Wolfe and Materialism

Gerry Quinn · 11 Feb 2011, 16:52 · from 2011-February.txt.gz

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From: gerryq at indigo.ie (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2011 16:52:03 -0000
Subject: (urth) Wolfe and Materialism
References: <SNT123-W540DE54F5AB3656B255952CFEF0 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <3137CC340B2B44F0AD30C7E2D057E691@jill>

From: "Lee Berman" <severiansola at hotmail.com>
>
>>Gerry Quinn: The mistake some people make is to believe that some 
>>mythological resonance
>>they find in elements of the story can serve as an alternative to 'nuts 
>>and bolts' explanations.
>
> Gerry I get the impression you consider yourself a man of math, logic and 
> science and that for you,
> these explanatory philosophies are always superior to spiritual, religious 
> or mystical explanations.

I didn't say that at all.  What I'm saying is that a 'nuts and bolts' 
explanation - the Ploughman's explanation, if you like - needs to be there. 
Occasionally an author may throw a vagary and include events which are 
deliberately contradictory or inexplicable - but in books written to be 
understood, this tends to be rare.

Now in literature, if not necessarily in life, there is at least one other 
explanation as well - this is true of all authors, not just Wolfe.  Few 
things in literatuire are random, so events tend to have at least two 
explanations, a rational explanation, and one or more explanations that are 
to do with the author's purpose.  But these other explanations cannot 
*substitute* for the rational "nuts and bolts" explanation.  They are in 
addition to it, not an alternative to it.

So if we come up with some fancy theory based on mythological allusions or 
whatever, it is no good as an *explanation* if it is incompatible with the 
logic of the storyline.  If the theory is really spelled out by the author 
and can't work, it's probably a flaw in the story, a blunder by the author 
More often than not, though, the evidence on which such speculations are 
based is pretty thin.  If so, when they don't fit rationally with the story, 
they are wrong - it's that simple.

It's not about one sort of explanation being superior, it's about the 
domains of different theories/explanations.  If the mythological explanation 
is taken as determining nuts and bolts events, it must be compatible with 
them on a nuts and bolts level.  If it can't stretch this far, it's simply 
not an explanation, although it may still be an allusion, a resonance, a 
resemblance, a counterpoint.

The rest of what you write is based on your misapprehension of what I am 
saying.

- Gerry Quinn

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