{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3262", "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": 3262, "subject": "General opinion of Pandora", "messages": 5, "voices": 5, "first": "2002-05-19T00:47:10+00:00", "last": "2002-05-20T16:19:21+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Endy9", "address": "endymion91 at attbi.com" }, "date": "2002-05-19T00:47:10+00:00", "subject": "(urth) General opinion of Pandora", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I just made my second attempt to read Pandora by Holly Hollander. The first time I got about 3 chapters into the book before I decided this book is not for me. Now about 10-11 years later I decided to pick it up and try again. I got about 6 chapters into it this time before being thoroughly convinced, I don't like it.\n\nMy first thought on this book was that GW was playing with his fans. I could imagine a scene with his publisher where he made a bet that he could write any drivel and his fans would not only buy it, but find some deep hidden meaning it that made it better than the literal words on the page.\n\nI then searched the Urth archives and found opinions that he was trying to imitate Catcher in the Rye. By coincidence I finally decided to read Catcher for the first time a few weeks back. I didn't like Catcher for the same reasons I don't like Pandora. The cutesy-ness of a rebellious, cynical teen talking in teen code, with stream of consciousness disorienting style only works for a short work. In a longer work, at least this reader, gets very tired of it.\n\nBoth books showed signs of brilliance with interesting sequences of action or dialogue but would kill the momentum of those moments by slipping back into teen verbiage singsong nonsense.\n\nDid people on this mailing list generally like or dislike this one? Haven't seen too many opinions (unless I missed them) when searching the archives." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Dennis/Endy\nhttp://home.attbi.com/~phleblori1/endy9/index.htm\n--\nBe more concerned with your character than with your reputation. Your character is what you really are while your reputation is merely what others think you are. (John Wooden)\n--\n\n\n\n\n-- " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Nigel Price", "address": "nigel.a.price at virgin.net" }, "date": "2002-05-19T04:51:39+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) General opinion of Pandora", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "For what it's worth, I really like \"Pandora\". I think it's charming.\n\nI like it as a detective story, I like it as a mildly satirical Nancy Drew\npastiche, and I like it as a gently almost-magical evocation of the area\nwhere GW actually lives. I like the way that GW changes the names of local\ntowns and suburbs without really changing them, sometimes slightly altering\nthem, sometimes, as in \"Dawn\" for \"Aurora\", substituting their meaning for\ntheir name, as in the \"Soldier\" books. I like the subtle intrusion of a\nshaping mythological framework, where the meaning of the myth is itself a\ndetective story, with the different versions and interpretations of the myth\ncompeting in the manner of possible suspects in a murder mystery. I like the\nway that the romance between Holly and Aladin is done. His house and his\nhousehold always seem slightly magical to me. His way of life is in stark\ncontrast to Holly's privileged existence and her discovery of an alternative\nmode of living right in the middle of the area where she lives has always\nseemed to me somehow analogous to discovering the world of Faerie in the\nwoods at the bottom of your garden.\n\nOn a personal and highly subjective note, \"Pandora\" always strikes me as a\nbook written by a man who has and loves his daughters. For sentimental\nreasons, that appeals to me.\n\nI make no claims for this as a great book, but I do find it a very likeable\none. It's a light book, and light books are difficult to do well. I think\nthat GW has written this well.\n\nNigel" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com" }, "date": "2002-05-19T04:50:01+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) General opinion of Pandora", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Endy didn't like PANDORA then, and he doesn't like PANDORA now.\n\nThat's fine.\n\nOTOH, PANDORA is in excellent company with CATCHER IN THE RYE!\n\nFor myself, I like CATCHER better than PANDORA, but I like CATCHER a lot\nand I like PANDORA okay. Haven't read it in years. As it happens, I know\nfrom email that Henry Kaiser reread it just a few weeks ago, and while he\nfeels it is Wolfe-lite (perhaps the lightest of them all), I don't recall\nany complaints. That it is \"Wolfe-lite\" is not argued in my recollection." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Endy wrote:\nMy first thought on this book was that GW was playing with his fans. I\ncould imagine a scene with his publisher where he made a bet that he could\nwrite any drivel and his fans would not only buy it, but find some deep\nhidden meaning it that made it better than the literal words on the page." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Then again, that's nasty. I wish you hadn't written it.\n\nPersonally, I think of PANDORA as being in a category with PEACE and THE\nDEVIL IN A FOREST: Gene Wolfe making an honest attempt at something outside\nstrict f/sf genre, in this case the mystery genre. PEACE was mainstream\nand DEVIL was young adult (people were recently complaining about PEACE\nbeing tagged as a \"first\" novel, but it was a first \"non-genre\" novel, and\nfrom that vantage point you can see how marketing would remove the\nqualifiers, with the mainstream hopes and prayers that a big hit would mean\nthat Gene Wolfe would never have to go back to writing that escapist drivel\nknown as \"genre\" again)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Endy wrote:\nBoth books showed signs of brilliance with interesting sequences of action\nor dialogue but would kill the momentum of those moments by slipping back\ninto teen verbiage singsong nonsense. Did people on this mailing list\ngenerally like or dislike this one? Haven't seen too many opinions\n(unless I missed them) when searching the archives. --" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "What does it matter what =anybody= else says? You hate it. That is your\nopinion. Tried and tested. Do you want people to tell you that you are an\nidiot? Do you want people to brow-beat you into reading it again until you\nlike it? Do you want people to tell you that you are a genius for \"seeing\nthrough all the drivel,\" for being the brave fellow who says that the\nemperor has no clothes?\n\nOr is it the whole consensus reading thing: where are you in the \"herd\" . .\n. middle, fringe, outside?\n\n=mantis=\n\n\nSIRIUS FICTION\nbooklets on Gene Wolfe, John Crowley\nLexicon Urthus out of print!\nhttp://www.siriusfiction.com/" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2002-05-19T06:38:10+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) General opinion of Pandora", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Endys wrote:\nDid people on this mailing list generally like or dislike this one?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Haven't seen too many opinions (unless I missed them) when searching the\narchives.<<\n\nFWIW, I liked it. I happen to have read it for the third or fourth time just\na couple of months ago. I never thought to compare it to CATCHER, but then I\nhaven't read CATCHER since the mid-'60s. I don't think GW intended PANDORA\nas his version of CATCHER; rather, he just wanted to write something\ndifferent, and did it. It wasn't intended as great _Art_. For the rest; what\nNigel said.\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com" }, "date": "2002-05-20T16:19:21+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) General opinion of Pandora", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dennis/Endy wrote:\nDid people on this mailing list generally like or dislike this one?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Can't speak for \"people\" but for me ... well, I have read it once, about\nfour years ago. I remember enjoying it. I remember almost nothing else\nabout it; it's on my \"to reread pile,\" but doesn't move up very fast. So\nmy basic after-the-fact description of the book would be \"amiable, but\nforgettable.\" Wolfe lite? Definitely; books like 5HC, the various Suns,\nand PEACE, while I still haven't fully absorbed any of them, have on\nfirst and all subsequent readings left very strong, if scattered, \nimpressions on my soggy brain.\n\nHappy monday," } ] } ] }