SF writers with consistent themes
Dana Goldblatt
Maybe you have noticed that some SF writers have consistent
themes that run through all or almost all of their novels, and
many of their shorter works (if any). I like to think that
(at least in SF, wherethemes don't matter too hugely to
commercial success, I suspect) this comes about not from a
conscious determination to be consistently viewing a theme, but
from an actual concern or concentration on the theme by the
author.
Sometimes these themes come up as tangential speeches by
one or another character (this sort of tangential speech is
very common in science fiction, I have noticed, and can be
the most memorable part of some books for me: example: in Triton
by Samuel Delany, there are two that I remember, one about
SF in the story's past , the other about the erosion of
sexual dimorphism); sometimes the themes come up as repeated
subplots--the first example that comes to mind is the one I
mentioned in an earlier posting about James Morrow--the
father concerned about his child. Sometimes you notice this
after the second work by an author; sometimes it is only after
a retrospection over their entire work that you have read.
Does anyone care to follow up with some examples or
disagreement? Do you find that this sort of thing enhances
or detracts from an author's appeal, or is it neutral in
effect?
-dana
B.A. Davis-Howe
Dana asks for examples of consistent themes.
The author that comes to mind first for me is Charles de Lint. All of his
books are based around the same motif: a person coming to terms with what s'he
is capable of, which s'he had not believed hirself to be capable of because
that capability is not recognised in hir culture. In my view, de Lint is
writing modern mythology, and I like the consistent motif. In another case,
I might find it boring to see the same thing book after book. (For example,
the Hardy Boys series.)
Merry meet, merry part, merry meet again,
Br'anArthur
Queer, Peculiar, and Wyrd! :-)
Doug Dawson
Jack Chalker: Change, whether of body, mind, or soul, or all 3 of the
above at the same time. Sex change popular.
Piers Anthony: children or pre-adolescents discovering sexuality.
John Norman: A lot of nauseating bilge about the natural tendency of
women to be slaves.
Frank Herbert: The power of faith and what such power does to one.
Erich Schneider
Many of Samuel R. Delany's books are about some kind of "Magic Kid"
with some special talent, ability, or outlook, who wanders into a
strange city and is changed by it in some way. Delany himself has
claimed that the first major novel he wrote (the unpublished, lost
_Voyage, Orestes_) has this theme, and that many of his books repeat
it.
Many of C. J. Cherryh's SF works share a common theme: the Universe is
an uncaring, cruel place, and that most people, ignorant of what's
really going on, are treated harshly by it.
--
er...@lighthouse.caltech.edu
"Even the AI hated [my book]?"
"The AI _loved_ it. That's when we knew for sure that _people_ were going
to hate it."
-Dan Simmons, _Hyperion_
Thomas Koenig
>Many of C. J. Cherryh's SF works share a common theme: the Universe is
>an uncaring, cruel place, and that most people, ignorant of what's
>really going on, are treated harshly by it.
Cherryh's recurring themes, as I have identified them, are
1) an individual caught up in a corrupt, secretive power system (Cyteen,
Heavy Time, Rimrunners, ...)
2) Showing men as more vulnerable and more stupid than women (Vanye in
the Morgaine series, Justin in Cyteen, Josh in Downbelow Station,
I_forget_his_name in Serpent's Reach)
3) the moral right of key individuals to shape the destiny of everyone,
because they know better than the ignorant masses (Chanur series,
Cyteen)
4) the heroes are always running along at the point of almost total
exhaustion (Mortaine series, Chanur, Merchanter's Luck)
5) everyone who holds a high military rank is a cold - blooded monster
without the slightest hesitation about killing scores of innocent
civilians (Downbelow Station, Cyteen)
I consider 1) and 4) to be good elements in a novel, if they are not
overdone or used too many times (a point which I think Cherryh has reached
by now), 2) is fair game after the treatment women have got in SF :-),
3) disturbs me quite a lot and I usually yawn at 5).
Another author with a strong recurring theme is Iain Banks. He tends to
preach a lot about the evils of religion, capitalism, the military etc,
in short anything which does not conform to his socialist utopia, the
Culture.
--
Thomas Koenig, ecm...@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz, ib...@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de
The joy of engineering is to find a straight line on a double logarithmic
diagram.
Betsy Perry
>
> Maybe you have noticed that some SF writers have consistent
>themes that run through all or almost all of their novels, and
>many of their shorter works (if any).
Tim Powers: Mutilation. No Powers protagonist ever makes it to the
end of the novel with all his appendages in their original
configuration.
Orson Scott Card: Abused children. (Somebody else on sf-lovers
noticed this first.)
James Blaylock: Weirdness. *Serious* weirdness. Hunchbacks selling
squid in the streets. Millions of migrating hermit crabs.
Eddison: Aphrodite is many people and many things, but not nice.
Piers Anthony: An adolescent male's view of human sexuality. Best
summed up by the great Monty Python skit which ends "What's it like?"
Anybody care to do Cabell?
--
Betsy Hanes Perry (note P in userid) bet...@apollo.hp.com
Hewlett-Packard Company
Who dragged whom, how many times, at the wheels of what, round the walls of where?
Jeff Tang
Chalker: Body Swapping/Rearranging/Building. This has occured in every
book of his I've read.
--
Jeff Tang
je...@athena.mit.edu
Anthony S. Polito
powers that will be the key to saving the world
Mark Rosenfelder
>And don't you forget Card: Poor little missunderstood kid who has super
>powers that will be the key to saving the world
Which leads us to A.E. Van Vogt: kid or adult the masses are incapable of
understanding has super powers that will be the key to saving the world
(and will save it despite the fact that it is in a conspiracy against him).
Christopher Neufeld
over superstition, and particularly the failure of systems which try to
control the thoughts and ideas of people. The idea seems to be that
anything which depends on the blind, unthinking obedience of people will
not stand up against those rare people who actually enjoy thinking for
themselves instead of being told what to think.
--
Christopher Neufeld....Just a graduate student | Talk sense to a fool
neu...@helios.physics.utoronto.ca Ad astra | and he calls you
cneu...@terranet.cts.com | foolish.
"Don't edit reality for the sake of simplicity" | - Euripides
coz...@garnet.berkeley.edu
>In article <1992Jun30.2...@usenet.ins.cwru.edu> bp...@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Dana Goldblatt) writes:
>>
>> Maybe you have noticed that some SF writers have consistent
>>themes that run through all or almost all of their novels, and
>>many of their shorter works (if any).
>
sample, viz., two Paratime stories and two Recluce stories*:
L. E. Modesitt, Jr.: Innocent young lad who hasn't a clue what is going on
develops vast psychic/magical powers and remakes his world practically
single-handed.
-----------
*In other words, I haven't read the Eco- or Forever Hero trilogies,
which I've been told are dreck. Anyone care to defend them?
-----------
Or, as you might put it, Parzifal meets the Clan of the Cave Bear.
>Who dragged whom, how many times, at the wheels of what, round the walls of where?
Achilles dragged Hector, seven times I think, at the wheels of his chariot
round the walls of Troy.
Now then--How many stars, and how many lilies?
Dorothy J. Heydt
UC Berkeley
Disclaimer: This is the Cozzarelli Lab's account, not mine--but I don't
think anybody else ever reads it.
AU...@asuacad.bitnet
(Thomas Koenig) says:
>
>
>Cherryh's recurring themes, as I have identified them, are
>
>
>3) the moral right of key individuals to shape the destiny of everyone,
> because they know better than the ignorant masses (Chanur series,
> Cyteen)
>
>
>3) disturbs me quite a lot
I'm not so sure that this is really a valid criticism of the _Chanur_ books.
************MINOR SPOILER WARNING*****************
You seem to be saying that Py just sort of magalomaniacally takes over the
Compact because she is a key individual with the moral right to do so.
But in the situation there at the end, _someone_ is going to be in charge,
and lots of people are trying for it.Consider the alternatives:
Sikukkukkt- You want a _kif_ in charge of the Compact?
the Mahendo'sat- a species which tosses out agreements when they stop liking
the conditions. There's a recipe for stable multi-species
government.
the Stsho- rampant xenophobes who want to reconfine the hani to Anuurn.
the Han- okay, they have no chance, but they don't know that. Besides,
their ignorant, short-sighted, heavy-handed mucking around could
make a lot of people very angry. When your entire species is on
one planet, this is a bad idea.
Given the choices, I'll take Py. Besides, she seems
to be the only one in the whole place who doesn't want the job. Circumstance,
conspiracy, and an unwillingness to knuckle under pretty much force her into
a position of power, as she must run one bluff after another, each bigger
than the last to extricate herself and her crew from what the last one got
them into. She just happens to win the biggest one of all, with the stakes
being rulership of the Compact and the continued survival of her species.
David Hungerford AU...@ASUACAD.BITNET Opinions? Mine, all mine!!!
Nancy Lebovitz
James Blish: High temperatures--"Fondly Farenheit", and that jungle world
in _Cities in Space_
Orson Scott Card: Child Abuse, generally (always?) by an older male
David Eppstein
> James Blaylock: Weirdness. *Serious* weirdness. Hunchbacks selling
> squid in the streets. Millions of migrating hermit crabs.
If you want something more specific, try vivisectionists.
Silver, Narbondo, and Selznak, to name three...
--
David Eppstein UC Irvine, Info & Computer Science epps...@ics.uci.edu
Jim Mann
> And don't you forget Card: Poor little missunderstood kid who has super
> powers that will be the key to saving the world
But that oversimplifies it a bit too much. If that's all that really
happened, Card would be a minor writer. Instead, the "misunderstood
kid" doesn't really save the world as such. Look at the Ender
series. Does Ender save the world? At first it looks like that.
But what makes this book and its sequels far superior to the simple
military adventures of the "kid saves the world" type is that
Card turns this on its head. Ender, in the end, is not Ender the
hero, but Ender the Xenocide, living with the guilt of having
wiped out (almost) an intelligent species, and helping to pave the
way to a truly better future, in which humans (hopefully) will not
again act that way toward another species.
--
Jim Mann jm...@vineland.pubs.stratus.com Stratus Computer
K R Maxson
>But that oversimplifies it a bit too much. If that's all that really
>happened, Card would be a minor writer. Instead, the "misunderstood
>kid" doesn't really save the world as such. Look at the Ender
>series. Does Ender save the world? At first it looks like that.
>But what makes this book and its sequels far superior to the simple
>military adventures of the "kid saves the world" type is that
>Card turns this on its head. Ender, in the end, is not Ender the
>hero, but Ender the Xenocide, living with the guilt of having
>wiped out (almost) an intelligent species, and helping to pave the
>way to a truly better future, in which humans (hopefully) will not
>again act that way toward another species.
Card is a minor writer, unless you are talking about sales and consumer
recognition. Only in a field with a very flat talent curve could a writer
like OSC stand out.
Liam McDaid
male taking on the entire universe and winning runs through everything
he writes. Incidentally, I would still like opinions about Dickson
and his work. I see him discussed occasionally, and would like to
hear some voices about him. Unless, of course, discussing him
is beneath you :).
-Liam
------------------------------------------------------------------
Liam McDaid "Life seems fullest when you think that
NMSU Astronomy you may soon lose it. Or so they say."
-Maclir
Jim Mann
> James Blish: High temperatures--"Fondly Farenheit", and that jungle
world
> in _Cities in Space_
"Fondly Farenheit" was by Alfred Bester, not James Blish.
Ron Dippold
countries/worlds/groups by sheer cleverness and humor, which totally
fritzes their bureaucratic system.
--
Death and taxes are inevitable; at least death doesn't get worse every year.
Ron Dippold
>Chalker: Body Swapping/Rearranging/Building. This has occured in every
>book of his I've read.
And even more specific, almost always a woman ends up being changed
into a voluptuous sex slave who can't say no...
--
At the source of every error which is blamed on the computer you will find at
least two human errors, including the error of blaming it on the computer.
Jim Mann
>
> Card is a minor writer, unless you are talking about sales and consumer
> recognition. Only in a field with a very flat talent curve could a
writer
> like OSC stand out.
I disagree. I think Card is a very good writer, who is getting better
as he goes along. His books are consistently well-written, contain
real characters and societies, and address real issues head on.
Card generally deals with important themes, and unlike many writers
does not shy away from painful issues or settle for easy answers.
As one example, look at Xenocide. Among other things he
examines the issue of xeoncide, of our moral responsiblities toward
other species (and how far we have the right to go in protecting
ourselves), of the horrible things that even good human beings can
sometimes do (the massacre of the piggies and the reaction of the
humans afterwards, when they had time to realize what they had done).
One consistent theme of Card is that nothing worthwhile is ever
accomplished without a price and that it is never quite what you
want when you get there. (Something Jane Yolen and Judith Tarr
noted about Tolkein, and why his fantasy feels more real than
most of the imitators.) The "happy" endings still have something
bittersweet about them. This, seems to me, to be true, and the
feel this gives his books helps raise them above the ordinary.
Markus Stumptner
>>3) the moral right of key individuals to shape the destiny of everyone,
>> because they know better than the ignorant masses (Chanur series,
>> Cyteen)
I do not think this was intended as a criticism of the Chanur books
themselves. Rather, it was a comment on Cherryh's oeuvre as a whole,
and there are many cases that support it (Cyteen, Downbelow Station to
a degree, Serpent's Reach, some others whose title I don't remember.
Not all fit, though). The Chanur books, while by themselves not
sufficient to reveal that situation as a pattern, fit quite well with
her other works in that respect.
> Given the choices, I'll take Py.
Yes, but the choices have been chosen by Cherryh (sounds cute, that
sentence). As the situation is presented, the result is logical.
That is simply good storytelling. The argument, however, is, that the
situations Cherryh describes consistently places the protagonists in
situations where that kind of decision is the logical consequence.
--
Markus Stumptner m...@vexpert.dbai.tuwien.ac.at
University of Technology Vienna vexpert!m...@uunet.uu.net
Paniglg. 16, A-1040 Vienna, Austria ...mcsun!vexpert!mst
ghost
Diana Wynne Jones, one of my favorite writers & entirely undersung:
recurrent theme: if you think one of your parents, relatives, friends
doesn't like you/is not a nice person/is trying to have you killed...
they are.
fairly novel concept, at the time I 1st encountered it, for someone who's
books are usually classified for juveniles. At the time, it didn't happen,
in kids' books anyway. Nowadays, the baddie would would be a real baddie,
but just because they're incapacitated by drunkenness, drugs, a hard life,
whatever...with DWJ they are never revealed as rehabilitatable, just as a
fact of life.
I hope I'm not giving way too much away here...
sometimes its crucial to the plot, sometimes its incidental except that it
takes up the protagonist's time trying to explain it away & so make themselves
feel better, but its always there.
James Davis Nicoll
>
>Another author with a strong recurring theme is Iain Banks. He tends to
>preach a lot about the evils of religion, capitalism, the military etc,
>in short anything which does not conform to his socialist utopia, the
>Culture.
Some of the characters in his books do, but they're biased.
I find the Culture a bit scary: they have a worldview they strongly
believe, power beyond belief and not much in the way of doubt to slow them
down. Kinda like the Inquisition with nukes...
Anyone else like the Inquisitors from S.P. Somtow's fiction?
James Nicoll
Dave Schaumann
98.3% chance this will degenerate into the next RAH flamewar within 10 days?
--
There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension
as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between
light and shadow, between science and superstition. And it lies between the pit
of Man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of
imagination -- it is an area which we call "The Twilight Zone".
Crawford Kilian
both.
Karen Williams
>Diana Wynne Jones, one of my favorite writers & entirely undersung:
I *love* her books!
>recurrent theme: if you think one of your parents, relatives, friends
>doesn't like you/is not a nice person/is trying to have you killed...
>they are.
Diana Wynne Jones writes about your perfectly awful older sister, or your
horrendous stepfather, or that gang of kids who's always trying to beat
you up. Her characters are very real, too. I heartily recommend her.
--
Karen Williams
bra...@cerebus.ras.amdahl.com
"Don't whine. Warrior women speak in a husky whisper."
-- Brat Pack #3
Jim Kasprzak
|>
|> I find the Culture a bit scary: they have a worldview they strongly
|> believe, power beyond belief and not much in the way of doubt to slow them
|> down. Kinda like the Inquisition with nukes...
Jim Kasprzak
|> Kilian: the struggle of the powerless against the powerful; the failure of
|> both.
you write them doesn't mean you truly understand the deeper meanings behind
the underlying metaphoric structure of the architechtonics that give full
insight into the thematic designs (conscious, subconscious and supra-conscious)
impressed upon the blank template of the text by both the psyche of the author
as autonomous sentience and the collective matrix of human and societal
experiences, mores and ethics considered against the background of the
holistic worldview.
Better stay behind your word processor and stick to your job, and let the
trained professionals handle the interpretations.
------------------------------------------------------------------
__ Live from Capitaland, heart of the Empire State...
___/ | Jim Kasprzak, computer operator @ RPI, Troy, NY, USA
/____ *| Why can't people stop taking things so seriously?
\_| "All I want is to have my peace of mind" - Boston
==== e-mail: kas...@rpi.edu or kasp...@mts.rpi.edu
Anthony S. Polito
is stuff. But, after reading most of what he has written I feel that
there is a strong reacuring theme. The protaganist is young (at least
in the forst book if it is a set of books) and normally is super special
some way or the other. The child is also a loner and misunderstood,
often emotionally and/or physically battered too. The world is in
danger and the child ends up saving it (even if he doesn't want to).
You have got to admit that this theme reacures a BIT much. I wish Card
could write a truly different book (but I havn't read his latest, maybe
that is different).
Norman St. John Polevaulter
>Another author with a strong recurring theme is Iain Banks. He tends to
>preach a lot about the evils of religion, capitalism, the military etc,
>in short anything which does not conform to his socialist utopia, the
>Culture.
Banks does not by any stretch of the imagination portray the Culture as
a perfect, um... culture. (Sigh.) I noticed that, while it rarely comes
out explicitly, there tends to be an undercurrent running through the
books noting that the Culture is a very imperialistic, manipulative,
and amoral outfit. While its ends (keep people happy) can't really be
argued with, its means are very nasty; the Culture doesn't care how many
innocent people it tramples in the name of the "greater good."
Then there's the argument that maybe it's not optimum for humans to
live in a society they have no control over whatsoever, even if it is
in exchange for being taken care of in every way possible...
[Your blood pressure just went up.] Mark Sachs IS: mbs...@psuvm.psu.edu
DISCLAIMER: Penn State only cares about things that are green and fold easily.
"And you said we wouldn't survive this."
"Well, after this experience I've become an optimist out of sheer trauma!"
David Stein
|> both.
Since you've read Kilian, you clearly can't make unbiased objective
judgements about the themes in his/her work.
- David
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm not a native speaker of English, so I'm not sure what I wrote.
Flames will be ignored unless you post them in perfect Czech.
================================ - David (the metamathician) - ===
Donald A Bachman
Stephen R. Donaldson: The person (wimp) who overcomes their
psychological hang-ups.
Keith Laumer: Man who expands the limits of his potential.
Roger Zelazny: Man who refuses to be manipulated by convention.
L. Neil Smith: The Libertarian World that should have been.
Ian Wallace: The super-rational protagonist in a sea of idiots and
meglomaniacs (Helen St. Syr, Croyd, Pan Sagittarius).
There is an author, whose name escapes me, who like to bring chaos
into all of her works, something like someone manipulating the law of prob-
ability to achieve their ends. Anyone remember who, as I have forgotten.
--
===============================================================================
| Lisp is the one true language, and Emacs is its prophet! |
===============================================================================
|Donald A. Bachman|don...@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu|daba...@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu|
===============================================================================
--
Thomas Koenig
>In article <1992Jul1.1...@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz>, ecm...@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz
>(Thomas Koenig) says:
>>Another author with a strong recurring theme is Iain Banks. He tends to
>>preach a lot about the evils of religion, capitalism, the military etc,
>>in short anything which does not conform to his socialist utopia, the
>>Culture.
>Banks does not by any stretch of the imagination portray the Culture as
>a perfect, um... culture. (Sigh.)
I'm under the impression that he tries to, but fails.
>I noticed that, while it rarely comes
>out explicitly, there tends to be an undercurrent running through the
>books noting that the Culture is a very imperialistic, manipulative,
>and amoral outfit.
Manipulative, certainly; Contact is nothing but meddling in other's peoples'
lives, quite massively. As fare as moral is concerned, the Culture
certainly has quite definite values (importance of machine sentience,
negation of religion, negation of commerce) which it seeks to impose on
everybody around.
>While its ends (keep people happy) can't really be
>argued with, its means are very nasty; the Culture doesn't care how many
>innocent people it tramples in the name of the "greater good."
I was rather under the impression that Banks approves of that meddling.
Banks tries to make the Culture more acceptable to the reader by giving
its opponents all sorts of nasty personal habits. The Idirians in
'Consider Phlebas' are religious fanatics engaged in a jihad (which is
a jitter trigger with most people who grew up in European culture) and
racial supremacists, the Azad empire uses torture for entertainment
and the enemies of machine sapiency recognition in the main story of 'Use
of Weapons' run around transplanting limbs to each other for fun - these
things are, IMHO, a shock tactic to make the reader accept these guys'
adversary, namely the Culture, as the Good Guys(tm).
>Then there's the argument that maybe it's not optimum for humans to
>live in a society they have no control over whatsoever, even if it is
>in exchange for being taken care of in every way possible...
So you haven't bought the Culture as the ideal solution to all human
problems, and neither have I :-)
I still like reading Bank's books, it's just that the preachy stuff
makes me flip over pages so much faster...
--
Thomas Koenig, ecm...@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz, ib...@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de
The joy of engineering is to find a straight line on a double logarithmic
diagram.
Betsy Perry
>If you want something more specific, try vivisectionists.
>Silver, Narbondo, and Selznak, to name three...
[my husband's addition]: Carp.
There's gotta be a dissertation in there somewhere:
Strange Fish: Seafood in the (hors d') Oeuvre of James Blaylock
--
Betsy Hanes Perry (note P in userid) bet...@apollo.hp.com
Hewlett-Packard Company
B.A. Davis-Howe
> Stephen R. Donaldson: The person (wimp) who overcomes their
> psychological hang-ups.
[lots deleted]
I disagree strongly with this assessment, though I have only read the six books
of the Covenant material. In those books, the motif seems to be more accurately
"the person (wimp) who saves the world by doing something which hir hangups
resist, but who never actually grows from these actions."
I *liked* the Covenant books a great deal when I was younger, but I have
become very disenchanted. I guess I have seen real emotional growth now, so the
posturing and pathos in Donaldson's books just doesn't cut it anymore.
Merry meet, merry part, merry meet again,
Br'anArthur
Queer, Peculiar, and Wyrd! :-)
James Davis Nicoll
>In article <13...@mindlink.bc.ca>, Crawfor...@mindlink.bc.ca (Crawford Kilian) writes:
>|> Kilian: the struggle of the powerless against the powerful; the failure of
>|> both.
>
> And how do YOU presume to know so much about Kilian's themes? Just because
>you write them doesn't mean you truly understand the deeper meanings behind
>the underlying metaphoric structure of the architechtonics that give full
>insight into the thematic designs (conscious, subconscious and supra-conscious)
>impressed upon the blank template of the text by both the psyche of the author
>as autonomous sentience and the collective matrix of human and societal
>experiences, mores and ethics considered against the background of the
>holistic worldview.
>
> Better stay behind your word processor and stick to your job, and let the
>trained professionals handle the interpretations.
I thought he was writing as Kilian-the-guy-with-a-degree-in-Literature,
(Possibly using the archetype of the Teacher) rather than Kilian the author.
What evidence does the text show for your interpretation?
James Nicoll
Ralph Marrone
How about P. K. Dick's theme that reality is up for grabs.
Markus Stumptner
> Norman St. John Polevaulter <MBS...@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
>>Banks does not by any stretch of the imagination portray the Culture as
>>a perfect, um... culture. (Sigh.)
> I'm under the impression that he tries to, but fails.
There are passages in Consider Phlebas that show the verdict is open.
The question on whether sentient machines running everything is a Good
Thing is touched upon, but not resolved (I haven't read Use of
Weapons). The epilogue about the further life of that female agent
(don't recall her name) quite pointedly expresses that the Culture is
not much fun to her anymore. The Culture also allows stuff like the
barbarians on that island on the orbital.
> So you haven't bought the Culture as the ideal solution to all human
> problems, and neither have I :-)
They way it is presented, I do not think it is supposed to be. If
anything comes out after reading Consider Phlebas and Player of Games,
then that Banks can't think of an ideal solution either (big deal). I
do not think he preaches that much, but I agree the tendency is there.
On the whole, I think that the expression of Utopia with some
skeletons in the closet is appropriate, but Banks does not hide the
skeletons.
Johan Schimanski
have as major themes "one person against repression". Perhaps the reason for
this is that it is an obvious theme, and thus it is easier to find one-theme
authors using that theme than if they had used some other themes. Another way
of explaining it is to look at the concept in ideological terms: it seems to
fit well with the American individualistic myth ethos. I say myth, because it
seems that pioneerism - the the root of this myth, the reason it is a myth - is
hardly a prevalent activity in American society today (or during the 1950s and
60s either, when most of these authors wrote their first work). It seems more
like a diversion - one actively encouraged by Campbell in Astounding, with his
encouragement of the "individualist human fools a whole lot of nasty, inhuman
aliens" theme - to keep readers away from realizing that the US cold war effort
was just as impersonal and unindividualistic as the Soviet one. It provided an
identification with the oppressed in the Soviet Union (as imagined in the US)
when nobody in the US was exactly being oppressed by the Soviets. In the late
60s, I imagine the recurrence of this theme was a sort of backlash against
authoritarianism and intolerance in the US.
My favorite author in this genre has to be A.E. van Vogt. He was more overtly
Nietzschean, predicting that the budding Superman would always be suppressed by
the society he grew into.
Meanwhile, back to the theme of "recurrent themes" - it does provide (in a
"genre literature" context) some relief for the hack reader (look, I know this
concept does not exist - but it should) who wants to be reassured by the books
he/she is reading, and not continually thrown into new, unknown situations.
Recurrent themes can also be handled tongue-in-cheek, for fun, ironically:
thus, Delany often includes nail-biting, and all of Ballard's characters have
names which reproduce in often unexpected ways names of characters in his
earlier novels/stories.
It's said that translators/setters working with the LFP publishers in
Stockholm would always insert the word "comet" into page 42 of each science
fiction novel they produced. This is another way of doing it (smile).
J.
Johan Schimanski Konglevn 45 . N-0860 OSLO . Norway
joh...@hedda.uio.no tel: +47 2 183800/854324 . fax: 856708
My love is like a liquid it flows fitful day and night
Crawford Kilian
themes, suggesting that I stick to my word processor and "let the trained
professionals handle the interpretations." No argument; authors are often
indifferent critics and analysts of their own work. But...(and here is where
the trap closes on the vowelly challenged Mr. Kasprzak, poor wretch)...I *am* a
trained professional! I went to grad school and everything! I wrote a master's
thesis! On Canadian literature (known to the cognoscenti as "virtual
fiction"--it's there only if you want it to be)--so nyah nyah! :)
soren--Ms. Jackson if you're nasty
>Norman St. John Polevaulter <MBS...@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
>>>Another author with a strong recurring theme is Iain Banks. He tends to
>>>preach a lot about the evils of religion, capitalism, the military etc,
>>>in short anything which does not conform to his socialist utopia, the
>>>Culture.
>>Banks does not by any stretch of the imagination portray the Culture as
>>a perfect, um... culture. (Sigh.)
>I'm under the impression that he tries to, but fails.
I'm under the impression that Banks is being a good deal more subtle
than you give him credit for. Clearly the Culture is, in a lot of
ways, a very pleasent place to live. On the other hand, there's nothing
for its inhabitants to DO. The only thing "real" that Culture citizens
can do is to become agents of Contact (is that the right name? I don't
have my books to hand), wherein they quickly discover just how little
they matter to the Powers That Be.
Any twit can write a book about the Big Bad Zombie Machine Civilization
taking over the planet of the Noble Ecotopian Savages. When the Big
Bad Zombie Machine Civilization is, by most standards, Doing the Right
Thing, then the questions get a whole lot more interesting.
>>While its ends (keep people happy) can't really be
>>argued with, its means are very nasty; the Culture doesn't care how many
>>innocent people it tramples in the name of the "greater good."
>I was rather under the impression that Banks approves of that meddling.
Really? Read *State of the Art* for an explicit counter-example.
--
"Tell me, who *hasn't* felt close to the edge and down by the river"
soren f petersen : i AM NOT : --Andy Whitman
spet...@peruvian.utah.edu : THE university OF utah :
"How could I dance with another/When I saw him standing there" --Tiffany
Ryk E Spoor
>Jim Kasprzak takes legitimate exception to my summary of my own recurrent
>themes, suggesting that I stick to my word processor and "let the trained
>professionals handle the interpretations." No argument; authors are often
>indifferent critics and analysts of their own work.
(The barbarian hordes ride in, and their leader bellows from atop
his War Yak)
Ah. Poor Mr. Kilian seems to have succumbed to the brainwashing of
the intellectual snobbery.
As a writer myself (yes! I've had a story accepted for publication!
Run in fear!), I will not accept that ANYONE can interpret the stuff that
*I* wrote better than *I* can. I'm the only one who can or ever will KNOW,
with absolute inarguable certainty, what I MEAN by ANYTHING I write.
Any other position is roughly equivalent to a historian who does
research on, say, an ancient battle, gets a chance to talk to the people
who were there, and then tries to tell the people who were there that they
were wrong about what happened.
To keep this on the header subject -- I'm surprised no one has
mentioned Robert Heinlein. His recurrent themes of the intellectual
superior person versus the rather mindless masses (and his later theme of
sex, sex, sex) are pretty darn obvious.
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
soren--Ms. Jackson if you're nasty
>In article <13...@mindlink.bc.ca> Crawfor...@mindlink.bc.ca (Crawford Kilian) writes:
>>Jim Kasprzak takes legitimate exception to my summary of my own recurrent
>>themes, suggesting that I stick to my word processor and "let the trained
>>professionals handle the interpretations." No argument; authors are often
>>indifferent critics and analysts of their own work.
> As a writer myself (yes! I've had a story accepted for publication!
>Run in fear!), I will not accept that ANYONE can interpret the stuff that
>*I* wrote better than *I* can. I'm the only one who can or ever will KNOW,
>with absolute inarguable certainty, what I MEAN by ANYTHING I write.
Clearly you know better than anyone else what interpretation you want
the reader to make of your writing. However, you have absolutely NO
control over what interpretation I (or anyone else) get out of it. If
my interpretation is consistant with the text then it is as "correct"
as any other interpretation--even yours.
I think Crawford has a real point. The fact that an author knows what
he WANTS to say might very well blind him to the fact that what he
actually DOES say isn't really what he intended.
> Any other position is roughly equivalent to a historian who does
>research on, say, an ancient battle, gets a chance to talk to the people
>who were there, and then tries to tell the people who were there that they
>were wrong about what happened.
Unless by "ancient" you mean "since World War One", I can't imagine
this problem comes up very often. And how DO you propose that one
deal with cases wherein eye-witness accounts contradict other evidence?
This happens a lot--even in those cases where we can be sure that
the purported eye-witness accounts are genuine. Automatically throwing
out everything that contradicts the eye-witness accounts is NOT the
answer.
AU...@asuacad.bitnet
(Markus Stumptner) says:
>
>From article <92183.08...@ASUACAD.BITNET>, by AU...@ASUACAD.BITNET:
>ecm...@ccu1.aukuni.ac.n
>> (Thomas Koenig) says:
>>>Cherryh's recurring themes, as I have identified them, are [...]
>>>3) the moral right of key individuals to shape the destiny of everyone,
>>> because they know better than the ignorant masses (Chanur series,
>>> Cyteen)
>
>> I'm not so sure that this is really a valid criticism of the _Chanur_ books.
>
>
>> Given the choices, I'll take Py.
>
>Yes, but the choices have been chosen by Cherryh (sounds cute, that
>sentence). As the situation is presented, the result is logical.
>That is simply good storytelling. The argument, however, is, that the
>situations Cherryh describes consistently places the protagonists in
>situations where that kind of decision is the logical consequence.
>--
Okay. I can agree with the statement that Cherryh likes to have the story
force her protagonists to make important decisions affecting lots and lots
of people. I think what I object to is Koenig's statement that Cherryh
thinks these people have some kind of sweeping moral right to waltz in and
do so (I apologize in advance if that's not what was meant.) The way I read
it, her protagonists are shoved, kicking and screaming, into situations where
they have a moral _responsibility_ to make these decisions. In other words, I
don't see Py as some sort of metaphysically gifted superhani who, because of
who she intrinsically is, has a universe-given right to take over. I see her
as a reasonably decent being who is forced into a situation she would _much_
rather avoid. How's that?
David Hungerford AU...@ASUACAD.BITNET Opinions? Mine, all mine!!!
Kenny Chaffin
>both.
Gotta love it. Who should know better---write?
BTW Crawford I was just this morning reviewing your thoughts on how to write
which you've posted a couple of times here on the net. Thanks again for
sharing your thoughts, experiences and instructions with me (us).
KAC
Kenny A. Chaffin {...boulder}!uswat!ken
U S WEST Advanced Technologies k...@dakota.uswest.com
4001 Discovery Drive Boulder, CO 80303 (303) 541-6355
Sea Wasp
>In article <25...@blue.cis.pitt.edu.UUCP> seaw...@pitt.edu (Ryk E Spoor) writes:
>>*I* wrote better than *I* can. I'm the only one who can or ever will KNOW,
>>with absolute inarguable certainty, what I MEAN by ANYTHING I write.
>Clearly you know better than anyone else what interpretation you want
>the reader to make of your writing. However, you have absolutely NO
>control over what interpretation I (or anyone else) get out of it. If
>my interpretation is consistant with the text then it is as "correct"
>as any other interpretation--even yours.
You're right. I don't have any control over your interpretations
of anything. However, the fact that I can't control your interpretations
does not necessarily make your interpretations correct. If you interpret
an order by a policeman to "Freeze" as "Reach into the back seat for my
ice machine", that's your privilege, but it's almost certainly the wrong
interpretation and likely to carry much worse consequences than your
incorrect interpretation of prose. But the principle holds. You have
no control over MY interpretations, either; but since I WROTE the thing
my interpretations MUST take precedence, in the category of "correctness",
over anything you or any other may make. I *KNOW* what it means. You
can only GUESS.
In other words, there are two "meanings" here. One is "what I
feel it means TO ME". That "meaning" is inalterably YOURS and no one
else's; a certain smell instantly evokes the memory of my old girlfriend,
so that particular smell "means" her to me.
However, the ACTUAL meaning -- the meaning with which the story
or book was written and which is the meat and bone of its very existence--
is SINGULAR and known only to ME (and anyone else I might choose to tell).
With respect to the same example, that particular smell may actually be
a perfume. That perfume is not a woman. It is not even only worn by
that particular woman. My interpretation of it as "meaning" her is
my PROJECTION of myself and my desires/fears/etc. onto the scent,
which remains itself reguardless of what you or I associate it with.
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Markus Stumptner
> Okay. I can agree with the statement that Cherryh likes to have the story
> force her protagonists to make important decisions affecting lots and lots
> it, her protagonists are shoved, kicking and screaming, into situations where
> they have a moral _responsibility_ to make these decisions. In other words, I
> don't see Py as some sort of metaphysically gifted superhani who, because of
> who she intrinsically is, has a universe-given right to take over. I see her
> as a reasonably decent being who is forced into a situation she would _much_
> rather avoid. How's that?
I agree. I think, though, that characters like Signy Mallory do not
fit that picture, since they are not put into the situation kicking
and screaming, but rather as a result of climbing to their current
position of power (military or otherwise). Therefore, I do think this
other view is also present in Cherryh's work (Downbelow Station, Wave
without a Shore, Cyteen(?)) , and my problem with Downbelow Station is
that it is probably the book where this is most pronounced, sort of "I
hold the gun to your head, and therefore I get to choose". I do agree
that many books (Chanur, Dying Suns, Cuckoo's Egg) fit the alternative
pattern described by you, so a more differentiated view is required.
Don Coolidge
|>
|> You're right. I don't have any control over your interpretations
|> of anything. However, the fact that I can't control your interpretations
|> does not necessarily make your interpretations correct. If you interpret
|> an order by a policeman to "Freeze" as "Reach into the back seat for my
|> ice machine", that's your privilege, but it's almost certainly the wrong
|> interpretation and likely to carry much worse consequences than your
|> incorrect interpretation of prose. But the principle holds. You have
|> no control over MY interpretations, either; but since I WROTE the thing
|> my interpretations MUST take precedence, in the category of "correctness",
|> over anything you or any other may make. I *KNOW* what it means. You
|> can only GUESS.
|>
|> In other words, there are two "meanings" here. One is "what I
|> feel it means TO ME". That "meaning" is inalterably YOURS and no one
|> else's; a certain smell instantly evokes the memory of my old girlfriend,
|> so that particular smell "means" her to me.
|>
|> However, the ACTUAL meaning -- the meaning with which the story
|> or book was written and which is the meat and bone of its very existence--
|> is SINGULAR and known only to ME (and anyone else I might choose to tell).
|> With respect to the same example, that particular smell may actually be
|> a perfume. That perfume is not a woman. It is not even only worn by
|> that particular woman. My interpretation of it as "meaning" her is
|> my PROJECTION of myself and my desires/fears/etc. onto the scent,
|> which remains itself reguardless of what you or I associate it with.
Let's calm this down for a minute...first, you ought to have used a better,
more likely example of different meanings (ice machine, indeed! :^). So,
let's take one from real life. (Not science fiction, really, but this is
a question about interpreting art in general...)
John Lennon swore over and over that "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds"
was not written with LSD in mind at all. Right...marmalade skies,
kaliedescope eyes...nevertheless, he had no reason to falsely deny it,
because it was common knowledge (and admitted by him) that he had been
an acid user for quite awhile.
OK, so "Lucy" was seen by him as a fancy based on a lovely verbal image
his son Julian had said. To the rest of the world, it was a drug
experience.
I submit that Lennon was wrong, despite having been the author. I'm not
a prolific songwriter, but I often find when looking at older songs of
mine that my subconscious included important, sometimes even definitive,
elements that I was totally unaware of consciously while writing the piece.
Lennon may well have done the same.
So, how can an author ever be sure of the "meaning" of his/her work? The
simple answer is, nobody ever can be. Art is *not* just "what the artist
meant to say", but is rather what is actually heard or seen or felt by
the observer (and the artist is the first observer). Art is what is
communicated.In other words, the artist may very well in fact *not*
"...*KNOW* what it means...", and my "...GUESS..." *is* just as good
as anyone else's, including the artist's.
You are absolutely correct that "...there are two 'meanings' here...",
but completely mistaken in assigning precedence to any one
interpretation, even that of the creator, unless the creator is completely
and consciously aware of every last element that goes into the work. I
submit that's impossible to do.
Don Coolidge
cool...@speaker.wpd.sgi.com
Don Coolidge
To follow up my own posting, since I thought of a more concise way to say it...
In article <mqa...@twilight.wpd.sgi.com>, cool...@speaker.wpd.sgi.com (Don Coolidge) writes:
|> In article <25...@blue.cis.pitt.edu.UUCP>, sea...@vm2.cis.pitt.edu (Sea Wasp) writes:
|> |>
|> |> However, the ACTUAL meaning -- the meaning with which the story
|> |> or book was written and which is the meat and bone of its very existence--
|> |> is SINGULAR and known only to ME (and anyone else I might choose to tell).
With one word changed, and a few added, that sentence becomes one I agree with.
The word ACTUAL must be replaced by INTENDED, and the phrase "the meat and bone"
must be replaced with "intended to be the meat and bone".
Intentions aren't enough. Nobody ever knows what they have really created until
they get reactions back from the public. The subconscious works in strange and
wondrous ways...
Don Coolidge
cool...@speaker.wpd.sgi.com
Pete Jinks
>>Many of C. J. Cherryh's SF works share a common theme: the Universe is
>>an uncaring, cruel place, and that most people, ignorant of what's
>>really going on, are treated harshly by it.
ecm...@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz (Thomas Koenig) writes:
>Cherryh's recurring themes, as I have identified them, are
>1)an individual caught up in a corrupt, secretive power system
>2)Showing men as more vulnerable and more stupid than women
>3)the moral right of key individuals to shape the destiny of everyone,
>4)the heroes are always running along at the point of almost total exhaustion
>5)everyone who holds a high military rank is a cold - blooded monster
Although I can recognise most of these as occuring in her books, they don't
seem to me to be COMMON & CONSISTENT themes.
Actually, I would disagree with 2, and maybe 3 and 5 - I only ever saw these
individuals as individuals, not as some consistent use of stereotypes. I
think that the strongest version of these that is justified is that women
and men are potentially just as stupid or vulnerable or power-crazed or
whatever, depending on the way they were brought up - nurture, not nature -
think of the Azi as an extreme case. Erich's suggestion I see mainly as a
description of reality, and 4 as a description of genuine heroes - continual
stress is very tiring.
In fact, none of them would have occurred to me without prompting (which
isn't to say that they are wrong, just that I didn't notice them). There is
only one theme of hers that seems to me to be common & consistent, and that
is the difficulty of understanding between individuals from different species
[e.g. faded sun, chanur, hunter of worlds, gehenna, voyager in night,
serpent's reach, wave without a shore, cuckoo's egg, hestia]
and/or different cultures, or at least vastly different upbringing.
[e.g. morgaine, brothers of earth, rusalka, rimrunners, cyteen,
merchanter's luck, heavy time, and some of the first list again]
By way of contrast, the Azi, because their background is completely known,
can be completely understood and controlled by those who know the background
as long as the Azi don't experience too much novelty.
Sometimes this appears as a sort of Poul Anderson-like mystery story, where
the plot is about trying to understand what is going on before something bad
happens. Usually the plot is more like a space opera or fantasy quest, with
the communication problem giving extra depth to the characterisation and
making the action a little more cerebral. Often, of course, both elements
are present in the same book.
This communication difficulty can sometimes be frustrating, especially in
the all-human SF books, where the psychology is usually easier to understand
for the reader but the characters can still insist on misunderstanding each
other [e.g. heavy time, which I am having trouble starting].
Mark Gonzales
>From article <92184.10...@ASUACAD.BITNET>, by AU...@ASUACAD.BITNET:
>> Okay. I can agree with the statement that Cherryh likes to have the story
>> force her protagonists to make important decisions affecting lots and lots
>> of people. [...] The way I read
>> it, her protagonists are shoved, kicking and screaming, into situations where
>> they have a moral _responsibility_ to make these decisions. In other words, I
>> don't see Py as some sort of metaphysically gifted superhani who, because of
>> who she intrinsically is, has a universe-given right to take over. I see her
>> as a reasonably decent being who is forced into a situation she would _much_
>> rather avoid. How's that?
>
>I agree. I think, though, that characters like Signy Mallory do not
>fit that picture, since they are not put into the situation kicking
>and screaming, but rather as a result of climbing to their current
>position of power (military or otherwise). Therefore, I do think this
>other view is also present in Cherryh's work (Downbelow Station, Wave
>without a Shore, Cyteen(?)) , and my problem with Downbelow Station is
>that it is probably the book where this is most pronounced, sort of "I
There are unfortunately many occurances of this situation in the real
world (Milosovic &co. in Yugoslavia), so I think this is a perfectly
reasonable and useful situation to write about. As I recall, in
Downbelow Station, there were a lot of people holding guns to various
heads, and Mallory was only one of those. She choose to alter the
balance of power in a way that lead to the least violent outcome for all
concerned. Any of the other faction leaders could have acted, leading to
different outcomes. So I see Mallory as another "reasonably decent being
who is forced (by her boss's actions) into a situation she would
_much_ rather avoid."
tdo...@llnl.gov
[much stuff deleted]
> Unless by "ancient" you mean "since World War One", I can't imagine
> this problem comes up very often. And how DO you propose that one
> deal with cases wherein eye-witness accounts contradict other evidence?
Not to mention the case (which I understand is fairly common) of eye
witness accounts which contradict each other...
> soren f petersen
TDO
Chris Waters
> Roger Zelazny: Man who refuses to be manipulated by convention.
Hmm, I would have said:
Roger Zelazny: People with superpowers are still just plain folks at
heart. :-)
--
Chris Waters | the insane don't | NOBODY for President!
xt...@netcom.COM| need disclaimers | Because Nobody's perfect!!
Michael Rawdon
>In article <13...@mindlink.bc.ca>, Crawfor...@mindlink.bc.ca
>(Crawford Kilian) writes:
>|> Kilian: the struggle of the powerless against the powerful; the failure of
>|> both.
> Since you've read Kilian, you clearly can't make unbiased objective
> judgements about the themes in his/her work.
You've been reading rec.arts.startrek! :-)
(Well, okay, in case you *haven't* been reading r.a.s, your argument sounds
a lot like one of the sides in a recurring flamewar there, though I suspect
that you posted your argument in jest. :-)
--
Michael Rawdon
raw...@cabrales.cs.wisc.edu
University of Wisconsin Computer Sciences Department, Madison, WI
"...I trusted [Ganelon] like a brother. That is to say, not at all."
- Roger Zelazny, _The_Guns_Of_Avalon_
Michael Rawdon
(I found traces of this theme in James P. Hogan's _Giants_ series,
as well. Especially in the third book.)
H.P. Lovecraft: The certainty that sooner or later, something, somewhere
is going to get us. :-)
In <1992Jun30.2...@usenet.ins.cwru.edu> bp...@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Dana Goldblatt) writes:
> Does anyone care to follow up with some examples or
>disagreement? Do you find that this sort of thing enhances
>or detracts from an author's appeal, or is it neutral in
>effect?
I think that *themes* in general enhance a *story's* appeal, in that it
provides another level of material for our brains to grind away at. If an
author includes such depth in his work regularly (whether the theme is
uniform or not) I think definitely enhances an author's appeal for me.
Well, assuming that the themes are handled in an intelligent manner.
Curtis Yarvin
>
>Another author with a strong recurring theme is Iain Banks. He tends to
>preach a lot about the evils of religion, capitalism, the military etc,
>in short anything which does not conform to his socialist utopia, the
>Culture.
I suppose my peeve here is little more than semantic, but I think it's
worth saying anyway.
Banks doesn't fit my definition of preachiness. I have two basic
requirements for the word: (1) that an author come to a conclusion
about some issue of science, society or politics; (2) that she
tell you all about it, and dwell on her lesson to the point of agony.
(Consider, for example, Le Guin's infamous _The Dispossessed_, in which
she informs us that not having to grub for money makes man spiritually
pure, spends the first half of the book trying to prove it and the next
third showing us how awful grubbing for money really is, interlaces
them for variety, and finishes up with a brief glaze of plot.)
Banks does fit (1), although the Culture is different enough from
anything that's been tried or could be tried today that he gets
some benefit of doubt. But he's too smart a writer for (2); he'll
interject the occasional aside on the evils of Western society etc
etc, but he never belabors the point. It's an occasional nugget
of shit in an otherwise-scrumptious chocolate cake, a sin I'm easily
willing to forgive.
I haven't read _State of The Art_, his novella about Earth; if it fits
my criteria, someone please warn me...
c
Thomas Farmer
>Consistent themes? Let me get the easy ones...
Good idea, here's another couple.
Heinlein - beautiful younger women bonking older men.
Anne MacCaffery - tanned sailor folk bonking younger women.
For the slang-impaired, bonking refers to fucking.
--
Thomas Farmer | tfa...@datamark.co.nz or | I use and like:
Datamark Intl Ltd | tfa...@cavebbs.welly.gen.nz | AIX 3.1, OS/2 2.0,
Technical Writer | I WTFM! | Windows 3.1 &
& PC Wrangler | Beagles are perfect. | AmigaOS 2.04.
soren--Ms. Jackson if you're nasty
>Banks doesn't fit my definition of preachiness. I have two basic
>requirements for the word: (1) that an author come to a conclusion
>about some issue of science, society or politics; (2) that she
>tell you all about it, and dwell on her lesson to the point of agony.
>I haven't read _State of The Art_, his novella about Earth; if it fits
>my criteria, someone please warn me...
I don't think so. He does, if I recall, at several times make statements
that might imply that Western Civilization in the 20th Century might not
be the *ne plus ultra* it is sometimes cracked up to be. Most of what
he says, however, is (a) in passing, and (b) so trivially true that I
can't imagine anyone who isn't Eric Raymond or Ayn Rand taking offense.
Of all the Culture novels I've read (i.e. I haven't got to *The Use of
Weapons* yet), *State of the Art* is, interestingly enough, the most
directly critical of the Culture and its effects on its citizens.
soren--Ms. Jackson if you're nasty
>In article <1992Jul2.1...@hellgate.utah.edu> speterse%peruvian...@cs.utah.edu (soren--Ms. Jackson if you're nasty) writes:
>>In article <25...@blue.cis.pitt.edu.UUCP> seaw...@pitt.edu (Ryk E Spoor) writes:
>>>*I* wrote better than *I* can. I'm the only one who can or ever will KNOW,
>>>with absolute inarguable certainty, what I MEAN by ANYTHING I write.
>>Clearly you know better than anyone else what interpretation you want
>>the reader to make of your writing. However, you have absolutely NO
>>control over what interpretation I (or anyone else) get out of it. If
>>my interpretation is consistant with the text then it is as "correct"
>>as any other interpretation--even yours.
> You're right. I don't have any control over your interpretations
>of anything. However, the fact that I can't control your interpretations
>does not necessarily make your interpretations correct.
If they are consistant with the text, they are not incorrect, no matter
what you (the writer) might have intended.
The creator is in no position to judge whether he has successfully
conveyed what he wanted to convey (for anyone but himself).
You and I are wandering through a mall and we happen to see a
velvet painting of an adorable puppy dog looking winsome. You
say "oh, isn't that sweet!" I (depending on my mood) either
laugh or vomit. Am I wrong? Or to put it another way, is my
reaction a failure on my part, or on the creator of the painting?
>But the principle holds. You have
>no control over MY interpretations, either; but since I WROTE the thing
>my interpretations MUST take precedence, in the category of "correctness",
>over anything you or any other may make. I *KNOW* what it means. You
>can only GUESS.
Why must they take precedence? My only entry into your intentions
is what you write. It's entirely possible that your writing is
so incompetent that it doesn't say what you had intended to say.
It's entirely possible that your writing is SO good that alternate
interpretations fairly jump out of the work. Ayn Rand's *Anthem*
is an excellent example of the former, *The Merchant of Venice* of
the latter.
Now if I'm doing this all in good faith, then I will certainly take
your explanations seriously: that is, I will check them against the
text and see if they are consistant with what you've written. I
have no problem with a piece of writing having more than one valid
interpretation. However, I see no reason whatsover to throw my
interpretations out if they contradict yours (assuming once again
that both are consistant with the text).
Furthermore, if you are acting in good faith, then you must check
what I say against the text and then think long and hard over
whether you accomplished what you thought you had accomplished (if,
say, my interpretation directly contradicts yours).
Sea Wasp
>Let's calm this down for a minute...first, you ought to have used a better,
>more likely example of different meanings (ice machine, indeed! :^).
Why? What difference does it make? None at all. The only point
is to demonstrate a principle, not be realistic.
>John Lennon swore over and over that "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds"
>was not written with LSD in mind at all. Right...marmalade skies,
>I submit that Lennon was wrong, despite having been the author. I'm not
>a prolific songwriter, but I often find when looking at older songs of
>mine that my subconscious included important, sometimes even definitive,
>elements that I was totally unaware of consciously while writing the piece.
>Lennon may well have done the same.
And if you brought it up to him later, and he agreed with you,
then you would be right. Otherwise you're just projecting (maybe from all
those implied images of 'drug-crazed rockers') what you believe. And what
HE believes is still paramount.
>the observer (and the artist is the first observer). Art is what is
>communicated.In other words, the artist may very well in fact *not*
>"...*KNOW* what it means...", and my "...GUESS..." *is* just as good
>as anyone else's, including the artist's.
>
>You are absolutely correct that "...there are two 'meanings' here...",
>but completely mistaken in assigning precedence to any one
>interpretation, even that of the creator, unless the creator is completely
>and consciously aware of every last element that goes into the work. I
>submit that's impossible to do.
By your standards, even your statement that I'm "completely mistaken"
in assigning greater precedence to the creator's view than other's is just
YOUR point of view.
Another example. I know several artists. Some of them create nice
realistic easily recognized paintings. Others make splatter-streak art and
abstract sculpture.
In the latter cases, I see NOTHING. It means absolutely nothing to
me. But I'm willing to accept the artist's statement that it's an airplane
or a dog or whatever. Because THEY KNOW what they put on that canvas.
THEY can see it, even if I can't.
And whatever I DO see in there, if it isn't what they see, is
just a projection, like seeing doggies in the clouds. There IS no dog in
the cloud. But that's what my mind saw.
Of course I can't control EVERYTHING I write. I can, and probably
do, drop parts of subconscious ideas into it. But they are still MY
subconscious ideas. Not YOURS. At best you might be able to make a GUESS
at what I subconsciously put in there, but unless you confront me and
I end up agreeing that I think you're right, you'll have to take a backseat
to what I KNOW I put in there.
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Sea Wasp
>|> In article <25...@blue.cis.pitt.edu.UUCP>, sea...@vm2.cis.pitt.edu (Sea Wasp) writes:
>|> |>
>|> |> However, the ACTUAL meaning -- the meaning with which the story
>|> |> or book was written and which is the meat and bone of its very existence--
>|> |> is SINGULAR and known only to ME (and anyone else I might choose to tell).
>
>With one word changed, and a few added, that sentence becomes one I agree with.
>The word ACTUAL must be replaced by INTENDED, and the phrase "the meat and bone"
>must be replaced with "intended to be the meat and bone".
>
>Intentions aren't enough. Nobody ever knows what they have really created until
>they get reactions back from the public. The subconscious works in strange and
>wondrous ways...
Ah. So why leave works of art with the titles the ARTIST gives them,
if the public doesn't see them that way?
Because we KNOW that the ARTIST'S INTENT is at the heart of the
creation. If Joe D'Geenyus, master abstract sculpture, creates a huge
masterpiece that he entitles "Airplane", then "Airplane" it remains, even
if to you, me, and the rest of the world it looks like a large tin can
with a half open top and a giant pencil sticking through it. And that
single title ensures that core concept remaining part of the sculpture.
I don't write for anyone except me (or, if hired to do a particular
job for someone, I write to specifications I'm given). I don't care what
anyone (except the paycheck writers) think of what I've written, and
I don't necessarily care if anyone understands it. *I* know what I write.
Anything anyone else can say about it can only be a guess, and unless the
guess is made by someone who knows me damn well, it's likely to be a wild
guess.
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Chris Dollin
Ah. So why leave works of art with the titles the ARTIST gives them,
if the public doesn't see them that way?
Because we KNOW that the ARTIST'S INTENT is at the heart of the
creation. If Joe D'Geenyus, master abstract sculpture, creates a huge
masterpiece that he entitles "Airplane", then "Airplane" it remains, even
if to you, me, and the rest of the world it looks like a large tin can
with a half open top and a giant pencil sticking through it. And that
single title ensures that core concept remaining part of the sculpture.
``Airplane'' would not be just the title, but also part of the sculpture.
Metalinguistic jokes seem somehow appropriate for abstract art. One can also
argue that abstract art relies on ... ur, non-abstract art to give it meaning;
here, ``Airplane'' is reference to the kind of n-a a to use as the background
against which to interpret the sculpture.
David Lodge has something to say about this ``intent'' business in one of his
more accessible books. I might remember to look it up this weekend. (What? You
don't know who he is? No, he doesn't write SF.)
--
Regards, | "The date of death of a sentient entity must never be
Kers. | mentioned in a Dirac 'cast." - Blish, ``The Quincunx of Time''.
Sea Wasp
>You and I are wandering through a mall and we happen to see a
>velvet painting of an adorable puppy dog looking winsome. You
>say "oh, isn't that sweet!" I (depending on my mood) either
>laugh or vomit. Am I wrong? Or to put it another way, is my
>reaction a failure on my part, or on the creator of the painting?
Neither. It's a matter of taste. The Cute Puppy doesn't fit
with your tastes or moods. In a similar vein, your interpretation of something
I write may stem from your preferences in reading; if you are a pacifist
and my writing is filled with military imagery, you may interpret what I
intend to be positive imagery to be negative, and invert the entire point
of the book.
Are you wrong? OF COURSE you are. Just as you can't read something
written in the 1800s and judge it by modern criteria (or, rather, you CAN
but it's a silly and pointless thing to do), neither can you assert that
your interpretation of my work is even close to correct if you aren't
reading it from the same point of view that I wrote it.
>Why must they take precedence? My only entry into your intentions
>is what you write. It's entirely possible that your writing is
>so incompetent that it doesn't say what you had intended to say.
>It's entirely possible that your writing is SO good that alternate
>interpretations fairly jump out of the work. Ayn Rand's *Anthem*
>is an excellent example of the former, *The Merchant of Venice* of
>the latter.
I don't say you can't interpret things differently; only that
you can't have a different interpretation from the author's intended
one be "just as valid". It may be valid FOR YOU, but that's because
you're using the work as a sort of written Rorsach(sp) blots.
(BTW, I don't agree about Rand. I thought "Anthem" was direct,
to the point, perhaps a bit heavy-handed[but so is all her stuff],
but no way could you interpret it as meaning anything other that an
individualist work unless you were being deliberately obtuse.)
>Now if I'm doing this all in good faith, then I will certainly take
[...]
>Furthermore, if you are acting in good faith, then you must check
?
What is this "good faith" business? I'm writing the story. What
you think of the story (as long as you aren't paying me to write it to
your satisfaction) is utterly irrelevant. Sure, you can decide if you
like it or not. You can decide if it means TO YOU what I say it means.
And, if you get to talk to me, you're free to try to argue with me that
my subconscious said things in addition to the intended meaning. But
I have no obligation to accept your opinions except as your own
projections.
You can see a suspension bridge as a great piece of sculpture.
You could even argue a lot of people into the same interpretation.
It's still a bridge.
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Sea Wasp
>Eh? How I experience your story is what will define how I like it.
How you experience the story and how you like it have no real bearing
on what it means -- except to you. It won't affect in the least what the story
REALLY means.
A man on hallucinatory drugs may experience the world around him in
completely different ways; he may even believe some of these things he's
seen to be real. This does not change the actual world around him.
Now, the real world is something which exists independent of the
man and which doesn't care for his interpretations.
A story is rather the opposite of this: it is the creation, the world,
of one man. As far as the story is concerned, all the READERS are on various
levels of hallucinatory drugs. This doesn't change the story, only the
interpretations. Like the real world, the story doesn't care about the
interpretations. It doesn't care if you like it or not. It simply IS.
(No sexism flames please re my use of "man")
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
James Davis Nicoll
On LitCrit:
> Ah. Poor Mr. Kilian seems to have succumbed to the brainwashing of
>the intellectual snobbery.
>
> As a writer myself (yes! I've had a story accepted for publication!
>Run in fear!), I will not accept that ANYONE can interpret the stuff that
>*I* wrote better than *I* can. I'm the only one who can or ever will KNOW,
>with absolute inarguable certainty, what I MEAN by ANYTHING I write.
>
> Any other position is roughly equivalent to a historian who does
>research on, say, an ancient battle, gets a chance to talk to the people
>who were there, and then tries to tell the people who were there that they
>were wrong about what happened.
Bad analogy. It gets busy during battle. While a particular soldier
may have a damn good idea of what happened to *him* the overall picture may
not be readily obvious without looking at the POVs of the other people in
the battle. Think of Ney; if he had had a good idea of the Big Picture,
would he have wasted his efforts the way he did?
James Nicoll
Chris Dollin
In article ... r...@watney.eng.ohio-state.edu (Rob Carriere) writes:
>Eh? How I experience your story is what will define how I like it.
How you experience the story and how you like it have no real bearing
on what it means -- except to you. It won't affect in the least what the
story REALLY means.
I think part of the point of your opposition [*1] is that there *isn't* a
particular meaning for the story that is its *real* meaning. You take the view
that the author has charge of the real meaning, and the opposition don't. At
this point, I think the [*2] wise thing to do is agree that you (plural) hold
these opposing views about the omniscience of the creator, and argue about
something else.
For the record, I write (a little) and am happy to doubt my own omniscience in
this, as in several other things (the few fixed points, eg my attitude toward
certain programming languages, are of course correct).
[*1] That is, the opposition *to* you, not the opposition *of* you.
[*2] Which begs the question as to whether there are other wise things that
could be done, even about this debate.
--
Regards, | "See the darkness all around is coming down on you."
Kers. | - Renaissnace, ``Running Hard''.
jjf...@skcla.monsanto.com
> Many of C. J. Cherryh's SF works share a common theme: the Universe is
> an uncaring, cruel place, and that most people, ignorant of what's
> really going on, are treated harshly by it.
Rather than that, Cherryh's SF shares a common thread of exploring the limits
of the human mind through its encounters with the non-human: especially those
people who are not human due to different exposures: the Azi, the
existentialists of "Wave Without a Shore", the lizard-exposed people of "40000
in Gehenna" etc.
Other common themes:
Card has stated that his view of fantasy stories is that they revolve around
the cost of using power. Take another look at "Hart's Hope" again, or for that
matter the Ender stuff and the Alvin stuff.
My view of cyberpunk, especially Gibson's and Sterling's works, is that it
explores the theme of violation: of mind with chemicals and implants, of body
both sexually and mechanically, of culture, of corporations, etc.
Joel
--
jjf...@skcla.monsanto.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Portions of the preceding were recorded. As for the rest, I quite fear that
it was all in your mind" -- Alfred Hitchcock
bjg...@bb1t.monsanto.com
> In article <ERICH.92J...@lighthouse.caltech.edu>, er...@lighthouse.caltech.edu (Erich Schneider) writes:
>> Many of C. J. Cherryh's SF works share a common theme: the Universe is
>> an uncaring, cruel place, and that most people, ignorant of what's
>> really going on, are treated harshly by it.
>
> Rather than that, Cherryh's SF shares a common thread of exploring the limits
> of the human mind through its encounters with the non-human: especially those
> people who are not human due to different exposures: the Azi, the
> existentialists of "Wave Without a Shore", the lizard-exposed people of "40000
> in Gehenna" etc.
>
And it is in just that harsh treatment and exploration of limits that
humanity survives. Not always happily, certainly not triumphs. Just
as someone earlier pointed out that Cherryh's strong female characters
and weak male characters are a welcome change from the usual treatment
in sf, IMO her stories are a welcome change from the idea that the
future is bright for mankind if we just have enough tech and enough
elbow room by expanding out into the galaxy. Rather, I think Cherryh
says that the future will be very different from the present in
detail, but the fundamental problems of the human race will still be
with us. Thus, she walks the middle ground between Star Trek and
cyberpunk.
--Electric Monk (Bruce Gaede)
"...and then time started seriously to pass."
--Douglas Adams, _Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency_
Tim Mohler
|> of anything. However, the fact that I can't control your interpretations
|> does not necessarily make your interpretations correct. If you interpret
I thought we had gotten past the concept of any interpretation being
"correct," whatever you may mean by that word.
Come on, people. Didn't we read our Delaney carefully?
Tim
Tim Mohler
|> In <1992Jul2.0...@constellation.ecn.uoknor.edu> don...@essex.ecn.uoknor.edu (Donald A Bachman) writes:
|>
|> > Roger Zelazny: Man who refuses to be manipulated by convention.
|>
|> Hmm, I would have said:
|>
|> Roger Zelazny: People with superpowers are still just plain folks at
|> heart. :-)
I'd have to agree with Chris on this one. Look at Mahasamatman (what a
name, eh?) in Lord of Light. Or any of them.
Pretty much all of his main characters are instantly recognizable.
Merlin is more like Corwin than any son has a right to be.
Jack of Shadows was Karaghiosis in disguise, etc etc etc.
And they all have the same laconic sense of humor.
He even made fun of himself in a short story once; he had himself
writing a story in which the main character was (gasp) not a prince,
demi-god or person of unusual powers.
Anyways, this tendency does get annoying/boring after awhile. I really
disliked "My Name is Legion" for just this reason, although both Eye of
Cat and Home is the Hangman managed to escape this.
Ramblin' on and on...
Tim
Don Coolidge
|> written in the 1800s and judge it by modern criteria (or, rather, you CAN
|> but it's a silly and pointless thing to do), neither can you assert that
|> your interpretation of my work is even close to correct if you aren't
|> reading it from the same point of view that I wrote it.
|> I don't say you can't interpret things differently; only that
|> you can't have a different interpretation from the author's intended
|> one be "just as valid". It may be valid FOR YOU, but that's because
|> you're using the work as a sort of written Rorsach(sp) blots.
|> What is this "good faith" business? I'm writing the story. What
|> you think of the story (as long as you aren't paying me to write it to
|> your satisfaction) is utterly irrelevant. Sure, you can decide if you
|> like it or not. You can decide if it means TO YOU what I say it means.
|> And, if you get to talk to me, you're free to try to argue with me that
|> my subconscious said things in addition to the intended meaning. But
|> I have no obligation to accept your opinions except as your own
|> projections.
|>
|> You can see a suspension bridge as a great piece of sculpture.
|> You could even argue a lot of people into the same interpretation.
|>
|> It's still a bridge.
|>
|> Sea Wasp
|> /^\
|> ;;;
I just thought I'd respond to this response, rether than to one of
Sea Wasp's responses to me. They're all the same, anyhow.
Sir or Madam (frankly, I don't give a damn...),
I's quite clear that your inability to believe that you, or any artist,
could have done anything other than what was your conscious intent, is
matched only by your inability (or unwillingness) to listen to anything
that anyone else tries to say to you. You are offered counterexamples
to your thesis, and in true Quaylian fashion, you use them as an excuse
to metaphorically talk about Congress' failings...:^)
1) If I read something from a point of view different from that in which
you wrote it, then you've either done a shitty job or a magnificent job
of writing it. In the first case, you couldn't even accomplish what you
wanted to. In the second, the Muse sat by your side and you created much
more than you intended. In either of these cases, your intent isn't worth
a pitcher of warm spit - all that counts is what you actually managed to
communicate.
2) *ALL* art is a series of Rorschach blots. If it's not, it isn't art -
at best, it's flat declamation. Or masturbation. Take your pick.
3) I take it back. You don't get to take your pick. If what I think
of your story is "...utterly irrelevant...", then you're not an artist
and it's not a work of art; it *is* just masturbation.
4) Somehow, I thik you're equating "...It's still a bridge..." with
"...It still turns...", a statement of far deeper meaning first spoken
by a man of far deeper thought. His statement showed his belief in that
which was not immediately tangible. Yours shows an inability to perceive
anything other than the mundane. Get a life.
Don Coolidge
Bronis Vidugiris
) You're right. I don't have any control over your interpretations
)of anything. However, the fact that I can't control your interpretations
)does not necessarily make your interpretations correct. If you interpret
)an order by a policeman to "Freeze" as "Reach into the back seat for my
)ice machine", that's your privilege, but it's almost certainly the wrong
)interpretation and likely to carry much worse consequences than your
)incorrect interpretation of prose. But the principle holds. You have
)no control over MY interpretations, either; but since I WROTE the thing
)my interpretations MUST take precedence, in the category of "correctness",
)over anything you or any other may make. I *KNOW* what it means. You
)can only GUESS.
Sorry, I don't agree. I've known lots of people to come up with self-serving
interpretations of the 'meaning' of what they wrote. I don't agree that
the author is always right.
I don't agree with the view that all interpretations are equally correct
either.
This leaves me in a bit of a hole, actually. I don't think meanings are
totally objective, and I don't think they are totally subjective either.
The best analogy I've been able to think of is a computer program. The
author of a computer program may have an intent - but that intent is not
necessarily the 'meaning' of the program. (It could, for example, be
full of bugs.) The meaning of the program is more closely related to what
happens when it is run, IMO, than the intent of the programmer. However, it
is possible to write programs that perform differently on different hardware.
This is actually a much simpler case than the meaning of natural language,
though,
soren--Ms. Jackson if you're nasty
> A story is rather the opposite of this: it is the creation, the world,
>of one man. As far as the story is concerned, all the READERS are on various
>levels of hallucinatory drugs. This doesn't change the story, only the
>interpretations. Like the real world, the story doesn't care about the
>interpretations. It doesn't care if you like it or not. It simply IS.
I always figured that when we talk about a work of fiction "coming alive"
we don't mean it literally. The story has no concerns at all. The
AUTHOR of the story generally does.
As you state the story simply is.
To use your terminology, however, the author is as much on hallucinogenic
drugs as any reader. Once the work is finished, there are only readers
making interpretations. I don't deny that the author has a unique
perspective on the work--oftentimes a very valuable and interesting
one--but it's still an interpretation to be checked against the text.
soren--Ms. Jackson if you're nasty
> Ah. So why leave works of art with the titles the ARTIST gives them,
>if the public doesn't see them that way?
Because the title is part of the work of art, which must be interpreted
along with the work. Take a look at Dali's painting "The Persistance of
Memory" (this is the famous one with the melting watches and the ants)
for an instructive example.
> Because we KNOW that the ARTIST'S INTENT is at the heart of the
>creation. If Joe D'Geenyus, master abstract sculpture, creates a huge
>masterpiece that he entitles "Airplane", then "Airplane" it remains, even
>if to you, me, and the rest of the world it looks like a large tin can
>with a half open top and a giant pencil sticking through it. And that
>single title ensures that core concept remaining part of the sculpture.
Imagine a painting. It is a painting that the vast majority of viewers
would interpret as a naturalistic (albeit very large) rendition of a
tobacco pipe against a flat background. Underneath is the caption "Ceci
n'est pas une pipe". Translated from the French, it reads "this here
is not a pipe".
Do you begin to see why some of us have a hard time accepting your
position?
David Stein
raw...@cabrales.cs.wisc.edu (Michael Rawdon) writes:
|> In <1992Jul2.0...@math.ucla.edu> dst...@europa.math.ucla.edu
(David Stein) writes
|> > judgements about the themes in his/her work.
|>
|> You've been reading rec.arts.startrek! :-)
GRRRyereurghuherg;uhgr;ng;ih;athaih;th!$%@$~!^%^@$@**(!!!
Only the smiley in the end saved you from turning to scrisp the next time
you enter the news realm.
- David
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm not a native speaker of English, so I'm not sure what I wrote.
Flames will be ignored unless you post them in perfect Czech.
================================ - David (the metamathician) - ===
David Stein
|> themes, suggesting that I stick to my word processor and "let the trained
|> professionals handle the interpretations." No argument; authors are often
|> indifferent critics and analysts of their own work. But...(and here is where
|> the trap closes on the vowelly challenged Mr. Kasprzak, poor
wretch)...I *am* a
|> trained professional! I went to grad school and everything! I wrote a
master's
|> thesis! On Canadian literature (known to the cognoscenti as "virtual
|> fiction"--it's there only if you want it to be)--so nyah nyah! :)
Hey! How come I don't get one of these fancy replies? Or can't you
handle the argument?
Dana Goldblatt
Crawford Kilian writes:
Dana Goldblatt raises some really interesting questions in connection with this
unexpected thread...
(thank you)
CK:
I think any writer tends to
create worlds that reflect his or her inner anxieties.
(This is what I suspected happens in a lot of cases.)
CK:
Most SF bores me blind because it's such an
obvious power-trip fantasy designed to entertain people who shouldn't even be
allowed driver's licences, never mind command of the Imperial Galactic Fleet.
Such readers identify with the persecuted mutant/hunted rebel/usurped prince,
but their fiction of choice rarely asks them to *think* about why mutants get
persecuted, rebels get hunted, or princes get kicked off their thrones.
(I'm not sure specifically what you're reading, but I've read things
that the last sentence reminds me of. However, even if it didn't ask
me to think about the why, you can be sure I *was* thinking about it.)
CK:
no one much believes the author has much special insight into his
or her own work. We may know what we hope to achieve, but whether we read our
own work perceptively depends on our critical abilities, not our creative
powers.
(I would expect that to be an author takes critical abilities as well
as creative ones; maybe even in most cases more of the former than
the latter.)
CK:
What the teller wants to achieve is of no interest; only
the achievement counts, and we don't really need to know a damn thing about the
author's purpose.
(While I agree that the author is not the final authority on the meaning
of a work, I disagree that the intentions are of no interest. I find
authors' intentions interesting in themselves. This is why I asked
you your opinions on your own themes, & why they were there in your work.
Because I think the author's reason for having a consistent theme is at
least as interesting as the existence of the theme, maybe more interesting.)
CK:
I hope this answers Dana's questions;
(Yes. Thanks. Feel free to write more though.)
-dana
Rob Carriere
>>Eh? How I experience your story is what will define how I like it.
>
>
> How you experience the story and how you like it have no real bearing
>on what it means -- except to you. It won't affect in the least what the story
>REALLY means.
REALLY means? What's that? We are associative creatures, things by
themselves do not exist for us. I cannot speak of your story without my
interpretation, because that is a thing that does not exist in my universe.
If my interpretation differs from yours, you may be able to convince me to
change my interpretation (to what I perceive you are telling me your
interpretation is), but you do this by literally changing the way the I see
the world. In my world, my interpretation is supreme, because it is the one
attached to your story. By the same token, in your world, your interpretation
is supreme. Since neither of us is capable of perceiving `objective reality'
and art probably wouldn't make sense to an objective being anyway, how is your
interpretation superior? (In the sense of having precedence; it may well be
much better thought out than mine, but that doesn't make it the way _I_ react
to your story)
> Now, the real world is something which exists independent of the
>man and which doesn't care for his interpretations.
In another post you claimed a bridge is a bridge, and not a work of art. This
is an interpretation (and probably a common one in this culture). Your
counterpart from culture X which values art over utility, would instead have
argued that the work of art that crosses the SF bay is a work of art, even if
someone wants to call it a bridge. Why would your counterpart be more (or
less) right than you are? Notice that the poor object under scrutiny is
really (or at least as close we can approach _really_ -- and assuming there is
a _really_ in the first place) a conglomeration of a number of atoms that
happens to be geometrically stable to within a handfull or two of percents on
a timescale of decades. The properties of this conglomeration are such that
it can be used as a work of art by some humans, and as a bridge by some
vehicles.
>[the story] simply IS.
If there is indeed an objective reality, sure. Point is, you can't perceive
it, and neither can I, so it's pretty academic to argue what we would find if
we were able perceive what we cannot even properly conceive.
> (No sexism flames please re my use of "man")
As I understand PC-ness re: sexism, it is OK to revert to male-default when
describing a bad example. :-)
SR
---
Onno Meyer
>Many of C. J. Cherryh's SF works share a common theme: the Universe is
>an uncaring, cruel place, and that most people, ignorant of what's
>really going on, are treated harshly by it.
>--
>er...@lighthouse.caltech.edu
I've read only some translations of Cherryh's books, but all those
I have read seemed to tell about the socialisation(?) of humans
exposed to an alien environment (the single human and the
<insert species>).
--
* Onno Meyer - Kastanienallee 40 - 2900 Oldenburg - Deutschland *
* e-mail: Onno....@arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de *
* Mathe-Student, und auch etwas Informatik... *
Mike Rogers
>I'm under the impression that he tries to, but fails.
Wrong. I've seen him seemingly caught out by this so many times he's got rather
sick over the entire thing. Now, whenever anyone asks him about the right or
wrongs of it all, he tells them to reread the books more closely. Interestingly,
he ties 'The Bridge' into this textual justification.
>>argued with, its means are very nasty; the Culture doesn't care how many
>>innocent people it tramples in the name of the "greater good."
>I was rather under the impression that Banks approves of that meddling.
You misinterpret a fictional entities actions as the approved actions of the
author. Does Burgess approve of raping women, Ellis of eating them, Burroughs
of drug abuse?
>Banks tries to make the Culture more acceptable to the reader by giving
>its opponents all sorts of nasty personal habits. The Idirians in
People (and AIs) in the Culture also seem to have their fair share of hangups.
>So you haven't bought the Culture as the ideal solution to all human
>problems, and neither have I :-)
At least you've got some of the point of the Culture. What Banks was trying to
do was to portray a slightly more realistic 'Galactic Empire' than the usual
autocracy/theocracy/monarchy/democracy. What would tie together a far flung
collection of radically different genotype humans existing in a secularized
and comfortable consumer environment other than an ideology of self realization
within the 'common good'?
>I still like reading Bank's books, it's just that the preachy stuff
>makes me flip over pages so much faster...
The preachy stuff is there because the Culture makes sure that it is. Throughout
the Culture civic education is at a premium. For them to stay together they
*have* to believe that they hold to the one true path and for everyone else
it's just a matter of time before they see the light.
--
Mike Rogers,Box 6,Regent Hse,##EveryoneHasTheRightToFreedomOfOpinionAndExpressio
TCD,EIRE. <mi...@maths.tcd.ie>##nThisRightIncludesFreedomToHoldOpinionsWithoutInt
###############################erferenceAndToSeekReceiveAndImpartInformationAndI
deasThroughAnyMediaAndRegardlessOfFrontiers...#10 UN Declaration of Human Rights
Donald A Bachman
With certain exceptions (Doorways in the Sand, DreamMaster, etc.) which
of his characters did not fail to oppose the wishes of other/greater powers?
(And even that tendency can be seen in DitS in the refusal to graduate despite
the machinations of the dean.) In spite of not having all the information at
hand, most of his characters show an incredible lack of willingness to trust
or be manipulated. Still, this does not make for a bad story. Anyways, I'll
consider any arguements to the contrary.
>Ramblin' on and on...
>Tim
--
===============================================================================
| Lisp is the one true language, and Emacs is its prophet! |
===============================================================================
|Donald A. Bachman|don...@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu|daba...@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu|
===============================================================================
--
Cam Cavers
> Piers Anthony: children or pre-adolescents discovering sexuality.
I'm kinda new to this newsgroup, but at least I have finally found a place
where people feel the same way about Piers Anthony I do; it's not just the
gratuitous sex that annoys me, but the fact that he seems to try to out-do his
own little fantasies every time he writes something new...
Changing the subject, anybody read _Free Radicals_, by Jack McKinney? I just
love the humour, and the sensible way he creates alien races (not like Star
Trek, where everyone looks human, except for some bumps on their nose...)
** Cam Cavers (cca...@ersys.edmonton.ab.ca) **
** Member of B.A.K.A.-Banzai ANIME Klub of Alberta **
** We're too hentai for Milan, New York and Japan... :-) **
Tim Mohler
In article <1992Jul4.1...@constellation.ecn.uoknor.edu>, don...@essex.ecn.uoknor.edu (Donald A Bachman) writes:
[I write]
|> >Anyways, this tendency does get annoying/boring after awhile. I really
|> >disliked "My Name is Legion" for just this reason, although both Eye of
|> >Cat and Home is the Hangman managed to escape this.
|>
|> With certain exceptions (Doorways in the Sand, DreamMaster, etc.) which
|> of his characters did not fail to oppose the wishes of other/greater powers?
Conflict is one of the basics of storytelling; I don't think that can be
called a common tendency of only Zelazny. Mahasamatman is the only one I
can think of that fit the "greater powers" bit, except for Merlin's
latest confrontation with the pattern and the logrus (a bit far-fetched, eh?)
Mahasamatman rebels against heaven, but he is as powerful or more so than most
of the individual members of heaven.
Corwin is basically fighting against equals, as he bever actually goes up against
Benedict.
Same for Jack of Shadows.
|> the machinations of the dean.) In spite of not having all the information at
|> hand, most of his characters show an incredible lack of willingness to trust
|> or be manipulated. Still, this does not make for a bad story. Anyways, I'll
I wouldn't say his main characters are untrusting, just suspicious.
This ties into the "just plain folks" characterization: most people do not want
to be manipulated, nor do they want their trust betrayed. In just so happens that
Zelasny's main characters tend to be better at avoiding this kind of thing
(due to experience, powers, etc) than the average joe.
Take most any person, give them some sort of superpowers, and thorw in a
healthy skepticism gained over many years experience and presto you have
Corwin or Karaghiosis or Mahasamatman or whats-his-name in the Legion stories.
Opposed to this are many of his subsidiary characters, such as Hassan the
Assassin, or Yama the death god, etc. They do not come off as particularly
nice or even human people, and this to me is a problem. Zelazny does not take
the time to adequately explore the mindset of his opponents (Brand, for
instance gets particularly short shrift).
In spite of all this Zelazny is still one of my favorite authors, perhaps
because I can identify easily with the main character (except in Eye of Cat)
and because he can write extremely smooth prose if he chooses,
Something else to check out: his short stories. Many of his shorts in
_Last Defender of Camelot_ or _Unicorn Variations_ are better pieces of work
than his novels. I would avoid _My Name is Legion_ and _The Doors of his Face
and the Lamps of His Mouth_.
Tim
Jim Kasprzak
the posts on this subject have been quite enlightening. However, I think a
few of the people who responded have missed one vital facet of my remarks,
which I included in the Summary line of my original post for the benefit of
those who could not infer it from the text itself.
------------------------------------------------------------------
__ Live from Capitaland, heart of the Empire State...
___/ | Jim Kasprzak, computer operator @ RPI, Troy, NY, USA
/____ *| Why can't people stop taking things so seriously?
\_| "All I want is to have my peace of mind" - Boston
==== e-mail: kas...@rpi.edu or kasp...@mts.rpi.edu
Curtis Yarvin
>
>>I haven't read _State of The Art_, his novella about Earth; if it fits
>>my criteria, someone please warn me...
>
>I don't think so. He does, if I recall, at several times make statements
>that might imply that Western Civilization in the 20th Century might not
>be the *ne plus ultra* it is sometimes cracked up to be. Most of what
>he says, however, is (a) in passing, and (b) so trivially true that I
>can't imagine anyone who isn't Eric Raymond or Ayn Rand taking offense.
In fact, I can't imagine even Eric Raymond, or (shudder) the R-word (I
think there are people who, vulturelike, dredge news spools for 'R-nd';
lead them unto obscure debates on South African monetary policy, and
deliver us from egoists) deciding that Western Civilization was the
ne plus ultra of human existence. It's such a bastard mash of pragmatism
and a thousand different ideologies that anyone who can't find something
to moan about has a complacency problem... but I digress. Spike the guns,
saddle the tanks and gas up the horses: back to sf.
>Of all the Culture novels I've read (i.e. I haven't got to *The Use of
>Weapons* yet), *State of the Art* is, interestingly enough, the most
>directly critical of the Culture and its effects on its citizens.
I'm pleased to hear this, as it corroborates an opinion of Banks that
I've been developing: a writer much too subtle for his own good. Those
accusing him of "preaching" have looked at his works and said, "Banks?
Communist heroes. Communist society. Why, the man's a bleedin'
Communist! Deport 'im to Hanoi and see if he likes it hot." The flaw
in this reasoning should be obvious; but it's so popular because it's
so often right. Few writers have the confidence in their creativity to
project an independent philosophy onto their lead characters. It's all
too easy to fall into the trap of hero-as-mouthpiece. Banks avoids it,
much to his credit; but he is damned by his peers. A tragedy of the
commons if I ever saw one.
c
Curtis Yarvin
>In article <1992Jul02.1...@highlite.uucp> yar...@highlite.uucp (Curtis Yarvin) writes:
>
>Curtis, did you take a walk on a foggy night after you read _The Dispossessed_,
>but before you posted this? 'Cause I'm afraid you wandered into a parallel
>universe: our version of tD doesn't fit that description at all...
Oh, Jesus. Lead me not into temptation. Another opportunity to beat up
on the New Wave, served up like a slow-pitch softball. O fuckimslipping...
>In our universe's version, the anarchists are hardly spiritual purity
>exemplified.
No, not all of them. Le Guin, bless her pointy little head, was
savvy enough to realize she needed a conflict; angst don't grow
on trees. So she made some of the anarchists not-very-nice.
But not Shevek. Shevek is who she spends her time on, and Shevek is...
well, er, spiritual purity exemplified. So exemplified, in fact, so
utterly convex and well-rounded and vacuum-distilled, that a crack
commission of ten noted scientists armed with the latest in
spectrographic analysis technology failed repeatedly to discover any
shred of character under his Teflon hide. He's bleached white; all the
dirt come out in the wash; he's Andrei Sakharov on X, so utterly nice
he's laughable. Le Guin is too smooth a writer to make this mistake
accidentally, so I can only presume she either (1) restricts her
company to people with that peculiar Californian niceness that's
so nice it's irritating, like spider-feet on the skin; or (2) was
deluded by ideological blinkers. You make the call.
>Also, the grubbing or non-grubbing of money is hardly a theme.
O yes it is. O yes, Bubba. In fact, it should be so obvious
to anyone who's actually read the book, rather that just bought
a couple copies to look good on their Hugo and Nebula shelves
(ObUnsubstantiatedCheapShot), that I would have just deleted
this sentence, if I hadn't been anxious to take a few more
whacks at the fast-disintegrating pinata of smarmy leftism.
Specifically, to point out the remarkable resemblance between the
Victorian contempt for "money-grubbing," born of a dwindling
aristocratic class whose only distinction was their ancestors' wanton
pillage of a nation's peasantry, a species of parasite so loathsome
that not even a lawyer would defend them (or... Mike? Miiiike?), and
the contempt for money that's a hallmark of the egghead Marxist wing,
(which I wish now to thwack), a contempt which shines like fat mackerel
under fishnet through the entire text of _The Dispossessed_.
And then there's the astonishing fact that the former disappeared just
as the latter was coming out of the closet, and that both attitudes
were largely confined to the same social class, that is, rich
nog-headed intellectuals.
Coincidence or conspiracy? Tell me. Tell me now, Bubba.
c
Jim Kasprzak
|> >Also, the grubbing or non-grubbing of money is hardly a theme.
|>
|> O yes it is. O yes, Bubba. In fact, it should be so obvious
|> to anyone who's actually read the book, rather that just bought
|> a couple copies to look good on their Hugo and Nebula shelves
|> (ObUnsubstantiatedCheapShot), that I would have just deleted
|> this sentence, if I hadn't been anxious to take a few more
|> whacks at the fast-disintegrating pinata of smarmy leftism.
|>
|> Specifically, to point out the remarkable resemblance between the
|> Victorian contempt for "money-grubbing," born of a dwindling
|> aristocratic class whose only distinction was their ancestors' wanton
|> pillage of a nation's peasantry, a species of parasite so loathsome
|> that not even a lawyer would defend them (or... Mike? Miiiike?), and
|> the contempt for money that's a hallmark of the egghead Marxist wing,
|> (which I wish now to thwack), a contempt which shines like fat mackerel
|> under fishnet through the entire text of _The Dispossessed_.
|>
|> And then there's the astonishing fact that the former disappeared just
|> as the latter was coming out of the closet, and that both attitudes
|> were largely confined to the same social class, that is, rich
|> nog-headed intellectuals.
|>
|> Coincidence or conspiracy? Tell me. Tell me now, Bubba.
I'd love to try to tell you, but first I'd have to figure out just what
the heck it was that you just _said_. Can anyone translate the above into
Basic English?
Michael Qvortrup
>[ Dali and Margritte (?) examples deleted ]
>Do you begin to see why some of us have a hard time accepting your
>position?
No, as a matter of fact I don't. I find that your examples lend
credence to Sea Wasp's position.
Greetings,
--Mike
--
#include <std-disclm.h>--"... and there is a small flaw in my character."---
Real Life: Michael Christian Heide Qvortrup A Dane ETH, Zuerich
e-mail : qvor...@inf.ethz.ch abroad Switzerland
Institut fuer wissenschaftliches Rechnen / Inst. of Scientific Computation
Gary Weiner
Phillip K. Dick
Just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean that
everyone isn't really out to get you!
;-)
!
Gary J. Weiner | Brookhaven National Laboratories | "I'm not a bigot,
PO BOX 715 | National Synchrotron Light Source | I hate everybody!"
Upton,NY 11973 | wei...@bnlls1.nsls.bnl.gov |
Nick Haines
I'm pleased to hear this, as it corroborates an opinion of Banks that
I've been developing: a writer much too subtle for his own good. Those
accusing him of "preaching" have looked at his works and said, "Banks?
Communist heroes. Communist society. Why, the man's a bleedin'
Communist! Deport 'im to Hanoi and see if he likes it hot."
Thankfully he's British, and therefore doesn't get that much of this
reaction at home; Americans seem to have a very clouded understanding
of what constitutes Communism and what is merely mild Social
Democracy. Back in Britain we can spot (most of?) his political
subtlety. Sure, he's left-wing. So is Ian Watson (and in a much more
vocal manner). So are a host of British writers. [rant about
intelligence, Toryism, and nations going down plugholes elided].
Nick Haines ni...@cs.cmu.edu
soren--Ms. Jackson if you're nasty
>In article <1992Jul3.1...@hellgate.utah.edu> speterse%peruvian...@cs.utah.edu (soren--Ms. Jackson if you're nasty) writes:
>>[ Dali and Margritte (?) examples deleted ]
>>Do you begin to see why some of us have a hard time accepting your
>>position?
>No, as a matter of fact I don't. I find that your examples lend
>credence to Sea Wasp's position.
"We know this isn't a pipe. I wonder what it is?" does not strike me as
a very useful insight. Yet it's the only one Sea Wasp's position allows
us to make.
Mark Rosenfelder
>>>[ Dali and Margritte (?) examples deleted ]
>>>Do you begin to see why some of us have a hard time accepting your
>>>position?
>
>a very useful insight. Yet it's the only one Sea Wasp's position allows
>us to make.
First, why is that the implication of Sea Wasp's position? Wouldn't Sea
Wasp's position be that the meaning of this picture is whatever Magritte
intended it to be (which might not be obvious from the picture itself)?
Second, looking at the picture and asking yourself, "This isn't a pipe?
Yes it is! What the hell does he mean?" seems to me to be *exactly* the
kind of thinking process Magritte intended you to go through. I suspect
Magritte might even be more concerned to get you asking the question than
that you come up with the particular answer he intended, if any.
I'm wondering, in fact, what interpretations of the picture are available
*besides* Magritte's. "Here's a pretty picture of a pipe" or "Those zany,
wacky absurdists" just don't cut it for me. Any suggestions?
Steven Schwartz
>In article <1992Jun30.2...@usenet.ins.cwru.edu> bp...@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Dana Goldblatt) writes:
>>
>> Maybe you have noticed that some SF writers have consistent
>>themes that run through all or almost all of their novels, and
>>many of their shorter works (if any).
>
>Tim Powers: Mutilation. No Powers protagonist ever makes it to the
>end of the novel with all his appendages in their original
>configuration.
>
Actually, Tim Powers is great fun, since you can play one of the
great literary games -- Spot the King Under the Hill. Sometimes, as in
_Drawing of the Dark_, it's blatant, while in _Anubis Gates_, it's
tricky.
He does however consistently return to the theme of the King Under
the Hill, in whatever strange form he may show up.
He also uses the Anatean/blood-based magic in a number of works, as
you'll note that people keep clinging to rocks and bleeding on things.
S.E.S.
--
Steven Schwartz se...@midway.uchicago.edu B5 f- w+ g- K+ m r- p!
UCBU President: No Power, No Authority, Lots of Scutwork.
"Never say never - especially in 'I'll never sleep with x'. You're bound
to if you do that, unless, of course, you say it with that in mind." - D.P.
David Stein
Yarvin grilles Le Guin via _The Dispossessed_, managing to include
the New Wave, California, Miiike, Victorians, and of course the
Marxists.
Curtis, I'm getting sick of this ideologically motivated rantings
periodically popping up here. It's bad enough that this group
talks politics more then books. Now politics substitute for lit
crit, and the more buzzwords one mentions the better.
Look, there's enough problems with _The Dispossessed_ to consider;
the style, the sf gimmicks, the artificiality of the planet's
society, etc....
But to ignore the fact that Le Guin has tried to visualize an anarchist
society from a sympathetic but critical point-of-view---not realizing
that, or even a priory damning her for that, is just not interesting
literary-wise. The same goes for the main character---to dismiss him
just because he mirrors the Andrei Sakharovs of this world (no saints,
btw) is hardly substantial.
If some do feel they have to come down on an author just because
a society created by her is not politically up to their standards,
I suggest alt.politics.
In this group, it could be a worthier exercise to examine the ways
in which an author tried to make their society believable and real.
And I would love to see a comparison of _The Dispossessed_ moon
society's authenticity with that of, say, Heinlein's _The Moon is a
Harsh Mistress_.
It would be a nice test of objectivity.
Sea Wasp
> And I would love to see a comparison of _The Dispossessed_ moon
> society's authenticity with that of, say, Heinlein's _The Moon is a
> Harsh Mistress_.
Interesting choice. It was one of the semi-required comparisons in
the SF Lit class I took a few years ago (you had to compare three societies
or other major themes from three works); besides _The Dispossessed_ and
_The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_ the other works we went over included
_A Clockwork Orange_, _Dune_, _The Foundation Trilogy_, _The Sirens of
Titan_, _We_, and a host of shorts.
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
paul-michael agapow
> speterse%peruvian...@cs.utah.edu writes:
>> yar...@highlite.uucp (Curtis Yarvin) writes:
>>
>>>I haven't read _State of The Art_, his novella about Earth; if it fits
>>>my criteria, someone please warn me...
>>
>>I don't think so. He does, if I recall, at several times make statements
>>that might imply that Western Civilization in the 20th Century might not
>>be the *ne plus ultra* it is sometimes cracked up to be. Most of what
>>he says, however, is (a) in passing, and (b) so trivially true that I
>>can't imagine anyone who isn't Eric Raymond or Ayn Rand taking offense.
Speaking to Banks at a recent book-signing, he had several interesting
things to say about the Culture in general. His basic aim (he said) was to
do a utopian culture. However after the first attempts / thoughts he tried
to "step back" from the Culture and examine it in a darker light. He
reported that in fact he now felt that he had cast the Culture in _too_
dark a light.
>>Of all the Culture novels I've read (i.e. I haven't got to *The Use of
>>Weapons* yet), *State of the Art* is, interestingly enough, the most
>>directly critical of the Culture and its effects on its citizens.
>
>I'm pleased to hear this, as it corroborates an opinion of Banks that
>I've been developing: a writer much too subtle for his own good. Those
>accusing him of "preaching" have looked at his works and said, "Banks?
>Communist heroes. Communist society. Why, the man's a bleedin'
>Communist! Deport 'im to Hanoi and see if he likes it hot." The flaw
>in this reasoning should be obvious; but it's so popular because it's
>so often right. Few writers have the confidence in their creativity to
>project an independent philosophy onto their lead characters. It's all
>too easy to fall into the trap of hero-as-mouthpiece. Banks avoids it,
>much to his credit; but he is damned by his peers. A tragedy of the
>commons if I ever saw one.
Was it Norman Spinrad, who said that SF readers have trouble
distinguishing between the authors worldview and the characters worldview?
Certainly i'd agree with all that is said above. i've had a couple of
lengthy arguments with a friend who maintains that the Culture are just
out-and-out lying murdering bastards, whilst i hold that they are so
idealistic and ethical, with such a highly developed sets of morals that
they are incapable of percieving the horrors they perform. IMHO natch.
p-m
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
paul-michael agapow (aga...@latcs1.oz.au) Machine Intelligence Lab, LaTrobe Uni
"Teenage sex, nuclear winter, Junior Miss fashion
& the mechanics of emotional capitalism ..."
Michael Qvortrup
>In article <1992Jul7.0...@neptune.inf.ethz.ch> qvor...@inf.ethz.ch (Michael Qvortrup) writes:
>>In article <1992Jul3.1...@hellgate.utah.edu> speterse%peruvian...@cs.utah.edu (soren--Ms. Jackson if you're nasty) writes:
>>>[ Dali and Margritte (?) examples deleted ]
>>>Do you begin to see why some of us have a hard time accepting your
>>>position?
>
>>No, as a matter of fact I don't. I find that your examples lend
>>credence to Sea Wasp's position.
>
>"We know this isn't a pipe. I wonder what it is?" does not strike me as
>a very useful insight. Yet it's the only one Sea Wasp's position allows
>us to make.
Well, it the subtitle wasn't there, all we would have is a nice picture
of a pipe. A nice picture, but not very interesting. We could perhaps
interprete some Freudian complexes into it (I mean, it is *large* and
it is *bent*) or perhaps some kind of naturalistic interpretation would
be nice. Without knowing the artist and the subtitle, the picture is
not very interesting.
With the subtitle the artist tries to tell us something more. He gives
a hint to what the message of the work is meant to be.
I have the feeling that we are comparing apples and oranges here. One side
interpretes the work and the work alone, while completely disregarding
the artist. In this case the artist's intent can be completely left out
of the interpretation. The other side's stance is, that the work is nothing
without the artist, and therefore a correct interpretation must exist.
The springing point here is the dogma whether a work may, can or cannot be
regarded without the artist. Would it not make more sense to argue that
point?
Chris Waters
> And I would love to see a comparison of _The Dispossessed_ moon
> society's authenticity with that of, say, Heinlein's _The Moon is a
> Harsh Mistress_.
> It would be a nice test of objectivity.
Wow, now there's an interesting idea! And, since those two books are
both among my favorites (at least in the top 40), perhaps I'll have to
give it a try. :-)
I'll have to reread 'em first--it's been a couple of years since I read
either one--but it sounds like a fun exercise. The most obvious place
to start the comparison, oc, is Heinlein's concept of the "rational
anarchist" (it won't work, but it's better than the alternatives) vs.
LeGuin's almost-functional anarchist society (it doesn't quite work, but
it's better than the alternatives). :-)
--
Chris Waters | the insane don't | NOBODY for President!
xt...@netcom.COM| need disclaimers | Because Nobody's perfect!!
Eric S. Raymond
>I don't think so. He does, if I recall, at several times make statements
>that might imply that Western Civilization in the 20th Century might not
>be the *ne plus ultra* it is sometimes cracked up to be. Most of what
>he says, however, is (a) in passing, and (b) so trivially true that I
>can't imagine anyone who isn't Eric Raymond or Ayn Rand taking offense.
Bzzzt. Thank you for playing. I enjoy Iain Banks's novels quite a bit,
thank you, and have said so in my column. Like everyone else who's been
so anxious to stuff me into a neatly labeled political box, you haven't
been paying attention. Or, perhaps, you should stick with reading material
that strains your comprehension less.
In <1992Jul05....@highlite.uucp> Curtis Yarvin replied:
> In fact, I can't imagine even Eric Raymond [or Rand] deciding that Western
> Civilization was the ne plus ultra of human existence. It's such a bastard
> mash of pragmatism and a thousand different ideologies that anyone who can't
> find something to moan about has a complacency problem...
Right you are, Curtis. By the way, for the benefit of the intellectually
challenged out there, I am no kind of Randite. She did some valuable
critical demolition on collectivism and altruism, but I consider most of
her prescriptions inadequate and her `epistemology' complete rubbish.
> >Of all the Culture novels I've read (i.e. I haven't got to *The Use of
> >Weapons* yet), *State of the Art* is, interestingly enough, the most
> >directly critical of the Culture and its effects on its citizens.
>
> I'm pleased to hear this, as it corroborates an opinion of Banks that
> I've been developing: a writer much too subtle for his own good.
I agree. He is that, and it hurts him. It's related to an unfortunate
tendency he has to indulge in formal cleverness when directness and a
more `naive' style would serve his purposes better.
> Those
> accusing him of "preaching" have looked at his works and said, "Banks?
> Communist heroes. Communist society. Why, the man's a bleedin'
> Communist! Deport 'im to Hanoi and see if he likes it hot."
Y'all might be amused (and possibly enlightened) to know that I didn't
even mentally register Banks into the possibly-pinko catalogue until
more than halfway through _Use_Of_Weapons_. See, I'd written off the
bits about the Culture having no money as an annoying bit of naivete ---
and the only other real clue is Banks's unfondness for capitalism, which
isn't really made clear until late in the game.
I haven't read _State_Of_The_Art_; in _Consider_Phlebas_ and _Use_Of_Weapons_,
though, the Culture doesn't coerce its citizens. The defining characteristic
of socialism is that it both exalts collectivism and enforces it with guns;
thus, I typed the Culture not as socialist but as an anarchy of the impractical
kind usually imagined by writers with no grasp of economics (Ursula K. LeGuin's
Anarres is a classic example).
Knowing what I now do about Bank's politics adds little to my reaction but
a certain dry amusement. From a political-fantasy viewpoint, contact with
the Culture is about as desperate as a put-upon leftie can get --- and
a quite reasonable response to historical context. At this point it would
probably *require* a cultural invasion by superior aliens to save socialism
from completing its own destruction.
--
Eric S. Raymond = er...@snark.thyrsus.com (mad mastermind of TMN-Netnews)