Subject: (urth) Lotsa Stuff

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <ddanehy at siebel.com>
Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 09:43:16 +0000

boy, go away for a week and see what happens...

Questions asked about Hamilton's "Night's Dawn" and answered quite 
thoroughly. The one thing I would add: _not_ for (a) the weak of
stomach (there are some scenes very worthy of Clive Barker) or 
(b) those who are easily offended by the theologically incorrect, 
so to speak. This is decidedly not a Christian book, if you follow 
me, but my Ghod what a read... which leads me to something that 
will have to be a separate post.

---------------------

Gene Wolfe's favorite Nero Wolfe novels: I admit that FER-DE-LANCE
is relatively weak. I disagree about THE BLACK MOUNTAIN, but its
strength is most apparent in a serial reading (or rereading) of
many Wolfe books, because it's simply _different_ from the others
in some deep and radical ways, and provides a kind of relief from
them. And his "best" list is excellent but leaves out what is surely
my all-time fave, TOO MANY COOKS, probably the funniest of the bunch.

---------------------

The "Notes toward a Lupine Aesthetic": Fabulous. Excellent "intro
to Wolfe" fodder.

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Alga: You wrote, '...I am unalterably hostile to Lewis for what he
did to Susan." I came across Lewis rather late, maybe in my teens or 
20s, and never forgave him for that cool, thoughtless misogyny."

Now, I wonder _what_ in that is misogynistic? He had decided, 
apparently, that one of the characters had to "fall away," if only
to show the possibility _of_ "falling away." Who, then? Eustace and
Polly, as the primary "children" in this novel were non-candidates.
Digory/The Professor had already been shown as still "believing in 
Narnia" in adulthood. 

Of the four, original Lucy, of course, is the primary hero of the 
series, and to have Edumund fall away would waste much of the impact 
of his redemption. That leaves Peter, Susan, and Polly Plummer; of 
these, Peter is probably the worst choice, because of his symbolic 
value as the High King (a Messianic "figure"), leaving the two women. 
And Susan _had_ been portrayed (in PRINCE CASPIAN) as a bit of a 
grump and doubter -- viz. her reaction to Lucy's sighting of the
Lion in the wood, which is distinctly different from Peter's and
Edmund's.

> I wondered, later on, if Joy, his wife, ever tackled him on
> that.

Well, quite aside from whether or not Susan's falling-away is 
"misogynistic," which I think can come only from the assumption
that anything done to a woman must be done from sexist motives,
I can refer you to Lewis' late novel (which he considered his
best), TILL WE HAVE FACES.

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