{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2746", "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": 2746, "subject": "A Pullman Car on the Wolfe Train", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "2001-08-01T16:42:13+00:00", "last": "2001-08-02T09:48:27+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com" }, "date": "2001-08-01T16:42:13+00:00", "subject": "(urth) A Pullman Car on the Wolfe Train", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Quoth the Alga:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I don't think that, with a real writer, it's quite so cut-and-\ndried. (Most writers of commercial fantasy are not, by my\ndefinition, \"real\" writers; Pullman, otoh, most certainly is.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Without prejudice to the categorical dismissal of generic fantasists,\nI am in wholehearted agreement about Pullman. \n\nAbout the term \"daemon,\" which I find irritating:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Can't you accept that he is, at one level, joking?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I could accept that he was joking if there were anything in the text\nto give me a clue that it was intended as a joke. If there was, I \nmissed it; in fact, I found very little humor in _TGC_, or perhaps\nit was simply so dry it evaporated (to which extent I suppose it \nbears comparison to Ursula K. Le Guin, another fabulous writer who \nseems to check her sense of humor at the door when she sits down to \nwrite)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "And at another being deliberately provocative? " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I certainly perceived that; however, it seems a rather childish sort\nof provocation, akin to saying \"fuck\" because you know it drives your\nparents crazy. Really, anticlericalism has been done so much better by\nso many writers, if he can't do better than this, he shouldn't bother." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "This is quite okay by me, more so than Madeleine l'Engel maundering\non about mitochondria and God in a rather better known fantasy series\nfor children. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "...splutter, koff... I _liked_ that book. \n\nWell, okay, the maundering, as you put it, got a little heavy in places. \nAnd the seraphim [why couldn't she have used the singular?] was a bit \nof a dweeb, come to think of it... And no, it is not on a level with\nTGC (though I will happily proclaim that the first volume, A WRINKLE\nIN TIME, is as good as and possibly better than TGC: but will also\nadmit that my own childhood fondness for AWIT may be involved here)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Pullman is quite genuinely (imo) repelled by the efforts of a lot\nof classic fantasy to push religious agenda, and he's deliberately\ncountering it--but with humor." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Humor that I, alas, could not detect. He plainly _refrained_ from a \ncertain very low level of humor (for example I was grateful that \nnobody made any remarks about righteous arms-keeping bears ... though\nperhaps that's something which wouldn't occur to a Brit anyway), but \nif there was humor at a higher level, it was far too high for me. Or\ntoo subtle. \n\nFrankly, I'm unlikely to go digging for subtle humor unless the \nauthor troubles to give me at least a hint it's there. Perhaps \nwhat I took as the grim seriousness of the whole thing, Pullman \nintended as a kind of pokerfacedness? If so, well, it didn't work\nfor this reader.\n\nOkay, I asked:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On a larger scale: does anyone, _can_ anyone, believe that in \na world this different -- where every human has an externalized\nanimus/anima, where bears are sentient, etc. -- the history of\nthe world would be _similar_ enough that someone called John\nCalvin would become something called Pope of something called\nthe Catholic Church? " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dan'l, that is a *joke*. Maybe not the best joke in the world,\nbut still. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No. Once is a joke. Twice might be jokes. Three or four times, let \nalone the dozens of things that have similar quasi-referentiality \nto our world For examplw: all the places with same or similar names \n-- I could almost grant that if only as a conceptual \"translation\"\nto give readers a clear sense of the geography. But the titles of\npersons [various Oxonian titles], the references to historical \npersons [i.e., Manicheeism] ... the fact that the [European] \nculture of TGC's world is so _similar_ to ours, I suppose, is what \nbothers me most. It seems to lack a certain kind of inventiveness \nthat I would hope would go into working out the ramifications of \nsuch a radically _different_ Earth.\n\nAnd that's it, really. He doesn't. He works out just enough to make\nhis plot tick, and the rest of it is allowed to go hang, or at least\nto lay fallow. So what he's done is taken a really radical set of \nspeculative ideas and extrapolated them in a deeply conservative, \nnearly reactionary, way.\n\nOh, yeah, there are little references here and there -- to \"atomics\"\nthat sound almost like a handcraft, for example -- but those are\nloose, unattached to the fabric of the world they're happening in.\n\n(This could work, but there's a whole set of techniques and tactics \nthat need to go with this. You can create a _lot_ of these \ndifferentia, and then their unattachedness works as a kind of \nkaliedoscope to make the reader mistrust things that sound like they \nought to be familiar. Or you can create only a few, and then \nmeticulously attach them to the fabric of the world in which your \nstory is taking place in, so that they distort things things that \nwould otherwise seem familiar.\n\nBut Pullman doesn't come near to creating this level of alienation,\nby either tactic. There aren't nearly enough random novelties to\ncreate the kaliedoscopic effect. On the other hand, the novelties he \nintroduces aren't given anywhere near enough attachments to make them \ndistort the rest of the landscape. For example, he might have given us \nsome sense of how \"atomics\" affects warfare, power generation, knitting, \nor, most especially, \"experimental theology\" -- and vice versa. But he \ndoesn't, and \"atomics\" just lies there like a beached flounder, looking \nat the sky with both eyes and wondering why it's there.) " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It also serves another purpose--it's a signal that he is not targeting\nCatholicism or Anglicanism or any other ism, that they're all in it\ntogether. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, no. It's distinctly anti-clerical, but without reference to any\nparticular flavor of Christianity. (One could call it \"Mere Anti-\nClericalism,\" I suppose, since Pullman seems so bent on casting himself \nas the anti-Lewis.) " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It's the same impetus that causes him to cast witches as good guys. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Again, I have no problem with that. I _like_ the goose-witch (name is\nescaping me, I have no mental affinity for Lapp words & names). I\nhave no problem with witches in general; \"some of my best friends,\" \nquite literally. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "The logic of fantasy just isn't there, and irritates me far more\nthan the religious whomping." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It doesn't irritate me. It is, perhaps, a reminder to the reader that\nhe is reading a book, written by an author, who can do as he likes." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "An author who can do as he likes? Feh. That's not being an author, \nthat's playing makebelieve. Being an author involves working within\nthe limits of the form you have set yourself - I don't mean the \nconventions of \"genre\" (see my essay in last months NYRSF, I have\nsome very definite opinions on \"genre\" which that essay just begins\nto crack open), but the form _the author sets_. \n\nOr, rather, yes, an author _can_ \"do as he likes,\" but each thing \nhe does because he likes it has _consequences_. It affects and is\naffected by the rest of the work in hand. And to fail to work that\nout is to cheat the work (and, as a less-important result, the\nreader) of what it is due." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think it just might be the best juvenile, and even the best\nfantasy of the 20th century. Contenders, please? (Single books, only.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Limiting it to juveniles (and I think there are adult fantasies that \ncertainly contend), one might start with THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS (1917). \n\nA few others:\n\nL. Frank Baum's THE WIZARD OF OZ (1900) just barely squeaks in as a \ncontender. Probably doesn't deserve to, but thought I'd mention it.\n\nSusan Cooper -- no, _not_ THE DARK IS RISING, but her astounding 1999\n(just squeaking in at the other end) novel, KING OF SHADOWS. Child \nactor finds a father-figure in William Shakespeare. A two-hanky book,\nbut for emotion, not sentiment.\n\nE.L. Koenigsberg's FROM THE MIXED-UP FILES OF MRS. BASIL E. \nFRANKWEILER (1967) isn't a fantasy, but nonetheless. Well, maybe\nnot -- it's probably no better than, say, Roald Dahl's better \nstuff, which I don't think belongs here. But somehow this one\ndoes.\n\nI've already said I consider L'Engle's A WRINKLE IN TIME (1962) at\nleast the equal of TGC.\n\nLe Guin. A WIZARD OF EARTHSEA (1968). CATWINGS (1988). Nuff said.\n\nI will probably lose all credibility with Alga, at least, when I \nname CS Lewis' THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER (1952) and THE \nSILVER CHAIR -- easily the best of the Narnias, imio -- but I do.\nOne can happily read either of these without a clue that the Great\nLion is \"really\" Jesus.\n\nDaniel Pinkwater: THE SNARKOUT BOYS AND THE AVOCADO OF DEATH \n(1982). Read at your peril, may cause drain bammage.\n\nE.B. White, CHARLOTTE'S WEB. (1952)\n\nThere are probably others, but that's what came off the top of\nmy head (with web lookups for dates)." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alex David Groce", "address": "alex_groce at gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu" }, "date": "2001-08-01T20:30:51+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) A Pullman Car on the Wolfe Train", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dan'l wrote:\nNo. Once is a joke. Twice might be jokes. Three or four times, let\nalone the dozens of things that have similar quasi-referentiality to\nour world For examplw: all the places with same or similar names --\nI could almost grant that if only as a conceptual \"translation\" to\ngive readers a clear sense of the geography. But the titles of\npersons [various Oxonian titles], the references to historical\npersons [i.e., Manicheeism] ... the fact that the [European] culture\nof TGC's world is so _similar_ to ours, I suppose, is what bothers\nme most. It seems to lack a certain kind of inventiveness that I\nwould hope would go into working out the ramifications of such a\nradically _different_ Earth." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, I haven't yet read TGC, but this is pretty common in alternate\nhistory fantasy. Canonical examples of worlds that would _really_\ninvolve a lot less common names and history would include John Ford's\n_The Dragon Waiting_ (which, for on-topicness, Wolfe has said very\nnice things about, with justification) and/or the Randall Garrett\nbooks. Is Pullman doing anything different than that? Restricting\nthe changes because you want the frisson of John Calvin/Richard\nIII/etc. in different roles in your world vs. people nobody has heard\nof and who have no connotations seems like perfectly legitimate\nfictional technique." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "\"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": "Michael Straight", "address": "straight at email.unc.edu" }, "date": "2001-08-02T09:48:27+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) A Pullman Car on the Wolfe Train", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On Wed, 1 Aug 2001, Alex David Groce wrote:\nNo. Once is a joke. Twice might be jokes. Three or four times, let\nalone the dozens of things that have similar quasi-referentiality to\nour world For examplw: all the places with same or similar names --\nI could almost grant that if only as a conceptual \"translation\" to\ngive readers a clear sense of the geography. But the titles of\npersons [various Oxonian titles], the references to historical\npersons [i.e., Manicheeism] ... the fact that the [European] culture\nof TGC's world is so _similar_ to ours, I suppose, is what bothers\nme most. It seems to lack a certain kind of inventiveness that I\nwould hope would go into working out the ramifications of such a\nradically _different_ Earth." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Well, I haven't yet read TGC, but this is pretty common in alternate\nhistory fantasy. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I haven't read TGC either, but it can't be as egregious in this regard as\nWolfe's _There Are Doors_. TAD may be more tolerable since it doesn't\nfocus so much on the alternate world (which may even be a figment of the\nprotagonist's imagination), but it was a real stumbling block for me. I\nalmost didn't pick up on what was weird about the alternate world because\nI couldn't imagine something so radically different in a world that was\notherwise do much like ours." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Restricting\nthe changes because you want the frisson of John Calvin/Richard\nIII/etc. in different roles in your world vs. people nobody has heard\nof and who have no connotations seems like perfectly legitimate\nfictional technique." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think it's stupid. An alternate world might have a \"Pope John Calvin,\"\nbut it would have to be an utterly different person that just happens to\nhave the same name. The alleged \"frisson\" of \"What would Hitler have been\nlike as a Hollywood movie star?\" does nothing for me. It's my second-least\nfavorite trope in fiction right after the alleged \"frisson\" I'm supposed\nto feel on finding out that the villain is really the hero's\nbrother/father/aunt/long-lost-pet/etc. Not to say that good stories can't\nbe written with these techniques, but for me they have to be be good in\nspite of them.\n\n-Rostrum" } ] } ] }