HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: jzimm@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Joann Zimmerman)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: She's baaaaack.....Camille Paglia
Date: 2 Oct 92 21:16:59 GMT
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX

In article <1992Sep27.211300.4146@leland.Stanford.EDU> jchokey@leland.Stanford.EDU (James Alexander Chokey) writes:

>	To be fair to Himmelfarb, though, I have to admit that I can empathize
>with her.  Her complaints about the various changes in history, it seems to
>me, all boil down to aesthetic concerns--  she likes the idea of having _a_
>history, one grand meta-narrative of great and important people and events,
>rather than a plurality of uncomplementary (and occasionally incompatible)
>histories.  It's a rather old-fashioned idea (in academic circles at any rate)
>but I can understand its appeal. 

She's pretty old-fashioned in other respects, that's for sure. (But
then again ...) The NYT Sunday book section had a piece by her sometime
during the last year or so, in which she decried the passing of the
footnote. Personally, I think the footnote is alive and well; I was
working through some material on the Book of Durrow yesterday that was
considerably more footnote than text. And I strongly suspect that
hypertext et al. are updated forms of footnotes. But where she really
betrayed her old-fashionedness was in her paean to Kate Turabian,
famed dragon-lady secretary of the U of Chicago graduate office; I got
the feeling that the real reason she was hot about footnotes was their
use as a rite of passage for graduate students.


-- 
"Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector's passion
borders on the chaos of memories" 
                                                -- Walter Benjamin
 ...!cs.utexas.edu!ccwf.cc.utexas.edu!jzimm
From: rooney@cheshire.oxy.edu (Michael Sean Rooney)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: the Novel of Ideas-- is it a good Idea?
Summary: VINELAND is better than some people think
Keywords: Pynchon
Date: 5 Oct 92 21:26:04 GMT
Followup-To: rec.arts.books
Organization: Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA 90041 USA.

In article <1992Oct5.203743.162@eff.org> mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin) writes:
>In article <1992Oct4.214016.7995@klaava.Helsinki.FI> amnell@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Marko Amnell) writes:
>
>>So, naturally, I had high hopes when I heard on the BBC Late Show that
>>Pynchon (remember him, hippie dude, engineer, etc. ) had written a _new_
>>novel.  I rushed out to buy _Vineland_ hot off the presses.  You can
>>imagine my dissappointment.  I don't think I got to page 20 before I
>>threw the book accross the room.  And to think I blew $30 on the junk!
>>Books are expensive in Finland because of an infernally high VAT.
>
>I'm sorry you didn't get past page 20 of VINELAND. I note that a lot of
>people say the same about GRAVITY'S RAINBOW. The scope of VINELAND is far
>narrower than the scope of GR or V; but the book is surer and truer. It is
>hard for an American of a certain age to read VINELAND without feeling a
>certain simultaneous exhilaration and nausea of recognition--Pynchon
>understands perfectly how the hippies of the '60s betrayed themselves.
>
>
	I'll throw in my good word for VINELAND, which I found to
be the most mature writing Pynchon has yet produced.  Perhaps one
reason Marko disliked it (other than being less able to empathize
directly with the U.S. condition of the last 30 or so years as a
non-North American) is that VINELAND is not a "novel of ideas", at
least not in the sense that's been tossed around on this thread --
Pynchon isn't trying so hard to dazzle with obscuranta (as fascinating
as it might be) and grand patterns (although there is a share of
this in VL), and instead focuses on characterization and the 
contemporary human (particularly suburban white American) condition.
I think a good hint to Pynchon's direction in VL is found in the
review he wrote for the NYTBR on Garcia Marquez's LOVE IN THE TIME
OF CHOLERA.  Just as LITTOC was a step away from the "great novel
[of ideas]" form of 100 ANOS DE SOLEDAD to something less grand but
more human, I think VL stands in a similar relation to GR.  Of course,
the case might be made that VL is *too* restricted in scope -- I, 
for example, found it to be a distinctly Californian or Western U.S.
book -- but there's hardly anything terrible about locality (e.g.,
Joyce or Faulkner, who are both better appreciated with visits
to their native areas).

 	This all conjecture, though.  But I'm almost tempted to
bet that Pynchon's next work will be closer to VL than to V or GR,
in many respects.

	P.s.  Mike Godwin--why in Madonna's name do you put so much
dead space between your articles and your .sig?

Cordially,

Michael S. Rooney
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: Dashiell Hammett
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Keywords: Red Harvest
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 17:31:24 GMT

In article <1992Oct5.224337.5642@oracorp.com> harper@oracorp.com (Douglas Harper) writes:

>Now, can anyone tell me what the insult "fish eater" from the same book
>means?

Could you reproduce the sentence in which the term appears?


--Mike




-- 
Mike Godwin,    |"Liberty resides in the rights of that person
mnemonic@eff.org| whose views you find most odious."
(617) 864-0665  | 
EFF, Cambridge  |                           --John Stuart Mill
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,misc.writing
From: tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox)
Subject: Re: Natalie Goldberg & teaching writing
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 92 07:14:33 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Distribution: usa

In article <1992Sep25.233119.1560@midway.uchicago.edu> elle@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox) writes:
>>	I'd find Natalie Goldberg's advice about writing much more 
>>convincing if she'd ever finish her (considerably overdue) novel.  I am
>>also willing to admit that this is perhaps unfair; however, since the 
>>only public writing (as opposed to stacks of notebooks) she has produced
>>seems to be two books about how to write ... I would like to see something
>>that is expressive on some other topic or in some other mode.
>
>She's a poet, Tom.  She makes her living writing poems and doing readings, 

	Funniest line I've seen on r.a.b since Joe Green was carried off by
pterodactyls.  Unless some alternate universe has Taken Over while I was away
for the weekend, Natalie Goldberg makes a very good living selling copies of
her books on writing and lecturing to people about the stuff in those books
and running workshops according to the methods discussed in those books--

	Her poetry may or may not yield car fare; it sure as fuck doesn't earn
her a living--just ask a few publishing poets about how that one works.

>so far as I've heard, with teaching and Zen and writing how-to-write books
>on the side.  (And if those books are inspiring other writers, they're
>doing their job.)  Writer != novelist, but you knew that.

	I didn't invoke her novel arbitrarily.  She mentions it as forthcoming,
refers to the writing of it, the material in it, etc.  

>Besides, as Fred Welden once observed in misc.writing:
>
>| Getting published seems to be kind of like getting pregnant:  some perfectly
>| worthy people can try very hard and it never happens, some people who have
>| no business doing it have it happen almost by accident, and a whole lot of
>| people want to do it some day but aren't making the effort right now.

	Yeah, well, that may or may not be true, but I'm still more inclined to
listen to advice about writing from someone whose writing I have read and 
admire than from someone whose writing about writing is the only thing I have
to go on.  And while I understand that meta-writing is still writing, N. G. is
not attempting to instruct (enlighten, amuse) the masses about meta-writing
but about writing in general.

	It's not that I think she's a bad person, or even a bad influence 
(much of what she says seems reasonable enough to me, though a bit pop-eyed);
I just feel a certain Wizard of Oz ambience in her whole act.
-- 
				Tom Maddox
		    	    tmaddox@netcom.com
		   "I swear I never heard the first shot"
                Wm. Gibson, "Agrippa:  a book of the dead"
From: jim@rand.org (Jim Gillogly)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Fictitious Fiction
Date: 29 Sep 92 00:25:31 GMT
Organization: Banzai Institute

And then there's "Possession", where A. S.  Byatt makes up two
19th-century poets with large fictitious corpuses (corpora??) and
produces extended examples in different styles from many of their works,
even showing the influence of the poets on each other.  And then she makes
up half-a-dozen 20th century critics and biographers of these poets, and
produces text from some of their works, each showing the foibles and
prejudices of the modern fictional authors.  An amazing tour de force!

-- 
	Jim Gillogly
	jim@rand.org
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: baker@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Andrew Baker)
Subject: Re: Kafka's "Metamorphasis"
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University.
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1992 05:39:16 GMT

In article <1992Oct1.155609.19271@gtephx.UUCP> meredithd@gtephx.UUCP (Douglas Meredith) writes:
> . . .
>My first interpretation was that the story was an allegory for the
>alienation a person might go through upon contracting some terminal,
>socially tabu disease.
>However, on further reflection, this seemed a little trite. . . .

For people interested in amusing, overly literal interpretations of Kafka,
there is this law professor (I can't remember her name, but it is a her) who
claims that the Hunger Artist was a "Posnerian entrepreneur" and that that
story was intended as a critique of capitalism.  Richard Posner discusses
this interpretation in his book Law and Literature.
From: wojdylo@maths.uwa.oz.au (INFIDEL)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: She's baaaaack.....Camille Paglia
Date: 3 Oct 1992 12:50:24 GMT
Organization: The University of Westrn Australia
NNTP-Posting-Host: madvax.maths.uwa.oz.au

Tim Starr writes:


>But this is only pertinent to those who accept the justness of banning job
>discrimination.  I don't.  If I had to choose between Elle Macpherson and
>someone else (possibly male) who could, for example, type as well, I'd hire
>Ms. Macpherson, you'd better believe it!  I should be so lucky...

What would you do?   Watch her tits bobble up and down all day as she types? 
And how would you accomodate her training schedule that keeps her body
in shape --- or would ask her to give up modelling ?

Why should she be interested in scum like you ?



I.



Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: smurray@mta.ca
Subject: Writers groups
Reply-To: smurray@mta.ca
Organization: Mount Allison U, Sackville, N.B. Canada 
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 18:03:00 GMT

I guess the subheader says it all.  Are there any newsgroups
for writers?  (poems, stories, novels, screenplays, etc.)

Many thanks,

Sean Anthony M.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: wwhitman@nevada.edu (MICHAEL WISE)
Subject: Re: literature students
Organization: University of Nevada System Computing Services
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 20:53:55 GMT

In article <1a91oeINNhkh@uniwa.uwa.edu.au> wojdylo@maths.uwa.oz.au (INFIDEL) writes:
>
>If Barclay is frustrated by wet-behind-the-ears uni students, why
>doesn't she do the sensible thing and get out and meet the people of her
>calibre ? Travel to asia, for instance. 
>
>Sounds to me like Barclay's procrastinating her life. And her soul's
>letting her know about it.
>

I spent three years teaching English in Taiwan after college. I spent
my visa trips on beaches in Thailand, The Philippines, Bali. I travelled
from Hong Kong to Europe by train. In Peking, I weedled a room out of
an old caretaker at a university who spoke just like my classical Chinese
professor (in the right dialect, Mandarin Chinese is one of the most
sonorous and lyrical languages. I could sit and listen to someone reciting
the classics in it for hours). In Spain I had an epiphany seeing a man
and a woman kiss on a train platform, and wrote a story about it that 
later came true. An Irish-American girl in a hostel near Galway changed
the focus of my life for me, just by telling me not to do anything I 
didn't love. If not for her, I would be buried in a thinktank tabulating
statistics on international trade, instead of in front of a classroom.

This travel thing is not such a bad idea.

Michael Wise
Afoot and light-hearted, I set out on the open road...
--ww
From: mworley@mathcs.emory.edu (Meg Worley)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Books in the time of Love
Keywords: Flaubert, fairs, fair ladies
Date: 1 Oct 92 23:57:44 GMT
Organization: Emory University, Dept of Math and CS


Unless I have missed something, there has been very little         
discussion of books being the driving force and love being
secondary.  Perhaps much can be made of the fact that it
has happened this way for me.

In my case, Kerouac's *The Dharma Bums* drove me unwillingly
into a protracted affair with a roofer whom my mother, to 
this day, refers to as the Unsuitable Young Man.  Eventually,
thank heavens, I realized that he was not the earthly
incarnation of Japhy Ryder at all, and that when he boasted
of not having read a book since high school, he was to be
pitied and not admired.  

I'm not sure whether or not I've learnt anything in the
years since, but at least the Highly Valued SO owns more
books than I do.

Rage away,

meg

-- 

 Meg Worley 				Internet:  mworley@mathcs.emory.edu
From: dougm@hal.com (Doug Moran)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Baseball (was: Re: Attractiveness (was: Re: She's baaaaack)
Date: 6 Oct 92 17:25:21 GMT
Reply-To: dougm@hal.com (Doug Moran)
Organization: HaL Computer Systems, Inc.; Campbell, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: gizmo.hal.com
In-reply-to: hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu

In article <5OCT92.23112151@vax.clarku.edu>, hhenderson@vax writes:
>nadel@attatash.aero.org (Miriam Nadel) writes:
>
>In article <5OCT92.02580269@vax.clarku.edu> hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu writes:
>>>Don't worry about it.  No epithets invented by any of you r.a.b.bits
>>>will come close to what I was called by the Red Sox fans on rec.sport.baseball
>>>when I told them to quit whining about the 1986 World Series and admit
>>>that the Mets deserved to win.
>>
>>But, Heather, what you have to understand is that books are merely frivolous
>>pleasures while baseball is important stuff.

You received the same sort of response that most people get on the net
when they question the validity of another person's religious beliefs --
a lot of flaming.  The Red Sox -- like Catholocism or Judaism -- are a
religion, a way to help assuage the collective guilt of an entire region
of the country.  The feelings for the Red Sox run deep, and to question
them is to invite the wrath of New Englanders, a sarcastic, laconic
bunch, to say the least.  (And before you ask, I was born in Connecticut.)

Different areas of the country have different ways of dealing with their
collective guilt.  Chicago has the Cubs, for example.  New York has
Woody Allen.  And so on.

For excellent descriptions of how the psyche of New England and the
fortunes of the Red Sox are intertwined, try any of Roger Angell's
articles on the subject in THE SUMMER GAME or SEASON TICKET.  (Hah, bet
you thought I couldn't turn it back to books!)
-- 
    Doug Moran        | A worldwide shortage of #2 pencils has left many tech
   dougm@hal.com      | writers unable to take notes or doodle during meetings,
 {...}!hal.com!dougm  | forcing them to pay attention or end the meeting by
 HaL Computer Systems | flinging live poisonous insects at the other attendees.
From: bjag@nwu.edu (Bharathi Jagadeesh)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Book: Misty
Date: 28 Sep 92 18:25:20 GMT
Followup-To: rec.arts.books
Organization: Northwestern University

I have a question about the book Misty. I recently watched a movie made
from the book and I was very confused, because I always remembered Misty as
being the story of a _girl_ and her horse. In the movie, the main character
was a boy, and he had a little sister who was his sidekick. 

Do I remember the book incorrectly? Was the main character just a little
boy who I identified with in spite of his sex, or did they change the book
for the movie? I even remember the travails of a girl trying to do the
things done in the book (enter the round-up, earn money, etc.) being an
important part of the book. 

My husband's accusing me of having a "sexist" memory about the book, so I'd
appreciate info on what the book really was about.

Thanks

Bharathi Jagadeesh                 bjag@nwu.edu
From: anlyyao@igc.apc.org (An-Ly Yao)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Rushdie readers
Date: 1 Oct 92 12:50:00 GMT
Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1446700011:000:433
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!anlyyao    Oct  1 05:50:00 1992


English is a foreign language to me and unfortunately I don't read to many
books not related to my job. Actually Rushdie's "Haroun" was the first
fiction I read after 2 years of keeping my fingers and my eyes away from
these kinds of books. I liked it very much, but in "Satanic Verses" I
never reached page 100. I wonder, how far those people got, who now are
after Mr. Rushdie.

Goetz W. Kluge
Seoul 1992/10/01
anlyyao@igc.apc.org
From: amnell@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Marko Amnell)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Books in the time of love
Date: 3 Oct 92 08:17:42 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki

In article <91451@netnews.upenn.edu> crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu 
(Lauren L. Crawford) writes:

>In article <1992Oct2.142610.14752@klaava.Helsinki.FI> amnell@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Marko Amnell) writes:
>
>>I was recently the third party in a very bizarre love/hate triangle.
>[summary of my recent adventures deleted]
>
>Why did you??  
>
>Make it long and publish it.  It sounds incredible. 

Thanks, you're the second person to say that.  I'm a tiny bit busy at
the moment.  Actually, I think I remember my friend saying that he
already wrote a comedy sketch closely modelled on our real life
exploits.  He's really good.  He wrote a couple of sketches for Saturday
Night Live a few years ago and worked with Woody Allen once, but don't
get me started with that one...  I can say that I recently called Woody's
private line on a dare and his answering machine said something like
"Hello, this is Woody Allen.  If you have any criticisms, comments,
anecdotes, leave your message after the annoying beep that follows
the sound of my voice."  A Russian girl I was dating (Vera, you out
there??) dared me to call Woody and ask him if he really ****** his kid.
Scouts honor.

OK, fine Lauren, which juicy bits do you want to hear?

-- 
Marko Amnell
amnell@klaava.helsinki.fi
Graduate Student in Philosophy
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: junior high & high school (was Re: I forget what it was Re:)
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 01:48:12 GMT

In article <1992Oct1.143251.17646@grebyn.com> fi@grebyn.com (Fiona Webster) writes:

>So what did we read in our lit classes?  Well,
>I recall
>
>	Sartes' _Huis_Clo_ ("No Exitt")

I was in the "accelerated" English class at my high school, which meant we
had to cover more authors per semester. As a result, we had to read
Sartre's shortest play:

"No Entrance"



--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 
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: Wodehouse  Question
Followup-To: rec.arts.books
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Date: 28 Sep 92 19:19:41

In article <WEBER-250992165453@129.197.66.236> WEBER@JEDI.SSD.LMSC.LOCKHEED.COM (Kevin Weber) writes:

   Trying to find the chronological order of P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves books. If
   anybody out there could post or mail a chronological list it would be
   greatly appreciated.


   Kevin Weber

Do you mean the order in which Wodehouse published them, or do you
mean their order in the life of Bertie Wooster?
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.

Xref: sparky rec.arts.books:17581 rec.arts.sf.written:13384
From: mab@buphy.bu.edu (Michael Burstein)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Asimov's last Foundation novel(was Re: Notes on "Foundation" trilogy)
Date: 4 Oct 92 20:37:00 GMT
Followup-To: rec.arts.books
Organization: Boston University Physics Department

In article <1992Oct4.165738.6670@umbc3.umbc.edu> cs202144@umbc8.umbc.edu (cs202144) writes:
>Well it's quite abit larger than a Trilogy, but I have a question...Does anyone
>know, if ever, when the novel Forward the Foundation is comming out? I was
>originally told sometime this year, but now I'm not so sure.

I posted the following letter a few months ago, but since I've seen a
few more postings asking the above question, here it is again:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From my friend Charles:

The first two installments have been published.

The third is completed, and will probably appear in ASIMOV'S, possibly in
OMNI. 

The last time I spoke to Isaac, he told me that the fourth installment was
complete in its "rough draft" form.  For Isaac, that was very close to
"final draft" form, so it's probably publishable as is.  (And he may have
done some minor revision before he died.)

He also said at the time that he had not even begun the fifth installment
and couldn't because he could no longer sit at the typewriter.  He could
only write by hand (and that very shakily) or by dictating to Janet (which
is how he composed his last editorials).  I assumed that this meant that
the fifth installment was not started at the time of his death, or if
started certainly not completed.  However, several of the obituaries
mentioned that the book was finished and would be published by Doubleday
later this year.

There are three possibilities:

	1) Doubleday has only 4 chapters and will publish these as the
           whole book.  (They would be long enough -- about 400 pages.)
	2) Doubleday has 4 chapters plus a rough draft of the 5th and will
           either hire a ghost to finish the 5th or will publish it in its
           rough state.
	3) Isaac did manage to write the 5th book in the last month of his
           life and the book really is complete.

I don't know which it is.  But that Doubleday will publish the book I am
certain.  It is so close to being done even if it's not actually done that
it would be a shame not to.

You can post any of the above (or the entire message, if you want).

--Charles
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To explain:
FtF is, like many of the other Foundation books, actually a collection
of short stories or novellas. Two of these, "Forward the Foundation" and
"Cleon the Emperor," have been published in Asimov's Science Fiction
(the magazine).  As far as we know, there are currently no plans to
publish the other three stories, and in its final form the book should
be published sometime early next year (say, in the first six months of
1993.)


-- 
Michael A. Burstein
Physics Department, Boston University         mab@buphy.bu.edu
590 Commonwealth Ave.                         (617) 353-9437 (o)
Boston, MA 02215                              (617) 735-9433 (h)
From: forsburg@vax.path.ox.ac.uk
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: can you identify this quote?
Date: 26 Sep 92 16:46:22 GMT
Organization: Oxford University Molecular Biology Data Centre
Nntp-Posting-User: forsburg

Can you help me identify this quote?

"Would I had phrases that are not known, utterances
that are strange, in new language that has not been used, free from 
repetition,
not an utterance which has grown stale, which men of old have spoken"

email replies, please, to forsburg@vax.path.ox.ac.uk,
                       or forsburg@vax.oxford.ac.uk


Thanks
SLF
Xref: sparky rec.arts.books:17752 misc.legal:18163