-and-ink drawings)


There are many more books about Cape Horn. Send me email if you
need more titles.

Stefan Michalowski
stefan@sunrise.stanford.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: spb0457@zeus.tamu.edu (SubGenius)
Subject: Re: Time for Burgess?
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: Texas A&M University, Academic Computing Services
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 18:27:00 GMT

Karamchedu writes...
>>"Clockwork series"?  Since when is there a sequel to _A Clockwork Orange_.
>>Closest I can think of is _Clockwork Testament_, which was actually an Enderby
>>novel.
> 
>I'm sorry about that. You're right.
> 
>Raj.

+----------------------------------------SubG---------------------------------+
I'm so happy when I'm right.
I'm always right.
But I'm not always so happy.

That's the problem with life;  no logic.

Or should that be "a lack of geometry and theology?"






Yours etc.,





SubGenius


Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: entpph@ritvax.isc.rit.edu
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Reply-To: entpph@ritvax.isc.rit.edu
Organization: Rochester Institute of Technology
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1992 12:47:04 GMT

In 6766 Margaret Kulska writes "You mean Cervantes wasn't a...
White Caucasian male?  What race was he, then?"

I am saddened to see that the superstition of race is still
with us despite the progress(?) of the last 50 years.

There is no such thing as race.  No one group of people has
achieved evolutionary superiority over another group.  No
person's "race" can be determined from his or her skeleton.
Under the skin we are all the same.  one example: probably more
blacks than whites have large crests of bone over their eyes--
a physiological feature closer to the apes.  Whites and
Asians, however, have straight hair, a much more apelike and
unevolved trait than curly hair.

Is the color of a person's eyes significant or meaningful?
Ditto the color of his/her skin?

The only meaningful and/or useful distinction among people that
I know about is the language they speak and it is difficult for
me to conceive of someone making a case for the superiority
of one language over another.

It is time to bury the racist notion of race and get on with
the business of building a safe, liveable world.

Erik Timmerman
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: emma@Csli.Stanford.EDU (Emma Pease)
Subject: Re: Why I read the Economist
Organization: Stanford University CSLI
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 00:23:56 GMT

In <9209012301.AA14426@cfdev1.shearson.com> mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto) writes:

>Mike, of course is right -- however this pompous persona does seem to post
>from the Palo Alto area.

This is true only in a general sense.  Stanford, where Francis works
and posts, is not in Palo Alto despite the errors stating it is in
many newsmagazines and newspapers.  Nor does Palo Alto claim Stanford;
Palo Alto does not allow mere Stanford residents to step on the
hallowed grounds of Foothill Park, that is restricted to Palo Alto
residents. 

I am surprised that Fido did not castigate Palo Alto for closing its
harbor after all I suspect that Redwood residents are just as likely
to mispronounce Cowper (or Berkeley) as Palo Alto residents, but, at
least they haven't closed their harbor.

Emma

ps. I am not sure whether the Economist is guilty of writing "Stanford
University in Palo Alto", but, I suspect it is.
From: tovah@panix.com (Tovah Hollander)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Sea stories
Date: 28 Aug 92 18:13:04 GMT
Organization: PANIX Public Access Unix & Internet, NYC

Jack Campin writes:
>For something thoroughly unromantic about iron, coal and steam,
>try B. Traven's "The Death Ship"... what he describes there (worn-out ships
>being sailed just so they can sink for the insurance money) is still going
>on, too.

And John McPhee's _Looking for a Ship_ (about the current U.S. Merchant
Marine) has much along these lines, too.


-- Tovah Hollander
   tovah@panix.com -or- tovah@onion.salad.mssm.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: 00bjhoyt@bsu-ucs.uucp
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Star Wars: Dark Force Rising
Date: 27 Aug 92 18:30:40 GMT

Has anybody seen or read "Star Wars: Dark Force Rising"  the second book 
in a three book cycle by Timothy Zahn.

Brad Hoyt
Ball State U.
From: crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu (Lauren L. Crawford)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Take a Chill (Re: The Literary Canon)
Keywords: race canon
Date: 2 Sep 92 19:29:33 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

In article <1992Sep2.172129.8019@athena.cs.uga.edu> heath@athena.cs.uga.edu (Terrance Heath) writes:

>In article <12084@optilink.UUCP> cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) writes:

>>In article <87485@netnews.upenn.edu>, crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu (Lauren L. Crawford) writes:

>># 
>># Ah-ha!  So now you're saying all Turkish people are fat, eh?   
>># Goodness, this thread is fun.
>># 
>>Why are liberals so dense?  I was giving an example of how I might
>>describe a mythical driver in a hit-and-run accident.  Yes, most
>>Turks I know are rather heavy.  So are most Americans I know of
>>German ancestry (including me).  I was giving a description such as
>>you might give to a police officer.  If I had said, thin, you would
>>have attacked me for that.  If I had said, "average build" I would
>>be criticized for that.
>
>Uh, Clayton. I think the above was intended as a joke. 
>

Oh, but Terrence, now he's saying all _German_ people and their
descendents are fat.  Or at least their American ones, anyway.   
Or maybe not German people themselves, just their descendents.
Their American descendents.  In other words, all American descendents
of Germans are fat.  But are they _black_?  And if they are, does
that make them thinner?

 


-- 
Lauren Crawford  //  crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu

I believe we are on the irreversible trend toward more freedom and
democracy -- but that could change.   -- J. Danforth Quayle  
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: nevins@husc.harvard.edu
Subject: re: title of poem from fragment
Organization: Yale CS Mail/News Gateway
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 10:54:29 GMT


The poem you're thinking of is W.B. Yeats' "The Second Coming,"
which begins

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold 
...

Chinua Achebe of course took your quote for the title of a novel.

You misquote the later lines (from the end of the first verse paragraph);
they should read

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

This poem is one of Yeats' most famous, and can be found in most anthologies,
including the Norton.


Best
Mark
From: cjh@tinton.ccur.com (Christopher J. Henrich)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Why I read the Economist
Date: 3 Sep 92 15:22:37 GMT
Organization: Concurrent Computer Corp., Tinton Falls, NJ

In article <10518@sun13.scri.fsu.edu> nall@sun8.scri.fsu.edu (John Nall) writes:
{On why the ECONOMIST (London) stays literate & witty while TIME and
NEWSWEEK (New York) do not)
>
>Oh, come on, now.  Both TIME and NEWSWEEK, as well as practically all of the
>daily newspapers, have changed their format/substance to try and "appeal to
>what the public wants".  It nauseates the professional journalists (the  term
>"professional" is used in the sense of "real" :-) in this instance) but the
>upper management mandates it.  So although in one sense they can be blamed,
>in another sense they're only giving people what they want.  (Not *all* people,
>of course.  Neither I nor thou).  They have to either make a profit or go into
>bankruptcy.  

The tragedy is that this process of dumbing-down is a *mutual*
interaction.  If the magazines aim low, then we the readers will be
induced to lower our standards.  Then the magazines will aim even
lower...  I see this happening in other parts of American culture,
like bookstores which seem to stock a less diverse, and more trashy,
selection as time goes by.

And yet, and yet... I've been seeing this go on for a few decades
now and the global situation hasn't gotten any worse.  If anything,
the range and quality of choice available now, in Suburbia, USA, may
be better than it was in the Fifties.  I said "may be" rather than
"is" because I am going by impressions and not hard data.  But I am
sure that the bookstores around here today are not unequivocally
worse than those of 30 years ago.  Individual ones do die out; or
they mutate into sellers of greeting cards and stationery.  But 
always there is another idealist starting out to run a "real"
bookstore.

I think the high literary quality of the ECONOMIST and other upscale
British journalism is related to the social class structure in
Britain.  It is more clearly defined than that in America.  (To some
extent, this is a matter of American bashfulness about class
differences.)  The ability to appreciate witty allusions is a mark of
membership in the "educated classes" (roughly: the people who can
expect to be the bosses); and a Briton who belongs to these will have
no qualms about letting it be known.

The dark side of this is that a Briton who lacks the marks of "U"
class membership may be brutally snubbed.  Last week, in the furore
over the marital misfortunes of the Royal Family, someone pointed out
that the Princess of Wales has some "non-U" speech habits.  In
particular, she sometimes turns a "t" at the end of a syllable into
a "glottal stop." This would be enough to make the courtiers in
Buckingham Palace look down at her.  Over the years, she would come
to feel frozen out.  If this can happen to Princess Di, who is safe?

Cheers and all that,
Chris Henrich
From: fuller@athena.cs.uga.edu (James P. H. Fuller)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Progress (Was : Re: The Literary Canon)
Date: 4 Sep 92 14:02:15 GMT
Followup-To: alt.flame
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens

heath@athena.cs.uga.edu (Terrance Heath) writes:

>	Allow me to offer a differenct scenario (one that has happened
>before), in which this black man might be be pulled over by your
>average city cop. (Perhaps after running a stop light or something.)
>Now, the cops don't know anything about the man, except that he's
>black. One thing leads to another, perhaps he resents being stopped
>and resists being arrested. Now the cops think he's probably on drugs
>or something. Judging from the looks of his clothes and his car (very
>expensive, very nice), he might even be a drug dealer, or a drug lord.
>Next thing you know, the man is on the ground, being beaten rather
>severely by cops who are afraid he might be on PCP or something.
>Well, its easy to see how things might go from there, and all from
>something as simple as being pulled over by a cop.

     Person A recounts a true story.  Person B counters by inventing
a "scenario" and then gets all indignant about the story he made up.
Heh heh heh.


>see, racism has died in law, but not in the hearts of people.  I think
>that is where is must really die before we can claim progress.  
>	WE ARE NOT YET IN THE PROMISED LAND. WE ARE STILL IN THE
>WILDERNESS.

     Dearie me, people are still people and not angels.  Handwring, 
handwring.  Better pass some more laws....


>"Black men loving black men is THE revolutionary act!"
>			-Joseph Beam_

     Poor Black women.  Poor Black children.  Left behind by the Revolution.


                                                -- jf
From: cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Take a Chill (Re: The Literary Canon)
Keywords: race canon
Date: 3 Sep 92 16:14:49 GMT
Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA

In article <1992Sep2.172129.8019@athena.cs.uga.edu>, heath@athena.cs.uga.edu (Terrance Heath) writes:
> In article <12084@optilink.UUCP> cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) writes:
> >In article <87485@netnews.upenn.edu>, crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu (Lauren L. Crawford) writes:
> >> In article <11986@optilink.UUCP> cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) writes:
# ## #IS!  The only circumstance where I have a functional definition of
# ## #a person's race is for the purposes of identification.  "Can you
# ## #describe the person driving the other car?"  "Yes, officer, white,
# ## #dark hair, dark complexion, heavy." 
# ##                              ^^^^^
# ## 
# ## Ah-ha!  So now you're saying all Turkish people are fat, eh?   
# ## Goodness, this thread is fun.
# ## 
# ## Lauren Crawford  //  crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu
# #
# #Why are liberals so dense?  I was giving an example of how I might
# #describe a mythical driver in a hit-and-run accident.  Yes, most
# #Turks I know are rather heavy.  So are most Americans I know of
# #German ancestry (including me).  I was giving a description such as
# #you might give to a police officer.  If I had said, thin, you would
# #have attacked me for that.  If I had said, "average build" I would
# #be criticized for that.
# 
# Uh, Clayton. I think the above was intended as a joke. 
# 
# If people don't start remembering to have a sense of humor, I'm going
# to start passing out valium around here.
# 
# Terrance Heath 

Why do I interpret Lauren Crawford's remarks as an attack?  Because
I'm getting tired of being told that I'm a racist for believing 
what Dr. King said about the content of our characters.

I've just completed a serious argument about whether the ancient
Greeks were white or not.  Crawford's remarks are pefectly in
line with this sort of idiocy.
-- 
Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid}!optilink!cramer  My opinions, all mine!
Alcohol prohibition didn't work; drug prohibition doesn't work; gun
prohibition won't work.