This Week in Google Alerts: Home Fires

David Duffy · 12 Apr 2012, 22:47 · from 2012-April.txt.gz

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From: David.Duffy at qimr.edu.au (David Duffy)
Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2012 08:47:32 +1000 (EST)
Subject: (urth) This Week in Google Alerts: Home Fires
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On Thu, 12 Apr 2012, David Stockhoff wrote:

> I'd put lobotomies, including chemical ones, in the same indefensible class 
> as amputations, castrations, sterilizations, and other mutilations: even 
> /less/ defensible than execution.

Reading this, I wondered: does neurosurgery appear more often in Gene 
Wolfe's work than that of other writers of the era?  I have recently 
reread Bernard Wolfe's _Limbo_, where (not really a spoiler) the 
inhabitants of Tapioca Island practiced trepanation and then lobotomy 
(with the protagonist's help) as the cure of antisocial behaviour for 1-2 
centuries.  But I don't see it in SF of the 50-60s, or in other fiction - 
_One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest_ is an exception.

Cheers, David Duffy.

PS I don't think _Dr Island_ is an allusion to the Bernard Wolfe ;)

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