{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3160", "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": 3160, "subject": "Jerry's link", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "2002-04-17T05:58:07+00:00", "last": "2002-04-17T14:07:49+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "maa32", "address": "maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu" }, "date": "2002-04-17T05:58:07+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Jerry's link", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hey Jerry, I wish you had never given me that link to that google group \n\"griping about Wolfe\". I read most of the threads because I wasn't used to so \nmany people blatantly saying that Wolfe was no good! They weren't just \nclaiming that he didn't appeal to them, but that he was a bad writer! \nI really kind of got upset at a lot of what those guys were saying, so I feel \nlike getting it off my chest to sympathetic ears. You guys can skip this if \nyou want - there is nothing earth shattering or important here.\n\nI really wanted to slap some of those guys down - I think they really do \ndeserve to be called lazy and incompetent. Holy crap. Wolfe has never been \nanything but wonderfully kind to me in his letters, and he responds with such \nfrequency that I feel bad about writing him back quickly for fear he will feel \nobligated to take time out of his schedule to address all the concerns of an \nultimately unimportant young man. \nI imagine all the hard work he puts into constructing a story that will reward \nre-reading like few other texts out there with his labyrinth of clues and \ncareful research, and then these guys just call him \"bad\" because they \nperceive some kind of social message that disturbs them or something. Maybe \nthey should return to the \"choose your own adventure\" genre, where they have \nmore control over the way the plot unfolds - if you get a bad ending or a \nmisogynistic message, you can start over and pick a new path.\n\nAnd they keep talking about Severian as if his ideas were odd: I've lived with \nthat rhetoric all my life; my father is exactly like Severian, from the way he \ntalks about women to the way he thinks about punishing people. Don't these \npeople know someone like Severian? He's not that bad of a guy. I thought he \nshould have killed even more people when he had the chance. He is too nice in \nsome scenes, like sparing Agia in Claw. I admit that not everyone can get \nWolfe, but just because you don't understand an author doesn't mean you should \nlabel them as a bad writer! \nSeverian is even nice to the brute beasts of the world. I certainly wouldn't \nhave cared if Triskele lived or died. The other day I had a dream about the \nTaco Bell Dog and it kept peeing on my leg. I would give anything to destroy \nit painfully. Microwave? Perhaps someone elses' microwave, eh? Have they never \nmet anyone with a streak of cruelty? Don't they realize that all human \nrelationships involve pain and suffering? Physically beautiful men and women \ndestroy those who seek their love every day with their \"individuality\" and \ninsistence on \"choosing\" the ones they want to love - it's inescapable in a \nsocial system that desire will be subverted and someone will be hurt in almost \nany public interaction. Even saying no to a date is placing your own \n\"selfish\" desires above those of someone else. But it is necessary if you \nwant to have any control over your destiny. But it involves, if not cruelty, a \nwillful and confident statement that your desires are MORE IMPORTANT than \nsomeone elses'. Anyone who claims they have never been cruel does not \nunderstand the world. Forging an identity requires more cruelty and harm to \nthe people around you than most realize. Should people really be nicer to the \ndomestic pets of the world than they are to conscious human beings with real \ndesires? We ignorantly torture people all our lives just by existing, yet we \nlove our domestic animals, and consider the desires of beasts as superior to \nthe needs of humanity, needs which are reflections of the beastly desires we \nfind so endearing in pets. But humans feel real pain, mental anguish that \ncomes from retrospection. People talk about feelings and all that stuff; they \nare really talking about chemical reactions like the stimulation of \nphenylethylamine production through sexual attraction or arousal. What is \ncruelty but another aspect of that chemistry?\nI guess I should be posting this over there. Almost everyone here realizes \nthe universal application of the tortured souls that Wolfe depicts.\nHey, from this post can you tell why I'm a big fan of Wolfe's work?\n\nMarc Aramini" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Straight", "address": "straight at email.unc.edu" }, "date": "2002-04-17T14:07:49+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Jerry's link", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Tue, 16 Apr 2002, maa32 wrote:\nHey Jerry, I wish you had never given me that link to that google group \n\"griping about Wolfe\". I read most of the threads because I wasn't used to so \nmany people blatantly saying that Wolfe was no good! They weren't just \nclaiming that he didn't appeal to them, but that he was a bad writer! \nI really kind of got upset at a lot of what those guys were saying, so I feel \nlike getting it off my chest to sympathetic ears. You guys can skip this if \nyou want - there is nothing earth shattering or important here." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "If it makes you feel any better, I read that group regularly, and there\nare some people who don't like Wolfe, but also many eloquent defenders of\nhis work. Here's a few good posts in appreciation:\n\nhttp://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl2103972725d&hl=en&selm=7ijvge%24q83%241%40panix3.panix.com\n\nhttp://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl2103972725d&hl=en&selm=7ik3ne%24bgl%241%40panix3.panix.com\n\nhttp://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl2103972725d&hl=en&selm=7ik75e%24nsn%241%40panix3.panix.com\n\nhttp://groups.google.com/groups?q=gene+wolfe&hl=en&selm=1992Mar27.195807.11656%40ux1.cso.uiuc.edu&rnum=5\n\nAnd here, look, I found a nice list of definitions for obscure words in\nthe New Sun books, for those of us without a copy of Lexicon Urthus:\n\nhttp://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl1791575566d&hl=en&selm=davies-2603991410130001%40davies.ils.nwu.edu\n\n-Rostrum" } ] } ] }