{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3147",
    "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'"
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  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 3147,
    "subject": "literary forensics",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2002-04-14T23:39:24+00:00",
    "last": "2002-04-14T23:39:24+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0204-602@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "maa32",
        "address": "maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu"
      },
      "date": "2002-04-14T23:39:24+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) literary forensics",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "A bit off any discernible topic, I was home last weekend and read an \ninteresting article in Reader's Digest entitled \"Word Sleuth\", which details \nthe literary forensics of the man who successfully identified the Unabomber \nand the author of Primary Colors based on style comparisons with candidates.  \nThe fascinating thing about the whole thing was the manner in which he \nidentified the Unabomber - Ted read a lot of British novels and used some of \ntheir spelling, coupled with several of their expressions: \"You can eat your \ncake and have it too.\"\n\nHowever, as I thought about the novels we read affecting our style (obviously \nthere are still some individual differences), I was even more intrigued after \nmaking my mother read Mr. Gevers' article praising Wolfe.  She said, \"Are you \nsure you didn't write this?\"  (I will take that as a compliment to my writing \nrather than an insult to yours, Mr. Gevers). \"You write almost exactly like \nthis.\" (The list is a rather poor place to see examples of my writing style, \nsince here I strive for clarity rather than beauty in prose - and my very fast \nand inaccurate typing (coupled with no spell check)often leaves me \ndisappointed in the quality of my posts).\n\nI wonder how much of the echo in our styles (the maternal eye would be able to \ncatch those similiarites, right?) can be caused by our exposure to Wolfe?  And \ndo we in turn owe our style to some dim source that we could not possibly \ncomprehend directly? (like, say, C.K. Scott Moncrieff or even Constance \nGarnet)\nObviously, the article stresses that we all have a unique, distinctive \ncomposition style, but I wonder how much is ripped unconsciously from outside \nsources.  For example, for years I realize I tried to fashion the opening \nlines of any story I thought about writing after Mike Moorcock's introductory \nsentence to The War Hound and the World's Pain, which went something like, \"It \nwas in that year when the fashion in cruelty demanded not only the crucifixion \nof small peasant children, but also their small animals, that I was \ntransported to Hell; it seems Lucifer wanted to strike a bargain with me.\" \n(Obviously, another paraphrase, but isnt' that a great line?)  I've also \nalways admired the closing lines of Zelazny's Lord of Light.\n\nI just thought it was kind of interesting to think about how much our style \nmight be shaped by what we emulate (and Wolfe also made the claim that his \nstyle hasn't changed over the years, I believe, which seems odd when thinking \nabout the choppy sentences that proliferate throughout The Book of the Short \nSun in comparison with the longer and more difficult to follow sentence \nstructures Wolfe employed frequently throughout Peace and The New Sun books).\n\nMarc Aramini"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}