Subject: (urth) urth Digest, Vol 26, Issue 12

From: Kieran Mullen <kieran at ou.edu>
Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2006 19:25:17 +0000

>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 9
> Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2006 13:00:27 -0400
> From: Daniel D Jones <ddjones at riddlemaster.org>
> Subject: Re: (urth) The Death of Doctor Island Movie
> To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
> Message-ID: <200610161300.28204.ddjones at riddlemaster.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain;  charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> On Monday 16 October 2006 12:55, David DiGiacomo wrote:
>>> I always thought that the trio of IDD, DrOfDI, and DofDrI was the  
>>> most
>>> accessible and visual of GWs works and would make an facinating  
>>> triptych
>>> of short films. Hopefully this will not be awful and they'll make  
>>> two
>>> more.
>>
>> I agree that The Death of Doctor Island is accessible in terms of
>> understanding the plot, but I also find it to be one of Wolfe's most
>> disturbing and offensive stories.  I can't imagine what a mass  
>> audience
>> would make of it.
>
> Care to expound on why you find it offensive?
>

I am not David, but I can write why I find the story disturbing:  an  
innocent young girl is brutally murdered in order to salvage one  
mentally disturbed adult male,  drive an innocent boy catatonic,  and  
manifest the more useful subdominant personality in the boy.   This  
is all based on some utilitarian calculus:  the low probability that  
the girl will be cured, the preference for the subdominant  
personality in the boy, the chance that the man will be cured.   It's  
the cold sacrifice of one life to improve another's life.    But I  
think that's the type of death offered by Doctor Island, and this is  
the point of the story.

What if the Island is wrong in its prognosis?    Is that much worse  
than its being right?

I'm not sure I'd call that offensive, but it is disturbing to me.

Kieran Mullen

P.S.  It's been a while since I read the story.

---

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2006 19:38:45 +0000

I'll add: I think it's significant that the sacrificial victim was a girl
-- innocent or otherwise. There's a strong violence-against-women
quotient in Wolfe's work, and over time it's begun to disturb me
a bit. In this particular case, it's pretty egregious.

--Dan'l

On 10/16/06, Kieran Mullen <kieran at ou.edu> wrote:
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-- 
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, writer, trainer, bon vivant
-----
http://www.livejournal.com/users/sturgeonslawyer
http://www.danehyoakes.com
Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open
sewer and die.
  - Mel Brooks

---

From: Yves Meynard <meynard at videotron.ca>
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2006 02:21:50 +0000

> From: Kieran Mullen <kieran at ou.edu>
>
>
> the cold sacrifice of one life to improve another's life.

But aren't we meant to find this "therapy" profoundly abhorrent? The  
story is shocking, disturbing, because as SF readers we have a built- 
in expectation that wondrous future technology will embody progress  
and good. Wolfe gives us a situation where this is not at all true in  
final analysis (no pun intended). I would have to re-read the story,  
but I seem to remember Dr. Island mentions that Freudianism applies  
equally well to machines--which I think is in fact the author's  
condemnation of any school of psychology that treats people as if  
they were machines.

> I'm not sure I'd call that offensive, but it is disturbing to me.

It is indeed offensive, if you think Wolfe agrees with Dr Island; I  
personally doubt that he does.

Yves Meynard

---

From: Daniel D Jones <ddjones at riddlemaster.org>
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2006 02:50:59 +0000

> think that's the type of death offered by Doctor Island, and this is

No question that the story is disturbing.  If the story doesn't disturb you, 
then you have serious problems.  But there's a great deal of difference 
between calling a story disturbing and calling it offensive.  The story is 
meant to disturb.  That's it's whole point and purpose.  And it succeeds 
masterfully.  But I disagree that that makes the story offensive.  If a story 
doesn't move you in some way, is it worth investing the time to read?

I first read the story many years ago while in high school.  It was the first 
thing I'd ever read by Wolfe, although I didn't realize that until recently.  
I only recently picked up a copy of IoDD&OS&OS.  When I started reading DoDI, 
I literally jumped out of bed and shook the book in my wife's face.  "This is 
it!  This is it!"  I then had to explain that I'd read the story some 25 
years ago but had had no idea who'd written it.  I couldn't remember the 
details of the events but it was one of the most powerful, most disturbing 
stories I'd ever read and I couldn't wait to read it again.  It did not 
disappoint on the second reading.

It's not often that a book or story literally gives me cold chills but this 
story did.  Both times.  It's incredibly disturbing and incredibly powerful.  
But that doesn't make it offensive.  Quite the opposite.