HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon & Women
Date: 22 Aug 92 04:58:13 GMT
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)

In article <1992Aug20.192735.17578@morrow.stanford.edu> francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir) writes:
>Mike Morris writes:
>	I think England was the special case.

>Would you have expected any less of the Cradle of Western Civilization . . . ?

	Insofar as the phrase "Cradle of Western Civilization" has any 
meaning at all, I thought it applied to Greece.  Perhaps Fido was taught 
otherwise, if not better, at his fine public school.

-- 
				Tom Maddox
		    	    tmaddox@netcom.com
		   "I swear I never heard the first shot"
                Wm. Gibson, "Agrippa:  a book of the dead"
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: bhanafee@deimos.ads.com (Brian Hanafee)
Subject: Re: views on reviews
Organization: Advanced Decision Systems, Mountain View, CA 94043, +1 (415)
	960-7300
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 21:14:36 GMT


In article <213300003@peg.pegasus.oz.au> ajansen@peg.pegasus.oz.au writes:
>Challenging the Prevailing Orthodoxy
>
>is the title of a National Seminar on reviewing literature for
>young people which is to be held in Adelaide 7th-8th May 1993.
>The seminar, which has been organised with the support of the
>South Australian Writers Centre and immediately precedes Allwrite
>( the literature section of ComeOut 1993 ), aims to attract
>critics, literary editors, authors, illustrators, librarians,
>publishers, educators and others.

I certainly hope they've extended a personal invitation to INFIDEL.
Recent posts seem to indicate that he has opinions about what children
should see, and it does challenge the "Prevailing Orthodoxy".

--
Brian Hanafee                         Advanced Decision Systems
bhanafee@ads.com                      1500 Plymouth Street
(415) 960-7300                        Mountain View, CA 94043-1230
From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Date: 13 Aug 92 17:40:40 GMT
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

In article <5522@transfer.stratus.com> jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com writes:
>In article <7178@skye.ed.ac.uk> jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)  
>writes:

>> Besides there are so many books worth reading that it doesn't
>> make sense to spend too much time reading the "canonical" ones.
>
>But, while it could be argued that that there are a number of good
>books that are not part of the canon, almost all of the books in the
>in the so-called canon are good, and are thus worth reading.  

But are they more worth reading than other books one might select?
The canonical books might well be better than books chosen at random,
but surely that isn't the only alternative!

In my opinion, there are more books worth reading than anyone has time
to read.  How much weight should be attached to presence in the canon?
My answer is: not very much.

>> >Furthermore, a good English department can help provide a
>> >road map.

>> Sure, but that doesn't require a canon.  What background you
>> need depends on what you want to read.  The shared background
>> that everyone ought to have might be fairly small.
>
>OK, then what do you mean by canon?  Again, you seem to be 
>using the term in a way different from the way I use it.  I tend
>to use it to mean "those books that are generally agreed to
>be very good books and an important part of literature and
>are thus worth pursuing by any educated person." 

I think it's difficult to separate the canon from its role as
"what gets taught".  If it was just a case of general agreement,
why would there be all this debate?

Moreover, some people in this discussion seem to be arguing that
we need a shared background or else everything falls apart.

> This doesn't mean
>that every educated person will have read all (or even most) books
>in the canon. There's not time to.  However, it is a group of
>books that most people should sample from and acquire some
>working knowledge of.

Well, suppose someone hadn't read _any_ of these books.  How bad
would that be?  (Ie, just how important do you think knowledge of
the canon is?)

-- jd
From: wismith@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (William R. Smith)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Canon in an Altered Key
Date: 20 Aug 92 16:20:25 GMT
Organization: NAS, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA

Joann Zimmerman writes:

	perhaps we ought to look at lists which *start out to be* descriptive.
	One such is _The Harvard Guide to Influential Books_, in which 113
	Harvard professors list books which have had some sort of major
	influence on their thought or field of study.




Could you be persuaded to post the list?  I know its a lot of work.


Thanks,


William Sburgfort Smith
Intel, SSD
From: zeleny@husc9.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Liberals, Little Girls, and Boolean Logic
Date: 17 Aug 92 08:57:06 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc3.1992Aug17.045706.14807
Organization: The Phallogocentric Cabal

In article <1992Aug16.184132.15114@sics.se> 
torkel@sics.se (Torkel Franzen) writes:

>In article <4484@news.duke.edu> 
>bigham@acpub.duke.edu (Scott Bigham) writes:

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

TF:
>  Sure. I bet the usual garbage will be forthcoming.

A fine example of self-fulfilling prophecy.

cordially,
mikhail zeleny@husc.harvard.edu
"Nous donnons la mort, nous saurons la subir."
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: paulchem@tigger.cs.Colorado.EDU (Icarus)
Subject: Great Endings.
Keywords: n
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 08:12:28 GMT

1] Among the great endings that I have found are :

   a. Conrads ending of "The Heart Of Darkness".
         In my mind the book has two logical ends connected by 
      the same theme. The first one comes at the point where
      Mr. Kurtz dies and his last words overheard are: 
       "The Horror ! The Horror !". The narrator is left imagining
      what the dying man saw as he died.

      This is then connected up with the real ending where the 
      narrator visits Kurtz wife and assures her that his last words
      were about her. And she says she knew he would think of her till
      the end. The irony is delicious and dark, considering exactly what
      Kurtz was upto in his last days.

   b. Marquez' ending of One Hundred Years of Solitude.
  
         The last line speaks of the fate of races that have been allowed
     solitude for one hundred years. This dispassionate touch coming after
     the terror of the previous paragraph that describes the last heir of
     the buendias being eaten alive by ants is really stunning.

2] Stay Cool.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
.    ~ ~                                                                     .
.    o o      signito ergo sum.              paul chemmanoor.                .
.     |    i sign therefore i am.            Computer Science department.    .
.     =                                      Univ. of Colorado, Boulder.     .
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Subject: Re: MFK Fisher (Re: Bang, BANG, B-A-N-G!)
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 19:08:23 GMT

Lauren L. Crawford writes:

	Francis Muir writes:

		Someone writes:

			Where do you rate 'Passage to India'?

		I found it profoundly uncomfortable reading. Perhaps it was 
		because it was written not out of experience. 

	What do you mean?  Were all the others autobiographical?  Forster 
	did live in India, or so I've heard. Is all good fiction written 
	"out of experience"?

Inner experience. Yes. Living in India for a couple of years as a Maharaja's
Major Domo offered the opportunity, but it was never realized.

	I too found _A Passage to India_ uncomfortable reading, more because 
	of the subject matter than anything else.  I'm a major India buff; 
	somewhere in my reading I found a dialogue between two Indian writers 
	on that book. One was incensed; the other loved it and felt he captured 
	Indian culture wonderfully, though he didn't think the language nuances 
	translated well into English.  

If I read a book involving a foreign coulture, then in the normal way I am not 
very interested whether it is accepted by that culture. For me it is not
relevant. I make a special exception for India and some of the ex Colonies (not
including the USA), because they are often very finely tuned in to the British
Way (for want of a better word). Indeed, they often understand some cultural
nuances better than many English persons. As an example, I hace learnt a lot
about London Cockney Culture as it is today in correspondence with Jamaican
expatriates; they get to the heart of the matter without some of the baggage
that I carry around.

	A great modern protegee of his is Ruth Prawar Jabvahl (sp?), who 
	also wrote the screenplay to "A Room With A View".  She is 
	particularly adept at writing about inordinate human passions, from 
	an Indian/Anglo slant.  

Protege? I am surprised. The Merchant/Ivory/Jabvahl team managed to recreate
a masterpiece between them. It is a film I have viewed more times than any
other... and there is no-one more English than myself! If I pined for a bit of
Olde Englande I could fly down to Santa-Monica-by-the-Sea and visit one of
those dreadful imitation Pubbes, full of those dreadful, whiny expats, but I
would do better to fly off to India for a couple of days in Calcutta and a
week-end in the hills.

						Fido
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: heath@athena.cs.uga.edu (Terrance Heath)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Date: 17 Aug 92 17:39:04 GMT
Article-I.D.: athena.1992Aug17.173904.8536
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens

In article <1992Aug14.222131.7166@tinton.ccur.com> cjh@tinton.ccur.com (Christopher J. Henrich) writes:
>Crawford Killian suggested that if we are all free to "define our own
>canons," then we might as well not have an education at all.  
>I think the disjunction is too simple.  Without a higher education,
>I might never have read some of my favorite authors, nor would I have
>had the skill to read and appreciate canonical and non-canonical
>authors.  Our discussion of canonry in r.a.b has omitted the fact
>that skills are transferrable.

	Except for the fact that higher education kept me too busy to
read certain authors that turned out (later) to be favorites of mine,
I have to agree with the fact of transferable skills. If my study of
some classics (I certainly haven't read as many as some would think I
should, and probably not the right ones either. I have resigned myself
to the fact that there are so many books I "ought" to read that there
will probably be unread books still on that list the day draw my last
breath.) has profited me nothing else it has helped me learn the
skills needed to analyze and enjoy authors adn works of more
personal importance to me.



-- 
"Black men loving black men is THE revolutionary act!"
			-Joseph Beam_
Terrance Heath 
heath@athena.cs.uga.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: Elaine Yeomelakis <elaine@eff.org>
Subject: Can anyone identify this quote?
X-Xxmessage-Id: <A6B167A9990190D3@iorich.eff.org>
X-Xxdate: Fri, 14 Aug 92 13:37:45 GMT
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation (Cambridge)
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d7
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 17:38:05 GMT

I am trying to identfiy the source of the following quote: "Perfect is
the enemy of good enough" or something very similar.
From: matt@physics2.berkeley.edu (Matt Austern)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Date: 14 Aug 92 12:24:11
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (Theoretical Physics Group)
	<tmccarth.713673369@sfu.ca> <1992Aug13.171955.19754@athena.cs.uga.edu>
	<BsxpCA.M55@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca>
Reply-To: matt@physics.berkeley.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: physics2.berkeley.edu
In-reply-to: msmorris@watsci.waterloo.edu's message of Thu, 13 Aug 1992 18:14:33 GMT

In article <BsxpCA.M55@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca> msmorris@watsci.waterloo.edu (Mike Morris) writes:

> I disagree with you and with Tom Maddox on this. It is only by using
> a very loose definition of the word ``political'' that you can say this.
> The Great Books set itself is defined much more objectively and reasonably
> than either of you allow.

I really have difficulty understanding what it would even mean for a
literary judgment to be "objective"; it is obvious to me that whether
or not literature is great, or compelling, or meaningful, has as much
to do with the reader as with the text.

To take one small example: whatever the "Canon" is (personally, I
define it as those books that get taught in introductory literature
courses in high school or college), I don't think there's any question
that the Iliad is in it, and the Mahabharata is not.  Why is that?  Is
it that the Iliad is an "objectively" better work?  I don't think so;
I think it has much more to do with the fact that, for historical
reasons, professors who come from Western European societies are
likely to relate to Greek literature more easily than to Indian
literature.

(Incidentally, I have no opinion about the Mahabharata, since I
haven't read it; it is so "noncanonical" that I have never even seen a
copy of it.  And if I did read it, I am quite sure that I, personally,
would get less out of it than I did out of Homer: I have been exposed
to Greek mythology for well over 20 years, but I know next to nothing
about Indian mythology.  That has nothing to do with which book is
better, though; it is simply a comment on my cultural background.)

--
Matthew Austern              I dreamt I was being followed by a roving band 
(510) 644-2618               of young Republicans, all wearing the same suit,
matt@physics.berkeley.edu    taunting me and shouting, "Politically correct
austern@theorm.lbl.gov       multiculturist scum!"... They were going to make
austern@lbl.bitnet	     me kiss Jesse Helms's picture when I woke up.
Xref: sparky rec.arts.books:14450 rec.humor:25823 talk.religion.misc:13854 sci.skeptic:14155
From: sdr57@cas.org
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,rec.humor,talk.religion.misc,sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: God (was: Agnostics and Athiests
Date: 12 Aug 92 14:28:48 GMT
Organization: Chemical Abstracts Service, Columbus, Ohio

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:
>}>
>}>This guy?
>}>
>}>...........................................................................
>}>had a bit of a speach problem...
>}>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:
>}
>}"He lifts up a banner for the distant nations,
>}he whistles for those at the ends of the earth.
>}Here they come, swiftly and speedily!"
>}
>}You don't suppose that the "speech problem"
>}is an artifact of the translation you're using?
>
>Could be.  I had the King James Version.  You don't suppose that the
>"resolution" is an artifact of the translation YOU'RE using?

Given that the King James Version was transcribed in 1611, while
my version (The New International) was transcribed in 1975... I
don't suppose you'd wish to concede that there may have been some
changes in English usage in the 364 years between versions?
Obviously, there is nothing left but to check it out in the
original.
******************************************************************************
Renegade academician. They're a dangerous breed when they go feral,
academics are...a chemist, too.
		    -(James P. Blaylock in "Lord Kelvin's Machine")

My organization hasn't agreed with any of my opinions so far, and
I doubt they'll start now.

Stanley "Ya nee speon" Roberts
From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Date: 12 Aug 92 16:01:32 GMT
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

In article <65725@hydra.gatech.EDU> barclay@RAIL9000.gatech.edu (Barclay Blanchard) writes:

>*deserving* women and minorities should be represented in the canon to
>balance it.  Granted, some have been (in spite of my experience with an
>apparently non-representative education), like Virginia Woolf and Emily
>Dickinson.  But many fabulous female and minority authors haven't (to my
>knowledge) gotten representation in the canon.  I think it enriches our
>experience to study all kinds of different experiences... those of women,
>minorities, people from other countries, etc.

Sure, but what does that have to do with the canon?  Is it somehow
stopping you from studying all kinds of different experiences?

The reason there's this big fight over the canon is not because
people want to be free to read more widely.  What they want is
the same thing the advocates of Great Books want -- to force
students to read certain (kinds of) books.  Expand the canon or
abolish it, the aim is the same.

It didn't have to be that way, but I think that's how it turned
out.  For instance, when I was a student in the late 70s it was
possible to study other cultures.  The main change since then
(at my university) is that it's now required.  (I would have
satisfied the diversity requirement had it existed, BTW, so I'm
not saying this because _I_ would have been forced to read things
I didn't want to.)  (Also BTW I was educated in the US despite
my net address.)

-- jd
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Date: 15 Aug 92 20:02:55

In article <1992Aug16.022102.11300@morrow.stanford.edu> francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir) writes:

   John McCarthy writes:

	   Addendum to previous.  Mike Morris remarks that Hirsch's cultural 
	   literacy is based on what is required to understand allusions in 
	   the *New York Times*.  A partial experiment would be to look at 
	   the allusions in a year of the *Times of India* and the *Japan 
	   Times*.  Well, maybe a month would give enough data.

   Isn't it obvious from their names that the *TofI* and *JT* are no more than
   tokens of the inroads that Western Civilization has made in alien cultures?
   A "Japanese novel" is, definitionally, a Western sign. Would it not be fairer
   to direct the question at my Aboriginal (here insert ironic sigh) message
   stick? The fact is that not Tom nor Mike nor even nor especially John -- for
   reasons of lack of desire -- will ever escape from Western Civ because they 
   do not know where the fence is.

							   Fido

Where is the fence, Fido.

I accept the criticism with regard to the Japan Times, because it
is probably written mainly for foreigners, though not just for
foreigners whose native language is English.  I don't know that
the English language offshoots of the Mainichi and the Asahi
are a more native.  The _Times of India_ is a different matter,
because it isn't written for foreigners at all.  As I understand it,
it provides a means of communication for Indians with a variety of
native langusges.

My point is that Western Civilization has made such inroads that
it forms the basis of a world civilization that is no longer the
exclusive property of Western countries.  Must we, for example,
regard Kurosawa as an intruder upon Western civilization, or is
it better to regard his innovations in movie-making as having
a world-wide significance.

I do not desire to escape Western Civ, and anyway there is no
fence.

Kipling was mistaken when he wrote, "East is East and West is West,
and never the twain shall meet."
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
From: cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: The nature of enlightenment
Date: 14 Aug 92 22:41:53 GMT
Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA

In article <JMC.92Aug13202529@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>, jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy) writes:
> My impression is that in many other schools, the power of PC
> is more explicit and making fun of it is actually punished
> in various ways.  If Clayton Cramer were in government,
> Tom Maddox might have been able to force him to apologize abjectly
> for saying "gal" on pain of being fired.

"If Clayton Cramer were in government..."  Now THERE'S a concept!
You might as well start the conversation with, "Now if pigs could
fly..."  Unfortunately, my ideas are so unpopular that I expect
to see bacon in the trees before I hold a governmental post of
any sort, except concentration camp inmate.
> 
> Certainly, either side can find places where it is a persecuted
> minority, and this gives it the right to persecute fiercely where
> it is in power.
> --
> John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305

I'm told that, once upon a time in the 1950s, the Journal of
American History wouldn't accept articles critical of American
foreign policy.  I'm also told by a history professor at 
SSU that, not only were many qualified "China hands" persecuted
out of public life in the 1950s, but that in the late 1960s and
early 1970s, academics who regarded the Cultural Revolution with
any great skepticism suffered ridicule and some persecution in
university history departments throughout the Western world.

Unfortunately, the desire to oppress is fundamental to human
nature, and institutions (such as university academic departments)
that fail to structure themselves in acceptance of that fact
are doomed to the sort of problems described herein.

-- 
Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid}!optilink!cramer  My opinions, all mine!
I can make myself popular on USENET again -- all I have to say is that I'm not 
disturbed by the support for North American Man-Boy Love Association in the 
homosexual community.  Being popular at a child's expense isn't worth it.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: MFK Fisher (Re: Bang, BANG, B-A-N-G!)
Date: 22 Aug 92 04:55:10 GMT
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)

In article <1992Aug20.190823.16186@morrow.stanford.edu> francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir) writes:
>Lauren L. Crawford writes:
>	Forster 
>	did live in India, or so I've heard. Is all good fiction written 
>	"out of experience"?
>
>Inner experience. Yes. Living in India for a couple of years as a Maharaja's
>Major Domo offered the opportunity, but it was never realized.

	As is his wont, Fido construes matters according to post hoc principles 
he establishes as needed--that is to say, as required to patch glaring faults in
his postings.

	An interesting stratagem, but perhaps not an admirable one.

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