From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V1 #106 Reply-To: aml-list Sender: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk aml-list-digest Wednesday, July 19 2000 Volume 01 : Number 106 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: (No, or invalid, date.) From: "Marilyn & William Brown" Subject: Re: [AML] (Andrew's Poll) Mormon Short Stories (Andrew's Poll) All I can say, Chris, is read LETTING LOOSE THE HOUNDS before you make = any other ordered voting lists. Marilyn Brown - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: (No, or invalid, date.) From: "Marilyn & William Brown" Subject: Re: [AML] KEMP, _Dad Was A Carpenter_ Wins Award Congratulations to Kenny! Hats off to an amazing writer who has been able= to market on his own! This is to be admired! And so diversified--into = films as well as publishing. These awards are not something to be sniffed= at! We're impressed, Kenny, and hope you'll continue to be with us! Ther= e are certainly things Kenny could teach us about marketing on-line and = preparing material for screen writing, etc. A tireless worker, Kenny has = got the American spirit. Keep going, Alta Films! (What I want to know is = if you still make any calls to California every once in a while?) Marilyn= Brown - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 10:47:50 -0600 From: "Rachel Ann Nunes" Subject: [AML] Re: ADAMS, _Prodigal Journey_ Linda said: >It lists at $14.95 and at 520 pp. it's over 1 1/2 inches thick. But it >reads fast--right, Rachel? It does at that. And at $14.95, it's a very good deal. My new book, _Tomorrow and Always,_ will be that same price and has only 265 pages. My first book was $10.95, and the other eight have been somewhere in between. I think there's been an increase on paper costs in the past four years. Linda, will you be in Utah promoting your book at all? Richard promised me a copy, but I'd love it signed! Rachel ________________________________ Rachel Ann Nunes Author of the best-selling novel To Love and to Promise E-mail: rachel@ranunes.com Web page: http://www.ranunes.com - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 11:20:43 -0600 From: Richard R Hopkins Subject: [AML] Re: Good Writing The views of Plato, Socrates and Aristotle presented on the one hand by Eric and on the other by Tony are interesting for their apparent contrast. Personally I, with Tony, marvel at the truths divined by these men, truths that prepared the Greek people, literally the Gentiles, to receive the Gospel after Christ. Had they not been so prepared and had they not so extensively grafted themselves into the tree, to coin a phrase :-), we would most certainly have no New Testament today! The Jews certainly would not have preserved it. However, with Eric, I note that both Plato and Aristotle advocated, among other things, the removal of children from their parents for the purpose of educating them, a rather fascist idea, IMHO. I also note that their philosophy ultimately led the early Christian Church to such gymnastic wonders of thought as the Trinity, co-substantiality, metaphysics, and a few other dumb ideas I could mention that ultimately were encased in the granite of orthodoxy and resulted in a 1000-year period known as the Dark Ages. Bottom line: the Greek Philosophers present a very mixed bag. Richard Hopkins - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 11:17:01 -0600 From: "Eric R. Samuelsen" Subject: Re: [AML] Great Authors >The best thing about lists of greatness is that they polarize >people. Ha! The thrill of irresponsible opining! So. . . . Shakespeare IS the best, though all the things he's usually idolized for = are wrong. Who cares about his poetry? I love his stagecraft, the nasty = bite of his characters, his deliciously bawdy sense of humor, his = gross-out gags. Give me people with some wit and energy; Henry Fielding = over almost anyone in his day, Dickens over Jane Austen, absolutely Twain = over Henry James, absolutely Aristophanes over Plautus or Euripides. = Journalists are seriously underrated; I'd rather read Mencken than any = novelist of his period, except maybe Ring Lardner. And today, non-fiction = writers like Stephen Carter and Stephen Jay Gould--disparate though their = interests are--are far better writers than most of our novelists, and way = more interesting. I take Synge over Chekhov. Bad Strindberg is as awful as anyone ever, = except for bad Shaw, but at their best, both are magnificent. Today, = David Foster Wallace is America's finest novelist, followed shortly behind = by Jane Smiley and Russell Banks. Oh,and Donald Westlake; famous genre = novelists are often much better than they're given credit for. Faulkner's = overrated, and Joyce is hugely overrated. Best playwright working right = now is Tom Stoppard. =20 Among Mormons, Levi Peterson still leads the pack, with Margaret Young and = Doug Thayer close behind. Brian Evensen is talented, but too one-dimension= to really be that interesting so far; likewise Neil Labute. Card is far = too uneven; I have no idea if he has a little curl on his forehead or not, = but the rest of the poem applies to him: when good, he's very very good, = and when he's bad, he's horrid. Tim Slover is our best playwright. Eric Samuelsen =20 - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 12:22:21 -0600 From: "Eric R. Samuelsen" Subject: [AML] Re: Great Authors >And we mustn't forget William Goldman, who=20 >has yet to write a lousy screenplay. Uh, did you see The Year of the Comet? The Ghost in the Darkness? = Absolute Power? The Great Waldo Pepper? I do beg to differ. I do love Butch Cassidy, and I do love The Princess Bride. But Goldman's = very uneven. Sometimes he's terrific. Other times, less than. Eric Samuelsen - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 12:19:02 -0600 From: "Eric R. Samuelsen" Subject: [AML] Re: Good Writing Tony Markham, responding to my mean-spirited anti-Platonic diatribe with = far more class and charity and kindness than it warranted, wrote: >I'd like to be related to that Markham who was with Joseph and >Hyrum at = Carthage but who was sent away on an errand shortly >before the mob = arrived. He is only tantalizingly mentioned in the >DHC. Can anybody = fill me in about this guy? Stephen Markham. He was my great great grandfather. He was a bodyguard = of Joseph, and was the man who grabbed the horses' bridles when two thugs = from Missouri tried to take Joseph back with them. He was, as Tony wrote, = in Carthage with Joseph, Hyrum, Willard Richards, John Taylor and Dan = Jones the evening before the martyrdom. He went back to Nauvoo on an = errand (getting medicine for Willard Richards, who was sick.) The mob = caught him, forced him to watch the martyrdom, ran swords through his legs = so he wouldn't be able to direct his horse with his knees, cut the reins, = and sent the horse off in the opposite direction from Nauvoo. He was = still able to circle around the mob and return to Nauvoo, where he, among = others, gave the alarm. He came to Salt Lake Valley with his family, and eventually settled in = Spanish Fork. His first wife kept right on going; she hated Utah, and took = their oldest children and ended up in California, so we have a large = branch of the family who lives in California, outside the Church. Stephen = Markham is also mentioned prominently in Eliza R. Snow's journal; she = lived with the Markham family in Nauvoo, and she has kind things to say = about him, and rather less pleasant things to say about his wife. Stephen = did not keep a journal, and the family legend is that he was illiterate. = He is also supposed to have lended Hyrum his large walking stick, called = 'the Rascal Beater,' which Hyrum used in Carthage to defend himself; he is = also supposed to have lended John Taylor the pocket watch that saved his = life: both are prominent family legends. I come from his fourth wife's = line. =20 The reason I mention him is that there's a novel about Stephen Markham = that I saw once in a used book store. I didn't buy it at the time, and = when I came back later with my checkbook, it had already been sold. I = can't remember the title or the author's name, or any publisher's = information. Anyone know anything about it? Back to Plato, responding to Tony: >In the course of a year I'll get from ten to twenty philosophy >textbooks = to peruse at my leisure. I always enjoy the sections on >aesthetics. I = daresay that practically every textbook that comes >across my desk treats = Socrates and Plato (you really can't >separate the two) and their = aesthetic theories with dignity and >respect. These textbooks will also = present counterarguments, >specifically addressing Plato, from the = greatest minds through the >ages--Kant, Nietzsche, Fromme, to name a = few--who >all took Socrates/Plato quite seriously. My experience is that Plato is only taken seriously as someone who simply = must be refuted if we're to have any dramatic or literary art at all. I = get the same textbooks you get; the Republic argument IS always mentioned, = and very quickly disposed of as representing a hopeless sort of naivete. = He is certainly someone who we have to understand, because his arguments = remain part of the cultural criticism of the arts with which we have to = contend. (Medved echoes him in all sorts of interesting ways). But he's = not worth taking seriously, as someone who may actually have a point. We = CAN'T take the Republic seriously, because if we do, drama and literature = both become completely impossible. If we so much as allow for the possibility that the depiction of improper = acts leads to the commission of those acts, then our art forms disappear, = based as they are on human action, on conflict, on showing fictional = characters making wrong choices. All of drama, all of film, and essentiall= y all of fiction deals with, as Brigham put it, 'evil and its consequences.= ' I know of no exceptions. All such works, without exception, would be = banned in Plato's Republic. Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Oedipus and = Antigone, A Doll House and Ghosts, The Oresteia and A Long Day's Journey = Into Night, Frazier and MASH and Scooby Doo and Teenage Mutant Ninja = Turtles, heck, Saturday's Warrior, My Turn on Earth, Charley's Monument, = all of it gone, banished. No, I'm sorry, but that sounds like the worst = possible nightmare to me. I mean it: none of us on the list would survive = three days in Plato's fascistic little paradise. =20 >If people didn't take Plato's argument seriously, then the General = >Authorities would say to go ahead and fill your minds with porn >because = exposure to it doesn't affect behavior. =20 Nonsense. Aristotle did not imply at all that we should abandon all = standards, or that certain kinds of literature weren't better than other = kinds of literature, or that literature couldn't influence behavior for = the worse. Quite the contrary; the entire body of the Poetics is devoted = to establishing some literary standards. He just thinks we CAN (and ought = to) learn from literature in positive ways. (I also reject mainstream = catharsis theory, BTW; maybe that'll be the subject of a future column) = =20 >Mapplethorpe would be exhibited at the Wilkinson Center=20 Mapplethorpe is a superb photographer; I saw an exhibition of his work at = the Tate in London recently, and it was magnificent, and, to me, = inoffensive. I look forward to the day when this could happen. >Evenson would still be teaching Creative Writing at the Lord's >University= . He's a fine writer,and a superb teacher; it's a crying shame this isn't = happening now. =20 >The people who claim that our entertainment influences our >behavior may = not invoke The Republic or Plato's name, but they >are echoing his = sentiment. Seriously. Not so. Those who believe that the influence of our entertainment is = usually evil, and that only depictions of good people doing good things = should be allowed, are invoking Plato's name. And those aren't people we = should take very seriously.=20 Tony, my most amiable opponent, continued: >One of the reasons I like the big three Early Greek Philosophers >so much = is that one day this odd synchronicity simply dawned on >me. I don't = recall ever reading it from another source, though if >someone else has = written on it, I'd be grateful for the reference. >Socrates had some commonalities with Christ: He was a >Teacher, He = confounded the learned, he never wrote anything >down, he was unjustly = condemned to death by false witnesses in >an unfair court, he could have = saved himself, he died for his >beliefs, and his followers continued his = teachings. =20 Yes . . . The biggest difference is that Socrates' philosophy was so often = negative. He didn't know what the truth was, he simply thought that most = of the ideas accepted by his peers as truth were logically flawed. And = so, gadfly that he was, he went around bursting bubbles. He was the first = and most original deconstructionist, and like all good deconstructionists, = his main philosophical contribution is inculcating a proper and appropriate= sense of humility.=20 Of course, this isn't entirely true. He did have things he believed in, = for which he was willing to die. Some of those ideas are profound and = rich. Others, not so much. =20 >Plato, like any number of Christ's followers, wrote down the >teachings = of his master concentrating on the events of his life, >the parables he = told, and the principles he taught. =20 Sort of. But Plato was a brilliant and original thinker in his own right, = and built upon Socrates' ideas in all sorts of interesting ways. Which, = lets face it, Luke or John did not do. >Now along comes Aristotle, who like Paul, never actually met the >master, = and seemed intent on codifying the heart and soul of this >philosopher = into a set of rules with headers and subsections and >do this and don't do = that. =20 Absolutely false. =20 Aristotle's contribution was to develop and employ a far more rigorous set = of logical tools, which he applied to the debate. Aristotle takes the = propositions developed by Plato and asks that great question "what's the = evidence? What does it really tell us?" He looked hard-headedly at the = Platonic system, broke it down to its constituent parts, and made a = determination as to whether it worked or not. And ended up rejecting the = airier Platonic metaphysical conceits. All of them were precursors to Christ. All taught valuable lessons. All = were seekers after truth, and all three were sufficiently brilliant to = recognize the limitations of their learning, and to approach the task of = philosophy with genuine humility. But when it comes to the arts, to books 2, 3 and 10 of the Republic, only = one conclusion is possible. Plato was just flat wrong. And Aristotle, in = the Poetics, moves us infinitely closer to the truth. =20 >To this day, people who like Paul are apt to like Aristotle (rules) >and = people who like, say, John, are apt to be more moved by >Plato (principles)= . Well, I'm the biggest anti-rule guy I know. I break rules that even make = sense, just because they're there. I'm a spirit-of-the-law, rules-are-made= - -to-be-broken, it's-easier-to-ask-forgiveness-than-permission guy from the = word go. And I revere Aristotle. See, as members of the Church, we don't get to choose. We have to read, = understand, and live by the teachings of John AND Paul. We have to assume = Paul was also inspired. But as students of philosophy, we can pick and = choose. We can say "Plato had some interesting ideas in some of his = writings, and was up in the night when it came to drama."=20 >I'll close with a little flavor of Socrates/Plato and will quote in = >order to do justice (from The Cave): >"But, whether true or false, my opinion is that in the world of >knowledge= the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only >with an effort; = and, when seen, is also inferred to be the universal >author of all things = beautiful and right, parent of light and of the >lord of light in this = visible world, and the immediate source of >reason and truth in the = intellectual; and that this is the power >upon which he who would act = rationally either in public or private >life must have his eye fixed." A lovely quote, and one with strong parallels with D&C 93. You're quite = right. There are other passages I could quote where he's just as clearly = out of his mind. He was a philosopher; right about some things, wrong = about others. When it comes to the arts, I'm sorry, but he didn't know = what he was talking about, and is just not worth listening to. Eric Samuelsen=20 - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 12:49:17 PDT From: "Jason Steed" Subject: Re: [AML] Great Authors >The best thing about lists of greatness is that they polarize people. > >Wordsworth and Tennyson were sissies--Coleridge too. Blake and Keats took >them all to school. Here here! Though I think Coleridge the theologian/philosopher/literary critic rates higher than "sissy" (though this may be his lot as poet). >Eliot is better than Dickens or Austen, but not better >than Hardy or George Sand. If we're talking strictly taste, here, I'll take Austen over any Victorian. >Faulkner is better than anybody except when he >sucks (i.e. Chapter iv of "The Bear"). But he doesn't suck very often. >Milton is boring; give me Dante over >that blind Satan-bibber any day. Fair enough. >GATSBY was a fluke. So was MADAME BOVARY, but not HEART OF DARKNESS. Flaubert could have done more if he wasn't so worried about that mot juste all the time--how CAN you write more than one good novel if every word has to be perfect? Gatsby was a wonderful fluke, even if it was one. But I have to say that Conrad's novella is much too racist for my liking, and I side with Achebe who says we ought not hold it up as "art." >Yeats is great except when he's rhyming. T.S. Eliot is good except for the >Cats fiasco and his religious turn. Stevens was far and away better than >either. Yes, Stevens outweighs the other two--especially Eliot, who is only good for "Prufrock," IMO. (The Waste Land is important, influential, but not to my liking.) I happen to think Frost gets less than his due, as does W.C. Williams. >HD could run laps around Pound. I'm not big on either of them--though Pound should have got double-billing for The Waste Land. >Hemingway was phenomenal except >when he tried to write novels. FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS should have been >lost when Hadley lost the early short story manuscripts. Actually, I think it was a decent novel--only bad when held up to the incredibly high standards of his short fiction. And _A Farewell to Arms_ and _The Sun Also Rises_ are certainly better than decent. But none exceeds something like "Big Two-hearted River" or "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber." >James was trapped >in a man's body (I refer you to "Daisy Miller" and PORTRAIT OF A LADY). >Woolf's prose is so good in her essays that it makes one wonder how it >could >curdle so much in her fiction. I must admit I'm not much of a Woolf or a James fan. I'll take _Passage to India_ over any of Woolf's novels, and _Huck Finn_ over _Portrait of a Lady_. > >Almost all contemporary writing in America is garbage, except for Cormac >McCarthy, Barry Lopez, Carole Maso, and Louise Gluck. Throw in Cynthia >Ozick and John Hawkes as not garbage. Ron Carlson isn't bad, but he's >inconsistent. Same with Richard Ford and Lorrie Moore and Billy Collins. I don't agree it's almost all garbage--go to ANY period of history and you'll find as much pulp as you find now--it just doesn't stay on the shelves more than 30-40 years, tops, so it looks like only the last 30-40 years is full of pulp. McCarthy is exquisite; Ozick excellent. Carlson is lightweight--you're forgetting Carver, who rivals Hemingway for the king of short fiction in the 1900s. Ford and Moore are great, but haven't done enough yet to secure any real position. I also happen to admire Rick Bass a great deal; also Allegra Goodman. And if by "contemporary" you mean post WWII, we have to mention Malamud, O'Connor, Bellow, D. Barthelme (short fiction), Toni Morrison (especially earlier novels like _Sula_), Cheever (another short fiction great), and Peter Taylor. > >Outside America Marquez and William Trevor take the cake, and so does Alice >Munro. > >Most LDS writing is as bad as most Baptist writing, which is sad because we >have the truth and they can't watch Disney movies. That should give us an >edge. The Jews and the Catholics have us beat, hands down. Were neither >weird nor persecuted anymore, so we lose that handicap. I like Terry >Tempest Williams and Doug Thayer's work when he sends it to me. > >Italo Calvino is better at everything than anyone else except for Borges >and >Kafka and also maybe Chekhov and O'Connor I could be persuaded in all of this... > >Katherine Anne was brilliant but Katherine Mansfield wasn't. Swift is to >Rabalais as Boccacio is to Chaucer as Euripides is to Sophocles. Homer >blew >it the first time out but made up for it with the ODYSSEY. Twain was a >hoot >until he met the Mormons and turned bitter. Dos Passos couldn't write a >smooth sentence if Nabokov put a gun to his head and cocked it. Again, I agree with all of the above. And chalk up my vote for _Lolita_ as one of the greatest novels ever written (though whispers may run through the pews with such an announcement). J.P. Steed English Department, UNLV 4505 Maryland Pkwy, Box 455011 Las Vegas, NV 89154-5011 jpsteed@hotmail.com http://complabs.nevada.edu/~stee6515 _________________ "God created man because he loves stories." -- Elie Wiesel "There is no story that is not true." -- Chinua Achebe ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 14:13:45 -0600 From: "D. Michael Martindale" Subject: [AML] Re: Good Writing "Tony Markham (by way of Jonathan Langford )" wrote: > Does depicting terrible things in drama (TV and movies) engender the same > terrible things in society as Plato argues, or does depicting terrible > things act as a catharsis to purge them out of our system and make the > society a better place as Aristotle argues? Neither one, in my opinion. Depicting terrible things teaches us by example. If the drama shows the terrible things as being desirable, then the drama has a negative effect on society as Plato would argue. If it shows that the terrible things have negative consequences, then it teaches us what not to do and has a positive effect on society as Aristotle would argue. The morality of the author's worldview is what makes the work moral or immoral, not the depicted act itself. > This is a vital argument, going strong today, for every patron and practitioner > of the arts. If people didn't take Plato's argument seriously, then the General > Authorities would say to go ahead and fill your minds with porn because exposure > to it doesn't affect behavior. The worldview of the author is what makes porn immoral: the purpose is clearly to arouse and degrade. That's why we have such a difficult time defining what porn is: intent is a large part of it. > Hmm. We have noted on this list that the repeated warnings from General > Authorities about the dangers of R-rated films have overwhelmingly been addressed > to the youth and to people who have a susceptability to Pornography. Yes, > children and weak-minded people. And I would have to agree with this. Not everyone is strong enough to deal with the depiction of evil things in art, even within a moral setting, and that is why I believe the General Authorities take the stand they do: to accomodate their counsel to the weakest of saints. This places the burden on us to decide if we're "too weak" to deal with this or that art. I dare say some people overestimate their strength and end up wandering down philosophical "forbidden paths." We shouldn't take lightly the decision of what we will or won't expose ourselves to. - -- D. Michael Martindale dmichael@wwno.com ================================== Check out Worldsmiths, the new online LDS writers group, at http://www.wwno.com/worldsmiths Sponsored by Worlds Without Number http://www.wwno.com ================================== - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 14:17:49 -0600 From: "D. Michael Martindale" Subject: Re: [AML] Genre Jason Steed wrote: > Again, I'm shooting a bit from the hip, and I want to > stress that I do not personally harbor a prejudice against "genre fiction." Now I can't speak for other genres like Western or Romance or Horror, because I don't read them. Perhaps for some of them, your statements are more reflective of reality. But when it comes to science fiction, I'm have to completely disagree with you. > I think it's important to acknowledge a major reason for the perjorative use > of the term "genre fiction," which I think explains why it is often not > taken seriously. Generally speaking, most "genres" (romance, western, SF, > horror, etc.) are susceptible to formulaic structures, stereotypical > characters or scenarios, and an overabundance of cliches. As a response to this very type of accusation, prominent science fiction author Theodore Sturgeon coined an oft-quoted saying (which I of course am paraphrasing, since who in their right mind would waste time looking it up?): Sure, 90% of science fiction is garbage, but 90% of everything is garbage. Since I brought up Sturgeon, I challenge each of you who might feel as Jason does to go to your local library or used bookstore and search out Sturgeon's book _More Than Human_, read it, and tell me how it's formulaic, or not as chockfull with insightful and complex explorations of the human condition as any literary novel you've read. I could say the same about dozens of other science fiction books, from Ursula K. LeGuin's _Left Hand of Darkness_ and _Dispossessed_, to James Blish's _A Case of Conscience_, to Joe Haldeman's _Forever War_, to Robert Silverberg's _A Time of Changes_, to Clifford Simak's _Waystation_, to Octavia Butler's anything. Need I even mention Orson Scott Card's Ender series in this crowd? And M. Shayne Bell's _Nicoji_ ain't bad either. You'd be hard pressed to find even a hint of formula among these and many other books, outside of the obvious one that they all ask "what if?" questions about things that are currently not known to be true in our universe. > The key, IMO, is that the "literary" genre--though it has its > conventions, of course--is less limiting. It is not hard to write a GOOD > non-Western (it can be so many other things and still be GOOD); but it is > very hard to write a GOOD non-literary novel--because the fact that it is > GOOD makes it a candidate for being classified as "literary," while this is > not enough to classify it as "Western." If you were to make these comments in the presence of Orson Scott Card, you would get a very strong reaction, and it wouldn't be pretty. His assertion is that within the "boundaries" of science fiction, an author has more opportunity to explore and experiment and push any limits that exist than literary authors can even imagine. > My question is, for those who DO write what might be > classifiable as "genre fiction": How DO you toe the line and make what you > write "new" and "original" while maintaining those elements necessary to the > genre? It seems to me that this is a greater challenge for "genre" writers > than for "mainstream" blokes like myself. New and original in science fiction? Name me a genre (including literary) that has anywhere near the scope science fiction has, within which to be new and original. > But I've gone on long enough--did anybody read the whole post? Yep. - -- D. Michael Martindale dmichael@wwno.com ================================== Check out Worldsmiths, the new online LDS writers group, at http://www.wwno.com/worldsmiths Sponsored by Worlds Without Number http://www.wwno.com ================================== - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 14:12:31 -0600 From: Melissa Proffitt Subject: Re: [AML] Great Authors On Fri, 14 Jul 2000 19:03:55 -0600, Annette Lyon wrote: >And Faulkner is so long winded that I've always >been surprised how much acclaim he gets. My gosh, almost the entire = first >page of _The Unvanquished_ was ONE sentence! Try writing those kinds of >sentences and see if any editor will give you anything but a printed >rejection slip.=20 It depends on the sentence, I think--and the writer, and the story. = Terry McMillan is a fairly popular contemporary writer, and in _How Stella Got = Her Groove Back_ she has some incredibly long run-on sentences. There are = very few rules that can't ever be broken, though you probably have to break = them the right way. (In _Stella_, for example, the run-on sentences are part = of a narrative style that's meant to represent the main character's internal "voice".) But I like Faulkner, so what do I know? :) Melissa Proffitt - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 15:59:53 -0700 From: "Christopher Bigelow" Subject: Re: [AML] (Andrew's Poll) Mormon Short Stories (Andrew's Poll) So that must be your vote for best collection of the year. * * * * * * Read my novella about Mormon missionaries at http://www1.mightywords.com/as= p/bookinfo/bookinfo.asp?theisbn=3DEB00016373. >>> "Marilyn & William Brown" 07/18 3:54 PM >>> All I can say, Chris, is read LETTING LOOSE THE HOUNDS before you make any = other ordered voting lists. Marilyn Brown - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 16:14:05 -0600 From: "ROY SCHMIDT" Subject: Re: [AML] Great Authors I was pleased to see someone mention H. L. Mencken, although I do not think of him in the realm of the novelist. I my opinion, he is the finest wordsmith of the modern era. Well, back to lurkdom. Roy Schmidt - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 16:16:03 -0600 From: Steve Perry Subject: [AML] Re: Great Authors > From: "Eric R. Samuelsen" > Subject: [AML] Re: Great Authors > > I do love Butch Cassidy, and I do love The Princess Bride. But Goldman's > very uneven. Sometimes he's terrific. Other times, less than. Also, be sure to read the book "The Princess Bride," to catch all the great stuff there wasn't time to include in the movie. Steve - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 16:13:50 -0700 From: Barbara@techvoice.com (Barbara R. Hume) Subject: Re: [AML] Great Authors > Terry >McMillan is a fairly popular contemporary writer, and in _How Stella Got Her >Groove Back_ she has some incredibly long run-on sentences. There are very >few rules that can't ever be broken, though you probably have to break them >the right way. (In _Stella_, for example, the run-on sentences are part of >a narrative style that's meant to represent the main character's internal >"voice".) I thought that the protagonist of STELLA was the best bit of characterization I'd seen in ages. I'd read the book again to see how she did it if it weren't for the liberal sprinkling of the f-word throughoutm which I personally cannot stand. I was interested in the way the character saw everything through the filter of her blackness, just as I tend to see everything through the filter of my femaleness. It made me think. Not change, just think. barbara hume - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 16:31:11 -0700 From: Barbara@techvoice.com (Barbara R. Hume) Subject: Re: [AML] Great Authors >>Woolf's prose is so good in her essays that it makes one wonder how it >>could >>curdle so much in her fiction. I was recently reading Woolf's ORLANDO, and I found therein a wonderfully concise statement about the woes of the writer: "One writes, and it seems good. One reads, and it seems vile." That sentence stayed with me at a time in my life when I can scarcely remember what I was doing thirty seconds ago. In general, however, that novel does what I most dislike about literary fiction: halts the plot for pages and pages while the author blathers on about this and that. Same reason I don't like musicals. It's the story I want. BTW, that was a marvelous post. I hereby resign from my position as the most opinionated person on the list! barbara hume - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 18:14:48 -0600 From: "Bill Willson" Subject: Re: [AML] Great Authors > >And Faulkner is so long winded that I've always > >been surprised how much acclaim he gets. My gosh, almost the entire first > >page of _The Unvanquished_ was ONE sentence! Try writing those kinds of > >sentences and see if any editor will give you anything but a printed > >rejection slip. > > It depends on the sentence, I think--and the writer, and the story. I agree, it does depend on, by who, for what purpose and how the rules are broken. I seem to recall several instances where James A. Michener, whom I consider a great author, got a little wordy within single sentences. Some of his descriptions of beginnings of geological formations and the boundaries of territories or ecological areas, come to mind. I wrote legalese for a decade before I retired, and I had to write the description of each separate piece of property which was being considered in any given document the sole substance of a single sentence. No period would be tolerated by the lawyers or judges until I came to the end of the last course in the description. Some of the descriptions I wrote took many pages. I had to become a master of the art of the colon, semi-colon, comma, and of compiling detailed numerical or arabic annotated lists. Of course no one in their right mind would ever dare to call legalese literature. (8-) Regards, Bill Willson Keep your hand moving and your muse alive. bwillson@mtwest.net - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 20:02:40 -0500 From: "Todd Robert Petersen" Subject: Re: [AML] Genre D. Michael Martindale wrote: > New and original in science fiction? Name me a genre (including > literary) that has anywhere near the scope science fiction has, within > which to be new and original. If your mean original as in making up monsters and planets and fabulous ecosystems and so forth, then science fiction has it beat. If you mean original as in new things done in and with language that have not been seen before (i.e. breaks with stylistic, structural, and linguistic tradition) then Sub-Saharan African Writers from the last twenty years or so, writers working in English and in hyrid forms of their native and imposed languages, are among the most original. Writers like these are Kojo Laing, Dambudzo Marechera, China Achebe, Ben Okri, Ezekiel Mephelele, and Wole Soyinka. Science Fiction and its proponents often rely on the inventiveness of the writer's ability to imagine the content as a rational for the genre's overall inventiveness. Plots and characters remain the same for much of the genre. This is not to include Lem, Hebert, Moorcock, Dick, and others. Todd Robert Petersen - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 21:01:10 PDT From: "Jason Steed" Subject: Re: [AML] Genre >Now I can't speak for other genres like Western or Romance or Horror, >because I don't read them. Perhaps for some of them, your statements are >more reflective of reality. But when it comes to science fiction, I'm >have to completely disagree with you. > >As a response to this very type of accusation, prominent science fiction >author Theodore Sturgeon coined an oft-quoted saying (which I of course >am paraphrasing, since who in their right mind would waste time looking >it up?): Sure, 90% of science fiction is garbage, but 90% of everything >is garbage. I would agree with this 100%. >Since I brought up Sturgeon, I challenge each of you who might feel as >Jason does to go to your local library or used bookstore and search out >Sturgeon's book _More Than Human_, read it, and tell me how it's >formulaic, or not as chockfull with insightful and complex explorations >of the human condition as any literary novel you've read. I could say >the same about dozens of other science fiction books, from Ursula K. >LeGuin's _Left Hand of Darkness_ and _Dispossessed_, to James Blish's _A >Case of Conscience_, to Joe Haldeman's _Forever War_, to Robert >Silverberg's _A Time of Changes_, to Clifford Simak's _Waystation_, to >Octavia Butler's anything. Need I even mention Orson Scott Card's Ender >series in this crowd? And M. Shayne Bell's _Nicoji_ ain't bad either. > >You'd be hard pressed to find even a hint of formula among these and >many other books, outside of the obvious one that they all ask "what >if?" questions about things that are currently not known to be true in >our universe. Maybe you misunderstood me. I wasn't saying SF is formulaic. I was saying that "genre" fiction in general tends to be more _susceptible_ to cliche and formula than "mainstream" or "literary" fiction. Those SF works which overcome or shed or avoid that susceptibility are the _good_ books--the 10% that isn't garbage. But just because they exist doesn't mean that "genre" fiction isn't susceptible to what I was claiming it is susceptible to. > > The key, IMO, is that the "literary" genre--though it has its > > conventions, of course--is less limiting. It is not hard to write a GOOD > > non-Western (it can be so many other things and still be GOOD); but it >is > > very hard to write a GOOD non-literary novel--because the fact that it >is > > GOOD makes it a candidate for being classified as "literary," while this >is > > not enough to classify it as "Western." > >If you were to make these comments in the presence of Orson Scott Card, >you would get a very strong reaction, and it wouldn't be pretty. His >assertion is that within the "boundaries" of science fiction, an author >has more opportunity to explore and experiment and push any limits that >exist than literary authors can even imagine. OSC is just one author (though you appeal to his author-ity quite often). And of course he'll disagree, because he's a SF author and will naturally favor his canvas over another (that's why he works there). But in an effort to NOT favor any particular genre, I would have to say he's just plain wrong: no genre, SF included, is any "freer" or "better able" to experiment or explore than any other. Each just does it in different ways. > > > My question is, for those who DO write what might be > > classifiable as "genre fiction": How DO you toe the line and make what >you > > write "new" and "original" while maintaining those elements necessary to >the > > genre? It seems to me that this is a greater challenge for "genre" >writers > > than for "mainstream" blokes like myself. > >New and original in science fiction? Name me a genre (including >literary) that has anywhere near the scope science fiction has, within >which to be new and original. All of them. There is nothing new under the sun. I presume you're arguing for SF's superiority here because SF can create a world we've never heard of before, inhabited by creatures we've never heard of. But isn't every piece of writing the creation of a world? Doesn't Carver create a "new" world when he writes about blue-collar Joe who's trying to quit smoking, whose kid gets in a fight with the boy down the street? You want to say "no", I presume, because this world and the creatures in it are recognizable. They're not "new." But you'll be hard-pressed to convince me that SF worlds aren't recognizable; they're still _worlds_, in some way relatable to my world (as Carver's is), and the creatures and their interactions with one another are still relatable to me and my interactions with others. You've just made up "new" pronouns, named them differently, etc. Creating a "new" planet in SF is no more "new" and "original", IMO, then creating a "new" county (Faulkner's Yoknapawtawpha) in "literary" fiction; and creating a "new" creature with three arms and one eye is no different from creating a "new" woman who is so desperate to keep her husband in his place that she shoots him (Hemingway's "Short Happy Life of F.M."). The difference is, IMO, that in creating these worlds in "mainstream" or "literary" fiction, readers are less likely to recognize formulaic or cliched writing, for whatever reason. And the "conventions" for these genres are not so well-delineated as they are for the so-called "genre" fictions. So, the "genre" fictions are perceived as more susceptible to formula and cliche. J.P. Steed English Department, UNLV 4505 Maryland Pkwy, Box 455011 Las Vegas, NV 89154-5011 jpsteed@hotmail.com http://complabs.nevada.edu/~stee6515 _________________ "God created man because he loves stories." -- Elie Wiesel "There is no story that is not true." -- Chinua Achebe ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com - - AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature http://www.xmission.com/~aml/aml-list.htm ------------------------------ End of aml-list-digest V1 #106 ******************************