Urth Net
Digest urth.v028.n112
↰ answers William H. Ansley
· by quotation
3 quoted lines · 1–2 deep
urth-errors at lists.best.com wrote:
Is it the duty of the FAQ to initiate one into the "mysteries" of TBOTNS? Or to initiate one into the method of reading Gene Wolfe?
Neither. A FAQ is a list of frequently asked questions and their answers. It is a device invented to prevent people from posting the same question over and over in a newsgroup (at which task is has generally been a notable failure) and to relieve other people from having to reply with the same answer over and over or ignore the question (at which task it is a fair success; of course the response, "read the FAQ" must be posted over and over, but this is a lot less effort).
Hmmm. I don't think this is entirely appropriate with Wolfe. If you look back in the archive I think you'll find we have had the same question over and over, and each time with different answers embedded in a completely different discussion. I certainly wouldn't want to think the questions shouldn't be asked again, nor that `read the FAQ' would ever be an adequate response to anything more than the simplest question. And from the other discussions recently, that doesn't even seem to include `who is the author'.
(A propos of which, I can't resist the following, but please feel free to stop reading now.)
2 quoted lines
From: "Jonathan Laidlow" <LAIDLOJM at hhs.bham.ac.uk>
(and by the by, Barthes wrote 'Death of the Author')
But how do we know that Barthes `wrote' it? And what do we mean by `write' anyway? etc.
corncrake