Wolfe and Materialism

Gerry Quinn · 11 Feb 2011, 17:19 · from 2011-February.txt.gz

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From: gerryq at indigo.ie (Gerry Quinn)
Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2011 17:19:06 -0000
Subject: (urth) Wolfe and Materialism
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	<AANLkTinOhQV8w39d9bRgdc+_e-ka2NiMDY3ophmTqGU7 at mail.gmail.com>
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From: "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" <danldo at gmail.com>
> Gerry Quinn wrote:

> > 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.

> The question then for me is this:
>
> Can this nuts'n'bolts explanation be "it is a miracle" within the
> context of the book, if the book has an explicitly religious
> dimension?

By all means, if in the context of the book it is rational to believe in 
miracles, however defined.  For example, I think that in BotLS Silk is 
enlightened by the Outsider, and Crane's theory about a mini-stroke is wrong

"Materialism" is Lee's mischaracterisation of what I am saying.  Miracles 
can easily be 'nuts and bolts' explanations in Wolfe's works.  What I'm 
criticising is where somebody sees some kind of pattern, maybe a 
mythological reference of some kind or maybe something else, and proffers it 
as some kind of explanation of the work even when numerous events in the 
storyline have to be ignored, or other events inserted, to accomodate it, 
and the things it supposedly explains have perfectly good explanations 
without it.

- Gerry Quinn

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