Anybody Here Still Hate Poppy?
Irannon
Just wondering.
James Shearhart
Irannon <ira...@aol.com> wrote:
: Just wondering.
I prefer carnations, actually....
"Coppula eam, se non posit acceptera jocularum...."
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"One should not worship machines any longer, or use them as workmen.
One should collaborate with them." -- Jean Cocteau, "Opium"
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"Never face the moonlight without a drink...."
-- Ning Tsai-shen, "A Chinese Ghost Story"
Criswell
ira...@aol.com (Irannon) wrote:
>Just wondering.
If you're talking about Poppy Z. Brite, she had one book, LOST
SOULS, that was, on one hand, the most depraved piece of pornography
I've ever read....And on the other, the most involving, mesmerizing,
jump-off-the-printed-page-and-right-up-into-your-face story that I've
happened upon since the King/Straub collaboration, THE TALISMAN.
Everything that she's written since then has blown goats. I
mentioned that in her newsgroup once, saying that Poppy is a
one-shot-wonder who's continuing popularity stems from the fact that
she puts her picture on everything that she writes and edits these
days....and that her fans are confusing talented writing with the
obvious fact that this woman would be really good in bed. -It didn't
go over very well. :-[
A lot of people are obsessed with Poppy.
Criswell
Brian John Wright
You mean Ms. Brite?
I'm just wondering why oh why she's written a biography of
Courtney Love. Unless, of course, she's seriously hard up for cash.
--
-Brian J. Wright
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Come visit my little corner of the web, my website, at *
http://www.geocities.com/BourbonStreet/3957/brian.html *
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James Shearhart
Criswell <cou...@sockets.net> wrote:
: ira...@aol.com (Irannon) wrote:
: >Just wondering.
: If you're talking about Poppy Z. Brite, she had one book, LOST
: SOULS, that was, on one hand, the most depraved piece of pornography
: I've ever read....
Pornography, by definition, is material portraying sexual
activities for the purpose of arousing sexual passions, paraphrasing from
American Heritage Dictionary. I can only assume the homosexual tones
bothered you, but the subject was too icky to use as an example....
: Everything that she's written since then has blown goats. I
: mentioned that in her newsgroup once, saying that Poppy is a
: one-shot-wonder who's continuing popularity stems from the fact that
: she puts her picture on everything that she writes and edits these
: days....and that her fans are confusing talented writing with the
: obvious fact that this woman would be really good in bed.
I for one usually don't spend five to seven bucks on a paperback
(or in the case of the hardcover _Exquisite Corpse_, twenty bucks) just to
have a picture of a pretty girl. Aside from the fact that she no longer
looks like her publicity photos, as evidenced by a recent television
interview, I find her writing to be exciting in its adventurousness, which
is why I buy her books. Maybe for some, her writing doesn't float their
boat, but intimating that her success is grounded merely on her looks is
pretty damn sexist. And uninformed opinions blow goats, too.
Besides, I think Kathe Koja is prettier than Poppy....
downfall
On 18 Dec 1997, Brian John Wright wrote:
> I'm just wondering why oh why she's written a biography of
> Courtney Love. Unless, of course, she's seriously hard up for cash.
she wrote a biography of courtney love? my dear poppy, how low have you
sunk? but then again i imagine love's life as *perfect* poppy material...
i mean if anyone could turn that white trash, no talent into a romantic
figure our beloved little poppy could do it...
oh, and for the record, the memories of dearth running her whiny, mamsy
pamsy ass out of here is enough to keep me smiling, no matter *what* piece
of trash she could pump out next...
-downfall
**********"the man has no sense of reality" - george drakoulias*********
http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~sw852994 fiction, reviews and the best of rmi
**********"say what you mean and say it mean" - j.g. thirlwell**********
Irannon
>for the record, the memories of dearth running
By the way, what ever became of that rabid putz? Has he *grown
up* now and left the disappointing world of alt.horror behind? I
have the feeling he's cringing in some dismal corner of what
passes for his life, wondering what went wrong after he was
such a good, good boy.
Prof Fate
Brian John Wright
Irannon (ira...@aol.com) wrote:
: By the way, what ever became of that rabid putz? Has he *grown
: up* now and left the disappointing world of alt.horror behind? I
: have the feeling he's cringing in some dismal corner of what
: passes for his life, wondering what went wrong after he was
: such a good, good boy.
Bwa ha ha...whatever he thinks, those of us who remember him
know what you're talking about. I'm just cheesed because I've always
been concerned that if we are to utter his name in a public forum
again, he might come back to annoy us again.
-Brian J. Wright, finding it hard to believe that Ms. Brite
could possibly be as whiny as dearth
downfall
On 21 Dec 1997, Brian John Wright wrote:
> I'm just cheesed because I've always been concerned that if we are to
> utter his name in a public forum again, he might come back to annoy us
> again.
you actually found him *that* annoying? i mean he could be an asshole
but, well, me and him got along rather famously (re: we both *loved*
_american psycho and discussed it at length. we also hated _the friday the
13th series of films...)
Paulzded
(downfall's tongue-cleansing of dearth's nether regions snipped)
No wonder you two got along, seeing as how you're both nasty-spirited morons.
I don't blame Poppy for not wasting her time on this group if you & death are
its standard bearers...
by the way I read in Publishers Weekly that Poppy made $500,000 last year. Eat
your hearts out, drones.
Oboyo93215
>whiny, mamsy
>pamsy ass out of here is enough to keep me smiling, no matter *what* piece
>o
For the record, I have viewed Ms. Brite's ass in the photographs of J.K.
Potter, and it is neither "mamsy" nor "pamsy." I don't know what a whiny ass
looks like, but I can't imagine that Ms. Brite's luscious globes would qualify.
PProze
downfall wrote:
>but, well, me and him got along rather famously (re: we both >*loved*_american
psycho and discussed it at length. we also >hated _the friday the13th series of
films...)
ooh, a meeting of great minds... ;)
Brian John Wright
downfall (sw85...@oak.cats.ohiou.edu) wrote:
: you actually found him *that* annoying? i mean he could be an asshole
: but, well, me and him got along rather famously (re: we both *loved*
: _american psycho and discussed it at length. we also hated _the friday the
: 13th series of films...)
I generally have an aversion to insufferably childish,
insecure and intolerant people (which dearth was), even when they
for the most part have good taste in books and films (as dearth
did). There's lots of people who thought _American Psycho_ was
excellent (myself among them), and who detested the F13th series
(cheesy, lame, weak, yes, but fun in an adolescent kind of way,
so it'll always have a ridiculous little place in my heart), but
didn't have to be a bunch of dearths about it ;)
-Brian J. Wright
Fiona Webster
Why would anyone hate Poppy Z. Brite? You either enjoy her
fiction, or you don't. The writer is irrelevant: only the writing
is horror fiction, and horror is the subject of this newsgroup,
last time I checked.
--Fiona
downfall
On 22 Dec 1997, Brian John Wright wrote:
> I generally have an aversion to insufferably childish,
> insecure and intolerant people (which dearth was), even when they
> for the most part have good taste in books and films (as dearth
> did).
i thought that he was, more often than not, provided some excellent
insights into the horror genre...at any rate i'd *prefer* to have him back
here than the current crop of "horror masters" that fill this place. at
least dearth managed to carry himself well when he was arguing, most of
the time.
downfall
On 21 Dec 1997, Paulzded wrote:
> (downfall's tongue-cleansing of dearth's nether regions snipped)
lol! i didn't know there were pictures available of that...i thought he
had destroyed all the negatives...
> No wonder you two got along, seeing as how you're both nasty-spirited morons.
nasty spirited? man this is one of the nicest things that could've been
said about me...thank you, if i could i'd send you a christmas card...
> by the way I read in Publishers Weekly that Poppy made $500,000 last
> year. Eat your hearts out, drones.
that's nice...and i heard the local whore made around 100 grand last
year...your point?
downfall
On 23 Dec 1997, it was written:
> I disagree. Publishers view an extrovert personality as a great plus in an
> author these days.
i remember reading about this aspect of the current state of publishing...
it's now as if your picture on the jacket and a "rock and roll" attitude
is just as important in the writers they publish as talent is...
> This does *not* mean I don't respect and enjoy Brite's work - there is
> real meat to her writing and characters
real meat? in what sense? i don't find anything "real" about her prose
and find it, well, boring. as for her characters i really don't enjoy them
and find them boring and tedious (although, this doesn't go for _exquisite
corpse_ i haven't read it.)
> even if she tends to tell the same story over and over.
she and anne rice *both* have the same major problem with their story
telling. they have nothing to say.
Corinne & Tom LaBolle
D., Jonathan, Harvey wrote:
>
> In article <67mavh$v80$1...@news.smart.net>, f...@DELETETHISoceanstar.com says...
..snippage..
> For God's sake Anne Rice just put out a 1998 calendar, not of her >characters or her stories or places based on her characters and stories >but of *herself* in *her house* showing off the goddamn place! This is >hardly a case of the writer being irrelevant.
>
> -D. Jonathan Harvey
Both of these authors really bug me. Where are the rest of the women in
horror, the ones who *don't* write about cool, sexy, vampires, show
their butts in magazines or write violent erotica on the side.? I've
been looking for a good reference for awhile. Kathe Koja also does a bit
of playing the cool leather chick who looks cute in her photos. This
might not bother me so much if it weren't the norm and the standard, and
there was nothing else. I'm sick of every damned arena of life being
filled with women who sell sex appeal (or sexual content) to succeed.
And, well, before anyone blasts me for being a feminist, I'm equally
sick of women blathering about how the whole damned genre is oppressive
and horrible, to be avoided, because it contains a subgenre of slasher
flicks . I just wrote to "On The Issues" asking their readership whether
they'd ever heard of Frankenstein, ghost stories, vampires among other
things? I didn't bother debating about the slasher issue, though..
Speaking of Frankenstein, that's just about the last horror story
written by a women that I've had the privilege of actually enjoying.
Corinne
Paulzded
>> (downfall's tongue-cleansing of dearth's nether regions snipped)
>
>lol! i didn't know there were pictures available of that...i thought he had
destroyed all the negatives...
>
>> No wonder you two got along, seeing as how you're both
>>nasty-spiritedmorons.
>
>nasty spirited? man this is one of the nicest things that could've >beensaid
about me...thank you, if i could i'd send you a christmas >card...
I was in a fucking horrible mood when I posted that ... thanks for taking it
with several grains of salt. I deserve the christmas card (p.s. I'm Jewish...)
>> by the way I read in Publishers Weekly that Poppy made $500,000 last year.
Eat your hearts out, drones.
>
>that's nice...and i heard the local whore made around 100 grand >last
year...your point?
If the whore loves fucking, more power to her. My point is that I admire Poppy
for making a living doing what she loves and not giving a damn whether others
love it or not. Yeah, she ducked off this newsgroup when she got tired of the
rudeness, but nobody's stopped her from writing and publishing.
PARTcris.com
In article <19971222030...@ladder02.news.aol.com>, oboyo...@aol.com
says...
>For the record, I have viewed Ms. Brite's ass in the photographs of J.K.
>Potter, and it is neither "mamsy" nor "pamsy." I don't know what a whiny ass
>looks like, but I can't imagine that Ms. Brite's luscious globes would
>qualify.
Course, Potter does wonders with distortion and FX in his pictures... ;)
Corinne & Tom LaBolle
downfall wrote:
> she and anne rice *both* have the same major problem with their story
> telling. they have nothing to say.
>
> -downfall
Oh, sure they do.... everyone has something to say. Now, as to whether
that something is worth a damn, that's another question entirely.
Let's see now..can we find at least three (famous) female horror writers
who are not incredibly lame? Mary Shelly, Shirley Jackson...uh..I'm
stumped here.. Maybe if we all get together in Anne Rice's house and do
a calender and Playboy spread of "The Girls of Horror". That should sell
some books!
I'm thinkin' that I admire Elvira more. At least she's funny. Maybe I'll
rent her movie for the holiday and get the bad taste out of my mouth.
Corinne
Fiona Webster
I wrote:
> Why would anyone hate Poppy Z. Brite? You either enjoy her
> fiction, or you don't. The writer is irrelevant: only the writing
> is horror fiction, and horror is the subject of this newsgroup,
> last time I checked.
Jonathan replied:
> I disagree. Publishers view an extrovert personality as a great plus in an
> author these days. Self-marketing work has become more important than
> *creating* good work. [...] For God's sake Anne Rice just put out a 1998
> calendar, not of characters or her stories or places based on her characters
> and stories but of *herself* in *her house* showing off the goddamn place!
> This is hardly a case of the writer being irrelevant.
That's your choice, Jonathan--to pay attention to marketing ploys. I choose
to read the fiction, and judge the work according to the work. So, to me,
the writer is irrelevant.
Corinne writes (of Brite and Rice):
> Both of these authors really bug me. Where are the rest of the women in
> horror, the ones who *don't* write about cool, sexy, vampires, show
> their butts in magazines or write violent erotica on the side? [...]
> Speaking of Frankenstein, that's just about the last horror story
> written by a women that I've had the privilege of actually enjoying.
What, you don't like Shirley Jackson? What about Flannery O'Connor?
Or Lucy Clifford, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Edith Wharton, Daphne du Maurier,
Madeline Wynne, Harriet Spofford, Violet Hunt, Elizabeth Engstrom, Gertrude
Atherton, Mary Wilkins Freeman, Marjorie Bowen, May Sinclair, Amelia Edwards,
Elizabeth Walter?
And then among contemporary horror writers, there's Tanith Lee, Kathe Koja
(whom you mentioned), Joyce Carol Oates, Octavia Butler, Nancy Holder, Melanie
Tem, Lisa Cantrell, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Nancy Collins, Yvonne Navarro,
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Judith Hawkes, Suzy McKee Charnas, Elizabeth Hand,
Cherry Wilder, Tananarive Due, Elizabeth Massie, Lucy Taylor, Elizabeth
Engstrom, Lisa Tuttle, Mary Murrey, Delia Sherman, Storm Constantine, Roberta
Lannes, A. M. (Amy) Homes, Marie Kiraly, Nancy Kilpatrick, Esther Friesner,
Amarantha Knight, Penelope Evans, Elizabeth Forrest, Joan Aiken...
And many folks would also include the "New Gothic" writers like Kathy Acker,
Jeanette Winterson, Jamaica Kincaid, Lynne Tillman, Angela Carter,
Emma Tennant, Katherine Dunn....
And those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. At any
rate, the women horror writers are definitely out there. :-)
--Fiona Webster
Fiona's Fear & Loathing
http://www.oceanstar.com/horror
Fiona Webster
D. writes (about _Exquisite Corpse_):
>You should read it. This is her punchiest, most tightly written book and,
>though it draws a little too directly from Jeffrey Daumer's life, she creates
>some shocking, disturbing moments.
I agree: it is definitely her tightest novel yet.
Two small points: (1) It's Jeffrey Dahmer, with an "H." (2) The book also
draws from the life and crimes of British serial killer Dennis Nilsen, who
pre-dated Dahmer and has some marked similarities to him--especially in that
they were both homosexuals who picked up young men in bars, whom they killed
not so much for the killing itself, as out of a wish for a completely
passive, inert sexual partner.
Both Nilsen and Dahmer were the subjects of books by the excellent writer
Brian Masters (_Killing for Company_ and _The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer_,
respectively), and Poppy read those books as part of her research. If you're
familiar with the two cases, _Exquisite Corpse_ reads like a fantasy version
of what might happen if Nilsen escaped from prison and joined Dahmer in New
Orleans.
Joyce Carol Oates' _Zombie_ is also a book about a Dahmer/Nilsen-type killer,
who tries (as Dahmer himself tried) to keep his victims alive as lobotomized
"zombie" lovers.
> The vote is still out on Poppy, as far as I'm concerned, since she's
> only done three novels.
Not *just* three novels. She's also written a superb batch of short
stories, most of which are collected in _Swamp Foetus_ (AKA _Wormwood_).
I personally think Brite is better at short stories than novels. The
exigencies of long plot development and evolving characters that sometimes bog
her down in the novels are absent from the short story form, where Brite's
extraordinary talent for compressed, redolent imagery combines with her keen
sense of narrative structure to create perfect little _objets d'art_. Stories
like "His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood," "Calcutta, Lord of Nerves," and
my favorite, "The Sixth Sentinel," are too exquisite to be missed.
She also has a keen eye for selecting the short stories of others, as
evidenced in her anthologies _Love in Vein_ and _Love in Vein II_.
--Fiona
stevie m
Criswell wrote:
> If you're talking about Poppy Z. Brite, she had one book, LOST
> SOULS, that was, on one hand, the most depraved piece of pornography
> I've ever read....And on the other, the most involving, mesmerizing,
> jump-off-the-printed-page-and-right-up-into-your-face story that I've
> happened upon since the King/Straub collaboration, THE TALISMAN.
> Everything that she's written since then has blown goats. I
> mentioned that in her newsgroup once, saying that Poppy is a
> one-shot-wonder who's continuing popularity stems from the fact that
> she puts her picture on everything that she writes and edits these
> days....and that her fans are confusing talented writing with the
> obvious fact that this woman would be really good in bed. -It didn't
> go over very well. :-[
Geez, what a surprise, trolls rarely do go over well.
> A lot of people are obsessed with Poppy.
I've got to wonder if you include Peter Straub, Dan Simmons, and Harlan
Ellison among the tasteless obsessed? Those three happen to be among the
folks who think that Poppy Brite is a very very talented writer, who is
taking horror fiction into much needed new territory.
Sure, Brite's fiction is graphic, and not for the weak of heart or
stomach, but when did that ever disqualify writing from being good
horror fiction. Get past the surface, and Ms. Brite has a whole lot to
offer readers regarding the world we live in and its myriad problems.
Stevie M
v
Fiona Webster wrote:
> I personally think Brite is better at short stories than novels. The
> exigencies of long plot development and evolving characters that >sometimes bog her down in the novels are absent from the short story >form, where Brite's extraordinary talent for compressed, redolent >imagery combines with her keen sense of narrative structure to create >perfect little _objets d'art_. Stories like "His Mouth Will Taste of >Wormwood," "Calcutta, Lord of Nerves," and
> my favorite, "The Sixth Sentinel," are too exquisite to be missed.
>
admit that I've never read any of her novels, simply because a lot of
the stylistic elements in her short stories irritate the hell out of
me. A lot of it has to do with that imagery you talked about - I think
she concentrates far too much on form to the detriment of actual
substance. She works far too hard on that imagery, and to my ear, the
narrative winds up feeling forced and over-written. There is no real
characterization and her storylines always strike me as a little
cliched. Take that away and all you're left with is a bunch of pretty
pictures that eventually start grating on your nerves.
That's just my feelings anyway. Anyone with a dissenting opinion is,
of course, free to think I'm a complete raving moron.;)
V.
Criswell
On Mon, 29 Dec 1997 10:31:36 -0800, stevie m <ste...@rogerswave.com>
wrote:
>I've got to wonder if you include Peter Straub, Dan Simmons, and Harlan
>Ellison among the tasteless obsessed? Those three happen to be among the
>folks who think that Poppy Brite is a very very talented writer, who is
>taking horror fiction into much needed new territory.
>
>Sure, Brite's fiction is graphic, and not for the weak of heart or
>stomach, but when did that ever disqualify writing from being good
>horror fiction. Get past the surface, and Ms. Brite has a whole lot to
>offer readers regarding the world we live in and its myriad problems.
>
> Stevie M
Criswell takes up the thread:
Of course they think she's great. -If you had to look at a bunch of
fat sweaty bald guys with coke bottle eyeglasses at every writer's
convention, and suddenly someone like Poppy came slinking onto the
scene, you'd give your right arm to keep her around.
Jesus Christ, what's all this about Poppy's stuff helping to smooth
out the world's "myriad problems"? She's nihilistic as hell, and
deals with hedonistic goth characters who have no redeeming values
whatsoever. As for her writing, it's the most redundant stuff I've
ever read--and this is coming from a Dean Koontz fan.
Here's DRAWING BLOOD in a nutshell: Two queers eat magic mushrooms,
screw each other in the ass, drink blood and hallucinate their way
into a frigging comic book, where they....shit, I don't remember what
they did in there.
I don't think anyone really cares. -But anyway, that book
represents the last chance I'll ever give Poppy. I'll just have to
iron out all the myriad problems that I happen upon, all by myself.
Criswell
stevie m
Criswell wrote:
> On Mon, 29 Dec 1997 10:31:36 -0800, stevie m <ste...@rogerswave.com>
> wrote:
>>I've got to wonder if you include Peter Straub, Dan Simmons, and Harlan
>>Ellison among the tasteless obsessed? Those three happen to be among
>>the folks who think that Poppy Brite is a very very talented writer,
>>who is taking horror fiction into much needed new territory.
>>Sure, Brite's fiction is graphic, and not for the weak of heart or
>>stomach, but when did that ever disqualify writing from being good
>>horror fiction. Get past the surface, and Ms. Brite has a whole lot to
>>offer readers regarding the world we live in and its myriad problems.
> Criswell takes up the thread:
> Of course they think she's great. -If you had to look at a bunch of
> fat sweaty bald guys with coke bottle eyeglasses at every writer's
> convention, and suddenly someone like Poppy came slinking onto the
> scene, you'd give your right arm to keep her around.
I would have to say that that comment says a lot more about you,
Criswell, than it does about Brite, or her fellow writers.
You really should be careful about assuming that everyone misjudges
people on the same irrational basis as you.
I do begin to understand why you have so little appreciation for Brite's
work. She offends the hell out of your middle class, repressed,
mainstream american morals doesn't she?
>Jesus Christ, what's all this about Poppy's stuff helping to smooth
>out the world's "myriad problems"?
Yeah, and I can see that you don't read too well either. Go back and
read my comments again, Criswell. I said Brite has "a lot to offer
readers regarding the world we live in and its myriad problems".
For you, I will explain what that statement means. It means that she
writes about the problems of the world. It does not mean she is out to
solve them, or that she has the answers, or that she even believes that
there are answers. In fact, Brite's vision is brutally dark and
pessimistic in that regard. This she conveys with eloquence and
originality, whether Koontz fans can understand it or not.
(snippage)
(referring to Drawing Blood)
>I don't think anyone really cares. -But anyway, that book represents
>the last chance I'll ever give Poppy.
Fair enough. I figure if you don't like someone's writing you should
quit reading them. However, you should probably stop frothing with such
assurance about a subject on which you are only partially informed,
Criswell.
Stevie m
--
Yes the world is the best place of all
...
but then right in the middle of it
comes the smiling mortician.
L. Ferlinghetti
Cliff Evans
Criswell wrote:
> Of course they think she's great. -If you had to look at a bunch of
> fat sweaty bald guys with coke bottle eyeglasses at every writer's
> convention, and suddenly someone like Poppy came slinking onto the
> scene, you'd give your right arm to keep her around.
Now, what if you're a female fan or writer? Your presumption is about as
sexist as the reasons you posit.
> Jesus Christ, what's all this about Poppy's stuff helping to smooth
> out the world's "myriad problems"? She's nihilistic as hell, and
> deals with hedonistic goth characters who have no redeeming values
> whatsoever.
I'd hardly say that...to limit her characters to goths excludes at least
two central characters from "Lost Souls", at least one or two from
"Drawing Blood", about a third of the stories from "Wormwood"...about
the closest thing to what you describe would be "Exquisite Corpse," in
terms of nihilism, and *none* of those characters are goths. In most of
her other stories, "Lost Souls" included (since that seems to be your
template for her entire oeuvre), there's usually an element of
redemption of one sort of another. Of course, this makes broad
generalizations tough, and means you have to think more, but...
> As for her writing, it's the most redundant stuff I've
> ever read--and this is coming from a Dean Koontz fan.
I'll agree, some things happen over and over, themes get repeated, but
let's see...three novels, one collection of short stories, another in
the works as we speak, as well as another novel, at the
tender-for-a-writer age of 30...what's Koontz's excuse?
> Here's DRAWING BLOOD in a nutshell: Two queers eat magic mushrooms,
> screw each other in the ass, drink blood and hallucinate their way
> into a frigging comic book, where they....shit, I don't remember what
> they did in there.
Would it have been okay if it had been a boy and a girl doing all of
that? Does the homoerotic aspect bother you? Upset you? Or what if it
had been two women?
> I don't think anyone really cares. -But anyway, that book
> represents the last chance I'll ever give Poppy. I'll just have to
> iron out all the myriad problems that I happen upon, all by myself.
Aw, poor you. So overburdened with the weight of your own ignorance.
> Criswell
Apt username.
--
Cliff Evans
<boz...@earthlink.net>
--------------------------------------------------------
"Execution/mass pollution/my solution/kill the humans."
-Vision Of Disorder
--------------------------------------------------------
Cliff Evans
v wrote:
> Well, now that we're actually getting into literary criticism...I'll
> admit that I've never read any of her novels, simply because a lot of
> the stylistic elements in her short stories irritate the hell out of
> me. A lot of it has to do with that imagery you talked about - I think
> she concentrates far too much on form to the detriment of actual
> substance.
Even as a big fan of hers, I'll be the first to admit than some of the
short stories are a little thin. And I see her ability to write imagery
so intensely as an asset. I mean, you don't read Kafka for witty
repartee, you don't read Brite for layered, complex narrative. There's
maybe one or two short stories of hers that I'd rank as favorites in her
body of work (If you haven't read "Calcutta, Lord Of Nerves", you
should) but you really should try reading "Lost Souls," where there's a
little room to stretch.
> She works far too hard on that imagery, and to my ear, the
> narrative winds up feeling forced and over-written. There is no real
> characterization and her storylines always strike me as a little
> cliched. Take that away and all you're left with is a bunch of pretty
> pictures that eventually start grating on your nerves.
> That's just my feelings anyway. Anyone with a dissenting opinion is,
> of course, free to think I'm a complete raving moron.;)
You're a complete, raving-waitaminute. Nah. Again, if all you're going
on is the short stories, I can fully see how you'd feel that way. Again,
I think "Lost Souls" is one of her best for characterization. One of the
things that I like about her writing is that the characters really seem
like people I might know, rather than these people that exist in a
fishbowl.
Cliff Evans
downfall wrote:
> she wrote a biography of courtney love? my dear poppy, how low have you
> sunk? but then again i imagine love's life as *perfect* poppy material...
> i mean if anyone could turn that white trash, no talent into a romantic
> figure our beloved little poppy could do it...
Um, it really doesn't gloss over anything. Reads like a book report, not
her best work, and it *is* the loathesome Courtney Love, but it hardly
romanticizes her. Ms. Love apparently wasn't super happy with this fact.
> oh, and for the record, the memories of dearth running her whiny, mamsy
> pamsy ass out of here is enough to keep me smiling, no matter *what* piece
> of trash she could pump out next...
What a small and bitter little world it is that you inhabit...
Cliff Evans
downfall wrote:
> i remember reading about this aspect of the current state of publishing...
> it's now as if your picture on the jacket and a "rock and roll" attitude
> is just as important in the writers they publish as talent is...
Oh yes, this would explain the appeal of all science fiction, or even
hack romance novels, where the author is an aggregate of people.
> > This does *not* mean I don't respect and enjoy Brite's work - there is
> > real meat to her writing and characters
>
> real meat? in what sense? i don't find anything "real" about her prose
> and find it, well, boring. as for her characters i really don't enjoy them
> and find them boring and tedious (although, this doesn't go for _exquisite
> corpse_ i haven't read it.)
Hmmm. So it's..."boring"...and..."tedious"...is it also "poopy?" All
you've told me is that *you* don't get anything out of it. I don't get
anything out of ballet or opera, but I'd hardly discount their validity
as an art form. It's one thing to not connect with a piece of writing,
but it's another to maintain that it has no intrinsic value. This is a
middle-school caliber argument against its worth. It's Butthead saying
"this sucks."
> > even if she tends to tell the same story over and over.
>
> she and anne rice *both* have the same major problem with their story
> telling. they have nothing to say.
I'd hardly say that. I thought "Exquisite Corpse" was an interesting
examination of the human body as objet d'art, as sacrament, as
temple...a literally visceral book. I think Anne Rice is engaged in
splattering her emotional trauma all over the place as fiction,
publishing the sort of things one writes as part of therapy, but Brite
seems to have quite a bit to say about the flesh, the way it is
perverted, and how redemption and love can occur in the strangest places
and forms. If you want truly awful writing, wretched narrative and
characterization and cliched plot, read "The Language Of Fear" by Del
James. It is, I would venture to say, the worst collection of "horror"
short stories ever published.
Corinne & Tom LaBolle
Cliff Evans wrote:
>
> v wrote:
>
> > Well, now that we're actually getting into literary criticism...I'll
> > admit that I've never read any of her novels, simply because a lot of
> > the stylistic elements in her short stories irritate the hell out of
> > me. A lot of it has to do with that imagery you talked about - I think
> > she concentrates far too much on form to the detriment of actual
> > substance.
>
> Even as a big fan of hers, I'll be the first to admit than some of the
> short stories are a little thin. And I see her ability to write imagery
> so intensely as an asset. I mean, you don't read Kafka for witty
> repartee, you don't read Brite for layered, complex narrative.
I could see how this would be an issue of preference. I find the same
thing with Kathe Koja, or even Tanith Lee's vampire books. The writing
is beautiful and compelling and draws you on just because of the style,
but then nothing much happens! No matter how beautiful the writing,
this does leave me feeling cheated, shaking my head, like "why on earth
did I read this to begin with". I'll acknowledge that this is a matter
of preference, perhaps, but it disturbs me that I cannot find one female
author writing was you term "layered narrative". Actually, I think most
writing should contain at least a minimum level of all these important
elements. You mentioned cardboard type characters in more
action-oriented, narrative-based work. This doesn't have to be the case.
Nor does this image-ridden fluff. It these writers had actually given me
some substance behind the prettiness, I would have appreciated it even
more.
Corinne
onei...@hotmail.com
In article <34AAA6...@icehouse.net>,
Corinne & Tom LaBolle <t...@icehouse.net> wrote:
>
> I could see how this would be an issue of preference. I find the same
> thing with Kathe Koja, or even Tanith Lee's vampire books. The writing
> is beautiful and compelling and draws you on just because of the style,
> but then nothing much happens!
The funny thing is, while I'm not a fan of Brite for those reasons we've
been discussing, I actually like Koja and Lee a lot. Perhaps it's
because I don't see Koja as coming from the same angle as Brite. Yes,
she uses a lot of imagery, but in her writing I think it's more
effective, and she has something to back it up. For one thing, it's a
lot leaner, and less over-the-top than Brite - it's missing the
pretention that I dislike so much in Brite's wrk. And I think it serves
a purpose. I don't think it's so much that Koja lacks a complex
narrative, as that she's not constantly hitting you over the head with
the obvious. It's definitely a different kind of writing than a more
plot driven novel; take your Koontz's and King's and Slade's- they rely
on the plot to drive the book, s they need that narrative to constantly
spell out to the reader what exactly that plot is, and how the current
scene fits into it at any given moment. Koja's work on the other hand,
in my experience (which is primarily her early work) relies on more
intangible elements. Take _The Cipher_; not a whole lot of plot, but
there were a lot of underlying ideas that her style presented
effectively. I think it's a case of presenting the readers with ideas
and letting them draw their own conclusions, rather than hitting them
over the head with what you want to say. Once again, I guess it's just a
matter of personal taste.;)
>No matter how beautiful the writing,
> this does leave me feeling cheated, shaking my head, like "why on earth
> did I read this to begin with". I'll acknowledge that this is a matter
> of preference, perhaps, but it disturbs me that I cannot find one female
> author writing was you term "layered narrative".
As soon as I read that, a bunch f names outside the horror genre came to
mind - Margerat Attwod for _Handmaiden's Tale_ and her new novel _Alias
Grace_, C.j. Cherryh, Emma Bull...; I'm drawing a blank in the horror
genre, but I think that's mostly because I'm woefully behind on the up
and comer's in the horror scene. Um, does anbody remember a pulp horror
writer from the 80's whose name was along the lines of Ruby Jean Jeanson
or Johnson? Wrote those cheesy books like _Chainletter_, _Smoke_, and
_House of Illusions_? Whatever happened to her?;)
V.
-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet
Jared Head
stevie m (ste...@rogerswave.com) wrote:
: I do begin to understand why you have so little appreciation for Brite's
: work. She offends the hell out of your middle class, repressed,
: mainstream american morals doesn't she?
I've only read Exquisite Corpse and a few of her short stories, so my
opinion may not be valid, but what the hell. It was this whole
out-to-offend attitude in EC that stuck in my craw. Men having sex with
men may shock my granny, but it doesn't work with me, and with that gone,
there's not much left. It was interesting to compare Brite's working of
the theme with the similar subject, but very different approach in
Barker's "Sacrament".
Pity, 'cause I thought the first chapter of EC was just wonderful.
Jared
--
Jared Head at the Department of Biochemistry, University of Bristol
"A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human
history - with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila."
Mitch Ratliffe
YoungBri
>Sure, Brite's fiction is graphic, and not for the weak of heart or
>stomach, but when did that ever disqualify writing from being good
>horror fiction.
Has anyone read her new book.
I really love this woman! I loved Lost Souls, and think that would make a
great movie. Drawing Blood was a little out there, but still gave me chills at
times.
I do not find her writings pornographic at all...for what CRISWELL wrote. Sex
is not pornographic...we all have it...we all do it...some do it by themselves.
She is just portraying a life style, and if you dont like it, then dont read
it.
stevie m
Jared Head wrote:
> stevie m (ste...@rogerswave.com) wrote:
>:I do begin to understand why you have so little appreciation for
>:Brite's work. She offends the hell out of your middle class, repressed,
>:mainstream american morals doesn't she?
>I've only read Exquisite Corpse and a few of her short stories, so my
>opinion may not be valid, but what the hell. It was this whole
>out-to-offend attitude in EC that stuck in my craw. Men having sex with
>men may shock my granny, but it doesn't work with me, and with that
>gone, there's not much left.
I can't say that I see Brite as "out to offend" per se, though I can
certainly see how some would be offended by her graphic writing, EC
being the most extreme example. Interestingly, I think the graphic
canabalism in EC is much more likely to be offensive than the homoerotic
aspects of the book.
>It was interesting to compare Brite's working of the theme with the
>similar subject, but very different approach in Barker's "Sacrament".
I loved Sacrament, and I agree that Barker did much much more with the
theme than Brite did in EC. Of course, he has a good twenty years
writing experience on Brite.
I have said elsewhere that I would have appreciated EC more, I think, if
Brite had focused more on the Luke/Tran relationship and not done the
narrative voice shifting thing, which I tend to find distracting when
the voices are so radically different.
>Pity, 'cause I thought the first chapter of EC was just wonderful.
I did enjoy that chapter in and of itself, but as I said above, I would
have liked the book better without those first person narrative
sections.
I do think that Lost Souls is a much stronger book that EC, and I
definitely recommend it.
Stevie m
c3 wathy
i like your letter .it is very nice.
Jared Head
Stevie, you confused me with the 'm' - the thought of two Stevies out
there was just too scary!
stevie m (ste...@rogerswave.com) wrote:
: I can't say that I see Brite as "out to offend" per se, though I can
: certainly see how some would be offended by her graphic writing, EC
: being the most extreme example. Interestingly, I think the graphic
: canabalism in EC is much more likely to be offensive than the homoerotic
: aspects of the book.
Well, it ought to be, though people who find canabalism in fiction
offensive should maybe find another genre. I just had the feeling that
the sex wasn't being presented as a loving thing (cp. Sacrament -
interesting that Barker is writing about his own sexuality, Brite isn't),
but as an extension of the canabalistic perversion. Obviously, your
mileage may vary.
: I loved Sacrament, and I agree that Barker did much much more with the
: theme than Brite did in EC. Of course, he has a good twenty years
: writing experience on Brite.
Oops, I didn't realise it was you I was replying to, but I still managed
to mention Sacrament. I agree that Brite shows promise in EC - should I
try again in 20 years?
: I have said elsewhere that I would have appreciated EC more, I think, if
: Brite had focused more on the Luke/Tran relationship and not done the
: narrative voice shifting thing, which I tend to find distracting when
: the voices are so radically different.
The whole Luke/Tran thing got binned really, didn't it? In fact the plot
fizzled out. Personally I didn't find the change of person *too*
distracting - I didn't really see the point though - I was enjoying it
most when it was all first person. I'm reading "Riverrun" by S. P. Somtow
at the moment which has know fewer than 4 first person narrators, yet
works really well.
: >Pity, 'cause I thought the first chapter of EC was just wonderful.
:
: I did enjoy that chapter in and of itself, but as I said above, I would
: have liked the book better without those first person narrative
: sections.
: I do think that Lost Souls is a much stronger book that EC, and I
: definitely recommend it.
I intend to read Lost Souls, and maybe in 20 years Brite will be my
favorite author.
stevie m
Jared Head wrote:
> Stevie, you confused me with the 'm' - the thought of two Stevies out
> there was just too scary!
Heh! My own minor little Michaelism <G>
> stevie m (ste...@rogerswave.com) wrote:
>:I can't say that I see Brite as "out to offend" per se, though I can
>:certainly see how some would be offended by her graphic writing, EC
>:being the most extreme example. Interestingly, I think the graphic
>:canabalism in EC is much more likely to be offensive than the
>:homoerotic aspects of the book.
>Well, it ought to be, though people who find canabalism in fiction
>offensive should maybe find another genre. I just had the feeling that
>the sex wasn't being presented as a loving thing (cp. Sacrament -
>interesting that Barker is writing about his own sexuality, Brite
>isn't), but as an extension of the canabalistic perversion. Obviously,
>your mileage may vary.
Well, I did think that Brite did give both sides, in the sense that Luke
and Tran were not canabalistic etc. Of course, neither were they too
successful in their relationship, but I did think there was love in what
they had.
>: I loved Sacrament, and I agree that Barker did much much more with the
>: theme than Brite did in EC. Of course, he has a good twenty years
>: writing experience on Brite.
>Oops, I didn't realise it was you I was replying to, but I still managed
>to mention Sacrament. I agree that Brite shows promise in EC - should I
>try again in 20 years?
Hmmm ... I don't think it will take twenty years. I guess I was going
for the full impact of Barker's extra added experience. I'm not sure,
but I think that EC is probably Brite's weakest novel to date ... that
is partial guesswork as I haven't read Drawing Blood yet, but from what
I have heard about DB, it applies.
>:I have said elsewhere that I would have appreciated EC more, I think,
>:if Brite had focused more on the Luke/Tran relationship and not done
>:the narrative voice shifting thing, which I tend to find distracting
>:when the voices are so radically different.
>The whole Luke/Tran thing got binned really, didn't it? In fact the plot
>fizzled out.
Yes and no. I was satsified in the ending Brite found for Luke ... it
made sense ... but I was unhappy with Tran's demise ... though that too
was true to the story I think ...
Anyway, I would have preferred that the two story lines be flipped in
emphasis ... but that is just so much second guessing the author <shrug>
> I intend to read Lost Souls, and maybe in 20 years Brite will be my
> favorite author.
Maybe before that ... I think you'll like LS fine <G>
Stevie
FS
stevie m wrote:
>
> Jared Head wrote:
>
> > stevie m (ste...@rogerswave.com) wrote:
>
> >:I can't say that I see Brite as "out to offend" per se, though I can
> >:certainly see how some would be offended by her graphic writing, EC
> >:being the most extreme example. Interestingly, I think the graphic
> >:canabalism in EC is much more likely to be offensive than the
> >:homoerotic aspects of the book.
>
> >Well, it ought to be, though people who find canabalism in fiction
> >offensive should maybe find another genre. I just had the feeling that
> >the sex wasn't being presented as a loving thing (cp. Sacrament -
> >interesting that Barker is writing about his own sexuality, Brite
> >isn't), but as an extension of the canabalistic perversion. Obviously,
> >your mileage may vary.
>
> Well, I did think that Brite did give both sides, in the sense that Luke
> and Tran were not canabalistic etc. Of course, neither were they too
> successful in their relationship, but I did think there was love in what
> they had.
See, I thought that Luke and Tran gave a perfect contast: emotional
cannabalism as opposed to the more literal sense.
> >: I loved Sacrament, and I agree that Barker did much much more with the
> >: theme than Brite did in EC. Of course, he has a good twenty years
> >: writing experience on Brite.
>
> >Oops, I didn't realise it was you I was replying to, but I still managed
> >to mention Sacrament. I agree that Brite shows promise in EC - should I
> >try again in 20 years?
>
> Hmmm ... I don't think it will take twenty years. I guess I was going
> for the full impact of Barker's extra added experience. I'm not sure,
> but I think that EC is probably Brite's weakest novel to date ... that
> is partial guesswork as I haven't read Drawing Blood yet, but from what
> I have heard about DB, it applies.
DB remains my favorite, and I didn't care much for EC when I first read
it. However, subsequent reading proved more enjoyable.
> >:I have said elsewhere that I would have appreciated EC more, I think,
> >:if Brite had focused more on the Luke/Tran relationship and not done
> >:the narrative voice shifting thing, which I tend to find distracting
> >:when the voices are so radically different.
>
> >The whole Luke/Tran thing got binned really, didn't it? In fact the plot
> >fizzled out.
You know, I think it was intentional. I think the point was to make us
see the pathos in a man's descent into madness as a result of AIDS, and
the horrible people we may have living inside us when faced with an
unchangable fate. I also think she wanted to show that not every
relationship gets tied up in a nice little package for you to observe.
They loved each other, the lost each other, and at no point did they get
to sit back and reflect on it, or say goodbye, or mutter their "What
could have beens..." I was thrilled she didn't take the soap opera
approach to it.
> Yes and no. I was satsified in the ending Brite found for Luke ... it
> made sense ... but I was unhappy with Tran's demise ... though that too
> was true to the story I think ...
>
> Anyway, I would have preferred that the two story lines be flipped in
> emphasis ... but that is just so much second guessing the author <shrug>
Exactly. It's like vieweing a painting and saying, Gosh, I wish he had
useed blue..or, gee, I wish it fit over *my* sofa.
> > I intend to read Lost Souls, and maybe in 20 years Brite will be my
> > favorite author.
>
> Maybe before that ... I think you'll like LS fine <G>
OR not. Many people who otherwise have similar literary tastes diverge
on Poppy. The thing is, if you don't like her, fine. If you do, fine.
Unlike others here, you two seem to have the sense to recognize that
liking any one particular author does not make you either an idiot or a
scholar. It's simply a matter of taste, and like crimson velvet
draperies and vertical blinds, they sell both because there are
customers for each.
Rosered
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This downhill path is easy, but there's no turning back.
--Christina Rosetti
Cliff Evans
Jared Head wrote:
> Well, it ought to be, though people who find canabalism in fiction
> offensive should maybe find another genre. I just had the feeling that
> the sex wasn't being presented as a loving thing (cp. Sacrament -
> interesting that Barker is writing about his own sexuality, Brite isn't),
> but as an extension of the canabalistic perversion. Obviously, your
> mileage may vary.
Well, Brite has said in many interviews that she feels like a gay man
trapped in a woman's body, and while I, along with most people, would be
tempted to dismiss that as a publicity ploy or attempt to shock old
straight people, her inability to empathize with *any* of her female
characters seems to bear this out, as well as a superior ability to
write gay sex scenes. The sex might not seem too loving in EC, true, but
how do you know she's writing sex as an extension of cannibalism? Why
couldn't cannibalism be the ultimate extension of sex? The characters
*do* spend a lot of time talking about cannibalism as an ultimate
intimacy, lingering over anatomical details like one would linger over
the curves of a lovers' body. EC wasn't one of my favorites of hers
either...I'd also recommend "Lost Souls" over this one...but it was
better the second time I read it, and took the time to take in the
details, since I knew where the narrative was going already.
> Oops, I didn't realise it was you I was replying to, but I still managed
> to mention Sacrament. I agree that Brite shows promise in EC - should I
> try again in 20 years?
Maybe...though I wonder if she'll even still be writing horror then. I
think for someone who's doing her literary growing up in public, I think
she's doing a damn good job.
> The whole Luke/Tran thing got binned really, didn't it? In fact the plot
> fizzled out.
That was one of *my* chief objections...that the whole plot just seemed
rushed, which worked in "Lost Souls," to create a runaway-train feeling
of the momentum of events, but here just seemed sloppy. And Jay and Tran
had a whole story to tell outside of this book. I felt cheated all
around at the end, and it hindered my enjoyment of the story.
Mize, Arthur Thomas
I have not heard of Dennis Cooper. Could you supply a reading list?
Thanks in advance,
Art
Fiona Webster wrote:
>
> Jared writes:
> >I've only read Exquisite Corpse and a few of her short stories, so my
> >opinion may not be valid, but what the hell. It was this whole
> >out-to-offend attitude in EC that stuck in my craw. Men having sex with
> >men may shock my granny, but it doesn't work with me, and with that gone,
> >there's not much left. It was interesting to compare Brite's working of
> >the theme with the similar subject, but very different approach in
> >Barker's "Sacrament".
>
> Huh? You're saying Brite's _Exquisite Corpse_ has a similar subject to
> Barker's _Sacrament_? In what sense? I enjoyed both of them, but one is
> a horror novel about two serial killers in love; the other is a dark fantasy
> on an ecological theme. They have nothing in common.
>
> As for the men having sex with men being being "out to offend" someone,
> I think that's in your own head. I didn't think that _EC_ was out to offend
> anyone: it was a story--a weird love story, in fact--with some interesting
> observations on how and why certain people are predators and others are prey.
> Plus a cool setting in New Orleans, colorful minor characters like Lush
> Rimbaud (gotta love that name), and so on.
>
> What I was struck by, when I read _Exquisite Corpse_, is how much Brite
> seems to be influenced by Dennis Cooper. I think that's a very good thing:
> I think more horror writers should read Dennis Cooper's take on how love
> can arise in a context of extreme alienation, lust, and violence.
>
> --Fiona
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Fiona Webster
FS
Mize, Arthur Thomas wrote:
>
> I have not heard of Dennis Cooper. Could you supply a reading list?
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Art
You would most likely find him in the gay/lesbian section at your loval
Borders. I don't think there's that much of a similrity in their
writing, (though my Cooper experience is limited), but you might make
new friends while browsing....(or so my friend Ginger tells me)
--Rosered
Jared Head
Fiona Webster (f...@oceanDELETETHISstar.com) wrote:
: Huh? You're saying Brite's _Exquisite Corpse_ has a similar subject to
: a horror novel about two serial killers in love; the other is a dark fantasy
: on an ecological theme. They have nothing in common.
Well, I wouldn't argue that _Sacrament_ is just about ecological issues;
sure it's about extinction, but not just of birds; the hero's own
community is being wiped out, at the same time as those of the animals he
photographs. Superficially _Exquisite Corpse_ too, contrasts the 'gay
plague' with external danger (if serial killers can be called 'external').
On a more profound level, I wouldn't know what EC was about - I didn't
enjoy it enough to understand it (or vice versa).
: As for the men having sex with men being being "out to offend" someone,
: I think that's in your own head...
Maybe - that's the only head I really know what's in. I just wondered why
a female author used gay men, and whether the story needed them, or if
there was some other motive. Another poster suggests she has personal
reasons, so obviously I should stop second guessing.
As to 'offend' - maybe I meant 'shock'. You'll have a hard job persuading
me that there isn't at least some intention to shock when an author writes
about necrophilia and canabalism (oops, second guessing again).
: ...I didn't think that _EC_ was out to offend
: anyone: it was a story--a weird love story, in fact--with some interesting
: observations on how and why certain people are predators and others are prey.
: Plus a cool setting in New Orleans, colorful minor characters like Lush
: Rimbaud (gotta love that name), and so on.
: What I was struck by, when I read _Exquisite Corpse_, is how much Brite
: seems to be influenced by Dennis Cooper. I think that's a very good thing:
: I think more horror writers should read Dennis Cooper's take on how love
: can arise in a context of extreme alienation, lust, and violence.
:
: --Fiona
Never read him, but extreme alienation, lust and violence sounds OK.
Jared Head
FS (molly...@erols.com) wrote:
: See, I thought that Luke and Tran gave a perfect contast: emotional
: cannabalism as opposed to the more literal sense.
Mmm, that makes sense. Is it ironic that Andrew and Jay have a more
wholesome relationship (with a few caveats)?
: > >The whole Luke/Tran thing got binned really, didn't it? In fact the plot
: > >fizzled out.
:
: You know, I think it was intentional. I think the point was to make us
: see the pathos in a man's descent into madness as a result of AIDS, and
: the horrible people we may have living inside us when faced with an
: unchangable fate. I also think she wanted to show that not every
: relationship gets tied up in a nice little package for you to observe.
: They loved each other, the lost each other, and at no point did they get
: to sit back and reflect on it, or say goodbye, or mutter their "What
: could have beens..." I was thrilled she didn't take the soap opera
: approach to it.
I suppose that's another taste thing. My problem with real-life is that
it doesn't make for very good stories, and anyway I'm not sure it has much
place in a book about two beautiful serial-killers who fall in love.
: Exactly. It's like vieweing a painting and saying, Gosh, I wish he had
: useed blue..or, gee, I wish it fit over *my* sofa.
:
: OR not. Many people who otherwise have similar literary tastes diverge
: on Poppy. The thing is, if you don't like her, fine. If you do, fine.
: Unlike others here, you two seem to have the sense to recognize that
: liking any one particular author does not make you either an idiot or a
: scholar. It's simply a matter of taste, and like crimson velvet
: draperies and vertical blinds, they sell both because there are
: customers for each.
Yep, I guess EC just doesn't fit over my sofa. Pity is I've got a nice
spot there and I though Brite might fill it.
Jared Head
Cliff Evans (boz...@earthlink.net) wrote:
: Maybe...though I wonder if she'll even still be writing horror then. I
: think for someone who's doing her literary growing up in public, I think
: she's doing a damn good job.
I hope she stays in horror. I wouldn't like to think that it's an
immature author's genre. After all Peter Straub started on 'straight'
fiction and matured *into* the genre.
Fiona Webster
Art writes:
> I have not heard of Dennis Cooper. Could you supply a reading list?
My reviews of three of Dennis Cooper's novels--_Frisk_, _Try_, and _Guide_--
are available at http://www.amazon.com. Just do a search on Dennis Cooper's
name, click on the novel titles, and you'll find my reviews under "Horror
Editor's Recommended Book."
About a year ago, I wrote a short essay on Cooper and Brite:
On the heels of recent reading of Dennis Cooper and
Poppy Z. Brite, I've been thinking about gay horror
fiction. It's no surprise that homosexuals, longtime
outsiders to society, have had an impact on the genre
that prides itself on exploring the shadow areas of life.
Homoerotic vampires, for example, with their rock music
and "goth" look, are well-known to the point of cliche in
the works of S. P. Somtow, Anne Rice and of course, Brite.
Before the air-brushed androgyny of pretty-boy vampires,
though, another stream of dark homosexual fiction flowed
from Jean Genet, John Rechy and William S. Burroughs--
writers who reveled in the idea of the homosexual as
degenerate, junkie, exile, libertine. Dennis Cooper is an
heir to this tradition: He rejects the normalizing trend in
recent mainstream gay fiction, and writes horrifying tales
of the fragmented, morbid minds of the sexually and
psychologically alienated. And interestingly for genre fans,
Cooper closely examines the distinction between fantasied
violence and the real thing.
Poppy Z. Brite (in her own words, "a gay man who happens
to have been born in a female body") is an avid reader of
Dennis Cooper. Now that Brite has left her vampires
behind, is she joining the Genet/Burroughs/Cooper tradition?
Her latest novel, _Exquisite Corpse_, suggests that while
Brite is tackling more adult themes now--the AIDS plague,
the sexual dynamic of predator and victim--she is still allied
to a rosier view of life than Cooper. Brite's characters are
aesthetes, capable of sensual pleasure and romantic love.
Cooper's characters (as in his brilliant novels _Frisk_ and
_Try_) are underdeveloped human beings--miserable narcissists
who pitifully strive for contact, any contact, that will penetrate
their desperate solipsism.
Both of these writers of gay horror are crossing genre boundaries
into a realm of sexually explicit violence that hasn't been seen
before, and doing it well, in elegant prose. I look forward to
seeing what happens as Brite continues to write of real adults,
and as Cooper allows his characters (as in _Try_) some ability
to have emotions.
Since writing this, I've discovered another writer of dark gay fiction:
Scott Heim. I recommend his _Mysterious Skin_ and _In Awe_.
Neither are exactly "horror," but they have dark themes and I think
would be of interest to horror readers.
By the way: I put out two free monthly e-mail columns with book reviews
of recent books. One column is about Horror Fiction, and the other is about
True Crime. It's not posted to the Net anywhere, and is only available by
e-mail. If you'd like to subscribe, just drop me a line. (Be sure to remove
"DELETETHIS" from my e-mail address.) Please specify whether you want to
receive the Horror e-mails, the True Crime e-mails, or both.
--yours in enthuiasm for darkness,
Fiona Webster
Fiona Webster
Jared writes (w/ re. to Poppy Z. Brite's _Exquisite Corpse_):
> You'll have a hard job persuading me that there isn't at least some
> (oops, second guessing again).
You ought to try Cormac McCarthy's _Child of God_, then. It's a
beautiful literary portrait of a necrophiliac, complete with grisly
descriptions. The character is even likeable.
On a more general note, I see no intrinsic reason why an author's
choice of topic--any topic--gives us insight into their intention in writing
about it. But then, I'm one of those folks who buys the claim of postmodern
lit-critters that authorial intention is not only unknowable, but irrelevant
to one's reading of a book. :-)
--Fiona
Ted Samsel
In rec.arts.books Fiona Webster <f...@oceanDELETETHISstar.com> wrote:
: Jared writes (w/ re. to Poppy Z. Brite's _Exquisite Corpse_):
: > You'll have a hard job persuading me that there isn't at least some
: > intention to shock when an author writes about necrophilia and cannibalism
: > (oops, second guessing again).
: You ought to try Cormac McCarthy's _Child of God_, then. It's a
: beautiful literary portrait of a necrophiliac, complete with grisly
: descriptions. The character is even likeable.
Just a question. Since McCarthy's BLOOD MERIDIAN is based, to some extent,
on a "confession" or journal of a former scalphunter, is there any actual
case that "inspires" CHILD OF GOD?
--
Ted Samsel....tejas@infi.net (or tbsa...@richmond.infi.net)
"do the boogie woogie in the South American way"
Rhumba Boogie- Hank Snow (1955)
stevie m
Fiona Webster wrote:
(much snippage)
> Poppy Z. Brite (in her own words, "a gay man who happens
> to have been born in a female body") is an avid reader of
> Dennis Cooper. Now that Brite has left her vampires
> behind, is she joining the Genet/Burroughs/Cooper tradition?
> Her latest novel, _Exquisite Corpse_, suggests that while
> Brite is tackling more adult themes now--the AIDS plague,
> the sexual dynamic of predator and victim
I wanted to address this comment in the context of an earlier post you
made, in which you stated that Brite's "Exquisite Corpse" and Barker's
"Sacrament" had nothing in common.
It seems to me that these two themes you identify above in reference to
EC, are also themes of Sacrament. Do you not think that Barker addresses
both of these themes in his book, the latter in the character of Rosa
McGee?
Stevie m
to e-mail me change .com to .ca
Adrian
"Mize, Arthur Thomas" <NOSPAM...@flash.net> writes
>I have not heard of Dennis Cooper. Could you supply a reading list?
I've only read 'Frisk', but that's great.
--
Adrian
"I believe in the derangement of the senses: in Rimbaud, William Burroughs,
Huysmans, Genet, Celine, Swift, Defoe, Carroll, Coleridge, Kafka." -J.G. Ballard
downfall
On Tue, 30 Dec 1997, stevie m wrote:
> She offends the hell out of your middle class, repressed, mainstream
> american morals doesn't she?
actually i think she's just a bag of hot gas who gets off on homo erotica
and has legions of mindless fans who worship at her alter, claiming
there's some deep meaning to her work. there's not. stevie, i think
you're just trying to see depth in a wading pool. it just isn't there.
> For you, I will explain what that statement means. It means that she
> writes about the problems of the world. It does not mean she is out to
> solve them, or that she has the answers, or that she even believes that
> there are answers.
this is a cop out. something a bad writer does when they create a world
of problems within their stories and, decide, "i'm not going to commit
myself to a solution." it's a cheap, and value reducing trick. it removes
*any* true worth in the novel, and makes it no better than the hetero
erotica pumped out by romance novelists.
-downfall
**********"the man has no sense of reality" - george drakoulias*********
http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~sw852994 fiction, reviews and the best of rmi
**********"say what you mean and say it mean" - j.g. thirlwell**********
downfall
On Wed, 31 Dec 1997, Cliff Evans wrote:
> All you've told me is that *you* don't get anything out of it.
and, essentially, how does this effect (more precisely weaken) my
arguement? there's a lot to be said about human taste and the argument
that said taste is *meaningless* (as you seem to state) is just damn
retarded. it sounds like a wounded poppy fan striving to defend his
heroin, who, ultimately ends up being a trash novelist with very little
worth to her work.
> I don't get anything out of ballet or opera, but I'd hardly discount
> their validity as an art form.
but poppy isn't art...i think that's something you need to understand.
comprehend. just because it's committed to publication doesn't
automatically qualify it in the same league as james, dante, shakespeare
etc. hell, the _dick and jane_ books all saw print, and i'd say they all,
can safely, be considered "non-art."
> It's one thing to not connect with a piece of writing, but it's another
> to maintain that it has no intrinsic value.
i never did say such a thing in my initial post, but fuck it. i haven't
found *any* worth to brite that i can't find in some trashy cyberporn
website. you know, your arguement is *really* starting to sound like
someone stretching to defend their hero...
> This is a middle-school caliber argument against its worth. It's
> Butthead saying "this sucks."
hmm...i fail to see how stating that a writers work bores me to tears
equals that, but fine. henry james' work is tedious, and probably *more*
boring than anything in poppy's cannon but i don't mind reading james
because, quite frankly, there's a pay-off to him.
maime-a-licious
<actually i think she's just a bag of hot gas who gets off on homo
erotica
<and has legions of mindless fans who worship at her alter, claiming
<there's some deep meaning to her work. there's not. stevie, i think
<you're just trying to see depth in a wading pool.
and I think you're a troll...
*poof* be gone...
maime
m a i m e - a t - a r a c n e t - d o t - c o m
She is perfect in a fucked up way.
downfall
On Mon, 5 Jan 1998, Jared Head wrote:
> Maybe - that's the only head I really know what's in. I just wondered why
> a female author used gay men, and whether the story needed them, or if
> there was some other motive. Another poster suggests she has personal
> reasons, so obviously I should stop second guessing.
yeah...she's got personal reasons. i read an interview, on the net, with
her where she stated her whole purpose of incorporating gay sex was,
basically, it's the only sex she can write about that, uhm, propperly
stimulates her.
Scott Promish
In article <68pimk$3f8$1...@news.smart.net>, f...@oceanDELETETHISstar.com says...
>
>Plus a cool setting in New Orleans, colorful minor characters like Lush
>Rimbaud (gotta love that name), and so on.
The name isn't nearly as clever when you realise "Rimbaud" is pronounced more
like "Rambo."
--
"So weary, this straightjacket dreamer
So resigned to continue to suffer
But you've learnt that as you grow weaker
There's less hurt because there's much less to hurt"
- Siouxsie & The Banshees, "Stargazer"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The White Crow's Nest - http://www.cris.com/~scottjp
Book and film reviews!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
downfall
On Mon, 5 Jan 1998, maime-a-licious wrote:
> and I think you're a troll...
> *poof* be gone...
you know, i thought that i *should've* removed the a.b.pzb from the
header, assuming that someone over there could make an argument of some
sort...guess not. fucking sheep.
stevie m
downfall wrote:
> On Tue, 30 Dec 1997, stevie m wrote:
> > She offends the hell out of your middle class, repressed, mainstream
> > american morals doesn't she?
>actually i think she's just a bag of hot gas who gets off on homo
>erotica and has legions of mindless fans who worship at her alter,
>claiming there's some deep meaning to her work. there's not. stevie,
>i think you're just trying to see depth in a wading pool. it just isn't
>there.
Right, like I said. She offends your morals, so you believe her work to
be, ipso facto, without value. Sorry chumly, one does not follow from
the other. But hey, I can see from your other post that you see yourself
as being in possession of ultimate truth when it comes to matters of
literary art.
(this next came after my comment that Brite has much to say about the
problems of the world was misrepresented as me saying she had the
solutions to said problems.)
>>For you, I will explain what that statement means. It means that she
>>writes about the problems of the world. It does not mean she is out to
>>solve them, or that she has the answers, or that she even believes that
>>there are answers.
>this is a cop out.
How so? Do you honestly believe that there are workable solutions to all
the problems of the world? Do you honestly believe that commentary, to
have value, must offer solutions rather than simple exposition of the
problems being examined?
>something a bad writer does when they create a world of problems within
>their stories and, decide, "i'm not going to commit myself to
>a solution." it's a cheap, and value reducing trick. it removes *any*
>true worth in the novel, and makes it no better than the hetero
>erotica pumped out by romance novelists.
Ummm, first off, Brite did not "create" the problems she wrote about in
EC. They are problems in the world around us. And secondly, this whole
diatribe of yours reminds me of the old shut up the kids rule of "don't
criticize unless you have something better to offer". Frankly, that is
horseshit designed only to suppress dissent and honest commentary.
Your shallowness and lack of breadth fairly drips from every word of
your posts mr. downfall.
Corinne & Tom LaBolle
Scott Promish wrote:
>
>
>
> I got very near the end of Kathe Koja's 'Bad Brains' before it hit me that
> very little had really happened in the story. I'm split between feeling
> disappointed that the final act didn't really "deliver," and being simply
> blown away by the images and ideas she created. I guess I did feel somewhat
> cheated, but it still left me with a desire to read at least one more novel
> ('Strange Angels' is waiting on my shelf.)
Strange Angels is a wonderful read, and will propel you from start to
finish. It's a lot like Bad Brains or The Cipher in that it also left me
feeling cheated by fluff. On the other hand, I am very torn about all
her books, and I keep them around despite the feeling of something
missing, simply because the writing is so compelling.
Corinne
PURE HADES
And don't forget John Peyton Cooke whose The Lake, Out For Blood, Torsos and
The Chimeny Sweeper all have gay characters, tertiary in The Lake and central
in the other three. He also wrote the story The Penitent for that Dark Romance
anthology, or whatever it was called.
pure ha...@aol.com (Shade Rupe)
Fiona Webster
I wrote:
> Poppy Z. Brite (in her own words, "a gay man who happens
> to have been born in a female body") is an avid reader of
> Dennis Cooper. Now that Brite has left her vampires
> behind, is she joining the Genet/Burroughs/Cooper tradition?
> Her latest novel, _Exquisite Corpse_, suggests that while
> Brite is tackling more adult themes now--the AIDS plague,
> the sexual dynamic of predator and victim
Steve M. replied:
>I wanted to address this comment in the context of an earlier post you
>made, in which you stated that Brite's "Exquisite Corpse" and Barker's
>"Sacrament" had nothing in common.
>
>It seems to me that these two themes you identify above in reference to
>EC, are also themes of Sacrament. Do you not think that Barker addresses
>both of these themes in his book, the latter in the character of Rosa
>McGee?
Hmm... I hadn't thought about _Sacrament_ that way. I think you're right.
But then, when said I the two books had nothing in common, I knew I
was asking for it. :-)
--Fiona
Scott Promish
In article <34AAA6...@icehouse.net>, t...@icehouse.net says...
>I could see how this would be an issue of preference. I find the same
>thing with Kathe Koja, or even Tanith Lee's vampire books. The writing
>is beautiful and compelling and draws you on just because of the style,
>but then nothing much happens! No matter how beautiful the writing,
>this does leave me feeling cheated, shaking my head, like "why on earth
>did I read this to begin with". I'll acknowledge that this is a matter
>of preference, perhaps, but it disturbs me that I cannot find one female
>author writing was you term "layered narrative". Actually, I think most
>writing should contain at least a minimum level of all these important
>elements. You mentioned cardboard type characters in more
>action-oriented, narrative-based work. This doesn't have to be the case.
>Nor does this image-ridden fluff. It these writers had actually given me
>some substance behind the prettiness, I would have appreciated it even
>more.
It's interesting that you bring up those two writers. I've been a big fan of
Tanith Lee for a while now. While I'll admit the first Blood Opera novel
moved a little slowly, the second one picked up, and I loved both (haven't
gotten to the third yet.) Her writing is beautiful without being too flowery
or pretentious. It flows really well, whereas Brite's style (if you can call
it that) and her choice of words just seems...clumsy...to me.
This doesn't mean I can read absolutely anything from Lee...'A Heroine of the
World' was so dull I couldn't even get halfway into it. So far, it has been a
singular experience.
I got very near the end of Kathe Koja's 'Bad Brains' before it hit me that
very little had really happened in the story. I'm split between feeling
disappointed that the final act didn't really "deliver," and being simply
blown away by the images and ideas she created. I guess I did feel somewhat
cheated, but it still left me with a desire to read at least one more novel
('Strange Angels' is waiting on my shelf.)
--
Criswell
The funny thing is, Poppy's fans have proven, with this thread, that
they have more depth, and more imagination, than the woman
herself--because they've dreamed up more fiction here than Poppy
herself ever did. Oh, I'll admit that LOST SOULS was original, and
that she really had something to say with that story. But the sad,
hard truth of the matter is that to be a legitimate, and continuingly
successful writer of fiction, one has to have more than one original
thought. It doesn't work to just stick a couple homosexuals in what
amounts to pretty much the same story every time, but have them do
grosser and grosser things each time around. Poppy has said
everything she has to say, and now she needs to go sell vacuum
cleaners or something.
You can take this whole diatribe as homophobic if you want, but
another poster (I forget who,) said it best, I think: "Men having sex
with men might shock my granny, but it doesn't work on me." -Or
something like that.
Too much has been said about Poppy already, she's much too shallow
to write volumes on here. Can't we just say she blows goats, and
leave it at that?
Criswell
Vegard
In article <Pine.OSF.3.93.980105...@oak.cats.ohiou.edu>,
downfall <sw85...@oak.cats.ohiou.edu> writes:
>hmm...i fail to see how stating that a writers work bores me to tears
>equals that, but fine. henry james' work is tedious, and probably *more*
>boring than anything in poppy's cannon but i don't mind reading james
>because, quite frankly, there's a pay-off to him.
Obviously, to the likes of yourself--people who read fiction solely
motivated by social ambition/pretension--the pay-off is to get to tell
all the right people that you've read the book.
Vegard
Jared Head
Fiona Webster (f...@oceanDELETETHISstar.com) wrote:
: Jared writes (w/ re. to Poppy Z. Brite's _Exquisite Corpse_):
: > You'll have a hard job persuading me that there isn't at least some
: > intention to shock when an author writes about necrophilia and cannibalism
: > (oops, second guessing again).
:
: You ought to try Cormac McCarthy's _Child of God_, then. It's a
: beautiful literary portrait of a necrophiliac, complete with grisly
: descriptions. The character is even likeable.
That sounds interesting. My main disappointment with EC was that it
seemed at the start to be a book that was going to show me the attraction
of being a mass-murderer and a necrophile, but it didn't.
: On a more general note, I see no intrinsic reason why an author's
: choice of topic--any topic--gives us insight into their intention in writing
: about it. But then, I'm one of those folks who buys the claim of postmodern
: lit-critters that authorial intention is not only unknowable, but irrelevant
: to one's reading of a book. :-)
Me too. We've had long, long arguments about this in
alt.books.stephen-king ("the authority of the author"), and there's plenty
of people who take the opposite view.
Jared Head
Scott Promish (sco...@cris.com) wrote:
: It's interesting that you bring up those two writers. I've been a big fan of
: moved a little slowly, the second one picked up, and I loved both (haven't
: gotten to the third yet.) Her writing is beautiful without being too flowery
: or pretentious. It flows really well, whereas Brite's style (if you can call
: it that) and her choice of words just seems...clumsy...to me.
: This doesn't mean I can read absolutely anything from Lee...'A Heroine of the
: World' was so dull I couldn't even get halfway into it. So far, it has been a
: singular experience.
Never read the Blood Opera books, but Lee is one of my favorite authors.
I've just read "Lights Go Out" and was really impressed. Not only has she
written another beautiful book, with a wonderful reconstruction of an
English sea-side town, but I felt her plotting had really matured too.
: I got very near the end of Kathe Koja's 'Bad Brains' before it hit me that
: very little had really happened in the story. I'm split between feeling
: disappointed that the final act didn't really "deliver," and being simply
: blown away by the images and ideas she created. I guess I did feel somewhat
: cheated, but it still left me with a desire to read at least one more novel
: ('Strange Angels' is waiting on my shelf.)
This is exactly how I felt about "Bad Brains". I'm glad I read it and
I'll definitely look out for her others, but the plot itself left me a
little cold.
Talking of authors who seem to concentrate more on imagery than plot, I
could read Charles L. Grant's proverbial laundry list. In some of his
stories, the Oxrun Station ones, for example, I'd be happier if he just
continued his scene-setting through the whole book, and completely forgot
about a plot.
stevie m
Criswell wrote:
(snipped most of the current Criswell volume)
> Too much has been said about Poppy already, she's much too shallow
> to write volumes on here. Can't we just say she blows goats, and
> leave it at that?
Well, clearly you can say anything you want. And in your little world,
I'm certain that what you say is the truth the whole truth and nothing
but the immutable truth.
There are those of us, however, who feel no compulsion to follow the
gospel of literature according to Criswell, and who will continue to
hold divergent opinions which we will continue to discuss. I'm sure this
will continue to annoy you Criswell, but so what? If you get bored, I
guess you can always go blow a goat.
Stevie m
Cliff Evans
downfall wrote:
>
> On Mon, 5 Jan 1998, maime-a-licious wrote:
>
> > and I think you're a troll...
> > *poof* be gone...
>
> you know, i thought that i *should've* removed the a.b.pzb from the
> header, assuming that someone over there could make an argument of some
> sort...guess not. fucking sheep.
Um, you still haven't addressed mine intelligently, and I can tell you
that normally, this is a *mild* response to idiots in abpzb.
--
Cliff Evans
<boz...@earthlink.net>
--------------------------------------------------------
"Execution/mass pollution/my solution/kill the humans."
-Vision Of Disorder
--------------------------------------------------------
Cliff Evans
downfall wrote:
>
> On Wed, 31 Dec 1997, Cliff Evans wrote:
>
> > All you've told me is that *you* don't get anything out of it.
>
> and, essentially, how does this effect (more precisely weaken) my
> arguement? there's a lot to be said about human taste and the argument
> that said taste is *meaningless* (as you seem to state) is just damn
> retarded.
Simple. If you are going to judge subjective worth, you need subjective
criteria. "It sucks" doesn't indicate anything but vague distaste, and
doesn't address things like plot construction, characterization,
setting, mood, imagery, growth of the writer, breadth and depth of
oeuvre, or even whether or not it's an interesting story. All it tells
me is that you judge more by reaction than by analysis. Taste isn't
necessarily meaningless (though woe is a world in which it is the only
factor) but to impugn something's *worth*, you need to establish
conditions of worth, which you haven't.
> it sounds like a wounded poppy fan striving to defend his
> heroin, who, ultimately ends up being a trash novelist with very little
> worth to her work.
Wounded? Nah. Just annoyed that you can't come up with more coherent
criticism. You throw around epithets, but refuse to come up with any
solid reason for their use, other than "well, *I* don't like it, so it
has no merit whatsoever."
> but poppy isn't art...i think that's something you need to understand.
> comprehend. just because it's committed to publication doesn't
> automatically qualify it in the same league as james, dante, shakespeare
> etc. hell, the _dick and jane_ books all saw print, and i'd say they all,
> can safely, be considered "non-art."
Well, that's funny, everyone *knows* Shakespeare was a hack, and that he
was writing base entertainment. He was hardly considered art in his
time. But now he *is* considered art. Does this mean you can't tell
"real" art when you see it, or that you would have been saying the same
thing about ol' Willie The Shake back in the day?
Some truly atrocious things have seen print, true. But my point is that
I don't discount something's validity simply because I don't enjoy it.
But apparently, on your planet, not liking something is sufficient to
dismiss any worth it might have, and nothing more.
> i never did say such a thing in my initial post, but fuck it. i haven't
> found *any* worth to brite that i can't find in some trashy cyberporn
> website. you know, your arguement is *really* starting to sound like
> someone stretching to defend their hero...
And yours continues to be this one-note litany of "she's no good, she
sucks, there's nothing to it, she's a bad writer..." and on, and
on...without at any point telling me *why* you think she's bad.
> hmm...i fail to see how stating that a writers work bores me to tears
> equals that, but fine. henry james' work is tedious, and probably *more*
> boring than anything in poppy's cannon but i don't mind reading james
> because, quite frankly, there's a pay-off to him.
So you read established authors like Henry James even though they bore
you to tears? What *are* your criteria for what you read? How impressive
they look on your bookshelf?
Cliff Evans
Criswell wrote:
> Oh, I'll admit that LOST SOULS was original, and
> that she really had something to say with that story. But the sad,
> hard truth of the matter is that to be a legitimate, and continuingly
> successful writer of fiction, one has to have more than one original
> thought. It doesn't work to just stick a couple homosexuals in what
> amounts to pretty much the same story every time, but have them do
> grosser and grosser things each time around.
That's funny, I've always thought Lost Souls, while one of her most
entertaining stories, was also one of the *least* original because
vampires are tired, and have been for some time. And I fail to see how
her three novels have anything in common *except* for the inclusion of
gay characters. I can assure you that if all the icky homosexual sex
bothers you, that many of her short stories contain lots and lots of
straight people, and in some of them, nobody even kisses.
> You can take this whole diatribe as homophobic if you want, but
> another poster (I forget who,) said it best, I think: "Men having sex
> with men might shock my granny, but it doesn't work on me." -Or
> something like that.
Then you're giving it a place in the writing it doesn't have. The
homosexual sex *isn't* supposed to shock you any more than heterosexual
sex. It's just a given. Unless there really is something about it that
bothers you to some degree, but that's yours to deal with.
> Too much has been said about Poppy already, she's much too shallow
> to write volumes on here. Can't we just say she blows goats, and
> leave it at that?
Well, *you* certainly can, and many folks can continue to give your
pronounciamentos the same weight they would your namesakes'.
Cliff Evans
downfall wrote:
> actually i think she's just a bag of hot gas who gets off on homo erotica
> and has legions of mindless fans who worship at her alter, claiming
> there's some deep meaning to her work. there's not. stevie, i think
> you're just trying to see depth in a wading pool. it just isn't there.
Well, I wouldn't maintain that there's any "deep meaning" to her
writing, necessarily, but I also think that something's value as
commentary on a time and place cannot be judged while in that time in
place. It's very rare, if ever, that you can peg something as
representative or classic until it has stood the test of time. As it
stands now, I think they're simply well-written stories, with characters
I understand and sympathize with, and full of rich, interesting imagery.
I think she does a pretty good job of looking at macabre things in a
fresh light, when she's writing at her best. Why the homoerotic thing
seems to bother you, I don't know.
> this is a cop out. something a bad writer does when they create a world
> of problems within their stories and, decide, "i'm not going to commit
> myself to a solution." it's a cheap, and value reducing trick. it removes
> *any* true worth in the novel, and makes it no better than the hetero
> erotica pumped out by romance novelists.
So, for a novel to have real worth, it needs to be about Important
Things Of Great Significance? Boy, are *you* in the wrong place.
Corinne & Tom LaBolle
Cliff Evans wrote:
>
>
> So you read established authors like Henry James even though they bore
> you to tears? What *are* your criteria for what you read? How impressive
> they look on your bookshelf?
>
Henry James is good, and "The Turn of the Screw" is a horror classic.
Personally, I don't see anyone would have to force him/herself to read
his books, but I agree, it would be pretty stupid thing to do.
And, well, my definition of "art" is pretty broad. I read everything
from literary classics to true crime. Funny thing is, some of the stuff
hailed as "great literature" can't stand up to the criteria you were
discussing, such as plot, characterization, etc. Some of it is so
self-indulgently abstract as to be completely boring and useless. And
then there's the other end of the spectrum..stuff like the Doom novels..
Sometimes I think that these people who want to translate games into
books for bucks should actually think about what a book is, or to admit
that there actually is translation process to begin with. Hey, I don't
care if they make fiction out of these things, but it actually has to
*be* fiction, not a transcipt of a game session.
Corinne
Corinne & Tom LaBolle
Fiona Webster wrote:
>
> I wrote:
> > Poppy Z. Brite (in her own words, "a gay man who happens
> > to have been born in a female body") is an avid reader of
> > Dennis Cooper. Now that Brite has left her vampires
> > behind, is she joining the Genet/Burroughs/Cooper tradition?
> > Her latest novel, _Exquisite Corpse_, suggests that while
> > Brite is tackling more adult themes now--the AIDS plague,
> > the sexual dynamic of predator and victim
What is this thing about women writers that think they're gay men?
I want to read something from a man who thinks he's a lesbian. I'm
getting bored of this.
Corinne
Cliff Evans
Corinne & Tom LaBolle wrote:
>
> Fiona Webster wrote:
> >
> > I wrote:
> > > Poppy Z. Brite (in her own words, "a gay man who happens
> > > to have been born in a female body") is an avid reader of
> > > Dennis Cooper.
> You know, the recently deceased Kathy Acker also made that comment.
> What is this thing about women writers that think they're gay men?
> I want to read something from a man who thinks he's a lesbian. I'm
> getting bored of this.
Two things...
1) Kathy Acker's dead? Shit.
2) While this does seem to be an increasingly popular pose...cough,
cough...Madonna...cough, cough...I actually think Poppy isn't posing
when she claims to empathize more with gay men, since it also seems to
be one of her weaknesses. Love her stuff though I do, she can't write
female characters to save her life. They're all either idiots or plot
ciphers. Beautiful boys she can spend pages describing, the average
female in one of her books has a lifespan of about one chapter, total.
Jack D. Ripper
>You know, the recently deceased Kathy Acker also made that comment.
>What is this thing about women writers that think they're gay men?
>I want to read something from a man who thinks he's a lesbian. I'm
>getting bored of this.
Women that think they're gay men? I think the term is "fag-hag", my
dear.
Cheers,
Jack D. Ripper
"Hey, I'm a lesbian! I'm a lesbian trapped in a man's body!!!!" --
Male platitude #345
Jack D. Ripper
On Wed, 07 Jan 1998 09:02:48 -0400, Cliff Evans <boz...@earthlink.net>
wrote:
>Corinne & Tom LaBolle wrote:
>>
>> Fiona Webster wrote:
>> >
>> > I wrote:
>> > > Poppy Z. Brite (in her own words, "a gay man who happens
>> > > to have been born in a female body") is an avid reader of
>> > > Dennis Cooper.
>2) While this does seem to be an increasingly popular pose...cough,
>cough...Madonna...cough, cough...I actually think Poppy isn't posing
>when she claims to empathize more with gay men, since it also seems to
>be one of her weaknesses. Love her stuff though I do, she can't write
>female characters to save her life. They're all either idiots or plot
>ciphers. Beautiful boys she can spend pages describing, the average
>female in one of her books has a lifespan of about one chapter, total.
Poor thing. :~(
Cheers,
Jack D. Ripper
"The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen & human stupidity." -- Harlan Ellison
downfall
On 6 Jan 1998, Vegard wrote:
> Obviously, to the likes of yourself--people who read fiction solely
> motivated by social ambition/pretension--the pay-off is to get to tell
> all the right people that you've read the book.
sorry...but if i were the social climbing stud muffin you imply then,
quite frankly, what the *fuck* would i be doing here, on usenet?
downfall
On Mon, 5 Jan 1998, stevie m wrote:
> Right, like I said. She offends your morals, so you believe her work to
> be, ipso facto, without value. Sorry chumly, one does not follow from
> the other. But hey, I can see from your other post that you see yourself
> as being in possession of ultimate truth when it comes to matters of
> literary art.
i don't see how you could sufficiently judge my morals from my posts
on this subject (or, come to think of it, *any* of my posts). and as for
my "dissing her because she has no value" that's my own personal judgement
against her. sorry, but i get *nothing* from her work. i find her
attempts at "eroticism" to be particularly bad, some passages in her work
extremely rough to get through (ie. they bore me.), her characters are so
damn card board i could *swear* that a homeless man could use them for a
house. not to mention, her entire subject manner has been done to
death...
> How so? Do you honestly believe that there are workable solutions to all
> the problems of the world? Do you honestly believe that commentary, to
> have value, must offer solutions rather than simple exposition of the
> problems being examined?
i believe so. if you're going to comment on the issue, what worth is it
without a solution? it's much like putting up a review for a film and
saying "it sucks?" and never mentioning a reason. it's shallow and
pointless.
> Ummm, first off, Brite did not "create" the problems she wrote about in
> EC. They are problems in the world around us.
so, she didn't write a novel...some one else wrote it for her? i see...
> And secondly, this whole diatribe of yours reminds me of the old shut up
> the kids rule of "don't criticize unless you have something better to
> offer". Frankly, that is horseshit designed only to suppress dissent and
> honest commentary.
well, let's recap my diatribe. i find poppy's work incredibly inane, with
nothing to say, working my way through her "erotic prose" is like cutting
my way through marble, with a tooth pick. hmm...i don't see anything
resembling "fuck you! poppy is god! you can't do any better, so shut
up!" yeah...pathetic lemmming, i see the connection...
> Your shallowness and lack of breadth fairly drips from every word of
> your posts mr. downfall.
i pride myself on being shallow. i consider it one of my better features.
did i mention i'm one sexy bastard?
downfall
On Tue, 6 Jan 1998, Cliff Evans wrote:
> Well, I wouldn't maintain that there's any "deep meaning" to her
> writing, necessarily, but I also think that something's value as
> commentary on a time and place cannot be judged while in that time in
> place.
again...another cop out. your basically running from this issue. i'm just
saying poppy *isn't* art and couldn't last five minutes (if that) to some
real criticism. it's fine that you like it. that's great. but i find her
work is a waste of my time.
> It's very rare, if ever, that you can peg something as
> representative or classic until it has stood the test of time.
i never once tried to peg her as a "classic" and find it laughable that
someone could even entertain the fact that she could become so. she'll be
forgotten in a few years time. she'll be relegated to dusty corners in
used book stores, along with most of the other "erotic vampire" trash.
> As it stands now, I think they're simply well-written stories, with characters
> I understand and sympathize with, and full of rich, interesting imagery.
> I think she does a pretty good job of looking at macabre things in a
> fresh light, when she's writing at her best.
that's fine...but i consider it in the same league as a well written
shopping list. it's taste.
> Why the homoerotic thing seems to bother you, I don't know.
actually, it's *not* just the erotic stuff that bugs me...it's her entire
style, her characters, her ideas. i think her prose is hot gas.
> So, for a novel to have real worth, it needs to be about Important
> Things Of Great Significance? Boy, are *you* in the wrong place.
why, necessarily, am i in the wrong place? are you saying that horror and
immortance are necessarily seperated? okay...whatever.
downfall
On Tue, 6 Jan 1998, Cliff Evans wrote:
> Simple. If you are going to judge subjective worth, you need subjective
> criteria.
actually, i've passed two *seperate* judgements on poppy. one is personal
taste which, roughly stated, i think she blows goats. the second one is
the subjective, artistic merit of her work which, roughly stated, goes
"she has nothing to her." those are my basis for dissing little miss
goth. she doesn't appeal to my tastes and she has no artistic merit.
> "It sucks" doesn't indicate anything but vague distaste, and
> doesn't address things like plot construction, characterization,
> setting, mood, imagery, growth of the writer, breadth and depth of
> oeuvre, or even whether or not it's an interesting story.
alright. i find her imagery totally uninspired and complete rehash. her
prose bores me to tears. her plots are incredibly *stupid* and the mood,
well, i'll give her that. she can set up a good mood. but i want more
from her. i want subtext. is this necessarily a *bad* thing to desire in
my reading? i like it when i can read a story, then sit down and dissect
it on a completely different level than simple "enjoyment." if you feel
like i've *missed* this in ms. brite's work, then feel free to point it
out to me...
i haven't read _exquisite corpse_ but if you *promise* me that her
characters have changed (ie. they're not self absorbed goth kiddies) and
her plot is completely different to *anything* that can be found
elsewhere, and her prose has grown. then i'll give it a try.
now onto a completely *different* matter.
> Well, that's funny, everyone *knows* Shakespeare was a hack, and that he
> was writing base entertainment. He was hardly considered art in his
> time.
yeah...i know he was a hack...he was also a literary thief. he's just
managed to survive. i'd say it's because his themes and his popularity
he's managed to last so long (ie. they can be interpereted within *any*
time and still remain true to the original work.)
> But now he *is* considered art. Does this mean you can't tell
> "real" art when you see it, or that you would have been saying the same
> thing about ol' Willie The Shake back in the day?
actually, i wouldn't defend ol' bill. i don't like his work. i was just
laughing at somebodies insistance that poppy is art by default, and were
putting her into the same league as ballet....(which, oddly enough, i
don't like either...)
> Some truly atrocious things have seen print, true. But my point is that
> I don't discount something's validity simply because I don't enjoy it.
> But apparently, on your planet, not liking something is sufficient to
> dismiss any worth it might have, and nothing more.
there's some truly great stuff (art) out there that i don't enjoy, but i
don't dismiss it's worth. i just don't find poppy on that level. i think
she's pop. she's a hack pumping out stuff so she doesn't have to go back
to her day job of stripping.
> And yours continues to be this one-note litany of "she's no good, she
> sucks, there's nothing to it, she's a bad writer..." and on, and
> on...without at any point telling me *why* you think she's bad.
i stated it once, and i restated it above...i hope it manages to feed this
desire of yours to find out my problems with miss. brite.
> So you read established authors like Henry James even though they bore
> you to tears? What *are* your criteria for what you read? How impressive
> they look on your bookshelf?
god. do you fucking people read these threads or are you some pathetic
cyber stalker who mindlessly reads what i post, and only what i post? i
was defending my statement about poppy boring me to tears with her
painful prose. someone dissmissed this as a "valid reason" to dislike her.
and i responded by basically saying "that's not the only reason i dislike
her." and then proceeded to use james as an example. no matter *how* much
you like his writing (or don't) he was rather, uhm, long winded and
sometimes quite tedious (especially during his novels). have you read
_turn of the screw_ by chance?
and, for the record, if i wanted to impress my friends with the books i've
read i sure as hell wouldn't have james sitting up there. i'd have a ton
of king, but more precisely i'd have _the stand_. it impresses due to
it's sheer size.
stevie m
downfall wrote a whole rehashed load of whatever, neatly summarized in
his final statement:
>i pride myself on being shallow.
>i consider it one of my better features.
... yeah, I know he was being a sarcastic smartass, but sometimes even a
sarcastic smartass hits the nail on the head, however unintentionally.
s.m.
Cliff Evans
Jared Head wrote:
>
> Cliff Evans (boz...@earthlink.net) wrote:
> : Maybe...though I wonder if she'll even still be writing horror then. I
> : think for someone who's doing her literary growing up in public, I think
> : she's doing a damn good job.
>
> I hope she stays in horror. I wouldn't like to think that it's an
> immature author's genre. After all Peter Straub started on 'straight'
> fiction and matured *into* the genre.
It's not that I hope she goes on from horror, I think her interests are
as a whole too macabre *not* to, but I could also see her writing
travelogues, as well as straight fiction, and sometimes she seems like
she doesn't like sticking to one type of story for too long.
mj devaney
Fiona Webster wrote:
>
> Jared writes (w/ re. to Poppy Z. Brite's _Exquisite Corpse_):
> > You'll have a hard job persuading me that there isn't at least some
> > intention to shock when an author writes about necrophilia and cannibalism
> > (oops, second guessing again).
>
> You ought to try Cormac McCarthy's _Child of God_, then. It's a
> beautiful literary portrait of a necrophiliac, complete with grisly
> descriptions. The character is even likeable.
>
> choice of topic--any topic--gives us insight into their intention in writing
> about it. But then, I'm one of those folks who buys the claim of postmodern
> lit-critters that authorial intention is not only unknowable, but irrelevant
> to one's reading of a book. :-)
The claim is hardly unique to "postmodern lit-critters," first of all,
but second, and more importantly, your remark is a bit pat and short on
reflection. For one thing, the notion that authorial intention is
unknowable is one those claims whose content is too minimal to allow of
acceptance or rejection--that is, one feels compelled to ask, e.g.,
"unknowable in what sense?" Second, intentionality is
practically-speaking the condition of possibility of reading a book, for
if you think that either a) the sentences of a book "mean" independently
of anyone's intending them to mean something, then you're approaching
them like you'd approach a natural sign (say, "smoke," which "means"
fire)--in which case there is a kind of necessity to your understanding
that cannot, does not characterize reading, which would make reading
superfluous, or b) the sentences of a book mean whatever you want them
to mean, then same thing as above--there would be a kind of necessity to
the sentences meaning what they do because there would be nothing else
they could mean but what you thought they meant, which would similarly
render reading a gratuitous activity; if you wanted to make words mean
what you wanted, you wouldn't have to read a novel by x, y, or z to
accomplish that.
I submit that, despite your claim above, you in fact believe that when
you read you are confronted with something that manifests the will,
desire, beliefs, hopes (or whatever other intentional states you can
name) of an animate being that is not yourself and that you do not
control. Indeed, I submit that you are only able to read because you
believe this.
--MJ
maime-a-licious
<. Love her stuff though I do, she can't write
<female characters to save her life. They're all either idiots or plot
<ciphers. Beautiful boys she can spend pages describing, the average
<female in one of her books has a lifespan of about one chapter,
total.
What about Eddie? Oh she gave her away... oops
maime
m a i m e - a t - a r a c n e t - d o t - c o m
She is perfect in a fucked up way.
Paul Adams
mj devaney wrote in article <34B411...@nebraskapress.unl.edu>...
>The claim is hardly unique to "postmodern lit-critters," first of all,
>but second, and more importantly, your remark is a bit pat and short on
>reflection. For one thing, the notion that authorial intention is
>unknowable is one those claims whose content is too minimal to allow of
>acceptance or rejection--that is, one feels compelled to ask, e.g.,
>"unknowable in what sense?" Second, intentionality is
>practically-speaking the condition of possibility of reading a book, for
>if you think that either a) the sentences of a book "mean" independently
>of anyone's intending them to mean something, then you're approaching
>them like you'd approach a natural sign (say, "smoke," which "means"
>fire)--in which case there is a kind of necessity to your understanding
>that cannot, does not characterize reading, which would make reading
>superfluous, or b) the sentences of a book mean whatever you want them
>to mean, then same thing as above--there would be a kind of necessity to
>the sentences meaning what they do because there would be nothing else
>they could mean but what you thought they meant, which would similarly
>render reading a gratuitous activity; if you wanted to make words mean
>what you wanted, you wouldn't have to read a novel by x, y, or z to
>accomplish that.
I don't really accept this line of reasoning. I'll speak for myself here,
and not for Fiona or anyone else.
If I say that "I don't believe I can know an author's intention," I mean
that I can't know with certainty what the author intended to convey. I
don't mean that I can't tell whether this book was written by a person
with intent.
If I say that "I don't need to know what an author intended in order to
understand or criticize a book," I mean that the book is a self contained
entity which can be interpretted without reference to outside factors. I
don't mean that the sentences mean whatever I want them to mean. I rely
on the text itself. Once the author has completed the work, his or her
interpretation is no longer relevant. If the ideas were clearly
communicated in the text, then fabulous, we have no need to refer to the
author for interpretation. If the ideas were not clearly communicated, or
incorrectly communicated, then too bad, the author has lost the chance to
correct this error, and no amount of explaination based on the author's
intent will have any bearing on the criticism of the work.
And then we have the case of ambiguity of intent. A book can be ambiguous
but still be good. Some books lend themselves to subjective
interpretation more than others, or defy efforts to reduce the work to
simple explainations. In such cases in particular, reference to the
author's intent can be without value, or even damaging to the reading
experience.
The reason that some artists are hesitant to discuss their own works is
because they are aware of how their interpretation can change on a daily
basis, and they refuse to dictate the interpretation to the audience.
Other artists do attempt to dictate interpretation, but do so in vain
because the work is out of their hands. The truth is that it's possible
for an author to fail in interpretation of his or her own work, despite
the fact that the author has a greater awareness of the original intent
than anyone else. I've had this experience personally. I wrote a poem,
and a reader later explained the meaning to me. I had to agree he was
100% right. And once I understood the poem, I liked it!
wspig
"Poppy Z. Brite (in her own words, "a gay man who happens
> to have been born in a female body")"
Ummmm ...
Does that mean Poopy only like to have sex with gay men?
Just curious.
The Pig
Corinne & Tom LaBolle
Well, I'd say that isn't possible, but sometimes people swing..
Actually, I hate to discuss it, but I saw this porn movie once with Tori
Wells and a bunch of gay men, and she had this rubber Barbie crotch
thing on that covered her up..didn't make much sense.She didn't really
have sex with any of them either, I don't think, was just sort of
"there". Sometimes I go for the most bizarro thinngs to rent. Maybe
Poppy would have liked the experience, who knows?
Corinne
si...@earthlink.nospam.net
downfall wrote:
> well, let's recap my diatribe. i find poppy's work incredibly inane, with
> nothing to say, working my way through her "erotic prose" is like cutting
> my way through marble, with a tooth pick. hmm...i don't see anything
> resembling "fuck you! poppy is god! you can't do any better, so shut
> up!" yeah...pathetic lemmming, i see the connection...
>
Um, all I can say is if you don't like her work, then this is not the NG
for you, and perhaps you should find one you are more comfortable in,
and where the other subscribers are more comfortable with you... it
seems rather pointless to go on debating that you don't find merit in
her work and we do... it's simply a matter of personal tastes...
> i pride myself on being shallow. i consider it one of my better features.
> did i mention i'm one sexy bastard?
Sexy and shallow should not go hand in hand, intelligence should make a
stand...
---Jena!!!
--
Visit the Homepage at:
http://home.earthlink.net/~sin4/SinB.html
si...@earthlink.nospam.net
maime-a-licious wrote:
>
> On Wed, 07 Jan 1998 09:02:48 -0400, Cliff Evans <boz...@earthlink.net>
> wrote:
>
> <. Love her stuff though I do, she can't write
> <female characters to save her life. They're all either idiots or plot
> <ciphers. Beautiful boys she can spend pages describing, the average
> <female in one of her books has a lifespan of about one chapter,
> total.
>
> What about Eddie? Oh she gave her away... oops
>
was kinda boyish looking... androgynous, know what I'm sayin'?
si...@earthlink.nospam.net
Jack D. Ripper wrote:
>
> On Tue, 06 Jan 1998 16:22:59 -0800, Corinne & Tom LaBolle
> <t...@icehouse.net> wrote:
>
> >You know, the recently deceased Kathy Acker also made that comment.
> >What is this thing about women writers that think they're gay men?
> >I want to read something from a man who thinks he's a lesbian. I'm
> >getting bored of this.
I know one... and he writes about lesbian characters and does a
beautiful job...
>
> Women that think they're gay men? I think the term is "fag-hag", my
> dear.
>
*sigh* Not quite, but I'm all explained out on this subject these
days... and this is why, actually... well, no, here, I'll give you the
difference... fag hags want to date gay men, or are only sexually
attracted to gay men, perhaps because there is safety in rejection...
feeling you are a gay man trapped in a woman's body means you are
attracted to men, but from a more masculine mindset... I guess what I'm
attempting to explain is a fag hag wants to be taken seriously by a gay
man as a woman... a woman who feels she has a gay man's personality
wants to be taken seriously by both queer and straight men as a male, as
an equal of sorts...
*sigh* Help me, Klauds...
Cliff Evans
Corinne & Tom LaBolle wrote:
>
AFAIK, from interviews and the like, her husband, I think, is bisexual.
She went through what she now refers to as her "unfortunate
'I-have-two-husbands' phase", when they had another man living with them
both. But she seems to have put that well behind her.
Cliff Evans
Robert Allen
In article <34B529...@icehouse.net> Corinne & Tom LaBolle <t...@icehouse.net> writes:
+wspig wrote:
+>
+> "Poppy Z. Brite (in her own words, "a gay man who happens
+> > to have been born in a female body")"
According to Poppy, in a columin in CD last year, "it's not
that simple anymore.", or something to that effect.
Clearly some people take sex waaaaay to seriously.
Jared Head
Robert Allen (r...@batcomfs.eng.sun.com) wrote:
I interpreted it that she is quite happy with her sexuality but wants to
be able to piss standing up.
Jared
--
Jared Head at the Department of Biochemistry, University of Bristol
"A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human
history - with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila."
Mitch Ratliffe
Jack D. Ripper
So what you're sayin' is that Poppy is basically a transgenderist -- a
male trapped in a female's body? No wonder she/he can't write
realistic female characters! Of course there's the third possibility:
that Poppy is is just a repressed lesbian. Some women who are only
attracted to gay men love that "feminine side" a little too much.
Yours Truly,
Jack D. Ripper
Cliff Evans
Robert Allen wrote:
>
> In article <34B529...@icehouse.net> Corinne & Tom LaBolle <t...@icehouse.net> writes:
> +wspig wrote:
> +>
> +> "Poppy Z. Brite (in her own words, "a gay man who happens
> +> > to have been born in a female body")"
>
> According to Poppy, in a columin in CD last year, "it's not
> that simple anymore.", or something to that effect.
>
> Clearly some people take sex waaaaay to seriously.
And if you think gender identity is just sex, you have a lot of growing
up to do.
Corinne & Tom LaBolle
si...@earthlink.nospam.net wrote:
>
> Jack D. Ripper wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, 06 Jan 1998 16:22:59 -0800, Corinne & Tom LaBolle
> > <t...@icehouse.net> wrote:
> >
> > >You know, the recently deceased Kathy Acker also made that comment.
> > >What is this thing about women writers that think they're gay men?
> > >I want to read something from a man who thinks he's a lesbian. I'm
> > >getting bored of this.
>
> I know one... and he writes about lesbian characters and does a
> beautiful job...
What's his name? Just interested...
Corinne
Lilith
>> +wspig wrote:
>> +> "Poppy Z. Brite (in her own words, "a gay man who happens
>> +> > to have been born in a female body")"
>> According to Poppy, in a columin in CD last year, "it's not
>> that simple anymore.", or something to that effect.
>>
>> Clearly some people take sex waaaaay to seriously.
>
>And if you think gender identity is just sex, you have a lot of growing
>up to do.
Some people take gender identity waaaay too seriously...
I don't think that horror writers such as Poppy Brite and Storm
Constantine are writing about gender issues - they're more interested in
transcending and eliminating the idea that gender must be determined by
sex - or that gender is even necessary.
-althea
Anne
Cliff Evans wrote:
>
> Robert Allen wrote:
> >
> > In article <34B529...@icehouse.net> Corinne & Tom LaBolle <t...@icehouse.net> writes:
> > +wspig wrote:
> > +>
> > +> "Poppy Z. Brite (in her own words, "a gay man who happens
> > +> > to have been born in a female body")"
> >
> > According to Poppy, in a columin in CD last year, "it's not
> > that simple anymore.", or something to that effect.
> >
> > Clearly some people take sex waaaaay to seriously.
>
> And if you think gender identity is just sex, you have a lot of growing
> up to do.
No shit...
Agreed.
And regardless of gender identity...sex IS pretty fucking serious(oops)
No really...come on...sex breaks hearts, destroys homes,and
families....sex can cause people to do foolish immature and hurtful
things....sex can kill you, by a jealous lovers gun or a deadly virus.
of course sex can also build a family, bring two people closer together,
create a bond or be nothing more than simple fun or entertainment...
variables such as maturity, temperment, mental stability and such will
always come into play...
either way...good or bad....sex can effect a whole lot more than this
shallow person seems to want to acknowledge...
Love,
Anne
>
> --