{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3762", "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": 3762, "subject": "Doors: opening the man trap", "messages": 4, "voices": 4, "first": "2003-01-16T18:19:42+00:00", "last": "2003-01-17T02:01:23+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "maa32", "address": "maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu" }, "date": "2003-01-16T18:19:42+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Doors: opening the man trap", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I have a hard time accepting that Wolfe would ever be sympathetic to a \nfeminine point of view, especially when attempting to equate the moral stance \nof the novel There Are Doors with a perspective analogous to Graves.\n\nThe very premise of the novel is that sex with a woman can kill you dead, \ndead, dead. Is reproduction worth it? Of course Mr. Green wants the goddess.\n Perhaps choosing earthly love is bad if it could kill you. He is an ordinary \nman who cannot free himself from the ordinary entrapment - the flowering \nstigma of the goddess, which exists only to trap his pollen. I see the novel \nas the failure of ordinary men to overcome the sexual drive. While love might \nbe worth it, the love Wolfe talks about is not necessarily sexual in nature. \nI think.\n\nMr. Green is just kind of dumb.\n\nMarc Aramini" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com" }, "date": "2003-01-16T18:33:43+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) Doors: opening the man trap", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Marc wrote:\nMr. Green is just kind of dumb." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Bingo.\n\nIn Wolfe's words, from that same interview:\n\n\"He is kind of dumb, but he is a nice guy... \n\n\"In There Are Doors I wanted to do something that I think has \nonly rarely been done. It certainly has been done, but it isn't \ndone very often. I wanted to present a protagonist who isn't \nvery intelligent. Green isn't. He has almost no virtues. By that \nI don't mean that he has many vices, but he is not outstanding \nin any good way. He is a man of very limited intelligence, not \nterribly courageous, not terribly energetic or enterprising or \nany of those other things. He is the sort of man who would be \nquite content to work all his life in a dead end job and never \ntry to get very far outside of that...\"" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "cilluff1 at optonline.net", "address": "cilluff1 at optonline.net" }, "date": "2003-01-16T18:39:06+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) Doors: opening the man trap", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Marc Aramini wrote of Mr. Green and TAD:\n\n<>\n\nFWIW, Mr. Green is intentionally written by GW to be kind of dumb. In an\ninterview with James Jordon Wolfe describes Green this way:\n\n\n\"In There Are Doors I wanted to do something that I think has only rarely\nbeen done. It certainly has been done, but it isn't done very often. I\nwanted to present a protagonist who isn't very intelligent. Green isn't. He\nhas almost no virtues. By that I don't mean that he has many vices, but he\nis not outstanding in any good way. He is a man of very limited\nintelligence, not terribly courageous, not terribly energetic or\nenterprising or any of those other things. He is the sort of man who would\nbe quite content to work all his life in a dead end job and never try to\nget very far outside of that---except that he meets Laura. That is what\nchanges him. Laura is looking for lovers, but Green is looking for love and\nhe has found it, or he thinks he has found it. And whether she loves him or\nnot, he loves her enormously. He can deal with the idea that she doesn't\nlove him, that she doesn't have any particular feeling for him. It makes no\ndifference to him; he still loves her.\"\n\nSo, according to GW, Green IS indeed fairly dumb, but it is not sexual\ndrive, but love, that captivates him.\n\nDespite Mantis' excellent literary analysis I respectfully disagree that\nGreen is going to his death at the end of TAD. Mantis had sold me on it\nuntil I re-read the GW/JJ interview, which, although unspecific, does not\nsound like a man going to his death:\n\n\"JJ: At the end of the novel Green goes off in pursuit of Laura in Manea\nnear Overwood, and that leaves the novel open. Do you intend to come back\nto it?\n\nGW: I might. I didn't intend to go back to it at the time I wrote it. JJ:\nDoes he make any mistake running after her?\n\nGW: Oh no, no. I don't think he's making a mistake. I think he is making a\ngreat correct decision of his life, which is to go after such love as he\nsees.\n\nJJ: Even if what is there at the end is likely to be hollow? Because she\ndoesn't really love, does she? She just wants lovers.\n\nGW: But how is going to be at the end, and how much is that going to matter\nto him? He has found something to love. I think the trouble with a whole\nlot of people in this world is that there is nothing at all that they care\ndeeply about. And it is certainly the trouble with Green. But now he has\nfound something to care deeply about and he is making the correct decision.\nHe has not made the mistake of saying, \"It is too much trouble and so I'm\nnot going to do it.\" I have a friend named Paul Marksa who is only a little\nbit younger than I am. I am 61. Paul must be about 50. And he is training\nnow to be a missionary and he is going to go most likely into South America\nand do missionary work. And I think he is absolutely right. I know Paul,\nand he has finally found what he needed to find all his life and he is\nmaking the right decision. It is not going to be comfortable and it might\nbe painful, and it is darn hard for a man his age to throw off everything\nand start studying all the things he has to study in order to be ordained\nin his church, the Church of Christ, and become a missionary, but that is\nwhat he is going to do. That is the right decision for him.\"\n\nNowhere is Green going to his death mentioned, as one would expect, but\nWolfe's reading here seems to suggest he simply is pursuing what ultimately\nwill be unrequited love despite the great sex.\n\n-- Shell" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alice K. Turner", "address": "aturner6 at nyc.rr.com" }, "date": "2003-01-17T02:01:23+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Doors: opening the man trap", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Shell quoted a Rodentoid interview with GW:\n\n\"...Laura is looking for lovers, but Green is looking for love and\nhe has found it, or he thinks he has found it. And whether she loves him or\nnot, he loves her enormously. He can deal with the idea that she doesn't\nlove him, that she doesn't have any particular feeling for him. It makes no\ndifference to him; he still loves her.\"\n\nsnip snip\n\n\"He has found something to love. I think the trouble with a whole\nlot of people in this world is that there is nothing at all that they care\ndeeply about. And it is certainly the trouble with Green. But now he has\nfound something to care deeply about and he is making the correct decision.\nHe has not made the mistake of saying, \"It is too much trouble and so I'm\nnot going to do it.\"\n\nNowhere is Green going to his death mentioned, as one would expect, but\nWolfe's reading here seems to suggest he simply is pursuing what ultimately\nwill be unrequited love despite the great sex.\n\nI have no intention of reading Doors again, but this is also a description\nof Silk and Hy." } ] } ] }