{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3795", "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": 3795, "subject": "...belated response...", "messages": 1, "voices": 1, "first": "2003-01-23T01:20:52+00:00", "last": "2003-01-23T01:20:52+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "ArchD'Ikon Zibethicus", "address": "zibethicus at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2003-01-23T01:20:52+00:00", "subject": "(urth) ...belated response...", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Sorry...hard to _get at_ the computer these days...\n\nSpectacled Bear:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I don't know whether Mr. Wolfe's works fit neatly within a single \nframework.\nFrom my reading of them, I would guess that he is indulging in >speculative\nfiction" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think this is a very important thing to remember. \"Speculative >fiction\"\nand \"framework\" do not sit well together. \"If Rules are a Framework for\nthe Mind, Why Should the Mind not Climb Right Out? writes the Sage of\nDissolution\" - to quote another story with a confusing timeline!" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Ryan:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I have also been of the mind for a long time that an artist's(read:\nperson's) work is not necessarily the living embodiment of their >beliefs \nand thoughts... except in a round-a-bout philosophical >way. \"It's his so \nit must represent his thoughts even if not >intended....\"\nSometimes we say things we regret. Sometimes we write things we don't\nbelieve. Sometimes we don't know what we believe. Sometimes we need >100 \nmore words to finish a story, ANY 100. Sometimes something looks >pretty so \nwe use it." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, I suppose the points that I was making are neatly encapsulated by the \nabove quotations. I think, also, that an author's religion or lack thereof \nmay well, as Blattid also said, \"have a powerful influence\non their decision-making process -- including, but not limited\nto, their creative decisions\", but I ask those of us who have a 'fixed' \nreligious belief and who write either professionally or for 'mere' amusement \n- do _you_ sit down at the desk and sharpen the quill with your theology \nuppermost in your mind? Or a worthwhile story which will pester you until \nit is extruded? Or both?\n\nIf your intention is to write about religion per se, you are perpetuating a \nwork of theology or theaology. It _is_, of course, possible to create a \nfiction for religious ends, implicitly or explicity, but I would hesitate to \naffirm that this has been Mr. Wolfe's intention. Ultimately, however, in \nBOTLS, he has explicitly affirmed the validity of the Christian vision by \nincluding Palm Sunday in Pa. Silk's enlightenment.\n\nHowever, many authors write fictions to warn against developments which \ntrouble them. Others simply explore ideas...it's not a hard and fast \nprocess, IMHO...and I would think that a 'religious author' _could_ imagine \na situation where their religion is ultimately defeated or invalidated, but \nit would require unusual intellectual honesty to write it...\n\nBlattid:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "For those who do like CW, may I recommend (if you do not\nalready know his work) Tim Powers? The closest living writer\nto \"carrying on the Williams tradition,\" except that he is,\nin my humble, a better prose stylist than Williams ever managed to be. \nWilliams was a fine poet, but in the writing\nof fiction ..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Never heard of him, but, sieur, on the strength of your recommendation \n(bows), I will keep the proverbial eye out...I wouldn't, incidentally, \ncategorise CW as one of the authors I read for style...bit clunky at times, \nto be sure...more an ideas man...kinda like Hodgson...tho' it's surely time \nI re-read CW...perhaps I'll put him on the kids' bedtime reading \nlist...prob'ly the only way I'll get time in the next decade, if Goddess \nspares me that long..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Nutria's example of ghosts comes to mind--Russell\nKirk and Gene Wolfe can believe in ghosts and be quite orthodox\nCatholics. As could G. K. Chesterton. And I suspect R. A. Lafferty\nwas both about as orthodox as you get and believed what most people\n(and most Catholics) would call six impossible things before\nbreakfast." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "One of Lafferty's characters on ghosts (very roughly): \"You think it's silly \nto believe in ghosts? Boy, you should see some of the things the _ghosts_ \nbelieve in!\"\n\n*" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Pan was also the only god to have actually died, according to\nsomebody-or-other." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Plutarch?\n\n\nBTW - my memory's about as bad as Latro's, but wasn't he supposed to be \nAeneas, and the series the story of his adventures pre-Rome? Did I read \nthat somewhere, a Wolfe I/V perhaps, or am I finally losing it for real?\n\n->Zx<-\n\n____________________________________________________________\nConsciousness will always be one degree above comprehensibility.\n- G.C.H. Ehrensvard\n____________________________________________________________\nThe main thing isn't knowing whether you're right or wrong. That really \ndoesn't matter... The main thing is to keep people from bothering you... The \nrest is eyewash...\n- Louis-Ferdinand Celine" } ] } ] }