{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1242", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 1242, "subject": "Digest urth.v021.n005", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "1998-11-03T08:45:48+00:00", "last": "1998-11-03T12:57:26+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alice Turner", "address": "al at interport.net" }, "date": "1998-11-03T08:45:48+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: Digest urth.v021.n005", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \"Kevin J. Maroney\" " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 07:46 PM 10/29/98 -0500, alga quoted Julian Jaynes:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "\"The characters of the Iliad do not sit down and think out what to do." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "they" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "have no conscious minds such as we say we have, and certainly no\nintrospections.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "By complete coincidence, I just happened to be reading part of _The Iliad_\nonly a couple of weeks back--I'd never read it before; quite\ninteresting--and I can say that this is, as a categorical statement, false.\nThe death of Hector provides a clear example of introspection: (From Samuel\nButler's translation, Book XXII)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "[snip]\n\nOh, I agree, and could easily find other examples, even from Gilgamesh. (Why\nare you reading Butler, btw, did you download it? There are some splendid\nmore modern translations. Did you know that Butler, and Graves after him,\nwas convinced that The Odyssey was written by a woman?) But there is a\ncertain very general argument that could be sustained or at least argued\nover in the Jaynes premise. I'll say again that I believe that Wolfe is at\nhis best when dealing with rather flat \"archaic\" figures, that in my own\nopinion he is less successful at the nuanced 3-dimensional \"modern\" figure.\n\n-alga" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Kevin J. Maroney", "address": "kmaroney at crossover.com" }, "date": "1998-11-03T10:49:55+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Re: Digest urth.v021.n005", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 08:45 AM 11/3/98 -0500, alga wrote:\nOh, I agree, and could easily find other examples, even from Gilgamesh. (Why\nare you reading Butler, btw, did you download it? There are some splendid\nmore modern translations. Did you know that Butler, and Graves after him,\nwas convinced that The Odyssey was written by a woman?) " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The Butler was available online. I actually can't remember what translation\nI was reading when I first encountered this scene; I read it in WH Auden's\n_The Greek Classics_ (Viking Portable Library). " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "But there is a\ncertain very general argument that could be sustained or at least argued\nover in the Jaynes premise. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I certainly understand; but Jaynes was making an absolute categorical\nstatement, and like any absolute categorical statement, a single\ncounterexample damages it. (Harold Bloom seems to make a similarly broad\nand indefensible statement in his newest book on Shakespeare.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I'll say again that I believe that Wolfe is at\nhis best when dealing with rather flat \"archaic\" figures, that in my own\nopinion he is less successful at the nuanced 3-dimensional \"modern\" figure." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Interesting observation, and one that I simultaneously find quite correct\nand want to argue with. Alden Weir is a brilliant 3-dimensional figure, but\nother than that, the characters in his best stories do tend to be viewed at\na remove. \n\nWombat, a.k.a. Kevin Maroney kmaroney at crossover.com\nKitchen Staff Supervisor, New York Review of Science Fiction\nhttp://ebbs.english.vt.edu/olp/nyrsf/nyrsf.html" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alex David Groce", "address": "adgroce at eos.ncsu.edu" }, "date": "1998-11-03T12:57:26+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Re: Digest urth.v021.n005", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Wombat said:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I'll say again that I believe that Wolfe is at\nhis best when dealing with rather flat \"archaic\" figures, that in my own\nopinion he is less successful at the nuanced 3-dimensional \"modern\" figure." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Interesting observation, and one that I simultaneously find quite correct\nand want to argue with. Alden Weir is a brilliant 3-dimensional figure, but\nother than that, the characters in his best stories do tend to be viewed at\na remove. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tPerhaps a better way to put it would be that a lot of Wolfe's best\ncharacters have a very different psychology than you generally find in modern\nliterature--Severian comes to mind, of course, but Latro fits the bill as well.\nI don't think Severian is so much \"flat\" as extended in a different\nmanner--where a modern character has depth, Severian does indeed seem flat.\n\tHowever, Severian's memory and ability to tune in to what I guess I\nwould call a sacramental view of reality replaces this; he does not agonize\nover decisions because he is doing something else. Latro works the same way\n(his lack of memory serving the same kind of function as Sev's abundance\nthereof).\n\tWeer is, to my mind, the most complex of Wolfe's characters--with both\nthe psychological depth of a \"modern man\" and the labyrinthine memory of a\nSeverian (Weer's being, presumably, less \"true\" but equally involved.) I'd say\nWeer's closest parallel is the narrator in Remembrance of Things\nPast--completely different kinds of books, with very different concerns, but a\nsimilar unique kind of character.\n\tOf course, I'd say that it's more that Wolfe emphasizes certain kinds\nof psychology that aren't prevalent in modern literature (or recognized by us\nmoderns in general, although still extant) than that he can't handle the kinds\nusually seen--I think Weer's proof of that.\n\tSilk I see as more \"modern\" than Severian, but also akin to Myshkin or\n(what I thought of when I started the book) Aloysha in The Brothers\nKaramazov... An Aloysha, a Father Brown, a \"little Christ\", and a bit of\nMoses (so is Auk Aaron?). Hey, that's actually a nice point. Moses never got\nto the promised land either! The book is \"Exodus,\" after all. Of course, Blue\n& Green don't seem to be the land of milk and honey, but then the Israelites\nwere being given the one nation in the region without oil supplies. So, if\nSilk is Moses-like, what's his disobedience that prevents arrival in the\npromised land? Or is this an intentional contrast, where it's his loyalty (to\nHy) that prevents it, making him both Moses-like and Christic in self-sacrifice\nfor (a less than Godlike but still touching) love?" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "\"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.\" - John 8:32\n--\nAlex David Groce (adgroce at eos.ncsu.edu)\nSenior (Computer Science/Multidisciplinary Studies in Technology & Fiction)\n'98-99 NCSU AITP Student Chapter President\n608 Charleston Road, Apt. 1E (919)-233-7366\nhttp://www4.ncsu.edu/~adgroce" } ] } ] }