Subject: (urth) Le Ton beau de Marot

From: Damien Broderick <damien at ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au>
Date: Mon, 01 Jun 1998 17:29:19 +0000

In this company of lexicosophers, I think Douglas Hofstadter's recent
heartbreakingly poignant, delightfully clever arts-meets-science book
sub-titled `In praise of the Music of Language' (and in memory of his wife,
dying of cancer as the book grew toward conception) is one to recommend.
(`That same summer, like so many summers and winters before, I was longing
for romance, something that seemed always to elude me; and again, inside
me, some fatalistic voice said, "She'll never come along.  You'll never
find her.  You'll never get married."  And in fact, this voice was closer
to being right.  It took far, far longer.  Although there were a few sad
and near misses along the way, it took another fifteen hellish, love-bleak
years before I finally found the romance I had been hoping for - but long
or short, I finally did find her, I finally did marry her, we finally did
establish a little loving family of four.'  Reader, she died.)  This might
seem a long bow to draw, and heaven knows I wouldn't wish to stray from the
declared theme of this list.  :)  So I take heart in noticing Hofstadter's
introductory ackowledgement that `The spark that lit the fire that became
this book was an invitation from Gene Woolf to speak in Cedar City, Utah,
in the spring of 1995'.

Damien

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/