Vonnegut (1922-2007)

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes · 13 Apr 2007, 17:38 · from 2007-April.txt.gz

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From: danldo at gmail.com (Dan'l Danehy-Oakes)
Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2007 10:38:55 -0700
Subject: (urth) Vonnegut (1922-2007)
In-Reply-To: <875716.40211.qm at web32412.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <53ECE009-6EDE-4E46-8AA1-DF1EAF1ADDBE at gmail.com>
	<875716.40211.qm at web32412.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <1f7617370704131038r5941fe99rd563b503c17565e7 at mail.gmail.com>

On 4/13/07, don doggett <kingwukong at yahoo.com> wrote:

> "Stuff happened" is almost everything. "Someone made
> stuff happen" is usually laid over it by people trying
> to make sense of that "stuff". Christians hardly have
> a lock on interesting fiction, nor are athiests
> excluded from it.

The last point is certainly true; the first has some truth to it -- but,
really, in terms of narrative (and we are creatures of our narrativity),
intentional actions are far more interesting than agentless actions.

One of the most impressive narrative tours-de-forces I have ever
read was _Fire_, by George R. Stewart (author of the SF classic
_Earth Abides_), which took a firestorm as its more-or-less
protagonist, and managed to give it agency without personializing
it. He did the same thing, less successfully, for a storm in a book
called (of all things) _Storm_.

-- 
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, writer, trainer, bon vivant
-----
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http://www.danehyoakes.com
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