Wintry thoughts on Wolfe

Michael Straight · 18 Feb 2003, 15:56 · from urth-v0302.mbox · original

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From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Subject: Re: (urth) Wintry thoughts on Wolfe
Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2003 10:56:24 -0500 (EST)
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On Mon, 17 Feb 2003, Adam Stephanides wrote:

> But I'm not sure why you need this information to "approach" my claim.  If
> you believe Wolfe's protagonists are capable of genuine love, why not say
> so?

Because this sort of thing is so subjective.  You say Horn's love for
Nettle is "unconvincing" (Meaning Wolfe failed to convince you the
characters were real?  or failed to convince you that Horn really loved
her? Or that Horn is unconvinced?).  I didn't have that reaction.

You point to Crowley.  I've only read Little, Big and while the romance at
the very beginning between Smoky and Alice was wonderful, every other
relationship in the rest of the book (including Smoky and Alice's
marriage) seemed incomprehensible to me, like I was reading and trying to
understand a Martian romance novel.  Which I guess was part of the point,
that the fairies are *other*, so maybe this is atypical of Crowley's art.

-- Rostrum

--=20

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