Comments on: War of All Against All: Realism vs Fabulism? Er, No…

By: jay sheckley

jay sheckley — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 02:52:50 +0000

the 9 word sentence of the kid’s POV was sposed to appear where i typed it between those sideways chevrons.
But it’s gone! I cant recall SOLDIER’S HOME eponymous kid’s name, but I’ll fake it.
I t’s meant to read like this:

Nick watched the bacon fat hardening on his plate.

That’s all… and enough

By: jay sheckley

jay sheckley — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 02:45:15 +0000

um i’m owned by a bookstore [dark carnival] and you can make any kind of sections you like. We do. the idea is just to interest people who see themselves as sorts of people or types of interests. or interest ourselves: are there many fun novels about ass-kicking children? Find out, and while youre at it, fan out the newest award winning fiction. Hey how bout the 1000 best books you never read. These divisions don’t prove anything about the books themselves or their authors.
It’s only a display, move along, nothing to see here folks…
Boy that DaVinci Code prose makes me shudder! Ack!! I hate hate hate it!
The man writes with shovels. Ick. pweh blechh
::phew:::
Ok you were talkin of manly men & big name big-game mainstream. Which brings on Uncle Ernie, Papa Hemingway, showing a crisis:
When his manliest man narrowly avoids becoming a body count casualty and “survives”, that was _supposed_ to be the crisis. And a lot of action it was.
But to Hem the crisis is in feeling.
you can train a man and make him run fight shoot obey- but you cant give back what war takes even from survivors. \
When a healthy young man’s relationship to the world dissolves, Hem sez, that’s yer crisis.
Maybe it’s just me but I love the line from Hem’s short story “SOLDIER’S HOME”. Everybody’s acting like it’s Thanksgiving, waiting for the kid to snap out of it, get over the war, and resume his pleasant boyhood. The family thinks adjusting and being okay is natural….But the kid, though at “home” now, aint quite with ‘em.
Hemingway reveals all in pretty much just this one 9 word sentence of the kid’s POV:
<>
With restraint Hem shows us senselessness. Is it our turn to try and make meaning? Make no difference. His youth, his willingness his energy fed into that basic staple of manliness.War squanders bravery, churns men into
meat and will power in battle comes into peace in eternal abject terror.
“Whats the matter, son?”
There’s no saying.
And that, my fiends, is the way it is

By: G. Arthur Brown

G. Arthur Brown — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 01:47:35 +0000

A lot of it is pretty tangential at this point, J M.

By: J M McDermott

J M McDermott — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 23:59:32 +0000

I spend ten days at a summer residency in Maine, with limited web access, and people are still at it?

Man, I’ve got some reading to catch up on in this thread…

By: G. Arthur Brown

G. Arthur Brown — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 00:23:18 +0000

Opinions are fine. You are too quick to react, perhaps. It’s like you are searching for a buzzword to pounce on. Like your race subsists on buzzwords, which would simply flitter off if not outpaced by immediate violent action. Does their buzzing not cloy in the end, though? Would you rather I take up a contrary stance: Nay, I did oil my toned physique at a con, and I did force my manhood upon the unsuspecting? What’s it to you, Andy C? I’ll punch you right in the face, and then I’ll probably kick you. Being a strong fellow, as I am, it will be hard to refrain from causing you grievous bodily harm. I am, however, studied in my arts. I think I can leave you with only bruises about the chest, easily covered by an oxford style shirt. If you are interested in purchasing a new collar–perhaps yours is stained with blood–I have a whole drawer full. But don’t tell me you wear a flowery pirate shirt, or I shall have to suspect that you may read non-genre writing. This will cause me to summon the power of my primeval god, Klotkigu, and you don’t want that, now do you?

By: Andrew C

Andrew C — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 17:48:48 +0000

Well, I am sorry for picking fights. I am too opinionated for my own good.

By: G. Arthur Brown

G. Arthur Brown — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 17:40:55 +0000

“Stereotype alert. Never actually been to a Sci Fi convention, but by your comment I doubt you have either.”

Hi, Andrew. Nice to meet you. Thanks for being completely opaque in your online dealings with me. I’ll lay all my cards out on table: I wasn’t being serious. I was illustrating how you can put a homoerotic spin on anything given a little imagination. The ‘class struggle’ of the Sci-Fi/Fantasy nerd versus the Literary nerd isn’t rooted in some particular homophobic tradition that accounts for the image of ’sniveling fagots’ that was alluded to much earlier in the post. Now that that is all cleared up… it’s a lot less fun isn’t it?

By: Andrew

Andrew — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 23:47:15 +0000

Not to mention Robert E. Howard, who struggled with feeling isolated among people. But I guess he doesn’t count since he didn’t write stories about how a piece of cardboard caused a 40 year old man to have a midlife crisis.

Trust me, these “socially crippled nerds” who prefer genre aren’t alone. I have talked to regular readers (Casual and avid) who are quite socially capable (since that seems to be indicative of artistic quality). Someone just recently told me the other day that they’d prefer to read an epic saga than a story about a midlife crisis. And he was not one of the socially crippled nerds. Who, by the way, could never write a book as well as one of the popular kids who have such a larger range of emotional experience, and such a deeper understanding of life.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 23:35:54 +0000

“My costume was by far the straightest. I was an oiled, bare-chested barbarian with perfect Cindy Crawford/Fabio hair. I kept sticking my sword straight out from my crotch and screaming my non-verbal war cry. When I tired of that, I would hide behind the statue of Gene Roddenberry and wait till some random dude passed by. Then I would jump out and wrestle him to prove that I was a real man. We then ceremonially burned literature including Calvino, Borges, Kafka, Beckett, Nabokov and Joyce, because they make my head hurt.”

Stereotype alert. Never actually been to a Sci Fi convention, but by your comment I doubt you have either.

“I have absolutely no problem saying that as much of a hothouse as academia is, the hardcore of SF fandom is worse, and that it attracts the socially handicapped to a greater extent than academia”

Can someone please explain to me why this is relevant? It may be true, but since when are social skills indicative of anything worthwhile? Wasn’t Albert Einstein socially handicapped? Wasn’t Edgar Allan Poe? Wasn’t pretty much every great artist (-note the “great”- modifying adjective)?

By: The Sofanauts » Sofanauts No 13

The Sofanauts » Sofanauts No 13 — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 20:39:22 +0000

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