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The Death of Doctor Island Movie

Jeff Wilson · 17 Oct 2006, 15:59 · from 2006-October.txt.gz

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From: jwilson at io.com (Jeff Wilson)
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2006 10:59:31 -0500
Subject: (urth) The Death of Doctor Island Movie
In-Reply-To: <200610170720.21725.ddjones at riddlemaster.org>
References: <10610161738.AA05285 at slack.com>	<200610162232.07633.ddjones at riddlemaster.org>	<45344549.60600 at io.com>
	<200610170720.21725.ddjones at riddlemaster.org>
Message-ID: <4534FDE3.7000208 at io.com>

Daniel D Jones wrote:
> On Monday 16 October 2006 22:51, Jeff Wilson wrote:
>> Daniel D Jones wrote:
>>> On Monday 16 October 2006 13:38, David DiGiacomo wrote:
>>>>>> Care to expound on why you find it offensive?
>>>>> I was thinking the same thing.  I mean there is some violence in
>>>>> there, but nothing more than you'd find in any of his other books.
>>>>> Heck, he had an executioner for a protaganist.  So what did you find
>>>>> offensive David?
>>>> Oh, blatant misogyny.
>>> Misogyny on the part of Wolfe or the part of characters in the story?  If
>>> the former, I'm not sure what you're referring to, particularly if you
>>> take into account that the story was published in 1973.  It would be a
>>> bit of an understatement to refer to Dr. Island's dismissal of Diane's
>>> murder as unimportant because it helped cure Ignacio as misogyny.  I can
>>> certainly see why those events would be offensive, but that's part of
>>> what makes the story so forceful.  But I don't think that describing
>>> offensive events makes a story itself offensive, unless you believe that
>>> the moral or theme of the story somehow supports or lauds those events.
>> It's just that Wolfe seems to be really fond of including misogynist
>> characters and situations in his stories.
> 
> And Sam Clemons was really fond of including racist characters and situations 
> in his.

And he was himself an admitted and practicing racist.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
< http://www.io.com/~jwilson >


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