{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3088", "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": 3088, "subject": "\"Petting Zoo\"", "messages": 4, "voices": 3, "first": "2002-03-25T14:28:43+00:00", "last": "2002-03-26T21:46:54+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Matthew Davis", "address": "matthew at michaelscycles.freeserve.co.uk" }, "date": "2002-03-25T14:28:43+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) \"Petting Zoo\"", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I suspect the book you're thinking of is \"Danny and the Dinosaur\" and its\nsubsequent follow-ups by Syd Hoff.\n\n\"Petting Zoo\" struck me as Wolfe working in the Ray Bradbury vein, but maybe\nthat's just me." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com" }, "date": "2002-03-26T02:07:33+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) \"Petting Zoo\"", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Matthew Davis wrote:\nI suspect the book you're thinking of is \"Danny and the Dinosaur\" and its\nsubsequent follow-ups by Syd Hoff.\n\n\"Petting Zoo\" struck me as Wolfe working in the Ray Bradbury vein, but maybe\nthat's just me." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I went to the library to check. Yep, that's the one. Thanks!\n\nDanny/Dinosaur, alliterative like Rodrick/Rex. Danny says, \"Let's go.\"\nThe adult who sees them and stares is a policeman who sees Dinosaur stop at\na red light. Later on Dinosaur gives rides to all the kids that are\nDanny's friends.\n\nSo it is this book, plus Calvin of \"Calvin & Hobbes\" (with his\ncity-destroying monster daydreams) or Bart Simpson (Bart buys a sponge\nt.rex from a bubblegum machine, and as he puts the water from the garden\nhose on it he has visions of it becoming life-sized) or Dennis the Menace.\nThe boy single-handedly creates a monster ala Jurassic Park but the\ncreature is really just a big Barney and that's okay. But the petting zoo\nis sad, and both characters are sad for each other (but not sad for\nthemselves).\n\nHmm, Bradbury. From my perspective, Bradbury stories about childhood are\neither nostalgic for a real (more authentic) past (Bradbury's childhood\nyears) or dread for a nightmarish present/future from around 1960 onward\n(\"The Playground,\" \"The Little Assassin,\" eek, these two are quite\nBallardian).\n\nSo \"Petting Zoo\" would be an inversion of Bradbury (at least my sense there\nof): nostalgia for the future from a point a few decades later. Definitely\na sense of things being \"more authentic\" in the earlier stage, even though\nwe think it is funny for how much less-authentic it is from our situation.\nA funny story, really funny.\n\n=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com" }, "date": "2002-03-26T17:08:46+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) \"Petting Zoo\"", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Though I haven't read \"Petting Zoo\" I can repsond to this. Mantis wrote:\nHmm, Bradbury. From my perspective, Bradbury stories about childhood are\neither nostalgic for a real (more authentic) past (Bradbury's childhood\nyears) or dread for a nightmarish present/future from around 1960 onward\n(\"The Playground,\" \"The Little Assassin,\" eek, these two are quite\nBallardian)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Ummmm... well, \"The Small Assassin\" was written _well_ before '60, and\n(if I'm not mistaken) appeared in Bradbury's first collection, \"Dark\nCarnival.\" Indeed, a number of Bradbury's childhood stories are \nexaggerations/portrayals of the very real dreads children feel - i.e.,\n\"Fever Dream.\" \n\nThe nostalgic element you mention (summed up in DANDELION WINE) is \nneatly combined with the \"childhood fears\" element in at least two of\nBradbury's finest novels: SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES (ignore the\nmovie) and THE HALLOWE'EN TREE.\n\n--Dan'l" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com" }, "date": "2002-03-26T21:46:54+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) \"Petting Zoo\"", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dan'l wrote:\nUmmmm... well, \"The Small Assassin\" was written _well_ before '60, and\n(if I'm not mistaken) appeared in Bradbury's first collection, \"Dark\nCarnival.\" Indeed, a number of Bradbury's childhood stories are\nexaggerations/portrayals of the very real dreads children feel - i.e.,\n\"Fever Dream.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I wrote 1960s when I really wanted to convey the unbounded time past the\nBradbury childhood decade. I didn't mean to suggest that \"The Small\nAssassin\" was written in any particular time, but that it represented a\ncontemporary or near-future setting that was horrific, in contrast to the\nmelancholy sweetness of the authentic childhood time." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The nostalgic element you mention (summed up in DANDELION WINE) is\nneatly combined with the \"childhood fears\" element in at least two of\nBradbury's finest novels: SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES (ignore the\nmovie) and THE HALLOWE'EN TREE." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "As a matter of fact, as I was keying in the original post I did check\nmyself against SWTWC, and found myself still in agreement. While I read it\nages ago, I've never degraded its memory with a movie version. Yes, it is\nfrightening, but it is the fear of an evil intrusion upon the golden land\nof the authentic childhood rather than the hopelessness of living in a\ndemonic world of the less authentic present/near future.\n\nThat is, my sense of it is that its horror elements no more change the\noverall picture than the frightful/ugly bits change the idyll of\nHUCKLEBERRY FINN.\n\nBut more to the point, \"Small Assassin\" and \"The Playground\" are more about\nthe adult's fears/perceptions about children/childhood in the less\nauthentic present/near-future; and this has direct bearing upon \"Petting\nZoo.\"\n\nIt is just my vague opinion. I'm not a Bradbury expert at all, and if you\nmanage to come up with a body of short stories that I have already read\n(and can remember!) that contradicts what I'm saying here, then I will\ngladly agree with you.\n\nOr you can read \"Petting Zoo\" and see whether it perfectly matches your\npersonal sense of Bradbury stories.\n\nMainly you should read \"Petting Zoo.\" I like it a lot! After all this\nbuild up you are bound to hate it, alas.\n\n=mantis=\n\n\nSirius Fiction\nbooklets on Gene Wolfe, John Crowley\nNow with UPDATES!\nhttp://www.siriusfiction.com/" } ] } ] }