An Evil Guest - An Object Lesson (was Palgrave History of Science Fiction)

Norwood, Frederick Hudson · 20 Mar 2018, 19:54 · from 2018-March.txt.gz

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From: NORWOODR at mail.etsu.edu (Norwood, Frederick Hudson)
Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2018 19:54:35 -0000
Subject: (urth) An Evil Guest - An Object Lesson (was Palgrave History
 of Science Fiction)
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What do you mean Hamlet dies!  And no spoiler warning.  You?ve spoiled the surprise ending.

Rick Norwood

From: Urth [mailto:urth-bounces at lists.urth.net] On Behalf Of Marc Aramini
Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2018 1:51 PM
To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
Subject: Re: (urth) An Evil Guest - An Object Lesson (was Palgrave History of Science Fiction)

Cognitive dissonance incoming from the fasciest of textual fascists (me): ideally people should be able to engage the text on the level they feel comfortable with (even if they are in some ways ?wrong? about plot matters. I had a recent interaction with the philistines on reddit wherein a banal and uninteresting reading of the disturbance at the gate was being pushed as the ?correct, all there is to it? reading. And the speaker had the audacity to suggest to ME what the proper reading was. They know not what they do.)

And while I believe in the discoverability of intent and the immutability of plot elements implied or explicit (Hamlet dies, urth literally becomes Green), sometimes it is necessary to let people read as they want to - for some, Wolfe really is just a fun read.

Better to let people read as they want than risk the unenlightened fascism (as opposed to my enlightened, transcendent variety) of pushing definitive readings that are deaf to subtext (and I?m not talking about your readings at all here, Robert). I agree that we should be speculating on Cassie?s condition ... but if that isn?t important or central to the goal of other readers I think it is okay. We all read for different things(but that doesn?t mean our plot exegeses are wrong, of course)

On Tuesday, March 20, 2018, Robert Pirkola <rpirkola at hotmail.com<mailto:rpirkola at hotmail.com>> wrote: I find it most peculiar to take political and cultural stances towards information conveyed about a character in a book.  It is not I who am measuring CC.  Margaret measures her and we are informed of it *in the book*.  And not for the purpose of objectifying her, but for the purpose of making costumes for a play!
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