tongue in cheek (?) wolfe profile

Eric Bourland · 17 Nov 2017, 14:46 · from 2017-November.txt.gz

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From: eb at hwaet.com (Eric Bourland)
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2017 14:46:34 -0000
Subject: (urth) tongue in cheek (?) wolfe profile
In-Reply-To: <CAF1072xKzaLf7Ox7CjJPjhQLFpWPzC9MLYmFNp1VmcRFh79S=g at mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAF1072xKzaLf7Ox7CjJPjhQLFpWPzC9MLYmFNp1VmcRFh79S=g at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <caed27c7-c38d-b80f-bee0-b4921f454d11 at hwaet.com>

You know, I just wasted ten minutes of my morning to scold this young 
man in the comments. I do not know if my comment will persist. I might 
have gotten a little hot under the collar myself.

Friend,

Wolfe was drafted in his early twenties and sent to war. If you read his 
Letters Home, you will learn more about that: a collection of loving, 
reassuring letters that he wrote to his worried mother while he was 
stationed in Korea. He was barely twenty-one or twenty-two. He's not 
fascist in the slightest and not even particularly conservative; his 
reflections, in books like Peace or Free Live Free, on the nation of 
America are loving of America and its people and the people of the 
world. If anything, he laments the foolishness of politicians. In books 
like Home Fires and A Borrowed Man, you can tell he has put a great deal 
of thought, and a lot of reading, into the results of fascism, 
nationalism, populism, capitalism. It might come off as small-minded to 
bring up his very early work in the 1960s; it's not fair or advisable to 
judge the tone or intention of a writer by his juvenalia. He was drafted 
by the military-industrial complex of America and sent to war. He shot 
at people who were shooting at him, and none of them, I imagine, wanted 
to be there. I am not trying to offend you, but the sarcastic tone of 
your text comes across as anger, rather than an appreciation. You mostly 
just sound angry. It's OK to be angry, but I don't know if it's useful 
to take it out on Gene Wolfe. Yours,

Eric Bourland

On 11/17/2017 8:47 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:
> Here is a kind of strange profile of wolfe at the top?... I suppose it 
> is supposed to be a little tongue in cheek but considering that Wolfe 
> was drafted and both my parents served in the military I didn?t 
> appreciate the ?killing babies in Asia? line even if it was a joke ... 
> a bit tone deaf.
>
> https://newpoplitinteractive.wordpress.com/
>
>
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-- 
Eric Bourland
eb at hwaet.com
https://www.hwaet.com

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