Re Other Authors

Adam Stephanides · 19 Apr 2003, 13:42 · from urth-v0304.mbox · original

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From: Adam Stephanides <adamsteph at earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: (urth) Re Other Authors
Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2003 08:42:47 -0500
Message-ID: <urth-v0304-3239 at digest.urth.net>
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on 4/17/03 12:33 PM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes at katbarx at hotmail.com wrote:

> "How the Whip Came
> Back"

Yuck; this may be my least favorite Wolfe story, with its combination of
misogyny and heavy-handed satire.  I do like the bit about "her Louis XIV
secretary, Sal," though.

> One thing I look for in fiction, and which Wolfe provides
> in abundance, is a sense that the problems it wrestles with are
> problems relevant to the world that is the case, while the problems
> in Moorcock's fiction seem to be relevant only to Moorcock's
> imagined worlds -- a problem he shares with, for example, some of
> Heinlein's lesser work.

I've never been able to get into Moorcock, apart from "Flux," but my impulse
would be to disagree with this.  My impression is that Moorcock uses
deliberately unreal characters to comment on real problems.

I've only read a little Ian Watson, and didn't like him, but there is a
superficial similarity between him and Wolfe.  They're both "cerebral" and
"literary" authors, though my memory of Watson is that his stuff really is
empty of emotion.  Incidentally, I once read an article by Watson
criticizing SotT because the protagonist was a torturer; something about
making it seem that torturers weren't really so bad, iirc (but don't quote
me).

--Adam=20

--=20

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