{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1854", "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": 1854, "subject": "Modernism", "messages": 14, "voices": 7, "first": "1999-10-26T07:08:59+00:00", "last": "1999-10-28T01:30:34+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Daniel Fusch", "address": "dfusch at hotmail.com" }, "date": "1999-10-26T07:24:12+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Modernism", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "OK, now that I've confused myself as to who has posted which messages, I'll \naddress this reply to alga.\n\nalga,\n\nI agree with several things you said.\n\nI think Wolfe's work is likely to last into the next century, although it is \nunlikely that he will receive much in the way of critical attention for some \ntime to come. I think the work of writers like Walter A. Miller, Jr., Ray \nBradbury, and Ursula K. LeGuin will also last into posterity, since they are \nalso authors who experiment with different forms of storytelling. These \nauthors are also--incidentally--taught in today's college lit classes.\n\nAnd I think it very likely that some of the science fiction \"classics\" will \nlast as \"relics\" of the past...at least for a little while. For example, \nAsimov's \"Foundation\" is probably here to stay, whether or not we agree with \nits \"literary merit\" (if such a thing can be defined), since that work \ndefined a generation of speculative literature. Certain films--\"Things to \nCome\" and \"2001: A Space Odyssey\"--will be a matter of speculation \nthroughout the ages; \"Things to Come\" remains a frequent film for British \nlit courses even sixty years after its first appearance.\n\nI should add, though, that I think these relics remain because people like \nto read/watch them, not simply because they supply us with information about \nthe literary/historical traditions of their time.\n\nSo I don't think Wolfe is the only writer who will survive. Of course, in \ncenturies to come, who knows who will remain? Homer's work, after all, comes \nto us completely isolated from its literary tradition.\n\nInteresting to speculate, anyway!\n\nYou said something else that caught my interest:\n\n(snip)\n\"Daniel Fusch brings up--re the inconsistent or unreliable narrator (Sev) \nthat we've been discussing--the modernist novel. Well, actually, that's not \nquite accurate, as he brings up -Moby-Dick- and -Paradise Lost- too. But I \nthink that M-D can stand as a modernist novel ahead of its time, and Milton \nwas certainly striving to do something different with PL. The point, and the \nFaulkner novel is included here, is the effort toward originality.\"\n\nI think I will agree with you, in saying that Moby Dick is, in many ways, a \nmodernist novel before its time. I think I would call it a tragic romance \ntold via a modernist nature (there's a hybrid for you!). Modernism deals \nalmost exclusively with the Everyman--the ordinary, everyday character with \nthe ordinary, everyday life, with the ordinary, everyday romance, tragedy, \nand fall. The traditional tragic romance, on the other hand, deals with the \ndecline and fall of some larger-than-life figure (Macbeth, for instance). \nMoby Dick has as its main character Ahab, the larger-than-life captain who \nwill sacrifice his ship, his life, his soul...in battle against the \nUnconquerable, against the Infinite. Yet the narration is distinctly \nmodernist--Melville experiments with different modes of storytelling, and \nIshmael--whose identity we never learn much about--is a modernist (and, in \npart, unreliable) narrator.\n\nI think \"The Book of the New Sun\" is like this, also. Wolfe presents us with \na romance (or a fantasy, if you prefer the modern time), in which a \ntorturer's apprentice becomes a king. This is a very familiar, conventional \nplot--the tailor who becomes a prince, the girl with the ash-covered face \nwho marries the prince, the pauper who becomes king, etc. But the narration \nis modernist, experimental.\n\nWe might call Melville's \"Moby Dick\" a proto-modernist work (did you know \nthat only some 20 copies a year were published at first...the novel vanished \ninto obscurity until the 1920s, when the modernists discovered it). It is \nperhaps too tempting to label Wolfe \"post-modernist.\" One surmises that the \nauthor of The Book of the New Sun is well aware of postmodernity--certainly \nWolfe is writing metafiction in one sense--although I would argue that \nmetafiction is more an outgrowth of modernism than it is a branch of \npost-modernism. Faulkner wrote metafiction. For that matter, metafiction has \nexisted in one form or another since the eighteenth century (Henry Fielding \ncomes to mind). (Metafiction, by the way--for those of you who are \nunfamiliar with the term--is fiction that intentionally draws attention to \nthe methods by which it works, in order to investigate or examine the nature \nof fiction--the nature of storytelling).\n\nPost-modernism is really extremely difficult to define--it is that work \nwhich is \"beyond modernism\" (it makes more sense when you apply the term to \npost-colonial writings), and the term usually seems to include both \ndeconstructionism and metafiction.\n\nIn the end, I think it safe to assume that The Book of the New Sun is more \nmodernist than post-modernist. The fascination with the nature of Time, the \nexperimental narration, the tendency toward metafiction, the cyclical \nbeginning/ending (reminiscent of James Joyce), and the presentation of \ndifferent forms of narrative (i.e., Foila's Contest) without a final \njudgement on them (reminiscent of \"The Sound and the Fury\" -- in which all \nfour (or five) perspectives are equally important and equally close/distant \nfrom the Truth or the Whole of the story) -- all these seem to fit Wolfe's \nwork into a modernist niche.\n\nIt is difficult to label \"The Book of the New Sun\" that easily, however. One \nmust keep in mind that it fits within many traditions. It is a heroic \nromance, it is a mythopoeic work, it is a modernist work, and it is also a \nwork of science fiction. Maybe assigning one label to the book would deprive \nit of its totality--would allow us to look at only one part of the whole. \nThat, of course, is a distinctly modernist thought. =)\n\nWell, that's what I've been pondering.\n\nAny thoughts?\n\nDaniel" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jim Henley", "address": "jlhenley at erols.com" }, "date": "1999-10-26T07:08:59+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) Modernism", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "-----Original Message-----\nFrom: urth-errors at lists.best.com [mailto:urth-errors at lists.best.com]On\nBehalf Of Daniel Fusch\n\nAnd I think it very likely that some of the science fiction\n\"classics\" will\nlast as \"relics\" of the past...at least for a little while. For example,\nAsimov's \"Foundation\" is probably here to stay, whether or not\nwe agree with\nits \"literary merit\" (if such a thing can be defined), since that work\ndefined a generation of speculative literature." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Keep in mind also that Heinlein's lasting contribution was _precisely_ a\nliterary one, though people didn't necessarily think of it that way. He\nchanged the way SF stories were told. [Waves hands in the direction of\nDelany's essay about \"The door irised.\"]\n\nBest,\n\n\nJim\n ****************************\n \"I once was lost\n\tbut now I'm just blind\"\n\t\t\t- Kid Rock" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alice Turner", "address": "akt at attglobal.net" }, "date": "1999-10-26T10:23:06+00:00", "subject": "(urth) modernism", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \"Daniel Fusch\" " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think Wolfe's work is likely to last into the next century, although it\nis\nunlikely that he will receive much in the way of critical attention for\nsome\ntime to come. I think the work of writers like Walter A. Miller, Jr., Ray\nBradbury, and Ursula K. LeGuin will also last into posterity, since they\nare\nalso authors who experiment with different forms of storytelling. These\nauthors are also--incidentally--taught in today's college lit classes." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Bradbury and LeGuin will last as children's authors. Miller will last for\npeople interested in the history of SF (as Bradbury and LeGuin will too, of\ncourse--the way Sheridan LeFanu has lasted)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "And I think it very likely that some of the science fiction \"classics\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "will" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "last as \"relics\" of the past...at least for a little while. For example,\nAsimov's \"Foundation\" is probably here to stay, whether or not we agree\nwith\nits \"literary merit\" (if such a thing can be defined), since that work\ndefined a generation of speculative literature." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I would rather watch 24 successive viewings of \"Eyes Wide Shut\" than have to\nread the Foundation trilogy again, which is not only abysmally written but\nalso has one of stupidest premises ever concocted. But chacun a son gout.\n\nCertain films--\"Things to" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Come\" and \"2001: A Space Odyssey\"--will be a matter of speculation\nthroughout the ages; \"Things to Come\" remains a frequent film for British\nlit courses even sixty years after its first appearance." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I've never seen \"Things to Come.\" Agree about \"2001,\" for several reasons,\none of which is that it is as pure a relic of the 60s as \"Sgt. Pepper.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "So I don't think Wolfe is the only writer who will survive. Of course, in\ncenturies to come, who knows who will remain? Homer's work, after all,\ncomes\nto us completely isolated from its literary tradition." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Oh, I never meant that! I was making a point about his encompassing the big\npulp traditions with these series, using every bit of the familiar cliches\nbut making them into something bigger and richer so that readers to come\ncould somehow absorb the 20th c. tradition without having to wade through\nthe innumerable precursors.\n\n[snip on Melville]" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think \"The Book of the New Sun\" is like this, also. Wolfe presents us\nwith\na romance (or a fantasy, if you prefer the modern time), in which a\ntorturer's apprentice becomes a king. This is a very familiar,\nconventional\nplot--the tailor who becomes a prince, the girl with the ash-covered face\nwho marries the prince, the pauper who becomes king, etc. But the\nnarration\nis modernist, experimental." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, yes; that was more or less my point." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It is difficult to label \"The Book of the New Sun\" that easily, however." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "One" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "must keep in mind that it fits within many traditions. It is a heroic\nromance, it is a mythopoeic work, it is a modernist work, and it is also a\nwork of science fiction. Maybe assigning one label to the book would\ndeprive\nit of its totality--would allow us to look at only one part of the whole.\nThat, of course, is a distinctly modernist thought. =)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Would back you up." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "To drop another axiom, forewarned is forearmed...." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Like Popeye?\n\n-alga" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alex David Groce", "address": "alex_groce at gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu" }, "date": "1999-10-26T13:40:28+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) modernism", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I also agree that if you had to assign a critical label to Wolfe, it would\nbe as a modernist (much more so than a post-modernist).\n\nI suspect, though, that the most important literary influences on Wolfe are\nnot modernist--I don't particularly see Joyce, Faulkner, Eliot, or Woolf as\nkey to understanding Wolfe. He's mentioned both Woolf and Faulkner in essays\nor interviews, and I'm sure he's familliar with them, but I think that their\n_stylistic_ experimentations have had very little impact on his work--the\nmodernist view of art/literature (if you can pin it down) more so, but still\nnot that strong.\n\nI would argue there are two (somewhat arbitrary, I think Wolfe would say, \ngiven his views on genre and mainstream) major source groups to look at:\n\n(1) Mainstream literary sources: \n\nThe most significant here, I think, is Proust. There is the highly visible\ninfluence on \"The Fifth Head of Cerberus,\" but also the running theme of \nmemory: the nature of memory is a central concern in ALL of Wolfe's work--\nmost clearly in BOTNS and PEACE. And I would argue, without spoiling \nanything, that it's one of the focal points of OBW (and couldn't LONG SUN be \nretitled \"The Memory of Silk\"). This is part of the reason why Wolfe seems to\nbe often at his best when he's writing in a first-person confessional mode, \nmaking some particular soul's memory of the past be the whole work. Proust\ncan be called a modernist, and sometimes is, but as Alga points out, he's an\nodd kind of modernist.\n\nBorges is also always looming over Wolfe's work, although I think more so in\nBOTNS than elsewhere--you could almost (if you're willing to really stretch\nsome points) say that every story in Ficciones is reproduced in miniature in\nBOTNS (\"Funes the Memorius\" and \"The Circular Ruins\" are obvious ones)--always\nwhen Wolfe touches on paradox or time, or starts writing about fictional books\nwithin books (the Gold story of how the world is a construct of frauds that\nbecome real in PEACE is quintessential Borges--is it a lie when \"the universe\nmakes our lies become true?\") Borges' shadow is showing.\n\nSome other writers that I see in Wolfe's work are: Chesterton (Father Brown\n& Silk, but Chesterton's also had a strong influence on Wolfe's worldview),\nKipling (the Mowgli/Frog, but also Kipling's feel for soldiers/engineers--\nWolfe's loving detail in describing how the world works and the detail of \npeople doing their work), Dickens (who is the topic of several Wolfe stories--\nand the source of Sam Wellerisms, and I suspect Wolfe sees cities much more in\nthe fashion of Dickens/Chesterton/Stevenson than as Joyce saw them or with \nEliot's disdainful eye), Conrad, Kafka (\"Forlesen\"), Robert Graves (since\nSeverian takes a limp and a wife and some prophecies, not to mention a \nnarrative form, from stuttering Claudius), H. G. Wells, and Poe. There's a \nstrong Victorian streak in Wolfe.\n\nBut equally important are the \"anonymous\" sources that can be called mainstream\n(and the fed the other source)--the Arabian Nights, both by themselves and\nfiltered through Proust's constant evocation of them, Greek and Roman (and\nto a much lesser extent, Norse) mythology, and fairy tales. Not only do\nWolfe's characters tell these kinds of tales, but the tales they live out are\noften (as many genre stories are) versions of these old types with a highly\nvaried background and less purely archetypal characters.\n\nFinally, the Gospels and the traditions of the Catholic Church influence not\nonly Wolfe's choice of stories and the implications he puts into them, but the\ntrappings of the guilds, manteions and the metaphysics he chooses.\n\nNote that while Wolfe's way of combining these sources can be called modernist\n(and especially his habit of reworking sources and altering the uses of a form)\nhis literary techniques avoid most modernist experiments: disjointedness,\nstream-of-consciousness, extremely incapacitated or mentally aberrant narrators\n(when Wolfe's narrators say they are possibly insane or lying, it is not meant,\nI think, to be something unusual, as some of the narrators in Faulkner (either\n_The Sound & The Fury_ or _As I Lay Dying_) who are meant to be difficult to\nparse, alien--rather, they are evincing Wolfe's idea that we are ALL, to some\nextent, mad and incapable of expressing the truths of our experience fully\neither because of misunderstanding our reluctance to accuse ourselves), or\ntypographical experimentation. Rather, Wolfe prefers \"traditional\" narrative\ntechniques with prose that is formal and ornamental, Latinate and rich--the one\n\"new trick\" he applies a lot is the use of fictional documents that have a\nhistory themselves that explain the presence of the text we are reading. But\nthis trick is derived, I think, from Poe & H. Rider Haggard & everyone else\nwho has added \"verisimilitude\" to a romance by claiming \"I translated this\nmanuscript found in a bottle\" or \"here is a letter from my strange cousin who\nwent to explore the ruins of America\" than from Nabokov or more recent sources.\nI'd love to consider Nabokov more of an influence, in that there are some \nstriking similarities, but we have Wolfe's report that he didn't come to \nread Nabokov until well after he had developed the traits I find in both.\n\n\n(2) Genre sources\n\nWhile Wolfe draws general ideas from the history of the genre (sword & sorcery\ntrappings, generation ships, the planetary romance), and relies heavily on\nour expectations (not always violating them, often just using them--any SF\nreader should quickly suspect once he has a few clues that the towers are old\nrocket-ships) it seems that Jack Vance is the real center of science fiction's\nliterary influence of Wolfe. I see very little, if any, sign of Asimov or\nHeinlein or Clarke, or, for that matter, Dick or Bester, in Wolfe. Other\nwriters he's on record as admiring, from Damon Knight and Fritz Leiber to\nR. A Lafferty and Ursula K. LeGuin (when he likes her work--Wolfe seems to have\nshared my distaste for THE DISPOSSESED) also seem to have had little visible\ninfluence (presumably with Knight the influence was more personal). I think\nthat when Wolfe encapsulates the genre, he tends to encapsulate it through the\nfilter of Vance--which is why Wolfe's sword & sorcery and generation\nstarship tales take on a strong element of the planetary romance (a tour of\ncultures). Lovecraft and Clarke Ashton Smith show through here as well, but\nSmith through Vance, and Lovecraft as someone to evoke rather than in a real\nsense to resemble. Interestingly, this Vance-ness shines through the fact that\neven Wolfe's most morally questionable protagonists are usually light-years \nfrom Vance's cynical rogues and that Wolfe almost never views a society through\nthe abstract, critical, satiric eyes that Vance often employs.\n\n\n\"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.\" John 8:32" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Alex David Groce (agroce+ at cs.cmu.edu)\nPh.D. Student, Carnegie Mellon University - Computer Science Department\n8112 Wean Hall (412)-268-3066\nhttp://www.cs.cmu.edu/~agroce" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jim Jordan", "address": "jbjordan at gnt.net" }, "date": "1999-10-26T14:28:20+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) modernism", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 10:23 AM 10/26/99 -0400, you wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "From: \"Daniel Fusch\" " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I think Wolfe's work is likely to last into the next century, although it\nis\nunlikely that he will receive much in the way of critical attention for\nsome\ntime to come." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Alga rejoins:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Oh, I never meant that! I was making a point about his encompassing the big\npulp traditions with these series, using every bit of the familiar cliches\nbut making them into something bigger and richer so that readers to come\ncould somehow absorb the 20th c. tradition without having to wade through\nthe innumerable precursors." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I add this (depressing) thought: \n\tWolfe's writing may be so complex, and so dependent on the tropes of SF,\nthat he will never make it into a \"canon.\" It is hard to imagine non-SF\npeople reading it and thinking much of it, save that it is \"weird and\nwell-written, but what on earth is he talking about?\" \n\tAnybody have anything more positive to put out against such a negative\nthought? \n\nNutria" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jim Jordan", "address": "jbjordan at gnt.net" }, "date": "1999-10-26T14:37:59+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) modernism", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 01:40 PM 10/26/99 -0400, Alex wrote:\nNote that while Wolfe's way of combining these sources can be called\nmodernist\n(and especially his habit of reworking sources and altering the uses of a\nform)\nhis literary techniques avoid most modernist experiments: disjointedness,\nstream-of-consciousness, extremely incapacitated or mentally aberrant\nnarrators\n(when Wolfe's narrators say they are possibly insane or lying, it is not\nmeant,\nI think, to be something unusual, as some of the narrators in Faulkner\n(either\n_The Sound & The Fury_ or _As I Lay Dying_) who are meant to be difficult to\nparse, alien--rather, they are evincing Wolfe's idea that we are ALL, to some\nextent, mad and incapable of expressing the truths of our experience fully\neither because of misunderstanding our reluctance to accuse ourselves), or\ntypographical experimentation. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tI think Wolfe intends his characters to be Everyman and Everywoman. I\ndistinguish them because I think Wolfe wants to say that men and women are\nquite different, and this is sometimes jarring in the light of the kind of\n\"unisex\" traditions in our literature. At any rate, he's not showing us\nweird or unique people, but \"ordinary\" people in extraordinary situations." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "(2) Genre sources" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tYes. Vance is clearly the major influence. Wolfe also refers to *The\nVoyage to Arcturus* as an early influence on him. And E.R.Burroughs is\npresent in *Operation ARES.* (It would be nice if someone would publish\nthat entire book, which was cut down to 1/3 its original length for\npublication, if only so we'd be able to trace Wolfe's development better.)\n\nNutria" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Daniel Fusch", "address": "dfusch at hotmail.com" }, "date": "1999-10-26T20:01:19+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) modernism", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Jim,\n\n(snip)\n\"I add this (depressing) thought:\n\tWolfe's writing may be so complex, and so dependent on the tropes of SF, \nthat he will never make it into a \"canon.\" It is hard to imagine non-SF \npeople reading it and thinking much of it, save that it is \"weird and\nwell-written, but what on earth is he talking about?\"\n\tAnybody have anything more positive to put out against such a negative \nthought?\"\n\n\nMind if I put out something positive against that negative thought? \nActually, I'm not sure whether it is positive or not. But here goes....\n\nI think you could define me as a technically non-SF person. That is to say, \nI have read relatively little science fiction--mostly that which has made it \nup into the upper \"literary\" spheres of the academic universe. I can't \nprofess to be very familiar with the teeming ocean beneath--just as I cannot \nprofess to be very familiar with the truly vast genre of Victorian mystery, \ndespite my familiarity with those authors who broke the surface and caused \nsuch a disturbance that they remain to this day.\n\n(Having said that, I hope you all don't decide to stone me!)\n\nAlso, so far as I know, there are a great many people who enjoy science \nfiction but who do not enjoy Wolfe; science fiction is not traditionally \nmodernist (there I go bringing up modernism again!)\n\nAnyway, when I said that Wolfe was unlikely to receive much critical \nattention for some time to come, I actually had two reasons in mind:\n\nA. Like you say, Wolfe can be categorized on SF (although I would argue with \nthat word \"dependent\" -- if I were in a nasty and nitpicky mood). Back in \nthe 40s, science fiction was unfortunately identified with pulp and comic \nbooks--even though Mary Shelley, H.G. Wells, Rudyard Kipling, and many other \n\"literary\" authors had experimented with the form in the previous century. \nThis prejudice lasts to this day. The truth of the matter, of course, is \nthat there are both notable and un-notable authors in ALL genres--mainstream \nor otherwise.\n\nB. \"The Book of the New Sun\" is less than twenty years old. Since Wolfe has \nnot enjoyed the instant popularity of Tolkien or Dickens, he has not \nreceived immediate attention. --Remember, also, that Moby Dick went \nunnoticed for decades. Time is a factor.\n\nWell, I suppose all that wasn't very positive after all. I suppose my point \nis: give it a few decades.\n\nDaniel" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Daniel Fusch", "address": "dfusch at hotmail.com" }, "date": "1999-10-26T20:24:05+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) modernism", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "alga,\n\nThanks for the reply! Sorry for rambling so much.\n\nYou said something I was wondering about:\n\n(snip)\n\"Bradbury and LeGuin will last as children's authors. Miller will last for \npeople interested in the history of SF (as Bradbury and LeGuin will too, of \ncourse--the way Sheridan LeFanu has lasted).\"\n\nI'm curious--are we thinking of the same works? I didn't know Bradbury wrote \nfiction for children. I was thinking of his short stories--\"Usher II\" and \n\"The Moon Be Still As Bright,\" for instance--and his \"Farenheit 451,\" which \nseems to be a staple in college fiction courses. When I mentioned LeGuin, I \nwas thinking of \"The Left Hand of Darkness\" (about as far from children's \nfiction as you can get) and others. I know she did write some books for \nchildren--\"A Wizard for Earthsea.\" I had something else in mind, though.\n\nAnyway, are we thinking of the same Bradbury?\n\nAbout \"Foundation\": I have mixed reactions to that work, but I think it is \nevident that it will last.\n\nAbout \"Things to Come\": Watch it if you ever get the chance. 1936, written \nand directed by H.G. Wells. An eerily prophetic movie. A world war started \nin 1940 and continued for decades, until a technological society came to \npower and built cities that look exactly like modern malls, right down to \nthe escalators. The movie brilliantly captured the whole ideology of \nimperialism and manifest destiny.\n\nAbout \"2001\": A relic of more than the 60s, perhaps. Another movie that \nsummarized an entire ideology. It's almost the ideological capstone of the \n\"golden age\" of science fiction; its literary roots extend back to \nNietzsche--the idea of Zarathustra, the Super-man, the god-man of Reason and \nThe Mind. Well, that's not a very good way of explaining it. I suppose, in a \nnutshell, the thesis of the film is: \"Man is god, and will evolve into ever \nhigher states of existence.\" I think this theme appeared in the writings of \nFrank Herbert and also Gordon R. Dickson (but I haven't read Dickson, so I'm \nbasing this on hearsay). It was definitely implicit in much of the \nmid-century science fiction.\n\nAnyway, these films will be around for a while--they stand as monuments \n(perhaps I should say monoliths?) to an ideological and literary tradition \nthat had a profound influence on our society.\n\nHmmm. You know, I suppose that's another, more long-winded way of saying \n\"It's a relic of the 60s,\" after all.\n\n=)\n\nThis is a fascinating discussion. Checking my e-mail this morning, I found \nalmost twenty messages on the mailing list! It must be a very busy mailing \nlist.\n\nWell, it keeps the mind working!\n\nDaniel\n\nP.S. When you have an alias on the mailing list, do I address you by the \nalias or the actual name?" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Daniel Fusch", "address": "dfusch at hotmail.com" }, "date": "1999-10-26T20:59:39+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) modernism", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Alex,\n\n(snip)\n\"I suspect, though, that the most important literary influences on Wolfe are \nnot modernist--I don't particularly see Joyce, Faulkner, Eliot, or Woolf as \nkey to understanding Wolfe. He's mentioned both Woolf and Faulkner in \nessays or interviews, and I'm sure he's familliar with them, but I think \nthat their _stylistic_ experimentations have had very little impact on his \nwork--the modernist view of art/literature (if you can pin it down) more so, \nbut still not that strong.\"\n\nYes, I meant to say that there are many influences. It is the narration and \nthe narrative structure that is modernist.\n\nYou can, by the way, be both a science fiction writer and a modernist \nwriter. Modernism is technique and philosophy; science fiction is a term \nused to categorize the story and the plot. There are science fiction writers \nwho are realist (I think Kim Stanley Robinson might be a good example). \nThere are science fiction writers who are romanticist (Madeleine L'Engle). \nThere are science fiction writers who are modernist (Walter M. Miller--in \npart. Also Wolfe and LeGuin--although you could argue that LeGuin is \n\"post-modernist,\" if you could ever manage to define that literary tradition \nprecisely enough to use it as a label).\n\nSpecifically, a modernist narration is one that examines the nature of our \nperception of reality. The story told in The Book of the New Sun is NOT a \nmodernist story, but the narration of the story IS modernist. Severian is a \nmodernist narrator for the following reasons:\n\nA) Severian has an \"abnormal\" memory, which causes him to perceive reality \nin subtly different ways than the rest of us do; he cannot forget. Several \ntimes Severian lapses into the past, in a dream-like state, allowing us to \nexamine a different means of perceiving time.\n\nMemory is often the subject of modernist work. For example, Benjy in \"The \nSound and the Fury\" also has an abnormal memory; he experiences the past and \nthe present simultaneously, and cannot distinguish between them.\n\nI have not read Borges, but he sounds modernist.\n\nB) Severian is two people, and later more. Thecla-in-Severian surfaces \nseveral times during the narration; this allows Wolfe to show us different \nways of perceiving reality, while still using a first-person narrator.\n\nC) Severian does give us all the information that one would expect from a \nlinear narrative. He leaves out some events, which we learn about later (I \nam thinking of his healing of the man-ape's arm, and also his physical \nintimacy with Thecla).\n\nYou mentioned that The Book of the New Sun doesn't make much use of \nstream-of-consciousness. Yet stream-of-consciousness is not the only form of \nmodernist narration; Joyce used it frequently, Woolf didn't use it much, \nFaulkner used it sometimes but not always. An example of a modernist work \nthat comes closer to Severian's narrative would be Faulkner's \"Light in \nAugust.\" Most of the narration in \"Light in August\" is Third Person \nOmniscient, which some lapses into stream-of-consciousness and some periods \nof Third Person Limited. Yet the narration remains very concerned with \nexamining the characters' perceptions of reality.\n\nThe Book of the New Sun is also metafiction--by challenging our \nexpectations, Wolfe draws attention to the technique by which the story is \ntold. The reader is not allowed to look ONLY at the story; Wolfe forces the \nreader to remain aware of both the plot and the technique. In modernist \nliterature, just as in poetry, the way in which you tell a story is as \nimportant as the story itself.\n\nCertainly we can say that Wolfe draws upon science fiction, mythopoeia and \nheroic romance (or heroic fantasy) for his subject matter, and he is clearly \ninfluenced by Victorian fiction. But this does not prevent us from also \nanalyzing The Book of the New Sun as a modernist work. It is the narration, \nthe form, and the technique, and the use of metafiction that is modernist.\n\nIn the end, you can examine the book on any number of levels.\n\nDaniel" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alex David Groce", "address": "alex_groce at gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu" }, "date": "1999-10-26T18:54:45+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) modernism", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Daniel:\n\nTo be sure, Wolfe's concern with memory and perception is a very modernist\nidea, and BOTNS (and all of Wolfe's fiction) is highly concerned with not\njust the stories told but the manner in which they are told--Wolfe, despite\nbeing \"difficult\" for SF, however, eschews the particular quirks of form that\nare most often associated with modernism by people who took Modernism 101 as\na survey Lit. course and think \"Modernism = ULYSSES or THE SOUND AND THE FURY\"\n(modernist poetry I'm side-stepping here).\n\nAlga mentions how everyone takes ULYSSES as \"the\" modernist novel because it is\nthe first (often only) one most people tackle. THE SOUND AND THE FURY is the\nother most likely candidate, as far as I can tell, in American courses in \nModernism 101. Both of these are difficult in part because of part that do\nnot parse as the normal declarative sentences of the novel. Proust and Wolfe\ndo odd things with the structure of what is related to us, in what order, and\n\"how\" as in who tells it and why, and may seem difficult at the sentence level\nbecause they like complex sentence structures, but they are, for want of a \nbetter metric, usually possible to diagram (Proust here, for me, and \napparently for Wolfe, is the English translations, and in fact C. K. \nScott-Moncrieff doesn't always produce a \"good\" English sentence, but that's \nanother matter).\n\nIt is certainly possible to be a Modernist and a science fiction writer, and\nbecause of these concerns it is where Wolfe is probably best categorized.\nBut, for purposes of analysis, I actually think that how little he uses the\ntools commonly associated with modernism is interesting. \n\nIn other words, Severian's strange memory affects what he reports to us, but\ndoes not affect _how he reports it_ in the same manner than Quentin's \nposthumous time-derangement or Benji's retardation does what they report. \nSeverian uses pretty standard 1st-person narrative tools to convey to us even\nvery strange perceptions (like Proust, he tends to wrap anything really odd\nup in a nest of metaphors--the metaphors, and not a distortion of syntax or\nsemantics, convey the alien experience).\n\nYou also said:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I have not read Borges, but he sounds modernist." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "For the love of God, go grab FICCIONES or one of the other collections (I\nguess LABYRINTHS is in print) or, if you're feeling good, the new collected\nstories, and devour away! It's a true crime that Borges never received the\nNobel, especially considering some of the people who did (Bertrand Russell,\nfor instance--a fine mathematician, interesting if wrong philosopher, but\nreally not a particularly great writer). And Borges makes Wolfe better and\nWolfe makes Borges better." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "So, alga, when (if ever) are you going to explain to us how Wolfe's possibly\na racist?\n\n\n\"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.\" John 8:32\n--\nAlex David Groce (agroce+ at cs.cmu.edu)\nPh.D. Student, Carnegie Mellon University - Computer Science Department\n8112 Wean Hall (412)-268-3066\nhttp://www.cs.cmu.edu/~agroce" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jim Henley", "address": "jlhenley at erols.com" }, "date": "1999-10-26T22:14:03+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) modernism", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "-----Original Message-----\nFrom: urth-errors at lists.best.com [mailto:urth-errors at lists.best.com]On\nBehalf Of Jim Jordan\n\nI add this (depressing) thought:\n\tWolfe's writing may be so complex, and so dependent on the\ntropes of SF,\nthat he will never make it into a \"canon.\" It is hard to imagine non-SF\npeople reading it and thinking much of it, save that it is \"weird and\nwell-written, but what on earth is he talking about?\"\n\tAnybody have anything more positive to put out against\nsuch a negative thought?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Quite the opposite: My good friend Frederick Pollack is one of the\ncountry's finest poets. He has two booklength narratives from Story Line\nPress (THE ADVENTURE and HAPPINESS) and no less than three even better\nmanuscripts in the drawer. And because his work, while densely\nhigh-modernist and shot through with what I would cussedly call approved\nmarxist twaddle, makes such heavy (and striking) use of the tropes of\nscience fiction, literary people for the most part have no idea what to\nmake of it.\n\nIt's like Delany said, some people won't read sf, some people can't. They\njust have no idea what the hell is going on, however intelligent they may\nbe and however perceptive about other kinds of writing.\n\nOn a related note (who will \"survive\"), I have to demur from what seems to\nbe the list consensus. We are already at the point where \"posterity\" ain't\nwhat it used to be - it is so relatively cheap to reproduce writing that\n\"the test of time\" is ceasing to mean much at all. Consider that two\npotboilers of the last century, Chesney's _The Battle of Dorking_ and\nSaki's _When William Came_, can be readily purchased in the Oxford Popular\nFiction reprint edition. What sticks in my mind is that Agatha Christie was\nprecisely the sort of author that someone like Harlan Ellison (or Raymond\nChandler FTM) said wouldn't be survived 10 minutes by her work. But you can\nget almost any mystery she ever wrote without going to any trouble.\n\nBest,\n\n\nJim\n ************************************\n \"Here's a song that you can sing\n by which to do the measuring\"\n -- Elvis Costello, \"45\"" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Damien Broderick", "address": "d.broderick at english.unimelb.edu.au" }, "date": "1999-10-27T12:47:22+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) modernism", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 01:59 PM 26/10/99 -0700, Daniel Fusch wrote:\nThere are science fiction writers who are modernist (Walter M. Miller--in \npart. Also Wolfe and LeGuin--although you could argue that LeGuin is \n\"post-modernist,\" if you could ever manage to define that literary tradition \nprecisely enough to use it as a label)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Ahem. This is not entirely unbroken ground. You might glance at, say,\nTeresa Ebert, Fred Jameson, Vivian Sobchack, Brian McHale's POSTMODERNIST\nFICTION or even my own READING BY STARLIGHT: POSTMODERN SCIENCE FICTION." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Specifically, a modernist narration is one that examines the nature of our \nperception of reality." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "And, in the McHale tradition, a postmodernist narration is one that\nexamines the reality of our \nreality, so to speak.\n\nI'm inclined to regard Gene Wolfe's central affiliation as modernist, FWIW.\n\nAnd I'm loving this discussion...\n\nDamien Broderick" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Daniel Fusch", "address": "dfusch at hotmail.com" }, "date": "1999-10-27T04:12:33+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) modernism", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Damien,\n\n\"The reality of our reality\"! Well said!\n\nI'd hoped that somebody had written something on the topic at some point. \nI'll look for those books you mentioned--or are they articles?\n\nThanks for the information!\n\nDaniel" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "1999-10-28T01:30:34+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re:Modernism", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Jim Henley wrote:\nKeep in mind also that Heinlein's lasting contribution was _precisely_ a\nliterary one, though people didn't necessarily think of it that way. He\nchanged the way SF stories were told. [Waves hands in the direction of\nDelany's essay about \"The door irised.\"]<<" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " I'm glad to see amid all this discussion of authors, writing styles,\ninfluences, and contributions to literature, in and out of the genre,\nHeinlein get some credit. The younger list members who have grown up with\nwhole shelves of SF&F in the bookstores and libraries probably don't realize\nthat things weren't always that way, and Heinlein was perhaps the major\nreason for the change. He helped lift SF out of the literary gutter and give\nit at least a veneer of respectability. And it's doubtful that many of the\nSF writers of today would be able to command the dollars they do but for\nhim." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Jim Jordan wrote:\nI add this (depressing) thought:" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Wolfe's writing may be so complex, and so dependent on the tropes of SF,\nthat he will never make it into a \"canon.\" It is hard to imagine non-SF\npeople reading it and thinking much of it, save that it is \"weird and\nwell-written, but what on earth is he talking about?\"\nAnybody have anything more positive to put out against such a negative\nthought?<<\n\n I have argued much as you have, last March, about Wolfe's ultimate place\nin literature, comparing him to James Branch Cabell, not so much in terms of\nwriting style but as to who will bother to read him fifty or a hundred years\nfrom now. Even within the genre, as alga has indicated, most people don't\ncare for Wolfe. Most everyone who reads the genre will have read Wolfe at\none time or another, and the all-too-typical reaction is just what you have\ndescribed. They choose not to bother with his books, that he's just not\nworth the effort. However regrettable this may be, Wolfe invites it with his\nchosen writing style. Mantis has described getting what he called \"an\nice-cream headache\" from reading too many Wolfe short stories too quickly.\nIf Wolfe's stories have that kind of effect on someone like mantis, who\n*likes* Wolfe's work and is willing to go the extra mile, imagine their\neffect on the larger reading public, which only wants a good story well\ntold. They don't want to read something they don't understand, that leaves\nthem feeling stupid, especially when they know they're not.\n\n As I have indicated before, the urth/whorl list members are a bright\nbunch, comprising authors, editors and others in the publishing business,\nacademics, scientists, and sundry, some of whom even correspond with Wolfe,\nall well read. This is the best audience Wolfe could hope for. Yet, nearly\ntwenty years after the publication of SHADOW, debates abound here over even\nwhat the plowman saw, never mind the higher meanings. I don't think that\naugurs well for the Lupine legacy. I think PEACE is Wolfe's best shot at\nlongevity.\n\n And, Alex, I *liked* CASTLEVIEW.\n\nRoy" } ] } ] }