# Opinions R "=" *The Whorl list — 1 messages, 1 voices, 12 Mar 1997* > 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. --- ### m.driussi *12 Mar 1997, 02:02* Reply: Item #8972481 from WHORL at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET# Not that I want to dictate the direction of conversation or anything like that, but as this is a democracy, I would like to register a vote against threads going into the whys and wherefores an individual likes a given Wolfe work less than the others, or even (especially?) when a reader might actively dislike a given work. More likely than not, it boils down to personal preference and opinion. I'm sure we all rank the different elements that make up the ziggurat of Wolfe's work in our own ways--I know I have my favorites and least favorites. And all opinions are equally valid as opinions--they don't even have to be particularly text-based. And as we have seen in recent discussions about THE BOOK OF THE LONG SUN, even when theories and speculations are rather intricately text-based, even then there is hardly any consensus . . . because again, despite all the citations, references, research, et cetera, it boils down to opinion. (Which sure seems to be the deathknell for intricately text-based interpretation! ) I would much rather see people go on and on about why they love a particular text (thank you, Talon! And I agree with you re: the PKDickian flavor of THERE ARE DOORS) than watch a thread wind down the perilous greased chute of why someone hates a particular text. Just my two bits, as we say in Viron. =mantis= Questions or problems to whorl-owner at lists.best.com ---