Subject: (urth) Re: Digest urth.v028.n112

From: Peter Stephenson <pws at pwstephenson.fsnet.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1999 23:44:30 +0000

urth-errors at lists.best.com wrote:
> >Is it the duty of the FAQ to initiate one into the "mysteries" of TBOTNS?
> >Or to initiate one into the method of reading Gene Wolfe?
> 
> Neither. A FAQ is a list of frequently asked questions and their answers.
> It is a device invented to prevent people from posting the same question
> over and over in a newsgroup (at which task is has generally been a notable
> failure) and to relieve other people from having to reply with the same
> answer over and over or ignore the question (at which task it is a fair
> success; of course the response, "read the FAQ" must be posted over and
> over, but this is a lot less effort).

Hmmm.  I don't think this is entirely appropriate with Wolfe.  If you look
back in the archive I think you'll find we have had the same question over
and over, and each time with different answers embedded in a completely
different discussion.  I certainly wouldn't want to think the questions
shouldn't be asked again, nor that `read the FAQ' would ever be an adequate
response to anything more than the simplest question.  And from the other
discussions recently, that doesn't even seem to include `who is the
author'.

(A propos of which, I can't resist the following, but please feel free to
stop reading now.)

> From: "Jonathan Laidlow" <LAIDLOJM at hhs.bham.ac.uk>
> (and by the by, Barthes wrote 'Death of the Author')

But how do we know that Barthes `wrote' it?  And what do we mean by `write'
anyway?  etc.

corncrake

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/

---

From: Ron Hale-Evans <rwhe at apocalypse.org>
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1999 16:09:36 +0000

>But how do we know that Barthes `wrote' it?  And what do we mean by `write'

He didn't -- I did. The edition I'm bringing out has my byline on it as
proof. :-)

Seriously, for all that the Continental critics claim the author is dead,
you don't see them refusing money and fame for their work. It is
copyrighted, and if someone plagiarised one of these critics as I just
proposed to do, the critic would undoubtedly sue him; conclusions about the
integrity of the Continental critics are left as an exercise for The Reader.

Ron H-E
--
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