{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/5999", "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": 5999, "subject": "\"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "messages": 58, "voices": 14, "first": "2011-04-29T19:24:16+00:00", "last": "2011-05-11T11:42:36+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "<4DBB1060.1020105@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2011-04-29T19:24:16+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I just read this quote by Wolfe.\n\nIrony? Pot-Meet-Kettle?\n\nJ" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4DBB1631.4060704@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2011-04-29T19:49:05+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<4DBB1060.1020105@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The wolf is definitely calling the schnauzer ... lupine?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 4/29/2011 3:24 PM, James Wynn wrote:\nI just read this quote by Wolfe.\n\nIrony? Pot-Meet-Kettle?\n\nJ\n_______________________________________________\nUrth Mailing List\nTo post, write urth at urth.net\nSubscription/information: http://www.urth.net\n\n\n---\navast! Antivirus: Inbound message clean.\nVirus Database (VPS): 110429-1, 04/29/2011\nTested on: 4/29/2011 3:25:11 PM\navast! - copyright (c) 1988-2011 AVAST Software.\nhttp://www.avast.com" } ] }, { "message_id": "<794632.94323.qm@web161803.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2011-04-29T20:43:52+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<4DBB1060.1020105@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Some of Wolfe's interviews are priceless for that quality. \"Looking for the thumb print under the lily\"? Oh, it was a lily, huh? \n\nAnybody read his contribution to Last Drink Bird Head? I feel like that little exercise is SO classic Wolfe. Sets up a scenario, throws in a random plastic toy, and then leaves us to figure out how the concluding event went down. I think it is not necessarily an impossible task, but it sure is a bit inscrutable to fully \"get\" that conclusion. (Did Damon Knight get really mad? What happened to the toy? why is the unconscious guy back there at the end of the bar? Is that his toy bird?)\n\nI do think he is saying realistic fiction leaves out the unexplained mystery of life, the majestic grace of the impossible that creeps into our everyday, that ignores things that are beyond the rational and explicable laws of the commonly perceived reality and fiction, (but we all know what he was really saying, anyway)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "--- On Fri, 4/29/11, James Wynn wrote:\nFrom: James Wynn \nSubject: (urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe\nTo: \"The Urth Mailing List\" \nDate: Friday, April 29, 2011, 12:24 PM\nI just read this quote by Wolfe.\n\nIrony? Pot-Meet-Kettle?\n\nJ\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Daniel Petersen", "address": "danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com" }, "date": "2011-04-29T21:50:48+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<794632.94323.qm@web161803.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "'I do think he is saying realistic fiction leaves out the unexplained\nmystery of life, the majestic grace of the impossible that creeps into our\neveryday, that ignores things that are beyond the rational and explicable\nlaws of the commonly perceived reality and fiction'\n\nYes. So, no. I don't think it's the pot/kettle scenario.\n\nDOJP" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 9:43 PM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nSome of Wolfe's interviews are priceless for that quality. \"Looking for\nthe thumb print under the lily\"? Oh, it was a lily, huh?\n\nAnybody read his contribution to Last Drink Bird Head? I feel like that\nlittle exercise is SO classic Wolfe. Sets up a scenario, throws in a random\nplastic toy, and then leaves us to figure out how the concluding event went\ndown. I think it is not necessarily an impossible task, but it sure is a\nbit inscrutable to fully \"get\" that conclusion. (Did Damon Knight get really\nmad? What happened to the toy? why is the unconscious guy back there at the\nend of the bar? Is that his toy bird?)\n\nI do think he is saying realistic fiction leaves out the unexplained\nmystery of life, the majestic grace of the impossible that creeps into our\neveryday, that ignores things that are beyond the rational and explicable\nlaws of the commonly perceived reality and fiction, (but we all know what he\nwas really saying, anyway).\n\n--- On Fri, 4/29/11, James Wynn wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "From: James Wynn \nSubject: (urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4DBB3F16.4000500@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2011-04-29T22:43:34+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, I understand that Wolfe is saying, among other things, that \nNaturalism and Realism address solely what *is* as opposed to What Might \nHave Been and therefore cannot state authoritatively \"Why What Is Is\". \nYou can't address the nature of Identity in Realistic fiction. You can't \ntake seriously mythology, miracles, magic or ghosts (even though people \nREALLY act as though such things are true, and some claim experiences \nthat confirm it).\n\nStill, it's quite a thing to say for an author who typically stops the \nnarrative just when a big (apparently important) action scene is about \nto occur-- a writer who creates vast worlds and has the reader look at \nit through a paper towel tube.\n\nJ." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 4/29/2011 4:50 PM, Daniel Petersen wrote:\n'I do think he is saying realistic fiction leaves out the unexplained \nmystery of life, the majestic grace of the impossible that creeps into \nour everyday, that ignores things that are beyond the rational and \nexplicable laws of the commonly perceived reality and fiction'\n\nYes. So, no. I don't think it's the pot/kettle scenario.\n\nDOJP\n\nOn Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 9:43 PM, Marc Aramini > wrote:\n\n Some of Wolfe's interviews are priceless for that quality.\n \"Looking for the thumb print under the lily\"? Oh, it was a lily,\n huh?\n\n Anybody read his contribution to Last Drink Bird Head? I feel\n like that little exercise is SO classic Wolfe. Sets up a\n scenario, throws in a random plastic toy, and then leaves us to\n figure out how the concluding event went down. I think it is not\n necessarily an impossible task, but it sure is a bit inscrutable\n to fully \"get\" that conclusion. (Did Damon Knight get really mad?\n What happened to the toy? why is the unconscious guy back there\n at the end of the bar? Is that his toy bird?)\n\n I do think he is saying realistic fiction leaves out the\n unexplained mystery of life, the majestic grace of the impossible\n that creeps into our everyday, that ignores things that are beyond\n the rational and explicable laws of the commonly perceived reality\n and fiction, (but we all know what he was really saying, anyway).\n\n --- On Fri, 4/29/11, James Wynn > wrote:\n\n > From: James Wynn >\n > Subject: (urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene\n Wolfe" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Bruce Hayles", "address": "brucehayles at gmail.com" }, "date": "2011-04-30T02:15:48+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<4DBB3F16.4000500@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "*See http://mysite.verizon.net/~vze2tmhh/wolfeint.html*\n\n*Q:* *What's available to an adult, adventurous reader in science fiction?\nWhy should they read that genre? Why should they move past realism?*\n\n*GW:* The adventurous reader has probably already moved past realism. I\nrealize that sounds like a smart remark, but I mean past the kind of fiction\nthat is called \"realism\" as a literary genre, and that's what it is: a\nliterary genre. It is archtypically the story about the college professor\nwho is married to the other college professor.\n\nDid you read Ursula K. LeGuin's \n novel, *The Dispossessed\n*? It was about the college professor who's married to a college professor,\nonly science fiction, and this planet is Russia and this planet is the\nUnited States. When I read it I was so disappointed. I'd had a dozen people\ntell me how wonderful it was.\n\n*Q:* *Yeah, I heard that too. Then I read it.*\n\n*GW:* I've read that book before; I've read it as realism many a time. It's\na John Updike kind of book. I've read that story so many times ... now I\nread a book until I can recognize the story, and say, \"This is what it is,\"\nand that's as far as it goes, since I have no urge to finish it. I'm long\npast feeling so guilty that I have to finish everything I start. I don't\nfinish ninety percent of what I start.\n\nLook, the reason someone should go past that sort of realism is that it is\nnarrow, stultifying and ultimately false.\n\n*Q:* *And the fantastic genres aren't?*\n\n*GW:* No, not the better stuff. We're dealing with the truth of the human\nexperience, as opposed to what we are willing to accept from other people.\n\n*Q:* *Wait, I don't see that distinction. The truth of experiences versus\nother people's experiences?*" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 6:43 PM, James Wynn wrote:\n Well, I understand that Wolfe is saying, among other things, that\nNaturalism and Realism address solely what *is* as opposed to What Might\nHave Been and therefore cannot state authoritatively \"Why What Is Is\". You\ncan't address the nature of Identity in Realistic fiction. You can't take\nseriously mythology, miracles, magic or ghosts (even though people REALLY\nact as though such things are true, and some claim experiences that confirm\nit).\n\nStill, it's quite a thing to say for an author who typically stops the\nnarrative just when a big (apparently important) action scene is about to\noccur-- a writer who creates vast worlds and has the reader look at it\nthrough a paper towel tube.\n\nJ.\n\nOn 4/29/2011 4:50 PM, Daniel Petersen wrote:\n\n'I do think he is saying realistic fiction leaves out the unexplained\nmystery of life, the majestic grace of the impossible that creeps into our\neveryday, that ignores things that are beyond the rational and explicable\nlaws of the commonly perceived reality and fiction'\n\n Yes. So, no. I don't think it's the pot/kettle scenario.\n\n DOJP\n\nOn Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 9:43 PM, Marc Aramini wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Some of Wolfe's interviews are priceless for that quality. \"Looking for\nthe thumb print under the lily\"? Oh, it was a lily, huh?\n\nAnybody read his contribution to Last Drink Bird Head? I feel like that\nlittle exercise is SO classic Wolfe. Sets up a scenario, throws in a random\nplastic toy, and then leaves us to figure out how the concluding event went\ndown. I think it is not necessarily an impossible task, but it sure is a\nbit inscrutable to fully \"get\" that conclusion. (Did Damon Knight get really\nmad? What happened to the toy? why is the unconscious guy back there at the\nend of the bar? Is that his toy bird?)\n\nI do think he is saying realistic fiction leaves out the unexplained\nmystery of life, the majestic grace of the impossible that creeps into our\neveryday, that ignores things that are beyond the rational and explicable\nlaws of the commonly perceived reality and fiction, (but we all know what he\nwas really saying, anyway).\n\n--- On Fri, 4/29/11, James Wynn wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "From: James Wynn \nSubject: (urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerryq at indigo.ie" }, "date": "2011-04-30T11:17:07+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " From: Bruce Hayles \n GW: I've read that book before; I've read it as realism many a time. It's a John Updike kind of book. I've read that story so many times ... now I read a book until I can recognize the story, and say, \"This is what it is,\" and that's as far as it goes, since I have no urge to finish it. I'm long past feeling so guilty that I have to finish everything I start. I don't finish ninety percent of what I start.\n\nI have to wonder whether it can be problematic for a writer to feel like that - does it lead to an obsessive concern with *concealing* the story, lest any reader recognise it before the last page?\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "<120729.69008.qm@web161802.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2011-04-30T14:32:36+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "--- On Sat, 4/30/11, Gerry Quinn wrote:\n\n\n\n\nI have to wonder whether it can be problematic for a writer to feel like that - does it lead to an obsessive concern with *concealing* the story, lest any reader recognise it before the last page?\n\n- Gerry Quinn\n\n?Don't worry, Wolfe is so good at concealing it even the last page won't help.\n\nHowever, except for maybe some inscrutable nonsensical word plays by Joyce, I've never had so much fun re-reading with notes as I have with Wolfe, so I like it.\n\n\n-----Inline Attachment Follows-----" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jack Smith", "address": "jack.smith.1946 at gmail.com" }, "date": "2011-04-30T14:48:49+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<120729.69008.qm@web161802.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\" Don't worry, Wolfe is so good at concealing it even the last page won't\nhelp.\"\n\nLOL" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 10:32 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:\n\n\n--- On *Sat, 4/30/11, Gerry Quinn * wrote:\n\n\n I have to wonder whether it can be problematic for a writer to feel like\nthat - does it lead to an obsessive concern with *concealing* the story,\nlest any reader recognise it before the last page?\n\n- Gerry Quinn\n\n\n Don't worry, Wolfe is so good at concealing it even the last page won't\nhelp.\n\nHowever, except for maybe some inscrutable nonsensical word plays by Joyce,\nI've never had so much fun re-reading with notes as I have with Wolfe, so I\nlike it.\n\n\n\n-----Inline Attachment Follows-----\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4DBC3F51.6070703@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2011-04-30T16:56:49+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 4/29/2011 9:15 PM, Bruce Hayles wrote:\nDid you read Ursula K. LeGuin's\n novel, /The Dispossessed\n/? It\nwas about the college professor who's married to a college professor,\nonly science fiction, and this planet is Russia and this planet is the\nUnited States. When I read it I was so disappointed. I'd had a dozen\npeople tell me how wonderful it was." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I've seen this part of the interview before, somehow..." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Gwern Branwen", "address": "gwern0 at gmail.com" }, "date": "2011-04-30T19:30:44+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<4DBC3F51.6070703@io.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 12:56 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:\nI've seen this part of the interview before, somehow..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It's been quoted at least once before:\nhttp://www.urth.net/whorl/archives/v0012/0558.shtml\n\nIt's a great quip and sums up a lot of people's impression of _The\nDispossessed_ (at least, it did mine), so I suspect it's been alluded\nto or quoted before in other places." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "gwern\nhttp://www.gwern.net" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4DBC7A40.4090306@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2011-04-30T21:08:16+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 4/30/2011 2:30 PM, Gwern Branwen wrote:\nOn Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 12:56 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I've seen this part of the interview before, somehow..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It's been quoted at least once before:\nhttp://www.urth.net/whorl/archives/v0012/0558.shtml\n\nIt's a great quip and sums up a lot of people's impression of _The\nDispossessed_ (at least, it did mine), so I suspect it's been alluded\nto or quoted before in other places." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yeah, I know that feeling. I read, \"Those Walk Away From Omelas,\" and \nthought, \"This is supposed to be some kind of utopian/dystopian comment? \nThhese people have this tremendously prosperous, liberal, industrialized \nsociety with the only externality being train smoke and the lower \nclasses shrunk to a single person! Boy, are those people walking away in \nfor a surprise.\"" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >" } ] }, { "message_id": "<700326.68394.qm@web114703.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Jerry Friedman", "address": "jerry_friedman at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2011-04-30T21:33:03+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<4DBC7A40.4090306@io.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: Jeff Wilson " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 4/30/2011 2:30 PM, Gwern Branwen wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 12:56 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": " I've seen this part of the interview before, somehow..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "It's been quoted at least once before:\n http://www.urth.net/whorl/archives/v0012/0558.shtml\n\nIt's a great quip and sums up a lot of people's impression of _The\n Dispossessed_ (at least, it did mine), so I suspect it's been alluded\nto or quoted before in other places." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Very different from my impression, though I don't think it's a flawless book by \nany means. What book was a previous version of it? And which planet did Wolfe \nthink was Russia? " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Yeah, I know that feeling. I read, \"Those Walk Away From Omelas,\" and thought, \n\"This is supposed to be some kind of utopian/dystopian comment? Thhese people \nhave this tremendously prosperous, liberal, industrialized society with the \nonly externality being train smoke and the lower classes shrunk to a single \nperson! Boy, are those people walking away in for a surprise.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Unlike /The Dispossessed/, \"The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas\" isn't about \npracticalities. I'd say it's a dramatization of the William James quotation \nabout morality and moral feelings.\n\nSince I assume Catholicism is on topic here, I hope I can compare it to another \nquotation:\n\n\"The Catholic Church holds it better for the sun and moon to drop from heaven, \nfor the earth to fail, and for all the many millions on it to die of starvation \nin extremest agony, as far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I \nwill not say should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, should \ntell one wilful untruth, or should steal one poor farthing without excuse.\"\n\n--Cardinal Newman, /Apologia Pro Vita Sua/\n\nJerry Friedman" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Gwern Branwen", "address": "gwern0 at gmail.com" }, "date": "2011-04-30T21:35:01+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<4DBC7A40.4090306@io.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 5:08 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:\nYeah, I know that feeling. I read, \"Those Walk Away From Omelas,\" and\nthought, \"This is supposed to be some kind of utopian/dystopian comment?\nThhese people have this tremendously prosperous, liberal, industrialized\nsociety with the only externality being train smoke and the lower classes\nshrunk to a single person! Boy, are those people walking away in for a\nsurprise.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It's funny you bring up that particular LeGuin story - I once wrote a\nsort of reply to it:\nhttp://www.gwern.net/fiction/The%20Ones%20Who%20Walk%20Towards%20Acre\n\n(Well, it's funny to me because it so rarely comes up, but with this,\ntoday I have twice had occasion to link someone to the story; the\nother link was in the context of a Bitcoin and assassination markets\n(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_market) discussion.)" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "gwern\nhttp://www.gwern.net" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4DBC9266.4030005@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2011-04-30T22:51:18+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It's disappointing to many readers of science fiction. I wonder if it's \ndisappointing to fans of college professor fiction?\n\nI always thought of it as a response to Heinlein's lunar/stellar \nimperium stories, which certainly needed one." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 4/30/2011 3:30 PM, Gwern Branwen wrote:\nOn Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 12:56 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I've seen this part of the interview before, somehow..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It's been quoted at least once before:\nhttp://www.urth.net/whorl/archives/v0012/0558.shtml\n\nIt's a great quip and sums up a lot of people's impression of _The\nDispossessed_ (at least, it did mine), so I suspect it's been alluded\nto or quoted before in other places." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4DBCA633.5040904@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2011-05-01T00:15:47+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<4DBC9266.4030005@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think Wolfe's problem with it was that there was no reason not to have \nwritten the story in the Realistic genre. It was a Naturalism story with \nSF scenery. Pointless. It didn't deal at all with all the \"other stuff\" \nthat Wolfe thinks Realistic fiction cannot address.\n\nOf course the same could be said of Heinlein's \"Starship Troopers\" -- \njust War fiction with lasers.\nJ." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 4/30/2011 5:51 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:\nIt's disappointing to many readers of science fiction. I wonder if \nit's disappointing to fans of college professor fiction?\n\nI always thought of it as a response to Heinlein's lunar/stellar \nimperium stories, which certainly needed one." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4DBCB71A.9060805@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2011-05-01T01:27:54+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<4DBCA633.5040904@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Precisely!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 4/30/2011 8:15 PM, James Wynn wrote:\nI think Wolfe's problem with it was that there was no reason not to \nhave written the story in the Realistic genre. It was a Naturalism \nstory with SF scenery. Pointless. It didn't deal at all with all the \n\"other stuff\" that Wolfe thinks Realistic fiction cannot address.\n\nOf course the same could be said of Heinlein's \"Starship Troopers\" -- \njust War fiction with lasers.\nJ.\n\nOn 4/30/2011 5:51 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "It's disappointing to many readers of science fiction. I wonder if \nit's disappointing to fans of college professor fiction?\n\nI always thought of it as a response to Heinlein's lunar/stellar \nimperium stories, which certainly needed one." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Matthew Knapton", "address": "eruantien at gmail.com" }, "date": "2011-05-01T02:29:07+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<4DBC7A40.4090306@io.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, it's a comment that even when the 'gain' is as huge as it is in\nOmelas, there's something wrong about the purposeful mistreatment and\ndeprivation of an innocent. Whether you like the story or not, that's\nundeniably a moral statement, yes." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 10:08 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:\nOn 4/30/2011 2:30 PM, Gwern Branwen wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 12:56 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "I've seen this part of the interview before, somehow..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "It's been quoted at least once before:\nhttp://www.urth.net/whorl/archives/v0012/0558.shtml\n\nIt's a great quip and sums up a lot of people's impression of _The\nDispossessed_ (at least, it did mine), so I suspect it's been alluded\nto or quoted before in other places." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Yeah, I know that feeling. I read, \"Those Walk Away From Omelas,\" and\nthought, \"This is supposed to be some kind of utopian/dystopian comment?\nThhese people have this tremendously prosperous, liberal, industrialized\nsociety with the only externality being train smoke and the lower classes\nshrunk to a single person! Boy, are those people walking away in for a\nsurprise.\"\n\n--\nJeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4DBCCACC.6050401@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2011-05-01T02:51:56+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 4/30/2011 9:29 PM, Matthew Knapton wrote:\nWell, it's a comment that even when the 'gain' is as huge as it is in\nOmelas, there's something wrong about the purposeful mistreatment and\ndeprivation of an innocent. Whether you like the story or not, that's\nundeniably a moral statement, yes." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "But is \"there's something wrong about the purposeful mistreatment and\ndeprivation of an innocent\" a useful or meaningful moral statement? Is \nthe wrongness greater or lesser if the mistreatment is without purpose, \nor if the purpose is unknown? Compare Jackson's \"The Lottery,\" and the \nnews items about the third-world villages poisoned by 1st world computer \nwaste." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4DBCCB09.80406@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2011-05-01T02:52:57+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<4DBCA633.5040904@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 4/30/2011 7:15 PM, James Wynn wrote:\nI think Wolfe's problem with it was that there was no reason not to have\nwritten the story in the Realistic genre. It was a Naturalism story with\nSF scenery. Pointless. It didn't deal at all with all the \"other stuff\"\nthat Wolfe thinks Realistic fiction cannot address.\n\nOf course the same could be said of Heinlein's \"Starship Troopers\" --\njust War fiction with lasers." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Can you tell me what page the lasers appear on?" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Matthew Knapton", "address": "eruantien at gmail.com" }, "date": "2011-05-01T03:23:07+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<4DBCCACC.6050401@io.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well you're asking a mouthful there. It's certainly meaningful, at least -\nwhat constitutes a morally wrong thing, whether such a thing can be\njustified (and how, if so), etc, are all real issues in the field of ethics.\nMore particularly, Omelas seems like a utilitarian society; a criticism of\nit is a criticism of its principles, and there has been plenty of criticism\nand discussion of utilitarian ideas over the years.\n\nWhether the story is useful is less easy to say, though even if it is you\ncan't really move from dismissing it to dismissing the large swathes of\nethics it happens to touch upon :)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Sun, May 1, 2011 at 3:51 AM, Jeff Wilson wrote:\nOn 4/30/2011 9:29 PM, Matthew Knapton wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Well, it's a comment that even when the 'gain' is as huge as it is in\nOmelas, there's something wrong about the purposeful mistreatment and\ndeprivation of an innocent. Whether you like the story or not, that's\nundeniably a moral statement, yes." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "But is \"there's something wrong about the purposeful mistreatment and\ndeprivation of an innocent\" a useful or meaningful moral statement? Is the\nwrongness greater or lesser if the mistreatment is without purpose, or if\nthe purpose is unknown? Compare Jackson's \"The Lottery,\" and the news items\nabout the third-world villages poisoned by 1st world computer waste.\n\n\n--\nJeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4DBCD692.1070506@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2011-05-01T03:42:10+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 4/30/2011 10:23 PM, Matthew Knapton wrote:\nWell you're asking a mouthful there. It's certainly meaningful, at least\n- what constitutes a morally wrong thing, whether such a thing can be\njustified (and how, if so), etc, are all real issues in the field of\nethics. More particularly, Omelas seems like a utilitarian society; a\ncriticism of it is a criticism of its principles, and there has been\nplenty of criticism and discussion of utilitarian ideas over the years.\n\nWhether the story is useful is less easy to say, though even if it is\nyou can't really move from dismissing it to dismissing the large swathes\nof ethics it happens to touch upon :)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "But there aren't any societies that are able to avoid harm to innocents \nfor the benefit of others. How can it be morally wrong when it's \nimpossible to do otherwise?" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >" } ] }, { "message_id": "<252716.98931.qm@web114702.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Jerry Friedman", "address": "jerry_friedman at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2011-05-01T03:53:17+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<4DBCB71A.9060805@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Both /The Dispossessed/ and /Starship Troopers/ had to be SF because they're\nabout societies that have never existed. Otherwise, it's true they don't \nprovide\nmuch in the way of stfnal thrills beyond the suits in ST and the description of\nShevek making his discovery in TD. There's nothing in either that you could\ncall religious or spiritual (I think), either. As some of the Kesh say in \n/Always\nComing Home/, the problem with novels is they never go beyond the Five\nHouses (the material world, sort of).\n\nIs Heinlein's \"lunar imperium\" story /The Moon is a Harsh Mistress/? I can \ncertainly\nsee thinking of /The Dispossessed/ as a response to that--a different kind of\nanarchy. (I don't know about \"imperium\", though.) And what's his \"stellar\nimperium\", /Starship Troopers/?\n\nJerry Friedman\n\n\n\n----- Original Message ----" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: David Stockhoff \n\nPrecisely!\n\nOn 4/30/2011 8:15 PM, James Wynn wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I think Wolfe's problem with it was that there was no reason not to have \nwritten the story in the Realistic genre. It was a Naturalism story with SF \nscenery. Pointless. It didn't deal at all with all the \"other stuff\" that Wolfe \nthinks Realistic fiction cannot address.\n\nOf course the same could be said of Heinlein's \"Starship Troopers\" -- just \nWar fiction with lasers.\n J.\n\nOn 4/30/2011 5:51 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": " It's disappointing to many readers of science fiction. I wonder if it's \ndisappointing to fans of college professor fiction?\n\nI always thought of it as a response to Heinlein's lunar/stellar imperium \nstories, which certainly needed one." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4DBCDD6F.2030506@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2011-05-01T04:11:27+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<4DBCCB09.80406@io.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "James Wynn:\nI think Wolfe's problem with it was that there was no reason not to have\nwritten the story in the Realistic genre. It was a Naturalism story with\nSF scenery. Pointless. It didn't deal at all with all the \"other stuff\"\nthat Wolfe thinks Realistic fiction cannot address.\n\nOf course the same could be said of Heinlein's \"Starship Troopers\" --\njust War fiction with lasers." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Jeff Wilson:\nCan you tell me what page the lasers appear on?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\"Lasars\" was only intended as a cipher for a SF. \"ST\" is at its core a \nfictionalized military service memoir.\nHonestly, I was only attempting to consider SF literature from the POV \nof what I think were Wolfe's problems with 'The Dispossessed'. The \ncounter-argument could be \"Oh, then Wes Craven's 'Halloween' is just a \nCrime Thriller with a supernatural killer\", or \"Star Wars is just King \nArthur with extra shiny swords\".\nBut if one see SF (as Wolfe here is arguing it should be IMO) as an \nopportunity to put Reality on trial to better understand its limits, \nthen \"ST\" falls short." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Jerry Friedman:\nBoth/The Dispossessed/ and/Starship Troopers/ had to be SF because they're\nabout societies that have never existed." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Wolfe's comment was:\n\n\"It was about the college professor who's married to a college \nprofessor, only science fiction, and this planet is Russia and this \nplanet is the United States.\"\n\nWolfe is saying that *really* the societies are *not* intended to be \nones that have never existed. We're supposed to see that they are \nactually quite close.\n\nJ" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4DBCE135.5030201@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2011-05-01T04:27:33+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<252716.98931.qm@web114702.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 4/30/2011 10:53 PM, Jerry Friedman wrote:\nBoth /The Dispossessed/ and /Starship Troopers/ had to be SF because they're\nabout societies that have never existed." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Only if the S is for speculative. Plenty of other never-existed \nsocieties are written about without the benefit of an appeal to the \nauthority of science for suspending disbelief in counterfactual elements \n(A HANDMAID'S TALE) or even existence of scientifiction (a trunkload of \nutopian novels and essays from the 16th-19th centuries)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " Otherwise, it's true they don't\nprovide\nmuch in the way of stfnal thrills beyond the suits in ST and the description of\nShevek making his discovery in TD. There's nothing in either that you could\ncall religious or spiritual (I think), either. As some of the Kesh say in\n/Always\nComing Home/, the problem with novels is they never go beyond the Five\nHouses (the material world, sort of).\n\nIs Heinlein's \"lunar imperium\" story /The Moon is a Harsh Mistress/? I can\ncertainly\nsee thinking of /The Dispossessed/ as a response to that--a different kind of\nanarchy. (I don't know about \"imperium\", though.) And what's his \"stellar\nimperium\", /Starship Troopers/?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "BETWEEN PLANETS for stellar, CITIZEN OF THE GALAXY for interstellar, \npossibly others, esp if you count the settings where earth is largely \nleft to itself through lack of importance to the alien galactics.\n\nThis is not to say that the humans in ST don't wage a conquering war \nagainst the bugs, but they apparently ally with the skinnies rather than \nsubjugate or exterminate them." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4DBCE3B3.2000004@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2011-05-01T04:38:11+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<4DBCDD6F.2030506@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 4/30/2011 11:11 PM, James Wynn wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "James Wynn:\nI think Wolfe's problem with it was that there was no reason not to have\nwritten the story in the Realistic genre. It was a Naturalism story with\nSF scenery. Pointless. It didn't deal at all with all the \"other stuff\"\nthat Wolfe thinks Realistic fiction cannot address.\n\nOf course the same could be said of Heinlein's \"Starship Troopers\" --\njust War fiction with lasers." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Jeff Wilson:\nCan you tell me what page the lasers appear on?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"Lasars\" was only intended as a cipher for a SF. \"ST\" is at its core a\nfictionalized military service memoir." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That's awfully kind of you; I would say it's a persuasive essay on the \nsupremacy of patriotic duty dramatized as a war memoir." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Honestly, I was only attempting to consider SF literature from the POV\nof what I think were Wolfe's problems with 'The Dispossessed'. The\ncounter-argument could be \"Oh, then Wes Craven's 'Halloween' is just a\nCrime Thriller with a supernatural killer\", or \"Star Wars is just King\nArthur with extra shiny swords\"." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "You're doing the bogus details as part of the dismissive character, right?" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4DBCEB65.9050707@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2011-05-01T05:11:01+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<4DBCE3B3.2000004@io.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "\"Lasars\" was only intended as a cipher for a SF. \"ST\" is at its core a\nfictionalized military service memoir." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "That's awfully kind of you; I would say it's a persuasive essay on the \nsupremacy of patriotic duty dramatized as a war memoir." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Okay. But starting from Wolfe's view of Realism vs SF, was there actual \nvalue in telling it as a SF story?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Honestly, I was only attempting to consider SF literature from the POV\nof what I think were Wolfe's problems with 'The Dispossessed'. The\ncounter-argument could be \"Oh, then Wes Craven's 'Halloween' is just a\nCrime Thriller with a supernatural killer\", or \"Star Wars is just King\nArthur with extra shiny swords\"." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "You're doing the bogus details as part of the dismissive character, \nright?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'm not planting a flag. I'm just exploring Wolfe's argument. \nPersonally, I've never read anything on Oprah's list, so if a publisher \nwanted to get me to read that sort of story, he'd package it as a \ndifferent genre.\n\nJ" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4DBD4D36.7030609@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2011-05-01T12:08:22+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<4DBCD692.1070506@io.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Is it impossible? I had no idea. ;)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 4/30/2011 11:42 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:\nOn 4/30/2011 10:23 PM, Matthew Knapton wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Well you're asking a mouthful there. It's certainly meaningful, at least\n- what constitutes a morally wrong thing, whether such a thing can be\njustified (and how, if so), etc, are all real issues in the field of\nethics. More particularly, Omelas seems like a utilitarian society; a\ncriticism of it is a criticism of its principles, and there has been\nplenty of criticism and discussion of utilitarian ideas over the years.\n\nWhether the story is useful is less easy to say, though even if it is\nyou can't really move from dismissing it to dismissing the large swathes\nof ethics it happens to touch upon :)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "But there aren't any societies that are able to avoid harm to \ninnocents for the benefit of others. How can it be morally wrong when \nit's impossible to do otherwise?" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4DBD520A.8020403@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2011-05-01T12:28:58+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<252716.98931.qm@web114702.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes, those two especially, I think. (It's been a long, long time!) There \nwere also some novels about star colonization....\n\nIt's funny to see what the genre has grown into outside SF fiction \nproper. There are dozens of star conquest games worshiping \nenergy-wasting military technology and exterminatory policies of human \nexpansion. Not Heinlein's fault, but the seeds are there somewhere \nnevertheless. Le Guin dislikes and opposes all such ideas, real or \nfictional." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 4/30/2011 11:53 PM, Jerry Friedman wrote:\nBoth /The Dispossessed/ and /Starship Troopers/ had to be SF because they're\nabout societies that have never existed. Otherwise, it's true they don't\nprovide\nmuch in the way of stfnal thrills beyond the suits in ST and the description of\nShevek making his discovery in TD. There's nothing in either that you could\ncall religious or spiritual (I think), either. As some of the Kesh say in\n/Always\nComing Home/, the problem with novels is they never go beyond the Five\nHouses (the material world, sort of).\n\nIs Heinlein's \"lunar imperium\" story /The Moon is a Harsh Mistress/? I can\ncertainly\nsee thinking of /The Dispossessed/ as a response to that--a different kind of\nanarchy. (I don't know about \"imperium\", though.) And what's his \"stellar\nimperium\", /Starship Troopers/?\n\nJerry Friedman\n\n\n\n----- Original Message ----\nFrom: David Stockhoff" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Precisely!\n\nOn 4/30/2011 8:15 PM, James Wynn wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "I think Wolfe's problem with it was that there was no reason not to have\nwritten the story in the Realistic genre. It was a Naturalism story with SF\nscenery. Pointless. It didn't deal at all with all the \"other stuff\" that Wolfe\nthinks Realistic fiction cannot address.\nOf course the same could be said of Heinlein's \"Starship Troopers\" -- just\nWar fiction with lasers.\n J.\n\nOn 4/30/2011 5:51 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 4, "text": " It's disappointing to many readers of science fiction. I wonder if it's\ndisappointing to fans of college professor fiction?\nI always thought of it as a response to Heinlein's lunar/stellar imperium\nstories, which certainly needed one." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerryq at indigo.ie" }, "date": "2011-05-01T14:03:24+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<4DBCCACC.6050401@io.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \"Jeff Wilson\" \nOn 4/30/2011 9:29 PM, Matthew Knapton wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Well, it's a comment that even when the 'gain' is as huge as it is in\nOmelas, there's something wrong about the purposeful mistreatment and\ndeprivation of an innocent. Whether you like the story or not, that's\nundeniably a moral statement, yes." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "But is \"there's something wrong about the purposeful mistreatment and\ndeprivation of an innocent\" a useful or meaningful moral statement? Is the \nwrongness greater or lesser if the mistreatment is without purpose, or if \nthe purpose is unknown? Compare Jackson's \"The Lottery,\" and the news \nitems about the third-world villages poisoned by 1st world computer waste." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think the story vividly and memorably points up a rather difficult ethical \nissue, which most makers and/or purveyors of moral/ethical systems would \nlike to be able to ignore, given that to some extent it is probably \ninsoluble in a practical sense.\n\nSo for me that makes it a story worth writing/reading, even if the author \nherself cops out at the end (they seem to know where they are going, those \nwho walk away from Omelas, but the reader is left pretty much in the dark).\n\nThose other questions you ask may be interesting too, though they are \ndifferent questions. [Indeed, you could have found questions that are \nnearer the point - the computer waste thing in particular does not really \nfit into easy categories of 'mistreatment by the First World', given that we \ndon't oblige anyone to import and process said waste; you would have to \nextend the argument to make it fit.]\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "<103203.85404.qm@web114717.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Jerry Friedman", "address": "jerry_friedman at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2011-05-01T14:27:43+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<4DBCDD6F.2030506@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: James Wynn " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Honestly, I was only attempting to consider SF literature from the POV of \nwhat I think were Wolfe's problems with 'The Dispossessed'. The \ncounter-argument could be \"Oh, then Wes Craven's 'Halloween' is just a Crime \nThriller with a supernatural killer\", or \"Star Wars is just King Arthur with \nextra shiny swords\". \n\nBut if one see SF (as Wolfe here is arguing it should be IMO) as an \nopportunity to put Reality on trial to better understand its limits, then \n\"ST\" falls short." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think you're right about what Wolfe is arguing, but it's interesting that he \ndivides things up the way he does. Lots of Americans take it as axiomatic that \nliberal one-adult-one-vote capitalism is the best possible organization of \nsociety--probably far more than the number who take it as axiomatic that \nsupernatural powers don't affect our lives. TD (and ST) try to put that \npolitical assumption on trial, convict it, send it to the oubliette, and hire an \n\naquastor to replace it. For Wolfe, though, TD is a realistic Updike novel about \n\na college professor, maybe because what it puts on trial isn't fundamental \nenough, in his view." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Jerry Friedman:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Both /The Dispossessed/ and /Starship Troopers/ had to be SF because they're\nabout societies that have never existed." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Wolfe's comment was:\n\n\"It was about the college professor who's married to a college professor, \nonly science fiction, and this planet is Russia and this planet is the \nUnited States.\"\n\nWolfe is saying that *really* the societies are *not* intended to be ones \nthat have never existed. We're supposed to see that they are actually quite \nclose." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Supposed by Le Guin? Hardly. The counterpart of the Soviet Union in TD is the \nnation of Thu, the America-like nation's rival on Urras. Anarres is obviously \ndifferent from the Soviet Union. If Wolfe thought the planet of Anarres was \nRussia, he totally misunderstood the book. The best way I can understand his \ncomment is an oblique criticism, something like \"Le Guin meant Anarres to be \ndifferent from the USSR, but actually it's the same in crucial ways.\" Or \"The \nsupposedly stable anarchy of Anarres would soon degenerate into a \ndictatorship that differs from the USSR only in the names of its supposed \nprinciples.\"\n\nJerry Friedman" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4DBD7185.8050102@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2011-05-01T14:43:17+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<103203.85404.qm@web114717.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well put.\n\nIt occurs to me, as an aside, that Arthur C Clarke also wrote quite a \nbit about mega-technology and human imperial expansion, but he was (as a \nBrit) plainly very critical of such empires, unlike Heinlein, who was \nmore libertarian than liberal, but whose work may have been \nmisinterpreted as being more straightforwardly supportive of empire (due \nto its strain of militarism) vs Clarke's, and certainly of capitalism.\n\nSomehow it doesn't surprise me to think that Wolfe may have \nmisinterpreted Anarres as a if-only-Stalin-was-a-nice-guy fantasy. \nObservation of Communism even before it collapsed led many people to be \nskeptical of socialism and anarchism, which are related but very \ndifferent systems, and which have long been confused by Americans. \nAnarres is bad enough, but it lacks the authoritarian element." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On 5/1/2011 10:27 AM, Jerry Friedman wrote:\nFrom: James Wynn\n..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Honestly, I was only attempting to consider SF literature from the POV of\nwhat I think were Wolfe's problems with 'The Dispossessed'. The\ncounter-argument could be \"Oh, then Wes Craven's 'Halloween' is just a Crime\nThriller with a supernatural killer\", or \"Star Wars is just King Arthur with\nextra shiny swords\".\n\nBut if one see SF (as Wolfe here is arguing it should be IMO) as an\nopportunity to put Reality on trial to better understand its limits, then\n\"ST\" falls short." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think you're right about what Wolfe is arguing, but it's interesting that he\ndivides things up the way he does. Lots of Americans take it as axiomatic that\nliberal one-adult-one-vote capitalism is the best possible organization of\nsociety--probably far more than the number who take it as axiomatic that\nsupernatural powers don't affect our lives. TD (and ST) try to put that\npolitical assumption on trial, convict it, send it to the oubliette, and hire an\n\naquastor to replace it. For Wolfe, though, TD is a realistic Updike novel about\n\na college professor, maybe because what it puts on trial isn't fundamental\nenough, in his view." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Jerry Friedman:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Both /The Dispossessed/ and /Starship Troopers/ had to be SF because they're\nabout societies that have never existed." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Wolfe's comment was:\n\n\"It was about the college professor who's married to a college professor,\nonly science fiction, and this planet is Russia and this planet is the\nUnited States.\"\n\nWolfe is saying that *really* the societies are *not* intended to be ones\nthat have never existed. We're supposed to see that they are actually quite\nclose." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Supposed by Le Guin? Hardly. The counterpart of the Soviet Union in TD is the\nnation of Thu, the America-like nation's rival on Urras. Anarres is obviously\ndifferent from the Soviet Union. If Wolfe thought the planet of Anarres was\nRussia, he totally misunderstood the book. The best way I can understand his\ncomment is an oblique criticism, something like \"Le Guin meant Anarres to be\ndifferent from the USSR, but actually it's the same in crucial ways.\" Or \"The\nsupposedly stable anarchy of Anarres would soon degenerate into a\ndictatorship that differs from the USSR only in the names of its supposed\nprinciples.\"\n\nJerry Friedman\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<572192.86044.qm@web114712.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Jerry Friedman", "address": "jerry_friedman at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2011-05-01T14:53:47+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: Gerry Quinn " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \"Jeff Wilson\" \nOn 4/30/2011 9:29 PM, Matthew Knapton wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Well, it's a comment that even when the 'gain' is as huge as it is in\nOmelas, there's something wrong about the purposeful mistreatment and\ndeprivation of an innocent. Whether you like the story or not, that's\nundeniably a moral statement, yes." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "But is \"there's something wrong about the purposeful mistreatment and\ndeprivation of an innocent\" a useful or meaningful moral statement? Is the \nwrongness greater or lesser if > > the mistreatment is without purpose, or if \nthe purpose is unknown? Compare Jackson's \"The Lottery,\" and > > the news items \nabout the third-world villages poisoned by 1st world computer waste." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think the story vividly and memorably points up a rather difficult ethical \nissue, which most makers and/or\npurveyors of moral/ethical systems would like to be able to ignore, given that \nto some extent it is probably\ninsoluble in a practical sense." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "And an emotional issue, an issue about our moral feelings. The James quotation \nis\n\n\"Or if the hypothesis were offered us of a world in which Messrs. Fourier's and \nBellamy's and Morris's utopias should all be outdone, and millions kept \npermanently happy on the one simple condition that a certain lost soul on the \nfar-off edge of things should lead a life of lonely torture, what except a \nspecifical and independent sort of emotion can it be which would make us \nimmediately feel, even though an impulse arose within us to clutch at the \nhappiness so offered, how hideous a thing would be its enjoyment when \ndeliberately accepted as the fruit of such a bargain?\"\n\nhttp://books.google.com/books?id=iSikDHxjIyEC&pg=PA68\n\nIn /The Wind's Twelve Quarters/, Le Guin points out James's \"naively \ngentlemanly\" assumption that all his readers are \"as decent as himself\"." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "So for me that makes it a story worth writing/reading, even if the author \nherself cops out at the end (they\nseem to know where they are going, those who walk away from Omelas, but the \nreader is left pretty much\nin the dark)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, the narrative voice clearly admits that she too is in the dark. But /The \nDispossessed/, /The Eye of the Heron/, and /Always Coming Home/ certainly look \nlike attempts to show how societies could exploit nobody, how reduction of the \nnumber of deliberately tortured lost souls could be reduced to zero. I don't \nknow what Le Guin would say about what she really believes.\n\nI haven't read /The Devil in a Forest/, but those who have might enjoy comparing \nit and contrasting it to \"The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas\".\n\nJerry Friedman" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4DBD8AE2.1020701@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2011-05-01T16:31:30+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<4DBD4D36.7030609@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 5/1/2011 7:08 AM, David Stockhoff wrote:\nIs it impossible? I had no idea. ;)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "If your freedom to swing your arm doesn't end where my nose begins, \nobviously my nose is harmed for the benefit of you getting to swing your \narm as you like.\n\nIf we agree to limit the freedom to swing our arms where the noses of \nothers begins, there's no check on the the proliferation of noses and \none day I am harmed by the atrophy of my arms because there's no room to \nswing them at all.\n\nWe could compromise on a minimum arm-swinging radius, but this harms \narmless people by reducing their nose-room while they obviously get no \nbenefit from more arm room.\n\nAnd so on." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4DBD8E80.6000501@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2011-05-01T16:46:56+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 5/1/2011 9:03 AM, Gerry Quinn wrote:\nThose other questions you ask may be interesting too, though they are\ndifferent questions. [Indeed, you could have found questions that are\nnearer the point - the computer waste thing in particular does not\nreally fit into easy categories of 'mistreatment by the First World',\ngiven that we don't oblige anyone to import and process said waste; you\nwould have to extend the argument to make it fit.]" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "We don't know that Omelas obliges people to put their kid in a hole, \neither. The hole has to be filled for Omelas to prosper more than it \nwould otherwise, so a family that would risk starvation would be \nmotivated to put their kid in the hole so the kid is better off alive \nthan dead, and the family is much better off.\n\nLikewise, the First World has to spend much less to deal with its \ngarbage than the profit of the garbage-making enterprises in order to \nprosper acceptably, so they find places in the second and third world \nwhere poverty is bad enough that people are willing (either directly, \ncollectively, or mostly by their representatives) to let their kids be \npoisoned by the garbage in return for enough salvage to feed them \ninstead of letting them starve." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4DBD8EAD.4030802@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2011-05-01T16:47:41+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<4DBCEB65.9050707@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 5/1/2011 12:11 AM, James Wynn wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "\"Lasars\" was only intended as a cipher for a SF. \"ST\" is at its core a\nfictionalized military service memoir." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "That's awfully kind of you; I would say it's a persuasive essay on the\nsupremacy of patriotic duty dramatized as a war memoir." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Okay. But starting from Wolfe's view of Realism vs SF, was there actual\nvalue in telling it as a SF story?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Sure, the war with aliens lets you isolate variables. Out actual wars \nhave concerns about divided loyalties, inhumane treatment, atrocities \nand war crimes, etc." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Honestly, I was only attempting to consider SF literature from the POV\nof what I think were Wolfe's problems with 'The Dispossessed'. The\ncounter-argument could be \"Oh, then Wes Craven's 'Halloween' is just a\nCrime Thriller with a supernatural killer\", or \"Star Wars is just King\nArthur with extra shiny swords\"." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "You're doing the bogus details as part of the dismissive character,\nright?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I'm not planting a flag. I'm just exploring Wolfe's argument.\nPersonally, I've never read anything on Oprah's list, so if a publisher\nwanted to get me to read that sort of story, he'd package it as a\ndifferent genre." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Oh, I got that you were doing a dismissive person rather than speaking \nfor yourself, but when you include bogus trivia it can seem like you \nactually didn't bother to read or see the original source; there are no \nlasers in ST because they weren't quite invented yet when RAH wrote it, \nand Wes Craven was not involved with that particular slasher movie \nfranchise." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >" } ] }, { "message_id": "<288922.36867.qm@web161803.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2011-05-01T17:02:47+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<4DBD8AE2.1020701@io.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The truly strong arm swings where it wills, and by the strength of that swing convinces other arms of its rightful rotational reign." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "--- On Sun, 5/1/11, Jeff Wilson wrote:\nFrom: Jeff Wilson \nSubject: Re: (urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe\nTo: \"The Urth Mailing List\" \nDate: Sunday, May 1, 2011, 9:31 AM\nOn 5/1/2011 7:08 AM, David Stockhoff\nwrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Is it impossible? I had no idea. ;)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "If your freedom to swing your arm doesn't end where my nose\nbegins, obviously my nose is harmed for the benefit of you\ngetting to swing your arm as you like.\n\nIf we agree to limit the freedom to swing our arms where\nthe noses of others begins, there's no check on the the\nproliferation of noses and one day I am harmed by the\natrophy of my arms because there's no room to swing them at\nall.\n\nWe could compromise on a minimum arm-swinging radius, but\nthis harms armless people by reducing their nose-room while\nthey obviously get no benefit from more arm room.\n\nAnd so on.\n\n-- Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M\nTexarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4DBD9392.8020809@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2011-05-01T17:08:34+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<4DBD8AE2.1020701@io.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "One could establish a democracy under the rule of law. But I see the \nbasic principle.\n\nI don't see how it extends to poor Chinese people whose water supplies \nare poisoned by melamine simply because Americans want plastic things \nand China is unable or unwilling to protect the Chinese from the effects \nof corruption and environmental pollution (can I call it \"environmental \ncorruption\"?).\n\nThere's a lot going on there between arm and nose in such a case.\n\nAt any rate, as far as that word \"impossible\"---I doubt anyone has \nreally tried doing avoiding injustice on a large scale without excluding \ncertain classes of people as nonhumans. And those that have tried have \nbeen shot." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 5/1/2011 12:31 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:\nOn 5/1/2011 7:08 AM, David Stockhoff wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Is it impossible? I had no idea. ;)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "If your freedom to swing your arm doesn't end where my nose begins, \nobviously my nose is harmed for the benefit of you getting to swing \nyour arm as you like.\n\nIf we agree to limit the freedom to swing our arms where the noses of \nothers begins, there's no check on the the proliferation of noses and \none day I am harmed by the atrophy of my arms because there's no room \nto swing them at all.\n\nWe could compromise on a minimum arm-swinging radius, but this harms \narmless people by reducing their nose-room while they obviously get no \nbenefit from more arm room.\n\nAnd so on." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4DBD9605.5010106@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2011-05-01T17:19:01+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<4DBD9392.8020809@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 5/1/2011 12:08 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:\nOne could establish a democracy under the rule of law. But I see the\nbasic principle.\n\nI don't see how it extends to poor Chinese people whose water supplies\nare poisoned by melamine simply because Americans want plastic things\nand China is unable or unwilling to protect the Chinese from the effects\nof corruption and environmental pollution (can I call it \"environmental\ncorruption\"?).\n\nThere's a lot going on there between arm and nose in such a case.\n\nAt any rate, as far as that word \"impossible\"---I doubt anyone has\nreally tried doing avoiding injustice on a large scale without excluding\ncertain classes of people as nonhumans. And those that have tried have\nbeen shot." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Your suggested democracy under the rule of law does this: people outside \nthe democracy's rule are not given equal protections to those within. \nThis allows exploitation of those without by those within, which is \nwhere the principle extends to or at least abuts the poor people in China." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4DBDAE02.1070006@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2011-05-01T19:01:22+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<4DBD8EAD.4030802@io.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Oh, I got that you were doing a dismissive person rather than speaking \nfor yourself, but when you include bogus trivia it can seem like you \nactually didn't bother to read or see the original source; there are \nno lasers in ST because they weren't quite invented yet when RAH wrote \nit, and Wes Craven was not involved with that particular slasher movie \nfranchise." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Ah. Sorry Wes Craven. Brain-fart. As for the lasers...well, I just \nliked the way it sounded. (Incidentally, the ST movie didn't use lasers \neither as far as I remember).\n\nJ." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4DBDB9E0.6000703@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2011-05-01T19:52:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<288922.36867.qm@web161803.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "to say nothing of the noses ..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 5/1/2011 1:02 PM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nThe truly strong arm swings where it wills, and by the strength of that swing convinces other arms of its rightful rotational reign.\n\n--- On Sun, 5/1/11, Jeff Wilson wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "From: Jeff Wilson\nSubject: Re: (urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe\nTo: \"The Urth Mailing List\"\nDate: Sunday, May 1, 2011, 9:31 AM\nOn 5/1/2011 7:08 AM, David Stockhoff\nwrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Is it impossible? I had no idea. ;)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "If your freedom to swing your arm doesn't end where my nose\nbegins, obviously my nose is harmed for the benefit of you\ngetting to swing your arm as you like.\n\nIf we agree to limit the freedom to swing our arms where\nthe noses of others begins, there's no check on the the\nproliferation of noses and one day I am harmed by the\natrophy of my arms because there's no room to swing them at\nall.\n\nWe could compromise on a minimum arm-swinging radius, but\nthis harms armless people by reducing their nose-room while\nthey obviously get no benefit from more arm room.\n\nAnd so on.\n\n-- Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M\nTexarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL>\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4DBDBBFF.6090603@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2011-05-01T20:01:03+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<4DBD9605.5010106@io.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Exactly. But there's nothing inevitable about exclusion from \ndemocracy/humanity." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 5/1/2011 1:19 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:\nOn 5/1/2011 12:08 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "One could establish a democracy under the rule of law. But I see the\nbasic principle.\n\nI don't see how it extends to poor Chinese people whose water supplies\nare poisoned by melamine simply because Americans want plastic things\nand China is unable or unwilling to protect the Chinese from the effects\nof corruption and environmental pollution (can I call it \"environmental\ncorruption\"?).\n\nThere's a lot going on there between arm and nose in such a case.\n\nAt any rate, as far as that word \"impossible\"---I doubt anyone has\nreally tried doing avoiding injustice on a large scale without excluding\ncertain classes of people as nonhumans. And those that have tried have\nbeen shot." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Your suggested democracy under the rule of law does this: people \noutside the democracy's rule are not given equal protections to those \nwithin. This allows exploitation of those without by those within, \nwhich is where the principle extends to or at least abuts the poor \npeople in China." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4DBDBC50.4080609@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2011-05-01T20:02:24+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<4DBDAE02.1070006@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "You could have said death-ray guns. They were \"invented\" in the \ntwenties, I think." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 5/1/2011 3:01 PM, James Wynn wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Oh, I got that you were doing a dismissive person rather than \nspeaking for yourself, but when you include bogus trivia it can seem \nlike you actually didn't bother to read or see the original source; \nthere are no lasers in ST because they weren't quite invented yet \nwhen RAH wrote it, and Wes Craven was not involved with that \nparticular slasher movie franchise." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Ah. Sorry Wes Craven. Brain-fart. As for the lasers...well, I just \nliked the way it sounded. (Incidentally, the ST movie didn't use \nlasers either as far as I remember).\n\nJ.\n\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Gwern Branwen", "address": "gwern0 at gmail.com" }, "date": "2011-05-01T20:20:09+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<4DBDBC50.4080609@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Sun, May 1, 2011 at 4:02 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:\nYou could have said death-ray guns. They were \"invented\" in the twenties, I\nthink." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Actually, I've been reading the 1897 serialized novel, _Edison's\nConquest of Mars_\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edison%27s_Conquest_of_Mars on Project\nGutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=1515336&pageno=1\n\nBesides electrical spaceships, Thomas Edison also invents radiation\nguns that 'vibrate' at frequencies which dissociate atoms -\ndisintegrators. Seem like death-ray guns to me!" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "gwern\nhttp://www.gwern.net" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4DBDC1F1.6090704@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2011-05-01T20:26:25+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Why, that's almost steampunk!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 5/1/2011 4:20 PM, Gwern Branwen wrote:\nOn Sun, May 1, 2011 at 4:02 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "You could have said death-ray guns. They were \"invented\" in the twenties, I\nthink." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Actually, I've been reading the 1897 serialized novel, _Edison's\nConquest of Mars_\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edison%27s_Conquest_of_Mars on Project\nGutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=1515336&pageno=1\n\nBesides electrical spaceships, Thomas Edison also invents radiation\nguns that 'vibrate' at frequencies which dissociate atoms -\ndisintegrators. Seem like death-ray guns to me!" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4DBDD23B.1090200@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2011-05-01T21:35:55+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<4DBDBBFF.6090603@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 5/1/2011 3:01 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:\nExactly. But there's nothing inevitable about exclusion from\ndemocracy/humanity." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't see how a such a democracy can obtain the means to enforce these \nideals over all the world without corrupting them and rendering the \nenforcement moot." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nComputational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana\n< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4DBDE264.3020709@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2011-05-01T22:44:52+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<4DBDD23B.1090200@io.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I see. But that's a practical matter, not a theoretical one. Certainly \nit's a problem, but if the conditions of horizontal and vertical \nnonexclusive democracy are met, then theoretically, why should not the \nworst excesses of strong arms (excess mortality, morbidity, deformities, \npoverty) be avoided?\n\nA more serious concern, I would think, is whether wealth can be created \nor must be stolen, even if only in small increments. In other words, \nwhen we run out of slaves and foreigners to exploit (and bomb), will our \nabsolute standard of living rise or fall?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 5/1/2011 5:35 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:\nOn 5/1/2011 3:01 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Exactly. But there's nothing inevitable about exclusion from\ndemocracy/humanity." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I don't see how a such a democracy can obtain the means to enforce \nthese ideals over all the world without corrupting them and rendering \nthe enforcement moot." } ] }, { "message_id": "<1a6fe3b2bce96dd8b8e11ede44a8ba8b.squirrel@webmail.prismnet.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2011-05-01T23:13:01+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<4DBDE264.3020709@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I see. But that's a practical matter, not a theoretical one." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "If you agree that we as an actual society cannot practice abstention from\nexploitation, why are you maintaining that the irreducible minimum of\nexploitation can still be morally wrong in a relevant sense? Should we\ndissolve our societies?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "it's a problem, but if the conditions of horizontal and vertical\nnonexclusive democracy are met, then theoretically, why should not the\nworst excesses of strong arms (excess mortality, morbidity, deformities,\npoverty) be avoided?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Because you can't get the democracy to agree on a uniform ranking of which\nexcesses are worse than others. Not even murder is a universally agreed\nupon excess in democracies; as late as 1970, cuckoldry was allowed as a\ndefense in Texas." } ] }, { "message_id": "<4DBDED1D.2050809@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2011-05-01T23:30:37+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<1a6fe3b2bce96dd8b8e11ede44a8ba8b.squirrel@webmail.prismnet.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On 5/1/2011 7:13 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:\nI see. But that's a practical matter, not a theoretical one." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "If you agree that we as an actual society cannot practice abstention from\nexploitation, why are you maintaining that the irreducible minimum of\nexploitation can still be morally wrong in a relevant sense? Should we\ndissolve our societies?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Not at all. The minimum is quite acceptable, as long as all the players \nare roughly equal under the law. Eliminating things like slave labor at \ngunpoint in the extraction industries (say, diamonds, which have no \nintrinsic value anyway but never mind) hardly means eliminating the \nrelatively tiny advantages buyers and sellers may exercise over one \nanother in the short term. Investing in bombs and getting dividends in \noil, however, should be eliminated by the conditions below." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "it's a problem, but if the conditions of horizontal and vertical\nnonexclusive democracy are met, then theoretically, why should not the\nworst excesses of strong arms (excess mortality, morbidity, deformities,\npoverty) be avoided?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Because you can't get the democracy to agree on a uniform ranking of which\nexcesses are worse than others. Not even murder is a universally agreed\nupon excess in democracies; as late as 1970, cuckoldry was allowed as a\ndefense in Texas." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Nonsense. Your very example of Texas proves that democratic states can \nget along without worrying about such details. But mass murder, \npoisoning, and starvation, for examples, are clearly ruled out by all \ninternational norms, with zero disagreement. And any society that \nactually prefers genocide to cuckoldry will never survive to adopt a \nstable, nonexclusive democracy anyway (but even Pakistan will do so \neventually, because they do not prefer genocide)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<56023.141.115.78.21.1304616952.squirrel@websecu.irit.fr>", "from": { "name": "soloviev at irit.fr", "address": "soloviev at irit.fr" }, "date": "2011-05-05T17:35:52+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "G. H. Wells The War of the Worlds (1898) makes a full-scale use of\ndeath-ray guns -\n\nSergei Soloviev" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Sun, May 1, 2011 at 4:02 PM, David Stockhoff \nwrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "You could have said death-ray guns. They were \"invented\" in the\ntwenties, I\nthink." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Actually, I've been reading the 1897 serialized novel, _Edison's\nConquest of Mars_\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edison%27s_Conquest_of_Mars on Project\nGutenberg\nhttp://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=1515336&pageno=1\n\nBesides electrical spaceships, Thomas Edison also invents radiation\nguns that 'vibrate' at frequencies which dissociate atoms -\ndisintegrators. Seem like death-ray guns to me!\n\n--\ngwern\nhttp://www.gwern.net\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<55878.141.115.78.21.1304618488.squirrel@websecu.irit.fr>", "from": { "name": "soloviev at irit.fr", "address": "soloviev at irit.fr" }, "date": "2011-05-05T18:01:28+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<700326.68394.qm@web114703.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Dear Jerry,\n\nit is interesting to compare our impressions - I've read with\ngreat interest \"The Dispossessed\". I found the psychological\nportrait of an Anarchist society quite deep. For me, it was\na good example of literary experiment in the domain of politics,\nmy impression was that central theme is a sort of \"deconstruction\"\nof Anarchist ideal. I.e., whether a complete freedom (without\ndestroying the others, and keeping a form of a society is truly\npossible). Other societies in \"TD\" were for me less convincing,\nalmost caricatural.\n\nI would like to remark (to the list) that since I've grown up in\nthe USSR (and was living there continuously until my 34),\nI may have a particular interest in this sort of book as an observer.\nSo, to me in TD there is no convincing image of soviet-style\nsociety.\n\nBy the way, I didn't like much the Orvell's \"1984\" (I did like\nthe Animal Farm). The reason - \"Animal Farm\" is presented as abstract,\nsymbolic fiction, and it seems almost perfect symbol.\nThe \"1984\" contains many details that were not convincing,\neven as a possible development of the society in the USSR.\nIt was still very good\nas a scheme, on the level of abstract ideas (language in \"1984\",\ninner Party, etc), but not in realistic details.\n\nMy guess concerning the opinion of Gene Wolfe about \"TD\"\nis that a)he may not like these experiments with politics\nand b)as any good writer with his own agenda he needs sometimes\nto be harsh on fellow writers to define better his own \"method\"\n(define by opposition).\n\nAll the best\n\nSergei Soloviev" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "From: Jeff Wilson " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On 4/30/2011 2:30 PM, Gwern Branwen wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 12:56 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 4, "text": " I've seen this part of the interview before, somehow..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "It's been quoted at least once before:\n http://www.urth.net/whorl/archives/v0012/0558.shtml\n\nIt's a great quip and sums up a lot of people's impression of _The\n Dispossessed_ (at least, it did mine), so I suspect it's been alluded\nto or quoted before in other places." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Very different from my impression, though I don't think it's a flawless\nbook by\nany means. What book was a previous version of it? And which planet did\nWolfe\nthink was Russia?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Yeah, I know that feeling. I read, \"Those Walk Away From Omelas,\" and\nthought,\n\"This is supposed to be some kind of utopian/dystopian comment? Thhese\npeople\nhave this tremendously prosperous, liberal, industrialized society with\nthe\nonly externality being train smoke and the lower classes shrunk to a\nsingle\nperson! Boy, are those people walking away in for a surprise.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Unlike /The Dispossessed/, \"The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas\" isn't\nabout\npracticalities. I'd say it's a dramatization of the William James\nquotation\nabout morality and moral feelings.\n\nSince I assume Catholicism is on topic here, I hope I can compare it to\nanother\nquotation:\n\n\"The Catholic Church holds it better for the sun and moon to drop from\nheaven,\nfor the earth to fail, and for all the many millions on it to die of\nstarvation\nin extremest agony, as far as temporal affliction goes, than that one\nsoul, I\nwill not say should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin,\nshould\ntell one wilful untruth, or should steal one poor farthing without\nexcuse.\"\n\n--Cardinal Newman, /Apologia Pro Vita Sua/\n\nJerry Friedman\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<697013.77851.qm@smtp820.mail.ird.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Mo Holkar", "address": "lists at ukg.co.uk" }, "date": "2011-05-06T09:00:32+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<55878.141.115.78.21.1304618488.squirrel@websecu.irit.fr>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 19:01 05/05/2011, Sergei wrote:\nBy the way, I didn't like much the Orvell's \"1984\" (I did like\nthe Animal Farm). The reason - \"Animal Farm\" is presented as abstract,\nsymbolic fiction, and it seems almost perfect symbol.\nThe \"1984\" contains many details that were not convincing,\neven as a possible development of the society in the USSR.\nIt was still very good\nas a scheme, on the level of abstract ideas (language in \"1984\",\ninner Party, etc), but not in realistic details." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It's interesting that you had that reading of Nineteen Eighty-Four. I \nread it not as trying to depict a development of USSR society, but as \ntrying to depict what a collectivist society would be like \nspecifically as it could be in the UK. So I think there is no real \nattempt by the author to think about the Soviet actuality -- but \nmostly just a mission to critique tendencies in 1930s-40s UK politics \nand society.\n\nI guess I have this perspective because I live in the UK myself, but \nthen Orwell did too :-) and I think that in Nineteen Eighty-Four he \nwas trying to send a message to his own country, more than to the \nrest of the world. As you say, Animal Farm, because of its \nabstraction, is a more universal piece of work.\n\nbest wishes,\n\nMo\n\n\n# ~ # ~ #\n\nWolfeWiki -- a wiki about Gene Wolfe\nhttp://www.wolfewiki.com/pmwiki/ " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4DC40D5A.3050306@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2011-05-06T15:01:46+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<697013.77851.qm@smtp820.mail.ird.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Mo,\n\nThat's interesting observation. What specific ideas did you find \nunconvincing? Have you seen the movie \"The Lives of Others\"?\n\nThe only thing that *might* be unconvincing to me is that such a society \ncould be maintained _worldwide_ among three nations. But then, I only \nknow about the other two nations from what we are told. They might \nactually be free. On the other hand, the belief in the eventual \ninevitably universal spread of Soviet Socialism was not uncommon in the \nUK in 1947 (much as the current belief in Liberal Democracy). So, maybe \nOrwell was speculating \"What if it _did_ happen?\"\n\nJ." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 5/6/2011 4:00 AM, Mo Holkar wrote:\nAt 19:01 05/05/2011, Sergei wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "By the way, I didn't like much the Orvell's \"1984\" (I did like\nthe Animal Farm). The reason - \"Animal Farm\" is presented as abstract,\nsymbolic fiction, and it seems almost perfect symbol.\nThe \"1984\" contains many details that were not convincing,\neven as a possible development of the society in the USSR.\nIt was still very good\nas a scheme, on the level of abstract ideas (language in \"1984\",\ninner Party, etc), but not in realistic details." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It's interesting that you had that reading of Nineteen Eighty-Four. I \nread it not as trying to depict a development of USSR society, but as \ntrying to depict what a collectivist society would be like \nspecifically as it could be in the UK. So I think there is no real \nattempt by the author to think about the Soviet actuality -- but \nmostly just a mission to critique tendencies in 1930s-40s UK politics \nand society.\n\nI guess I have this perspective because I live in the UK myself, but \nthen Orwell did too :-) and I think that in Nineteen Eighty-Four he \nwas trying to send a message to his own country, more than to the rest \nof the world. As you say, Animal Farm, because of its abstraction, is \na more universal piece of work.\n\nbest wishes,\n\nMo\n\n\n# ~ # ~ #\n\nWolfeWiki -- a wiki about Gene Wolfe\nhttp://www.wolfewiki.com/pmwiki/\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4DC40DA8.4030800@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2011-05-06T15:03:04+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<4DC40D5A.3050306@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Actually, that was to Sergei." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 5/6/2011 10:01 AM, James Wynn wrote:\nMo,\n\nThat's interesting observation. What specific ideas did you find \nunconvincing? Have you seen the movie \"The Lives of Others\"?\n\nThe only thing that *might* be unconvincing to me is that such a \nsociety could be maintained _worldwide_ among three nations. But then, \nI only know about the other two nations from what we are told. They \nmight actually be free. On the other hand, the belief in the eventual \ninevitably universal spread of Soviet Socialism was not uncommon in \nthe UK in 1947 (much as the current belief in Liberal Democracy). So, \nmaybe Orwell was speculating \"What if it _did_ happen?\"\n\nJ." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "At 19:01 05/05/2011, Sergei wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "By the way, I didn't like much the Orvell's \"1984\" (I did like\nthe Animal Farm). The reason - \"Animal Farm\" is presented as abstract,\nsymbolic fiction, and it seems almost perfect symbol.\nThe \"1984\" contains many details that were not convincing,\neven as a possible development of the society in the USSR.\nIt was still very good\nas a scheme, on the level of abstract ideas (language in \"1984\",\ninner Party, etc), but not in realistic details." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I" } ] }, { "message_id": "<47269.141.115.78.21.1304698595.squirrel@websecu.irit.fr>", "from": { "name": "soloviev at irit.fr", "address": "soloviev at irit.fr" }, "date": "2011-05-06T16:16:35+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<4DC40DA8.4030800@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Dear Mo, dear James,\n\nin my posting I tried to\nexplain what was my impression when I first read \"1984\"\nin 80-es (I don't remember now, was it before or during\nGorbatchev's \"perestoika\" - could be before, I had enough\npossibilities to read it in \"samizdat\"). At this time\nin the USSR in \"intellectual\" circles it was naturally\nseen as a grotesque representation of Soviet society.\nIt is interesting to note that in Gorbatchev'e time\n(when Soviet propagandistic system still worked but\ntried to discuss critically \"anti-soviet\" books, instead\nof just rejecting them) it did say quite cleverly\nsomething in the sense of what Mo is saying: that\n\"1984\" is not the satire against Soviet society, but\nthat it depicts exactly Angsoc - English totalitarian\nsociety. What I did find unconvincing in \"1984\"? As far as I remember,\nnot the ideas, but rather the combination of \"romance\", the love story,\nas it is described in \"1984\" with the totalitarian\nsociety background. If you wish, the feeling that\nthis romantic line is borrowed from XIX century literature,\nand not really felt by Orwell. I could believe\nin the society he describes - it was not so much different\nfrom our stalinist period, as I could see. But accepting\nthis, I felt (and knew - the USSR after Stalin was not so\ntotalitarian, but there was certain continuity) - I felt that\nthe romantic line in such a society would be different,\nthat the \"psychology\" of heroes would be different.\n\nFor example,\nthe member of \"inner party\" would never pay so much attention\nto a destiny of an individual, playing as a cat with a mouse.\nThe owner of the bookstore who gave a room\nto the hero (to meet with his lover) and sold him later to the security,\nagain paid too much attention to an individual. The personage was taken\nright from Dickens. The idea that the torture will be most\nefficient using personal fears - again too much attention to\nthe individual. It was not convincing.\n\nThe feeling of the\ntotalitarian epoch for us could be better described by a\nline of the poet Mandelstam (by the way, Gene Wolfe uses\nhim once for an epigraph) - \"epoch of anonymous deaths\", and\nby recollections of prisoners of Stalin's time (one, as I remember,\ncounted the number of times the prison attendants checked\nwhether he is hiding something in his arse - it was precisely\ndescribed algorithm for such a check - it was 13 times one\nday, when he was moved from one prison to another).\n\nBy the way, I think Gene Wolfe understands very well the\nspirit of totalitarian times. I remember his \"Eyeflash\nMiracles\". I don't know whether our Russian nationalists\n(very anti-american) do read Gene Wolfe, but sometimes\nI've glanced their pamphlets and I had an impression\nthat they have read something like this and later presented\n(pretended) that American literature itself gives a proof\nthat American society is totalitarian. (Total identification\nby irises, killing of genetically modified children after\nan experiment, a boy who was blinded and who is the\nmiracle-worker and Christ-like figure, hunted by\nfederal agents, the computer possessed by devils...)\n\nAll the best\n\nSergei Soloviev" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Actually, that was to Sergei.\n\nOn 5/6/2011 10:01 AM, James Wynn wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Mo,\n\nThat's interesting observation. What specific ideas did you find\nunconvincing? Have you seen the movie \"The Lives of Others\"?\n\nThe only thing that *might* be unconvincing to me is that such a\nsociety could be maintained _worldwide_ among three nations. But then,\nI only know about the other two nations from what we are told. They\nmight actually be free. On the other hand, the belief in the eventual\ninevitably universal spread of Soviet Socialism was not uncommon in\nthe UK in 1947 (much as the current belief in Liberal Democracy). So,\nmaybe Orwell was speculating \"What if it _did_ happen?\"\n\nJ." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "At 19:01 05/05/2011, Sergei wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 4, "text": "By the way, I didn't like much the Orvell's \"1984\" (I did like\nthe Animal Farm). The reason - \"Animal Farm\" is presented as abstract,\nsymbolic fiction, and it seems almost perfect symbol.\nThe \"1984\" contains many details that were not convincing,\neven as a possible development of the society in the USSR.\nIt was still very good\nas a scheme, on the level of abstract ideas (language in \"1984\",\ninner Party, etc), but not in realistic details." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "I" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4DC6CF35.3080004@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2011-05-08T17:13:25+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<4DC40DA8.4030800@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I've always assumed the second: that sovietism had won out.\n\nOceana is presumably the most likely candidate for liberal democracy \nanyway; if either of the other two actually adopted democracy, it seems \npretty indistinguishable from sovietism from the outside." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 5/6/2011 11:03 AM, James Wynn wrote:\nActually, that was to Sergei.\n\nOn 5/6/2011 10:01 AM, James Wynn wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Mo,\n\nThat's interesting observation. What specific ideas did you find \nunconvincing? Have you seen the movie \"The Lives of Others\"?\n\nThe only thing that *might* be unconvincing to me is that such a \nsociety could be maintained _worldwide_ among three nations. But \nthen, I only know about the other two nations from what we are told. \nThey might actually be free. On the other hand, the belief in the \neventual inevitably universal spread of Soviet Socialism was not \nuncommon in the UK in 1947 (much as the current belief in Liberal \nDemocracy). So, maybe Orwell was speculating \"What if it _did_ happen?\"\n\nJ." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "At 19:01 05/05/2011, Sergei wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 4, "text": "By the way, I didn't like much the Orvell's \"1984\" (I did like\nthe Animal Farm). The reason - \"Animal Farm\" is presented as abstract,\nsymbolic fiction, and it seems almost perfect symbol.\nThe \"1984\" contains many details that were not convincing,\neven as a possible development of the society in the USSR.\nIt was still very good\nas a scheme, on the level of abstract ideas (language in \"1984\",\ninner Party, etc), but not in realistic details." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "I" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "David Duffy", "address": "davidd at qimr.edu.au" }, "date": "2011-05-11T10:43:35+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "<697013.77851.qm@smtp820.mail.ird.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Fri, 6 May 2011, Mo Holkar wrote:\nAt 19:01 05/05/2011, Sergei wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "By the way, I didn't like much the Orvell's \"1984\" (I did like\nthe Animal Farm). The reason - \"Animal Farm\" is presented as abstract,\nsymbolic fiction, and it seems almost perfect symbol.\nThe \"1984\" contains many details that were not convincing,\neven as a possible development of the society in the USSR.\nIt was still very good\nas a scheme, on the level of abstract ideas (language in \"1984\",\ninner Party, etc), but not in realistic details." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It's interesting that you had that reading of Nineteen Eighty-Four. I read it \nnot as trying to depict a development of USSR society, but as trying to \ndepict what a collectivist society would be like specifically as it could be \nin the UK. So I think there is no real attempt by the author to think about \nthe Soviet actuality -- but mostly just a mission to critique tendencies in \n1930s-40s UK politics and society.\n\nI guess I have this perspective because I live in the UK myself, but then \nOrwell did too :-) and I think that in Nineteen Eighty-Four he was trying to \nsend a message to his own country, more than to the rest of the world. As you \nsay, Animal Farm, because of its abstraction, is a more universal piece of \nwork." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Have you read Anthony Burgess's _1985_? The first half is an essay \ndiscussing these points, the second half an adequate extrapolation not of \n1948 Britain, but 1984 Britain.\n\nCheers, David Duffy," } ] }, { "message_id": "<774966.70071.qm@smtp820.mail.ukl.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Mo Holkar", "address": "lists at ukg.co.uk" }, "date": "2011-05-11T11:42:36+00:00", "subject": "(urth) \"Realistic fiction leaves out too much.\" - Gene Wolfe", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 11:43 11/05/2011, David Duffy wrote:\nOn Fri, 6 May 2011, Mo Holkar wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "At 19:01 05/05/2011, Sergei wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "By the way, I didn't like much the Orvell's \"1984\" (I did like\nthe Animal Farm). The reason - \"Animal Farm\" is presented as abstract,\nsymbolic fiction, and it seems almost perfect symbol.\nThe \"1984\" contains many details that were not convincing,\neven as a possible development of the society in the USSR.\nIt was still very good\nas a scheme, on the level of abstract ideas (language in \"1984\",\ninner Party, etc), but not in realistic details." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "It's interesting that you had that reading of Nineteen Eighty-Four. \nI read it not as trying to depict a development of USSR society, \nbut as trying to depict what a collectivist society would be like \nspecifically as it could be in the UK. So I think there is no real \nattempt by the author to think about the Soviet actuality -- but \nmostly just a mission to critique tendencies in 1930s-40s UK \npolitics and society.\n\nI guess I have this perspective because I live in the UK myself, \nbut then Orwell did too :-) and I think that in Nineteen \nEighty-Four he was trying to send a message to his own country, \nmore than to the rest of the world. As you say, Animal Farm, \nbecause of its abstraction, is a more universal piece of work." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Have you read Anthony Burgess's _1985_? The first half is an essay \ndiscussing these points, the second half an adequate extrapolation \nnot of 1948 Britain, but 1984 Britain." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Mm, it's an interesting book (although, I think, an extrapolation of \n1978 Britain rather than 1984 Britain). I didn't read it until the \nmid-80s some time, by which point the idea that UK trade unions might \never advance to exercise significant power over people's lives was \nalready a laughable anachronism, thanks to Mrs Thatcher's brisk work...\n\nI like some of Burgess's work, but 1985 seems to me spoilt by excess \nof snobbery and hobbyhorsery.\n\nbest,\n\nMo\n\n\n# ~ # ~ #\n\nWolfeWiki -- a wiki about Gene Wolfe\nhttp://www.wolfewiki.com/pmwiki/ " } ] } ] }