{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3940", "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": 3940, "subject": "Lanark and the Sand Garden", "messages": 1, "voices": 1, "first": "2003-04-16T11:14:29+00:00", "last": "2003-04-16T11:14:29+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "ArchD'Ikon Zibethicus", "address": "zibethicus at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2003-04-16T11:14:29+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Lanark and the Sand Garden", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Malco/Nastler:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "He does say that, but he also admits that although\nThaw/Lanark is based on himself they have been altered\nin various ways in order that the reader will become\nmore attached to them. In any case, I trust Nastler as\nfar as I can comfortably spit out a rat." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Which is as little as Lanark ended up trusting him...understandably...\n\n(sigh)...where's one of my copies?\n\n\"\"Bloody rotten,\" said Lanark. \"I haven't read as much as you have, I never \nhad the time, but when I visited public libraries in my twenties _half_ the \nscience fiction stories had scenes like that in them, usually at the end. \nThese banal world destructions prove nothing but the impoverished minds of \nthose who can think of nothing better.\"\n\nThe conjuror's mouth and eyes opened wide and his face grew red. He began \nspeaking in a shrill whisper which swelled to a bellow: \"_I am not writing_ \nscience fiction! Science-fiction stories have no real people in them, and \nall my characters are real, real, real people! I may astound my public by a \ndazzling deployment of dramatic metaphors designed to compress and \naccelerate the action, but that is not science, it is magic! Magic! As for \nmy ending's being banal, wait till you're inside it...\"\"\n\n(p. 498, Canongate 1981 hbk.)\n\nNeedless to say, as a member of this list, _I_ don't wholly agree with \nNastler, either..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Personally I dislike the idea of the books being bound\nseparately, it might give someone the nasty idea of\nreading them in the \"right\" order. Which would be the\nwrong thing to do." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, yes...but if somebody's gonna be minded to do that, they'll do it \nregardless of the binding, I suspect. I myself have never done it, despite \nhaving lost count of my readings. Nastler wants the books \"thought of\" in \nthe 'right' order; not necessarily _read_ in that order.\n\nThe thing which would suck me in if I had the money is that with four \nvolumes, you get four times the cover illustrations...as well as a new essay \nby Mr. Gray on the writing of the book..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I'll also say that Lanark deals with the judgement of\na society following an assessment of the main\ncharacter by a council of representatives." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Nastler says: \"The Thaw narrative shows a man dying because he is bad at \nloving. It is enclosed by [Lanark's] narrative which shows civilization \ncollapsing for the same reason.\" (p.484.)\n\nDunno if this necessarily equates with a _judgement_ per se...and Lanark's \nabject failure at the 'general assembly of council states' in Provan was \n_planned_ and _intended_ by Sludden, who sent him there knowing he was going \nto get rolled...\n\nThe council is disgusted by his abjectness and jeers at him after his arrest \nand release from the drunk-tank, yes, but the destruction of Unthank is not \ncaused by this event..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "And I was\nparticularly taken by the passage where Thaw accuses\nGod of using \"a torturers trick\" (!!!) to gain his\nworship. Thaw prays for mercy during an awful asthma\nattack." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, you've given me something to contemplate...the relations between Mr. \nGray and Mr. Wolfe as authors...I suppose there must be some, beyond the \nfact that they are two of my most favoured...but I don't know precisely what \nthey are..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "And please also consider \"Unlikely stories, mostly\"\nEVERYONE should own a copy of \"The book of prefaces\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Let's face it...just go get the lot...\n\n...but how could you omit 'Janine'? Canongate is reprinting it this \nyear...at last...\n\n*\n\nMoving over to the Sand Garden (and back on-list-topic)...Blattid thus:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "So I'm thinking that they don't come from the \"real\" South Africa at all, \nbut from the South Africa of jungle movies." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That was what I always suspected, myself...or what if they don't come from \n_our_ Urth, or not exactly ours? The one next door, perchance...\n\n...who knows what those doors in the Garden open on to...\n\n\n->Zx<-\n\nOh, BTW - am I the only 'Lanark' reader who is irresistibly reminded of \nSludden every time I hear/see Tony Blair?\n____________________________________________________________\n\nWhen God failed to respond reliably to on-line access, Mankind had to turn \nelsewhere to unload the burden of its own responsibility. It invented the \ncomputer - which is far more accessible than God and just as satisfying - \nproviding you never give yourself time to think about it.\n\n- Colin Kapp\n\n____________________________________________________________" } ] } ] }