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From: lat1553@venus.tamu.edu (TEDESCO, LAUREEN ANN)
Subject: children's lit.
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Keywords: lewis, macdonald
Organization: Texas A&M University, Academic Computing Services
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 18:01:00 GMT

Does anyone out there ever read children's books?  For your
own amusement, not for a child's?  I'd love to see some good
discussion of some of the children's fantasists writing now,
say William Mayne, Philippa Pearce, Penelope Farmer, Susan Cooper,
Lloyd Alexander, Nancy Bond (she did a take on an aspect of Arthurian
legend in _A String in the Harp_), Eleanor Cameron, Alan Garner, Ruth Park.
	And I'm always interested in C.S. Lewis and George MacDonald.
	Some good historical novels for kids have been written by Barbara
Leon Garfield, and E.L. Konigsburg (particularly her novel about Leonardo

di Vinci and the model for the "Mona Lisa."  I can't remember the title).
	Anyway, children's lit. is my passion; I read more novels "for"
10- to 12-year-olds than anything else, barring what I have to read as
a grad. student.  And I'm really impressed by what's being written, esp. by
some British fantasists.  Am I the only one?  (It's taken me weeks to get
up the courage to post this.)

Laureen
From: LITERARY@CLOVIS.FELTON.CA.US (LITERARY)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.literary
Subject: Re: children's lit.
Date: 30 Sep 92 00:24:19 GMT
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Reply-to: Tim.Bowden@p0.f509.n216.z1.fidonet.org (Tim Bowden)
Fido-To: mjoseph@zodiac.bitnet

I love the rhythm and voices of teenage girls; they have
a lilt and pacing all their own.  I would like to find
that voice in print, but the only volume I know of which
seems authentic is written by a middle-aged male!  (_Story
of My Life_)

I would welcome suggestions of titles written by youngsters
or at least females from the first-person-singular, sort of
a Helen Cauldfield pov, if you know what I mean.
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Date:         Sat, 26 Sep 1992 18:15:43 -0400
From:         IAN YORK <YORK@MCMASTER.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: How it might be

        Michael McD:  The Lost Ones is probably a good example to start with
on this.  It certainly reflects the trapped and impotent nature of Beckett's
writing.  This is the most superficial of the themes in this - I don't think
I'm giving anything away by noting this.  It is also obviously a metaphor for
20th century (and other centuries, I'm sure, but I only know this one) life.
There is, however, much more to it from both a technical aspect and a deeper
level - I'm sure I missed most of the deeper meaning.
        By all means, begin typing in.  I can bring in my copy and take the
next shift.
        Thanks.   Ian
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Date:         Tue, 29 Sep 1992 21:33:09 -0400
From:         IAN YORK <YORK@MCMASTER.BITNET>
Subject:      The Lost Ones

>Consequences of this light for the searching eye. Consequences for the eye
>which having ceased to search is fastened to the ground or raised to the
>distant ceiling where none can be. The temperature. It oscillates with more
>measured beat between hot and cold. It passes from one extreme to to the o
>other in about four seconds. It too has its moments of stillness more or
>less hot or cold. They coincide with those of the light. Then all go dead
>still. It is perhaps the end of all. A few seconds and all begins again.
>Consequences of this climate for the skin. It shrivels. The bodies brush
>together with a rustle of dry leaves. The mucous membrane itself is affected.
>A kiss makes an indescribable sound. Those with stomach still to copulate
>strive in vain. But they will not give in.

        Although I'm not sure that this is explicit at all in the text, one
of the most intimidating things about the description of the environment is
the impersonality - the indifference - it expresses.  There is never a sug-
gestion that this changes in light and temperature are related to the inhabi-
tants.  In a way, even a concentration camp is more human than the tower here:
at least in the camp, the spotlights are there because of the inmates.  Here,
the Lost Ones seem more like mere parasites - less than parasites - in an
unnoticing world.

Installment #3:
Floor and wall are of solid rubber or suchlike. Dash against them foot or fist
or head and the sound is scarcely heard.  Imagine then the silence of the steps.
The only sounds worthy of the name result from the manipulation of the ladders
or the thud of bodies striking against one another or of one against itself as
when in sudden fury it beats its breast.  Thus flesh and bone subsist.  The lad-
ders.  These are the only objects.  They are single without exception and vary
greatly in size.  The shortest measure not more than six metres.  Some are fit-
ted with a sliding extension.  They are propped against the wall without regard
to harmony.  Bolt upright on the top rung of the tallest the tallest climbers
can touch the ceiling with their fingertips.  Its composition is no less famil-
iar therefore than that of floor and wall.  Dash a rung against it and the sound
is scarely heard.  These ladders are in great demand.  At the foot of each at
all times or nearly  a little queue of climbers.

        The length and rhythm of the sentences seems to mirror the irregular
fluctuations of the light and temperature.
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Date:         Sat, 26 Sep 1992 10:53:27 -0400
From:         IAN YORK <YORK@MCMASTER.BITNET>
Subject:      How it might be

>So where should we start?  I'd like to discuss something besides *Waiting* and
>*Endgame*, if only that I might *read* something other than these works.  I
>must confess that my reading of the novels is spotty and impatient . . . How
>about some of the short, late plays?  We could type them for the list,
>discussing what we type as we go . . . What do you think?
>       Michael McDonald

        Good idea.  I also would rather not do Waiting or Endgame - Beckett
is never obvious, but those are as close as he gets.  Rather than the later
plays (which are often extremely visual), I'd suggest one of his later short
?novels ?poems such as The Lost Ones, or How It Is.  (I don't have them at
hand and I can't remember the title of the one most suited for this.  To-
morrow I can bring in a copy and maybe make a test run.)
        I'm looking forward to this, hope it works out.
        Ian
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Date:         Mon, 5 Oct 1992 06:36:53 PDT
From:         LITERARY <LITERARY@CLOVIS.FELTON.CA.US>
Subject:      Re: Wham, bam, thank you Sam
Comments: To: LITERARY@ucf1vm.bitnet

Reply-to: Tim.Bowden@p0.f509.n216.z1.fidonet.org (Tim Bowden)
Fido-To: holmes@loro-next.stanford.edu

HU>   I loved it and I would be enthralled to read a discussion
HU> about it, and would dare add some comments of my own, but let
HU> it be known, I am no great commenter.


Too much damned diffidence directed hereabouts.  Some of the most
able commentators I know are also the more constrained.  I suspect
it's a feminine characteristic.  Oh, yes.  Why, in fact, I can
think of a certain male who will post in a nonce and absolutely
nothing to say in this very list!

The problem with that is we get into a groove which perpetuates
itself when all judge what should be by what is.  Every now and
again, someone should place her laundry list right here, or
indeed her socks.  That'll loosen us up.

More voices, more voices...
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Date:         Mon, 28 Sep 1992 09:21:25 EDT
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From:         "Lana Brown, VIARC, IRD" <VIAEM105@SIVM.BITNET>
Subject:      *The Lost Ones*

From:    Lana Brown, VIARC, IRD
I'm sure I could pick up a copy of =The Lost Ones= at the school library.
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.literary
From: jet5r@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Jose Eduardo Tabora)
Subject: Re:      Re: *The Lost Ones*
Organization: University of Virginia
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 00:50:47 GMT

        S1MBM@ISUVAX.BITNET writes:
> Abode where lost bodies roam each searching for its lost one. Vast enough
> for search to be in vain. Narrow enough for flight to be in vain. Narrow
> (scratch that last "Narrow")
> 
> Inside a flattened cylinder fifty metres round and eighteen high for the sake
> of harmony. The light. Its dimness. Its yellowness. Its omnipresence as
> though every separate square centimetre were agleam of the some eighty
> thousand of total surface. Its restlessness at long intervals suddenly
> stilled like panting at the last. Then all go dead still. It is perhaps the
> end of their abode. A few seconds and all begins again.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> These opening lines present a vagueness about the precise nature of the "lost
> bodies" (*whose* bodies?) juxtaposed in remarkable tension with a discourse
> which echoes that of logical positivism.  The discourse is positivistic
> inasmuch as it betrays near obsession with detail:  the speaker is not content
> merely to tell us how many metres round and high the cylinder is, but
> carefully totals up its total surface area of "some eighty thousand"
> centimetres. 

I am not sure the surface area refers to that of the cylinder.  The 
surface area of a cylinder with such dimensions would be app 9 million
square centimeters.   Thus either the author made a careless mistake
(he is not obsessed with detail) or he is refering to the surface area 
of something else.

note:

For a cylinder     A = pi * C * L

A  = Surface Area
pi = 3.1416
C  = Circunference (50  m)
L  = Length        (18  m)

The are will be in square meters, 1 square meter = 10,000 square cm.

jose
> 
> Michael Bruce
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Date:         Tue, 29 Sep 1992 08:21:29 EDT
From:         Ken Koester <MAINT2@ERS.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: attn: Literary critics

On Sun, 27 Sep 1992 15:39:19 CDT Mark Banaszak said:
>I read _Vineland_, and to be honest I didn't enjoy it as much as I had his
>other stuff.  Perhaps because it didn't seem asornnately paranoid, and perhaps
>because I feel so much more well adjusted than I did then.  _Vineland_ reminded
>me to much of some Tom Robbins novel as well.  _The Crying of Lot 49_ is still
>one of my favorites.  I sort of wonder what caused the connection between
>Sterne and Pynchon though.  There's plenty of people who toy with their
>readers, but Sterne seems to do it only playfully.  Pynchon always seemed to
>want me to ask myself whether what I percieve is real or self-delusion.
>mark banaszak

Well, I see TCOL49 as pretty playful up till near the end, I guess, and the
end itself reminds me of approaching the ideational equivalent of a black hole:
soon you're going to know all about the unknowable first hand, but you aren't
going to be able to tell anybody about it.  Both of these authors are
deliberately mixing up the bounds of what is fiction and what is real, and
both of them are having a lot of fun doing it.  The original poster wanted to
find something similar to Sterne--couldn't think of anything close, so threw
in the first playful author I could think of.  But if you don't like Pynchon
for that, try, ummmm, Rabelais.  My memory's on strike after 20 years, but
the endless lists and, uh, "vigorous" language in =Gargantua= anticipate
Sterne a little bit.  Not a lot, but the same city perhaps, if not the same
ballpark.
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.literary,rec.arts.books,rec.arts.fine,soc.culture.misc
From: ehle@leland.Stanford.EDU (Robert Ehle)
Subject: The NEW Yorker!
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 92 16:26:34 GMT

I haven't been able to find a newsgroup for which this post is
perfectly suited; I hope this is not too off the subject on any of the
groups I'm sending to.

I'm wondering what people's reactions are to the new format and
advertising strategy of The New Yorker magazine (see the October 5
issue). I'm thinking of cancelling my subscription unless they pull
the perfume ads. Also, I count eleven pages of ads in the first
fourteen pages of the magazine.

Am I already a curmudgeon?  Jeez, I'm only 34!

Please respond via either the groups above or e-mail.


-- 
		
				Rob Ehle
				Stanford University Press
From: chgs02@vaxa.strath.ac.uk (By learning and courtesy)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.literary
Subject: Re: children's lit.
Date: 1 Oct 92 13:59:34 GMT
Organization: Strathclyde University VAX Cluster

> 	Anyway, children's lit. is my passion; I read more novels "for"
> 10- to 12-year-olds than anything else, barring what I have to read as
> a grad. student.  And I'm really impressed by what's being written, esp. by
> some British fantasists.  Am I the only one?  (It's taken me weeks to get
> up the courage to post this.)

I read a fair selection of books for younger readers amongst the others.
A quite reliable source seem to be the Penguin Plus selections.
"My Sister Sis" (not sure of the spelling) is exceedingly good,
(mermaid fantasy)
as are many of the Anne Fine books.

And in the Puffins "Pongwiffy" by ?Ullsworthy? is splendid.
(Smelly witch with Brian the hamster as familiar, but lovable with it)

So are the Vlad the Drac series(vegetarian vampire, likes washing-up liquid).

And Diane Duane's "So you want to be a Wizard" is un-put-down-able.

Seasonally, with Christmas coming up, "The Christmas Bower"
(birdwatching in high street store)

I find great difficulty talking about these books without spoilers
and have made attempts to give away no more than the covers.

My nieces however are much more predictable in their buying + reading habits,
and are reading the equivalent of Mills+Boon romances in their variations
of Sweet Valley High Twins, and a new gothic horror/teenage love story variant
again distinguished by Book 1, Book 2, Book3 to tell them apart.
I read those in about 45 minutes each, and truthfully they are the worst 
mindcandy I currently touch.

Ann
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Date:         Sun, 27 Sep 1992 17:26:00 EDT
From:         ENGCLEWT@EKU.BITNET
Subject:      exemplary articles for grad methods course

        I am teaching a masters-level courseon methods (of
research and analysis) and professional writing.  I am
using Gerald Graff's Professing Literature as one text
to spur thinking, and I am trying to illustrate for the
students the full range of research and writing activities
in which people in modern English departments engage.
        For this reason, I would appreciatereferences to such
articles that you feel of truely exemplary quality and that
you think might be particularly well-suited for use with
first and second year graduate students.
        I don't want my students to think that all people
ever do is churn out new interpretations of works, but
I would be interested in really important interpretations.
I would be even more interested in articles exemplfying
other kinds of professional acticity in such a way as not
to seem totally beyond their reach.

        Thanks in advance.

        Rick Clewett (engclewt@eku)
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Date:         Sat, 26 Sep 1992 16:28:46 -0500
From:         S1MBM@ISUVAX.BITNET
Subject:      Re: Wham, bam, thank you Sam

Tatiana, thanks for your contribution to the nascent Beckett discussion.  Is
Cascando one of the later plays, or what?  I'm always intrigued by the
possibility of interpreting a work someone else lapses into silence when
confronting, but I think that, with Beckett, the act of reading should never
be so much an act of *explication* as one of enjoying the poetry and the sheer
dilemma presented by his work.  Beckett's works amount to *states of being*,
to be understood as such without *reducing* them to what we think we know off
(of) our state of being, rather than approaching them as puzzles to be "solved"
through the brio of explication.

Michael Bruce (was mbmcd)
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Date:         Thu, 1 Oct 1992 11:25:42 EDT
From:         Tom Frenkel <FRENKEL@CPMAIL-AM.CIS.COLUMBIA.EDU>
Subject:      The End of Culture
Comments: To: LITERARY@ucf1vm.cc.ucf.edu

(The following was returned "undelivered" 1st time I sent it.  Don't
know exactly what's going on, but sorry if you get multiples...)

-------------------------------------

 Hi -- The *new* New Yorker, first issue, has just come out.  And
 while I won't go into the way the thing looks in general (just too
 painful to contemplate), I thought it was symbolic that the following
 ad appears in this issue:

                 I intended to write you a 14-line sonnet.
                 But the words kept getting in the way.

 This is an ad for a jeweler's.  So naturally, the guy buys a "diamond
 design" for his friend instead ("available from $1000 to $5000").

 This is all very sad, of course, and on multi levels, too.  It's bad
 enough that we, as readers, are no longer expected to know how many
 lines are in a sonnet.  But it is also just so depressing to
 think that one should just go out and buy a substitute for one's
 personal, creative, etc. etc...
                                             --Tom
-------
Tom Frenkel,    Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center,
161 Ft. Washington Ave.,  DAP-1310,  New York, NY 10032-3784  USA
Internet:  FRENKEL@CPMAIL-AM.CIS.COLUMBIA.EDU
<<< Opinions expressed not necessarily those of my employer >>>
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Date:         Wed, 30 Sep 1992 02:57:58 -0500
From:         S1MBM@ISUVAX.BITNET
Subject:      Re: attn: Literary critics

For an interesting contemporary novel that does not simply echo Sterne but
which enthusiastically cites him and acknowledges its use of the "methods"
of Tristram Shandy, check out Fuentes' *Christopher Unborn*.

Michael Bruce
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Date:         Sat, 26 Sep 1992 15:07:00 EST
From:         Mia T <MKISSIL@DREW.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Wham, bam, thank you Sam

                                        Date:     26-Sep-1992 02:48pm EST
                                        From:     Kissil, Mia T
                                                  MKISSIL
                                        Dept:
                                        Tel No:   (201)-408-8209

TO:  _IN%"LITERARY@UCF1VM.BITNET"         ( _IN%"LITERARY@UCF1VM.BITNET"@MRGATE@
   GAMMA )


Subject: RE: Wham, bam, thank you Sam

Beckett, eh?  Well, alright, I'll bite...

I read a bit of Beckett last semester in a 20th Century British Drama
class.  In addition to the standard *Endgame* and *Waiting* (which we
already decided we weren't going to talk about), we read *Happy Days* and
several short plays, of which *Krapp's Last Tape*, *Not I* and *Rockaby*
were my favorites.  When I think of Beckett, the motif of being trapped
always seems to come to my mind, which would sort of go along with what
Michael (mcmbd?  I don't have the message at hand--please forgive) was
saying about Beckett trying to enact the impotence of modern society.
*Happy Days* is a fairly obvious example of this, but I think the same
arguement can be made for characters like Krapp, who is continually
trapped in his
vision of the past, no matter how old he is (even though he ironically says
at the end of the play "Perhaps my best years are gone.  When there was a
chance of happiness.  But I wouldn't want them back.  Not with the fire in
me now." (Beckett, *Krapps Last Tape* in *The Collected Shorter Plays of
Samual Beckett*, p. 63))

Anyway, self-evident?  I always think all my comments are, so bear with me
if you all are past this.

Incidentally, if anyone can make any sense out of *Cascando* to me, I would
be pleased.  Last semester even our prof. admitted defeat.

Tatiana
MKISSIL@DREW
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Date:         Mon, 28 Sep 1992 10:13:06 -0400
From:         IAN YORK <YORK@MCMASTER.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: *The Lost Ones*

        Some more thoughts abouts MB's comments on The Lost Ones (beginning):
I don't know anythinng about logical positivism; is there a 25-words-or-less
summary someone can give me?
        W.r.t. the suggestion that the *lost bodies* may not be precisely
human:  That is an interesting idea.  Beckett's other works suggest to me
that to him, the human body is a plastic container for the essence of
humanity.  Most of his protagonists are crippled or damaged in some way;
up to the disembodied head (used to mark a pawnbrokers' shop, wasn't it?)
in The Nameless, and the play in which the only part of the body illumin-
ated were the lips.  However, all of his work is exploring something specif-
ically human.  Consider then that the Lost Ones may indeed be conventionally
human but crippled in ways sufficient to reduce their mobility.
        As you say, the contrast between the specificity of the physical
description of the environmet, and the vagueness of the Lost Ones, is
disconcerting.  Were it not for the detail, I would say it was overinter-
preting to ask for a description of the Lost Ones; but Beckett is almost
inviting the question.
        From a technical viewpoint, I like the abrupt description of the
light:  If it were formed in conventional sentences (e.g. ...The light is
yellow; it waxes and wanes. . . ) there would be more of an impression
of beginning - the abrupt start provides the idea the the light is there
*now* - fitting better into the impression of timelessness and cyclicity.
        Tatiana's comment about Beckett protagonists being trapped strikes
me as being true but

me as being true but a little misleading.  His characters rarely try to
escape from their trap; but rather simply explore the confines of their
prison.  In many cases they seem unaware that there are any limits, no
matter how obvious they are to us.
        Ian
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