moreau%babel.DEC@decwrl.ARPA (08/09/85)
From: moreau%babel.DEC@decwrl.ARPA (Ken Moreau, ZKO2-3/N30 3N11, DTN 381-2102) Davis Tucker writes: > Authors often >forget that it's better to be terribly excoriated in print than >simply ignored, that anything is preferable to being overlooked. > . > . > . > There's the science fiction paraphrase of the >Republican's 11th Commandment - "Thou shalt not speak ill of thou >fellow authors". Which is understandable. But there's no group of >people who fill in the void, who provide their readership with >accurate insights into the work behind the work, who tell readers >what they can expect, and why or why not this work is any good. It is my impression that you are describing the feeling that criticism is valid only if it savagely rips apart everything. You use words like "objective" and "accurate", and yet state that authors should welcome being "terribly excoriated in print". Isn't it possible for a critic to admit that something might actually be good? Granted that 90% of everything is crap, that means that there is SOME good stuff. It seems to me that critics are only happy when either decrying the lousy taste of the public by automatically condemning any work which sells well, or lauding to the skies a work which most people (me) find totally unapproachable. I gave up on the New York Times Book Review column for precisely this reason. I grant you that tastes differ, but that doesn't mean that the public (me again) is incapable of finding out *BY THEMSELVES* whether "this work is any good". I applaud Spider Robinsons comment that "A critic tells you whether it is *ART*, a reviewer tells you if its a good read". To me this indicates that the two concepts are orthogonal, and have nothing to do with each other. Thank you, I will ignore both *ART* and critics who talk about *ART* because I have found this bias to be pretentious, boring, unapproachable, and generally gives me no pleasure. (I am thinking specifically of a New Yorker magazine review of "Star Wars (A New Hope)" which ignored the movie to talk about the deep philisophical implications of droids. It missed the entire point of the movie). I will read reviewers who tell me "if its a good read". Ken Moreau
wfi@rti-sel.UUCP (William Ingogly) (08/12/85)
In article <3206@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> moreau%babel.DEC@decwrl.ARPA writes: >It seems to me that critics are only happy when either decrying the >lousy taste of the public by automatically condemning any work which >sells well, or lauding to the skies a work which most people (me) find >totally unapproachable. I gave up on the New York Times Book Review >column for precisely this reason. I grant you that tastes differ, but >that doesn't mean that the public (me again) is incapable of finding >out *BY THEMSELVES* whether "this work is any good". Here we go again. I read both the New York Times Book Review and the New York Review of books regularly, and I fail to see the attitudes you people are constantly bemoaning appearing regularly in these mags. Now I do sometimes see reviews I disagree with, but I like to think I'm mature enough to appreciate alternative points of view. Including the 'intellectual' approach to literature some of your compatriots in this newsgroup seem to loathe. Fact: Gerald Jonas writes a column in the NYTBR every other week. He hardly trashes every SF book he reviews. Another fact: I believe reviews of SF works have sometimes appeared in both the NYTBR and the NYRB over the past few years, including reviews of Stanislaw Lem's works. These reviews did not 'trash' SF out of hand. One more fact: although reviews of esoterica do appear in both these magazines, both regularly publish reviews of popular fiction and bestsellers. I challenge you to prove to the readers of this group that the reviewers in these mags automatically trash any work of literature that's not written for 'eggheads' by 'eggheads.' Better still, I challenge the readers of this group to check it out for themselves. Your comment suggests that some reviewer said something nasty about one of your particular favorites and you chose not to read the NYTBR any more as a consequence. >I applaud Spider Robinsons comment that "A critic tells you whether >it is *ART*, a reviewer tells you if its a good read". To me this >indicates that the two concepts are orthogonal, and have nothing to >do with each other. Thank you, I will ignore both *ART* and critics >who talk about *ART* because I have found this bias to be pretentious, >boring, unapproachable, and generally gives me no pleasure. What Mr. Robinson's comment indicates is that he has peculiar personal definitions of 'critic' and 'reviewer.' It says nothing about the way I approach the SF genre or about the way I *should* approach the SF genre. It should be abundantly clear by now that there's no consensus among the readers of this newsgroup on what good SF is or on the 'proper' way to read SF. You're welcome to your opinions, but don't assume you've found some great 'truth' or that anyone who doesn't agree with you doesn't belong in this newsgroup (there have been replies to some of my postings, for example, that questioned my 'right' to post in this newsgroup because of my 'incorrect thinking'). There's been a fierce hostility toward intellectuals in American culture for a long while; I doubt many other languages can rival American's variety of pejorative slang for intellectuals (although I suspect the Chinese language acquired quite a few back around the cultural revolution :-). I see some of the hostility toward 'critics' in this newsgroup arising from the perception of SF as a popular genre, and a certain resentment that the 'eggheads' are seen as either (1) choosing to ignore SF or (2) choosing to say bad things about SF as a matter of course. My feeling is that this wrongheaded hostility is neither productive nor mature. It stereotypes people and makes incorrect assumptions about their actions and motivations (where ELSE have we seen this kind of thinking? Can you say 'bigotry'?) and assumes out of hand that readers and writers of SF have nothing to learn from what's going on in the mainstream literary community. This attitude is a sure road to sterility and intellectual bankruptcy in a genre that's given me a great deal of reading pleasure over the last 30 years or so. -- Cheers, Bill Ingogly
judith@proper.UUCP (Judith Abrahms) (08/14/85)
In article <> wfi@rti-sel.UUCP (William Ingogly) writes: >There's been a fierce hostility toward intellectuals in American >culture for a long while; I doubt many other languages can rival >American's variety of pejorative slang for intellectuals (although I >suspect the Chinese language acquired quite a few back around the >cultural revolution :-). "Bumping up and down in a corner seat, she looked gloomy, introspective, amazingly old. When he asked her why she was so withdrawn, she told him she hadn't been satisfied with their lovemaking. She said he'd made love to her like an intellectual. "In the political jargon of the day 'intellectual' was an expletive. It designated a person who failed to understand life and was cut off from the people. All Communists hanged at the time by other Communists had that curse bestowed upon them." -- Milan Kundera, "Lost Letters" (_The_Book_of_Laughter_and_Forgetting_) I imagine the word "intellectual" has been used as pejorative slang for "intellectual" by most speakers of American ever since it became a noun. I'd like to hear some synonyms from the people who brought us "running dog lackeys of the imperialist warmongers." What real variety has our native anti-egghead invective displayed in the last 50 years (aside from "nattering nabobs of negativism," of course! :-)? Judith Abrahms {ihnp4,ucbvax}!dual!proper!judith ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Truth must necessarily be stranger than fiction; for fiction is the creation of the human mind and therefore congenial to it. -- Chesterton -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
wfi@rti-sel.UUCP (William Ingogly) (08/21/85)
In article <212@proper.UUCP> judith@proper.UUCP (judith) writes: > I imagine the word "intellectual" has been used as pejorative slang for >"intellectual" by most speakers of American ever since it became a noun... > What real variety has our native anti-egghead >invective displayed in the last 50 years (aside from "nattering nabobs of >negativism," of course! :-)? Ah, yes, where is Spiro T. now that we need him? :-) I tried coming up with pejorative slang for "intellectual" other than "egghead," and the best I could do was: "S/He's a real brain." [said with a mixture of envy and contempt] I suspect I credited the anti-egghead crowd with a bit more creativity than I should have. :-) -- Cheers, Bill Ingogly
brust@hyper.UUCP (Steven Brust) (08/26/85)
> > Judith Abrahms > {ihnp4,ucbvax}!dual!proper!judith > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Truth must necessarily be stranger than fiction; for fiction is the creation > of the human mind and therefore congenial to it. > -- Chesterton > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Truth IS stranger than Fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to posibilities; Truth isn't. -- Mark Twain