{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2667", "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": 2667, "subject": "Digest urth.v030.n120", "messages": 4, "voices": 3, "first": "2001-05-25T21:27:09+00:00", "last": "2001-05-29T20:50:49+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alice Turner", "address": "pei047 at attglobal.net" }, "date": "2001-05-25T21:27:09+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: Digest urth.v030.n120", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Bear growled:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 20:56 2001-05-24, algawrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Virtually\neveryone--no, strike that, every grown-up person--feels the failure\nof\nthe third book. We're trying to make it work, and I am specifically\nstruggling with how to explain Dust (and the Specters) in terms of\nManichaean Light and Dark and a logical world-view (pretty damned\nhard\nto do when there are infinite worlds)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "[waves to Copperhead thread!]\nIt doesn't need to be Manichean, does it? The Authority doesn't\nhave the power of Creation that he claims, after all. The Spectres\nare kind-of believable, as is Dust leaking into the abyss through\nthe windows. I'm not sure a strictly logical world-view is helpful,\nbecause then you might wonder whether Dust could cross between worlds\n(and if so, how) or if not, why the window from the land of the dead\ncouldn't open onto a world without intelligent inhabitants. It will\nbe interesting to see how the Book of Dust copes with all this!" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It will indeed be interesting. And maybe I'll have to wait. Your points\nare completely apt, and why the book's structure is so hard to cope\nwith. Perhaps I'm being too hardline in trying to match Dust with\nZoroastrian/Manichaean Light/Dark. I think, though, that the Authority\ndid create the world (this world--which?); he is the Demiurge, who is\nnowhere given much credit for anything good. The difficulty comes in\nthen saying, with Nietzche, that God is dead. Which god, then, and if he\nis dead, is this not a good thing? (I sound like Martha Stewart.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Another loose end is the super-Dickensian-and-Wolfian-put-together\ndegree of coincidence required for the plot of The Subtle Knife.\nWill just happens to find that window? Then happens to walk into\nthe one room in a deserted city in the particular world where Lyra\nis hiding? Clearly not coincidence, but I don't recall anything being\nsaid about it - apart from them remarking on the unlikelihood! It must\nbe something like the shaman summoning Lee, or Bilbo finding the Ring,\nbut it would be nice to be told." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, Lyra, from the beginning, is known to be Predestined, though she\nmust also exercise Free Will (the latter being another thing I feel is\nnot resolved well enough). The Master of Jordan, the gyptians and the\nwitches all know of her cosmic predestination, and that she must choose\neventually and fatefully. So Will's arrival falls under that plan, which\nI think is okay. What bothers me far more is that though she makes the\nchoice to part from him ostensibly under Free Will she seems actually to\nbe bullied into it. And I *really* don't like the implication that\nOriginal Sin is averted by the physical impossibility of loving young\nsex. (Much as the kids on the fan fiction site thrill to the romantic\nsadness of it all.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "The kids seem to adore it in a\ntearjerker way. Is that because my daemon has settled and theirs have\nnot?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": ". That's confirmed by Pullman himself at the readerville" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "site Adam posted, in the message that breaks off \"She is the one who\nwill tell him how to imagine his way into o\". It's quite an\ninteresting\nsite. He says that Will and Lyra have to be parted, and some readers\nagree that it brings closure to the story." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "[She is Mary.] Yes, I read this, and it is indeed interesting. But I\nstill do not see why they must be parted except in the more distasteful\nreligious terms. As an adult. I wonder what the kids who love the\nromantic sadness are thinking. If they are thinking. Pullman is such a\ngood writer that I suspect he has them feeling without thinking. Just\nSay No is an awfully stupid slogan and I hate to see it applied to\nOriginal Sin.\n\nEli wote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "That didactic purpose I can appreciate, but he weakens it by forcing\nthe\nstory. He tried to set up \"Cold Equations\"-style plot mechanism which\nthreatens global disaster to _coerce_ Will and Lyra's decision --\nrather\nthan letting us see what their own wisdom leads them to decide." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That's" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "a lesser story." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes, and all the hoohah about Lyra's having this cosmic decision to\nmake, which must not be influenced in any way, becomes trivial if she\n*is* influenced, which she certainly is." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I remember that my reading experience when I hit this was not one bit\nhigh-mindedly didactified, but was on the same mechanical level as his\nsetup: but but but the Dust ecology is not at risk, because brief\nopenings don't leak on the scale of the natural influx we've seen, and\ncreating Specters is no problem with a little help, since the angel\nhas\nsaid she can deal with those. If it had occurred to Will and Lyra\nthat\nthe obstacles were not absolute, they could have gone on to ask more\ninteresting questions: what if everybody did it? are we special, to\njustify it? And the question Pullman didn't dare to ask them: even if\nwe can, should we?\n\nIn a way, he did quite right. I don't know that they would have\nanswered the way he wanted. The honest story, I want to call it\nthough\nI really shouldn't, might be a tragedy." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm not quite clear on what you mean with the above. Who is \"he?\"\nPullman? Or \"they?\" And \"ecology\" is difficult when you are dealing with\nmultiple worlds. Oh, dear.\n\n-alga" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Adam Stephanides", "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2001-05-26T08:41:05+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Re: Digest urth.v030.n120", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "on 5/25/01 8:27 PM, Alice Turner at pei047 at attglobal.net wrote:\nI think, though, that the Authority\ndid create the world (this world--which?); he is the Demiurge, who is\nnowhere given much credit for anything good." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No. \"Balthamos said quietly, '...He was never the creator. He was an angel\nlike ourselves--the first angel, true, the most powerful, but he was formed\nof Dust as we are, and Dust is only a name for what happens when matter\nbegins to understand itself....He told those who came after him that he had\ncreated them, but it was a lie.'\" (TAS, 31-32) So the Authority is not the\nDemiurge, because matter pre-existed him.\n\nActually, the Authority is \"lower\" even than that. Dust is not the first\nconscious matter, as I mistakenly stated in my earlier post; it is brought\ninto existence by conscious living beings. (TAS, 451; this is the passage I\ncouldn't locate in my previous post about how the vanishing of Dust would be\nthe end of consciousness.) So the angels, including the Authority, are\ndependent for their existence upon fleshly consciousness already existing.\nAngels are lower, not higher, than humans in Pullman's cosmology, reflecting\nhis high valuation of matter (see TAS, 375; also a passage I can't find at\nthe moment, where somebody talks about how much the angels wish they had\nbodies)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The difficulty comes in\nthen saying, with Nietzche, that God is dead. Which god, then, and if he\nis dead, is this not a good thing? (I sound like Martha Stewart.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "As far as I can tell, there is no God in Pullman's world. The Authority\ndies on pp. 410-11, and yes, it's a very good thing (even for the\nAuthority). And the absence of God also seems to be portrayed as a good\nthing." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "What bothers me far more is that though she makes the\nchoice to part from him ostensibly under Free Will she seems actually to\nbe bullied into it. And I *really* don't like the implication that\nOriginal Sin is averted by the physical impossibility of loving young\nsex. (Much as the kids on the fan fiction site thrill to the romantic\nsadness of it all.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "[snip]" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "But I\nstill do not see why they must be parted except in the more distasteful\nreligious terms. As an adult. I wonder what the kids who love the\nromantic sadness are thinking. If they are thinking. Pullman is such a\ngood writer that I suspect he has them feeling without thinking. Just\nSay No is an awfully stupid slogan and I hate to see it applied to\nOriginal Sin." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Okay, now I see what you meant by saying you objected to the Eve thing on\nmoral and religious grounds. But I think you have hold of the wrong end of\nthe stick. The cosmic choice, the choice it is Lyra's destiny to make and\nmust make freely, is not the choice to give up Will. It is her choice to\nlove Will and show her love. The Church's values are the opposite of\nPullman's, but the Church can read the alethiometer; and according to the\nChurch, it is Lyra's giving into \"temptation,\" not her rejection of\ntemptation, which will lead to the triumph of \"Dust and sin.\" (TAS, 68) And\nsince Dust is good, and the Church is bad, Lyra's \"temptation\" is good.\nRecall also that the Dust, speaking through Mary's computer, tells Mary she\nmust \"play the serpent,\" which she does by telling Lyra of her love affair\nand awakening Lyra's sexuality. Original Sin is not \"averted\": in Pullman's\nmetaphysics, it doesn't exist. The \"Fall\" is good, since it leads to\ngreater consciousness: recall the mulefa's story of the serpent.\n\nGranted, Pullman muddies the waters by requiring Lyra and Will to make\nanother decision later, in which they do have to resist \"temptation\"; but,\nas I discuss below, if they make the wrong decision at that point, it will\nnot destroy the world. And reading the end of Chapter Thirty-Five, in which\nLyra and Will express their love (TAS 470), it's clear that _this_ is when\nthe world is saved." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Eli wote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "That didactic purpose I can appreciate, but he weakens it by forcing\nthe\nstory. He tried to set up \"Cold Equations\"-style plot mechanism which\nthreatens global disaster to _coerce_ Will and Lyra's decision --\nrather\nthan letting us see what their own wisdom leads them to decide." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "That's\na lesser story." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "[snip]" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I remember that my reading experience when I hit this was not one bit\nhigh-mindedly didactified, but was on the same mechanical level as his\nsetup: but but but the Dust ecology is not at risk, because brief\nopenings don't leak on the scale of the natural influx we've seen, and\ncreating Specters is no problem with a little help, since the angel\nhas\nsaid she can deal with those. If it had occurred to Will and Lyra\nthat\nthe obstacles were not absolute, they could have gone on to ask more\ninteresting questions: what if everybody did it? are we special, to\njustify it? And the question Pullman didn't dare to ask them: even if\nwe can, should we?\n\nIn a way, he did quite right. I don't know that they would have\nanswered the way he wanted. The honest story, I want to call it\nthough\nI really shouldn't, might be a tragedy." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "But the decision that Lyra and Will have to make at the end is not to close\nup all the windows: the angels tell them to do this. The decision they have\nto make is to resist the temptations, first for one of them to go to the\nothers' world and have ten years of happiness and then death; and then to\nuse the extra Dust they will create to keep a window open for themselves\ninstead of keeping their promise to the dead. These decisions they do make\nwithout being coerced by threats of cosmic disaster.\n\n(I'm not saying I find this part of the book well worked out. Your\nobjections are valid. Also, it makes little sense for Xaphania to first\ntell Will that there is a way he can learn to travel to other worlds, which\nwill take him a lifetime to learn; and then say that they can't leave any\nnatural windows open because if they did, Will would spend a lifetime\nsearching for it (TAS, 494-495). And come to think of it, couldn't Xaphania\nleave one natural window open, and then tell Will where it is? I'll have to\ngo back and look at the readerview discussion, because the more I think\nabout it, the stranger Pullman's insistence on their separation seems.)\n\n--Adam" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "eli+", "address": "eli+ at gs211.sp.cs.cmu.edu" }, "date": "2001-05-29T19:57:23+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Re: Digest urth.v030.n120", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Alice Turner wrote:\nIn a way, he did quite right. I don't know that they would have\nanswered the way he wanted. The honest story, I want to call it\nthough\nI really shouldn't, might be a tragedy." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I'm not quite clear on what you mean with the above. Who is \"he?\"\nPullman? Or \"they?\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I meant \"he\" to be Pullman, and \"they\" to be Will and Lyra. That is,\nI think Pullman brute-forced the ending because if he hadn't, Lyra and\nWill wouldn't have stayed apart the way he wanted them to." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": " Eli Brandt | eli+ at cs.cmu.edu | http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~eli/" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "eli+", "address": "eli+ at gs211.sp.cs.cmu.edu" }, "date": "2001-05-29T20:50:49+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Re: Digest urth.v030.n120", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Adam Stephanides wrote:\nBut the decision that Lyra and Will have to make at the end is not to close\nup all the windows: the angels tell them to do this. The decision they have\nto make is to resist the temptations, first for one of them to go to the\nothers' world and have ten years of happiness and then death; and then to\nuse the extra Dust they will create to keep a window open for themselves\ninstead of keeping their promise to the dead. These decisions they do make\nwithout being coerced by threats of cosmic disaster." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'd forgotten the details, so I reread it, and yup, they did. Though\nas Will said, the first temptation isn't much of one, since how could\none suffer the other to do that. And the second is contrived: if Lyra\nand Will help everyone in their worlds to be wise and kind and patient\nand curious and other good laundry, it will balance the Dust lost\nthrough precisely one (1) window? Pullman did leave them with a\ndecision, but it's so narrowed and so rigged....\n\n(The quibbler in me is now thinking that if the angels can so easily\nhandle the Specter created with each door, you could set up a\nschedule, whereby 0.1% of the time you close the Hades window and then\nopen one between Will's and Lyra's worlds, maintaining the one-window\ninvariant. I'm consequently picturing the little sign you'd hang up\nthen next to the out-of-order endpoint in Hades.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Also, it makes little sense for Xaphania to first\ntell Will that there is a way he can learn to travel to other worlds, which\nwill take him a lifetime to learn; and then say that they can't leave any\nnatural windows open because if they did, Will would spend a lifetime\nsearching for it (TAS, 494-495). And come to think of it, couldn't Xaphania\nleave one natural window open, and then tell Will where it is?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yeah. I imagine Pullman wanted the two ways of traveling to stand in\nfor some other pairing he made a moral distinction between -- creative\nimagination versus fantasy, nah, I really don't know. But whatever\nthe logic is at _that_ end of the metaphor, it doesn't translate to\nthe in-the-story end. We're left with this distinction and no\napparent difference." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": " Eli Brandt | eli+ at cs.cmu.edu | http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~eli/" } ] } ] }