From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V2 #42 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, April 30 2003 Volume 02 : Number 042 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2003 08:40:01 -0600 From: "D. Michael Martindale" Subject: [AML] re: D. Michael's Film Lab 3: Twisted Time Lines Okay, so the movie "Retroactive" that I advertised for the next D. Michael's Film Lab, does not star John Belushi, seeing as how it was made some fifteen years after his death. It's Jim Belushi. - -- 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 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 11:33:03 -0600 From: "Clark Goble" Subject: RE: [AML] Does Theory Matter? ___ R. W. ___ | Deconstruction, feminism, psychoanalysis--all ideas with=20 | a germ of truth, that are set upon by careerist=20 | systematizers who harden them into orthodoxies that=20 | permit no dissent the the academic marketplace. ___ Deconstruction isn't part of a system. Indeed that is why authors are careful to say "deconstruction" and not "deconstructionism." Deconstruction typically is invoked to undermine attempts at systemizing. =20 While I'd agree that there are many attempts at flawed systems in feminism and psycho-analysis, not all are. Don't get me wrong, I think Freud one of the worst things to happen to the psyche in the 20th century. I think his few initial insights that panned out could easily be found elsewhere. I think the same of most 20th century feminism. (Based upon my reading - but recognizing that is such a wide field that I may find a lot I agree with were I to search) I think it dangerous to cast down the movement though simply because its initial attempts to realize its concerns were dismal failures. (And, to be fair, feminism had many successes in with the failures) ___ R. W. ___ | The money quote from the "New York Times" article is from=20 | Sander L. Gilman: "I think that one must be careful in=20 | assuming that intellectuals have some kind of insight. In=20 | fact, if the track records of intellectuals are any=20 | indication, not only have intellectuals been wrong almost=20 | all of the time, but they have been wrong in corrosive=20 | and destructive ways."=20 ___ I'm not sure that is a fair comment. Certainly there have been schools of thought which have been rather na=EFve. Traditional Marxism, traditional Freudianism, and so forth clearly are great examples. However by the same measure I think he is leaving out a lot that came about because of "intellectuals" (whatever that is). Consider at a minimum racism and responses to it. While there have been failures in the effort there have been far more successes. Further the anti-racist views arise out of the humanist tradition and has largely been driven by intellectuals from the period of the civil war on up. (Which is not to discount the efforts of others, but often those views are made possible because of a condition set up by intellectuals) Don't get me wrong. I tend to be pretty anti-intellectual (meaning writers and commentators found in Universities but "unsoiled" by more pragmatic concerns) I also have often stated that I think engineering projects have done far more to improve human ethics than all the intellectual successes combined. I think that having ones basic needs taken care of gives people a freedom where they can be less selfish and then *naturally* act in ways intellectuals like. But that arose because of the teamwork of science and engineering and not pure intellectualism. However I do think that intellectuals get a bad rap. For all their failings one must admit that intellectuals don't tend to do the horrible things that their failures mark. If intellectuals have a blind side, it is in forgetting that not everyone is an intellectual. Thus they tend to make sweeping judgments which only work if everyone were an intellectual. That is, of course, na=EFve. But it reflects their = world. [Clark Goble] - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 11:35:09 -0600 From: Margaret Young Subject: RE: [AML] Babies and Creativity I read _The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich_ while nursing my first baby. Strange choice? I also read Tolstoy's _Resurrection_. A rather good combination, I'd say. ________________ Margaret Young 1027 JKHB English Department Brigham Young University Provo, UT 84602-6280 Tel: 801-422-4705 Fax: 801-422-0221 - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 11:53:37 -0600 From: "Clark Goble" Subject: RE: [AML] Physics and AML-List ___ Bill ___ | I started reading a book* written by a physicist a few years | back, but I had to stop, because it got way too deep for my | cognitive resources to comprehend. This book's purpose was | to prove, by means of pure physics, the existence of God The | author began by examining the "Chaos Theory" and speculating | on the odds of one cell forming under the parameters | accepted by this theory. ___ This sounds like _The Anthropic Cosmological Principle_ by Tipler and Barrow. It is a very interesting book. However it has a slight problem in that some might say that the only reason this particular state of affairs is special is because we are in it. It has this hidden "subjective" element that makes things appear more unlikely than they actually are. That's a confusing paragraph, I know. So let me put it in simpler terms. Consider someone deals you a particular hand of cards. Now I could go through how astronomically improbable that particular hand of cards was. And I'd be completely right. The only problem is that for *any* hand of cards the probability of that hand is small. Once you take that more "big picture view" the significance of that hand of cards suddenly seems small. What makes getting dealt four aces and a joker seem so significant? Well, we *made* it significant because *we* determined that particular hand is important. But from a more objective point of view it is no more significant than any other random hand. With regards to life we find this particular point in history so significant and so profound because *we* consider ourselves somehow important. But that judgment is really the same sort of thing as making four aces important. Further we are making this judgment only after looking at the cards. It is akin to determining what cards in poker are valuable *after* being dealt the cards instead of having the rules *before* the dealing. Now this isn't to throw out all the insights of the various anthropic principles. But it does suggest we ought to be cautious, especially if one adopts the view of multiple universes. This universe is significant only because *we* are here. It is our looking that makes it significant. It is not its significance that allows us to look. Sorry for all that, but this is a bit of a pet peeve of mine as it is a fundamental misunderstanding that I see a lot making with respect to science in literature. It crops up in discussion of evolution as well. ___ Bill ___ | Here is an interesting website of Dr. Tipler's in which | he concludes: "So our mind children at the end of time | will be omniscient (they will know everything that can | be known); they will be omnipotent (they will have | infinite energy, controlling all the energy resources in | the universe), and they are omnipresent (they are | ubiquitous throughout the universe). ___ Tipler's Omega point theory is certainly interesting. People should be aware that it is *very* controversial and runs into various problems in terms of physics. I'd also point out that for Tipler this Omega point ends up being God. So it really isn't that compatible with a Mormon view of diety and resurrected beings interacting with mortal beings. Clark Goble - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 05:57:15 -0500 From: Ronn! Blankenship Subject: [AML] Deductions for Literary Contributions > >Thought this might be of interest, especially to the authors in the group. >Colleen > Colleen R. Cahill | CSTU@LOC.GOV > Digital Production Coordinator | (202)707-8540 > & Recommending Officer for | FAX (202)707-8531 > Science Fiction & Fantasy | Library of Congress >These opinions are mine, Mine, Mine! | Washington, DC 20540-4652 > > >---------- Forwarded message ---------- >Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2003 12:55:07 -0400 >From: Kathye Fetsko Petrie >To: kpwriting@comcast.net >Subject: congressional support needed for H.R.806 > >Dear Local LIT readers and other concerned authors/artists and readers: > >Former Unites States Poet-Laureate (1973-74) Daniel Hoffman >has informed me about a very important bill, H.R.806, which is >about to go up for a vote in the House of Representatives. The bill is to >"amend the Internal Revenue Code . . . to provide that a deduction equal >to fair market value shall be allowed for charitable contributions of >literary, >musical, artistic, or scholarly compositions created by the donor." >Daniel Hoffman explains the situation below and more information >is available at http://www.authorsguild.org/news/tax_position_april.htm. > >Please show your support for this bill by contacting your representative by >phone, fax or e-mail, and, urge that he or she co-sponsor H.R. 806, >the "Artists' Contribution to American Heritage Act." There are 42 >co-sponsors to date. More are needed. A list of all representatives >and their contact information are available at >http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ >The text of H.R. 806, as well as a list of its current sponsors, is >available at http://www.theorator.com/bills108/hr806.html > >The Authors Guild http://www.authorsguild.org/ asks that you >also inform them you have sent a letter of support >E-mail the authors guild at staff@authorsguild.org to let them know >you called, faxed or e-mailed your representative or send a copy of >your faxed letter to the guild's fax number, (212) 564-5363. >ACTION IS NEEDED NOW as I believe the bill comes up for vote >early this week. Thanks so much. > >All the best, >Kathye Fetsko Petrie >Editor/Publisher >Local LIT >A monthly e-zine > of literary news and events > in the Philadelphia area >http://www.locallit.com > > >author, FLYING JACK >September 2003 >http://www.locallit.com/display.php?what=print_pub >Boyds Mills Press >http://www.boydsmillspress.com > >Please feel free to forward this message. >________________________________________ >TEXT OF LETTER FROM DANIEL HOFFMAN: >Dear Kathye: > > I'm on the Council of the Authors Guild, an organization >representing over 8.000 professional writers. We've taken a strong >interest in getting the Congress to repeal the provisions in the tax >code which deny a writer any tax benefit beyond the cost of >materials for donations of mss., correspondence, first editions, >etc., to a library, university or museum (same applies to artists >and composers). So the author of a novel or book of poems, donating >the mss., could deduct only the cost of a ream of paper and an ink >cartridge, while any donor not the creator of the work can get a >tax deduction of the appraised full market value of the gift. > > At last the Senate has passed and the House is about to >consider the "Artists' Contribution to American Heritage Act," H.R. >806, which has 42 sponsors among members in the House. If you could >put out an e-mail to your subscribers urging them to urge their >congressman to join the 42 as co-sponsor of this resolution, its >chances of passage will be greatly enhanced. > > I've written to Representative Weldon, pointing out the cultural >consequences of passing this measure, which would make attractive to >writers the donation of their archives in toto, thus facilitating >cultural research. At present such materials are more likely sold to >private collectors, scattering the documents necessary for >responsible interpretation; some collectors deny access to critics >and scholars, others don't publicize their holdings. So the granting >of tax deduction for responsibly appraised gifts to appropriate >institutions rights a wrong in the tax code as well as contributes >to the preservation of our cultural heritage. > > This resolution will soon come up for a vote, so anyone >interested in helping its passage would do well to call, fax, or >e-mail his/her congressman a.s.a.p. > >Yours, >Dan >________________________________________ >THIS MESSAGE MAY BE FORWARDED >-- - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 17:38:36 -0600 (MDT) From: Fred C Pinnegar Subject: Re: [AML] Introductions: Dianna Graham I was bored stiff and didn't have a TV to watch...). Anyway, we're trapped in lovely Orem, UT, for the time being. > Dianna Graham Reply: I can think of worse places to wash ashore; for example, anyplace east of the Rockies. When we moved to Orem from Kalamazoo, my 4-year-old boy said to me, "Where are we going, Daddy," and I said, "We're going to the mountains of Ephriam to dwell." I guess I'm just a country boy. May you find what Arthur Henry King described in his poetry as "the right landscape in which to die." For him, it was that little ranch on the east side of the road on I-15, just outside of Holden. Fred Pinnegar - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 20:44:41 -0600 From: "Nan McCulloch" Subject: Re: [AML] Anne Perry Letter Link Thanks for this link to the Anne Perry letter. We just returned from a 30 day cruise on the QE2 in mid February. Although we visited a different part of the world I was amazed at how similar our experiences were. The cultural joys of this kind of adventure are unbelievable, and she presented them beautifully. Sorry we missed her lectures, but loved the series we heard in Tahiti on Paul Gauguin and Jacques Brel. In Tasmania I learned how to commit the perfect crime using a Tasmanian devil, since the little creatures eats up all the evidence (hair, bone and skin). My sweetest experience was when a lovely Japanese woman came to my aid on the island of Moorea. We had to wade ashore barefoot on seashells. She appeared out of nowhere, took my arm and guided me to the sandy beach. She spoke nary a word of English, but her kindness moved me to tears. Later she swam out to the reef and brought me back a heart-shaped piece of coral. My most glorious moment was seeing _Rigoletto_ at the Sydney Opera House. We live in a beautiful, fascinating world. Nan McCulloch - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 22:08:39 -0600 From: "Bill Willson" Subject: Re: [AML] Physics and AML-List > Bill Willson wrote: > > > This writer (Frank J. Tipler, author of "The Physics of Immortality") was not to my knowledge a member of >>the church, but then he could be by now. Who knows? >> > D. Michael Martindale > dmichael@wwno.com Replies: > > Oh, he's definitely not a member of the church. I doubt he's a member of any church. He was quite agnostic, if not atheistic, earlier in his life, and came to a "belief" in God through scientific deduction. His book is a fascinating bunch of speculation, but he creates a God which > only an agnostic could love. > Does anyone know for sure if Dr. Tipler believes in God or not? He went to the trouble of writing an entire book, which postulates his own `proof' that there is a God. Personally I would hate to be guilty of labeling anyone an out and out atheist who wrote a book in an effort to convince the scientific world that there was a God. Maybe his God is one whom only an agnostic could love, but it is Mr. Tipler's concept of God. Doesn't our own eleventh Article of Faith tell us: 11 We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may. I think it is definitely a step in the right direction for the field of physics. Maybe if enough mathematicians and physicists get to work trying to disprove Dr. Tipler's theory, some of them will actually find God, and eventually the one true church.. There supposedly is a purpose to everything under heaven, and I seriously doubt if there is only one path that leads us back to our home with God. Anyway, it seems like there is more than ample food for our creative minds to explore the possibilities that could come forth from the above questions, dealing with the discovery of God through the pathways of science; of course the final proof would have to evolve a quantum leap of faith. Each of us makes that leap alone. Bill Willson, writer bmdblu2@atbi.com http://www.laterdaybard.com And here's another new website where you can sell your goods or services, and its FREE! Check it out at: http://www.minutemall.com - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 22:49:40 -0600 From: Clark Draney Subject: Re: [AML] Temple in Literature At 01:08 PM 4/25/2003 -0600, you wrote: >Often the analogy of a >plumber or electrician is evoked. What church leader would dictate to >these professionals how to do their job? None that has any sense at all. >But they feel like they have every right to dictate to an artist how to >do his job. And the results speak for themselves. Part of this analogy breaks down in a critical way. It assumes that the artist's craft is as structured and predictable as a plumber's or an electrician's job. A plumber or electrician doesn't have to make the same decisions about how her work will impact the moral lives of those she works for-- how the job will materially influence others. It's simply a matter of applying technical knowledge and working to achieve a prescribed (and in some ways proscribed) end. The artist, on the other hand, often does take the moral dimension in hand, and can create situations which influence others in ways that can affect their lives in the most fundamental ways. I have said before, echoing many on this list (I think), that surely some (many) of us can judge for ourselves what to read or watch based on correct principles and the guidance of the spirit, but there may also be some individuals whose particular mortal circumstances make them dangerously vulnerable to things that don't affect others. An appropriate expression of marital sex for one reader may be a slippery slope into inappropriate, even sinful, action for another. The fact that these honest expressions of sexuality, or a valid and necessary depictions of violence, cannot be condoned from the official pulpits of the church stems from the fact that not every church member has the capacity to know when the line has been crossed. So, leaders speak in terms that draw the lines way back from the dangerous edge, and thus sufficiently far away from leading the weakest into sin, that their (the leader's) garments not be spotted with the blood of such sins. Some individuals may safely break the letter of the law because they understand the principles AND have the individual power to not slip into grievous error. Others clearly cannot. Thus, the larger question of whether such "rule-breaking" leads us to break eternal laws is much more serious and, to my mind, firmly settled. When and where artists broach that line, however, is not yet settled. Clark D. - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 22:56:28 -0600 From: Clark Draney Subject: Re: [AML] Self-Indulgent Authors At 12:23 PM 4/25/2003 -0600, you wrote: >Perhaps this analogy will illustrate. When I go on a trip, I fo to enjoy >the sights, to experience places that I haven't experienced before. Now >I would much prefer taking that journey in a comfortable vehicle: roomy, >air conditioned, nice stereo system, smooth ride, no mechanical >breakdowns. A beat up, vibrating, stifling jalopy that constantly breaks >down only distracts from my vacationing experience. The vehicle is the >medium. The locations are the message. I guess I have a problem with this analogy because writing is hardly like a car to me at all. It's not a function of being able to afford a nice car. It's a matter of working sufficiently hard at conveying my message clearly and thoughtfully. The car is created by someone else and I just drive it. I like the amenities while they work, but I didn't make them. They are part of a prepackaged deal I got from the manufacturer (who, by the way, chooses much of what is in "my" car). Eventually it breaks down and I have to buy another one. Writing, on the other hand, is very much about learning what works and what doesn't (mostly by trial and error). Its about being sufficiently immersed in the discourse I want to write in and about to be able to convey easily and convincingly what is important to me. I create that vehicle for communication myself, painstakingly, step-by-step. And, it grows as I continue to practice the craft. I replace outmoded methods that no longer work as well for me as I once thought they did, but even that process is cumulative and transformative, not a transaction with a dealer. Clark D. - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 23:02:28 -0700 From: "Travis K. Manning" Subject: [AML] Re: [AML-Mag] International Mormon Lit? - ----- Original Message ----- I'm probably oversensitive > to this, and probably making too much of it, but I wonder if the absence of > works by authors from other cultures is one reason that Mormon literature > is not as broadly accepted (or, I would argue, as rich or cross-culturally > appealing) as, say, Jewish or Catholic literatures. This is a really interesting notion. Are LDS artists not reading widely enough, cross-culturally? There's got to be some truth to that. I'm inserting the movie version of _Fiddler on the Roof_ into the VCR even as I type (as it is due at Blockbuster tomorrow).... Travis Manning - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2003 02:39:11 -0400 From: Justin Halverson Subject: Re: [AML] Self-Indulgent Authors D. Michael Martindale wrote: >Justin Halverson wrote: > > > But I will never come back to them. I will never read a book that easy > > twice, much less think of it again. And not out of some pretentious > > literati-type snobbery. I won't because it's no fun, and there's nothing to > > be gained from a second "viewing". > > > > A novel that challenges me, though, that I could read for the sound of its > > words alone, I'll come back to time and time again. Especially if I'm not > > sure what it means. >Holy Moley I get frustrated sometimes. Easy books? Who said anything >about easy books? I completely understand your sentiment. It's frustrating when a responder to your post only seems to read that post selectively before dismantling little bits of it. (Granted, I too find it much easier to make someone's argument look silly when I take it out of context.) I thought we were talking about "easy" books because your analogy described the kinds of books I find "easy." The post from which you snip the above quote was responding to a post in which you compared writing to the creating of a trap. You wrote: "Maybe that's why I am so big on writing in a way that slips the reader easily into my story. I tend to write things that are traps: forcing people against their will to think thoughts they wouldn't have chosen to think on their own" (NOTE: the full email is below. If I am taking you out of context here, I apologize and hope you will correct my misreading.) If I am "forced" by a book to think something "against my will," I call that book "easy"--I don't have to do any work. The book gives me all the ideas, and I can't work at all, since I "wouldn't have chosen to think [those thoughts] on my own." Painting a reader into a corner is *not* challenging or ultimately beneficial to the reader--no matter how interesting or good or wonderful or necessary to salvation or an understanding of the human condition your thought is. If the reader has to think what you want him or her to think--and he or she does, because, as you rightly point out--they're trapped. That's why I began my response by explaining as clearly as I could (since I was much more concerned with the message than the language), that your analogy applies "if you want to limit the literary experience to . If you want to trap your reader into a single, clearly identifiable, unequivocal reading of your work, that's great. I won't deny that I really like and need those sorts of novels from time to time--for the same reason that I enjoy watching "Law and Order" or summer action movies." >Now if you love the sound of words and come back for that, well more >power to you. But to call a book easy simply because the writing is easy >to read does not compute. I do love the sound of words, but it's not just that. It's reading something that I *have* to participate in that I love--something that asks me to bring my own experience to bear on the author's. Again, what I meant by easy was that I didn't have to work anything out for myself, since you had not only already done all the work for me, but had trapped me into thinking what you wanted me to think. >Perhaps this analogy will illustrate. When I go on a trip, I fo to enjoy >the sights, to experience places that I haven't experienced before. Now >I would much prefer taking that journey in a comfortable vehicle: roomy, >air conditioned, nice stereo system, smooth ride, no mechanical >breakdowns. A beat up, vibrating, stifling jalopy that constantly breaks >down only distracts from my vacationing experience. The vehicle is the >medium. The locations are the message. Fine. Absolutely fine (as I said before, I "really like and need" the sorts of novels that often result from this approach). Your metaphor, however, reflects only your inability to understand anything but what you want me to see. It depends on the following three assumptions: 1) That medium and message are radically separate. If they ever do touch each other, the interaction, like the interface between a tire's contact patches and the road, is extremely small. 2) That difficult prose "constantly breaks down." It doesn't. Sometimes it does, but then it's no good. Perhaps you got the impression that I'm defending all difficult writing. I'm not. I don't like difficult prose if it "constantly breaks down." But good writing, even if it is difficult, does (by definition) *not* break down. 3) That a good reading experience presents itself before you like a landscape to be oohed and aahed over through a window instead of touched, tasted, smelled--even heard!--in addition to being seen. Perhaps I may appropriate your metaphor, and compare good though difficult (poetic would be another synonym) prose to a well-used, resonant, well-weighted classic cruiser, whose owner has spent countless hours tuning up and rebuilding from parts that, though they've been used in other cars and might seem ridiculous, mis-proportioned, or out of place when viewed close up--as solitary parts of most arguments--work just as they should, or even just as they weren't expected to, when taken as a whole. This car's owner/driver could be both reader or writer, since good prose, when it is difficult, often requires the reader to contribute as much as the writer. Since a writer isn't really a mechanic, though, and since not every reader is comfortable "experiencing" the literary world from inside a (however well apportioned) metal box, the analogy breaks down at this point. If I pushed it, though, I'd say this: with writing and reading, *both* types of vehicles are great at times. Sometimes I just want to hand over the keys, sit back, and enjoy the ride. I take great pleasure, too, though, out of driving in a vehicle I've actually had a hand in building and that will probably break down a couple times along the way so that I have to get out of the car, feel the grit under my knees, the dirt in my hair, and the grease on my hands and in my eyes. I remember the scenery of the road that much better for having had to see it looking up past the axle and the air-conditioner compressor, between the belts that drive the alternator and water pump, and through the air that wavers off the engine block. >I wouldn't read a book once that is hard to read because of thw writing, >let alone enjoy reading it multiple times. But I'll read often books >that are challenging in their ideas. How can you say a book with >challenging, thought-rpovoking ideas has nothing to be gained from a >second viewing? Those are the very books that you read multiple times. I *didn't* say that. I said that a book that only produces thoughts its readers are "trapped" into is not challenging nor thought-provoking, and therefore not worth a second read. >Unless you enjoy the broken down, bumpy jalopy experience. No. But just I enjoy taking the Lincoln on a Sunday afternoon drive, I also appreciate the surprised satisfaction of getting back on the road having had a hand in making what I'm driving, and being aware of how amazingly complex and intricate this thing I'm driving is, and how we depend on each other to get wherever we're going. Justin Halverson PS--The email to which I was previously responding, in full, if anyone cares and has actually read this far, follows: Melissa Proffitt wrote: > The point of all of this is that just because Wolfe does this and creates > good writing, it doesn't mean that his is the ONLY kind of good writing. > It's just different. And it's written for a different audience. Calling it > "self-indulgent" only makes it sound like you want to throw up a different > barrier: the one that legitimizes only the kind of fiction *you* like. Read > (and write) what makes you happy; stick to the kinds of books that you > admire most. Just keep in mind that others' tastes must needs be met as > well, and their preferences for something else aren't a denigration of > yours. D. Michael Martindale wrote: I'm sure I came across sounding like what you wrote here, but it's not readers' tastes that I was complaining about. What I truly don't get is why an author would make him/herself hard to read. You may enjoy putting your mind through a meat grinder (I don't--not a meat-grinder of difficult writing style), but I feel pretty confident that the majority of readers don't. And even though you enjoyed Wolfe's obtuseness, you also enjoyed the simplicity of the juvenile mystery series. Simplicity/directness/clarity in writing (whatever word you wish to choose to describe it) won't put off readers--even readers for whom Wolfeian styles appeal. What I don't get is why writers would choose the difficult approach. It _will_ decrease the size of the audience. We must remember that we are an elite crew here. We are literate. It's a heady ego booster to have literate people praise your writing, but my first and foremost desire for my authorial efforts is mass sales. I won't compromise my message to get sales, but I will certainly gear my writing style to ease people into my story as effortlessly as possible. The word "self-indulgent" isn't a carelessly tossed epithet. A writer who doesn't have the business end of writing in mind _is_ being self-indulgent: writing for himself rather than for a large audience. Now there's nothing wrong with that if they want to do that (and that's why I added that Gene Wolfe may not care if he maximizes his audience), but I don't get why an author would want to do that. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Traps need to entice their victims in effortlessly. Maybe that's why I am so big on writing in a way that slips the reader easily into my story. I tend to write things that are traps: forcing people against their will to think thoughts they wouldn't have chosen to think on their own. Maybe that's what I'm trying to say: easy thoughts can afford labyrinthine roads to them. Difficult thoughts need enticing, effortless paths. Difficult thoughts paired with difficult roads sounds like a recipe for failure. - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2003 02:58:45 -0400 From: Justin Halverson Subject: Re: [AML] Mormon Anglophilia >I think there is a >strain of Anglophilia in popular LDS culture that could be the result of >heritage similar to mine. C.S. Lewis is of course the most famous >honorary Mormon. I know Neal Maxwell loves to quote Churchill and other >Brit luminaries when he gets the chance. I wonder if it's also because we share a language and, broadly, a philosophical heritage. No matter how internationally-read we are, it's likely that all of us who grew up with "English" (scare quotes to mollify the Brits ;->) as our first language are better-versed in British literature than in any other national/linguistic tradition. As far as a specifically (U.S.) LDS Anglophilia, one factor might be our use of the King James Bible, and the way it colors the translation into "American" of much LDS scripture. Justin Halverson - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2003 04:07:49 -0400 From: Justin Halverson Subject: Re: [AML] Temple in Literature D Michael Martindale wrote: >I don't think the problem is so much deciding what should be "held >apart," as deciding what "held apart" actually means. I think equating >"holding apart" with hiding is a superficial way to reverence >something--a Pharisaical way. I think the correct meaning of "holding >apart" is to treat that which is sacred with honor and respect. I do >_not_ accept the Primary definition that reverence equals shut up. > >The "shut up" approach to reverencing sacred things I suppose stems from >the oft-abused quote from Jesus not to cast pearls before swine. Good >advice, if you're confronted with a swine. It _is_ better to just keep >silent about sacred things when you are surrounded by people who will >mock the sacred. > >But how many people do that? The whole world except for Mormons, if you >go by some Mormons' apparent perception. Yet when I look at the >reception of the world to such religious films as _God's Army_, _Brigham >City_, _My Big Fat Greek Wedding_, _Fiddler on the Roof_, _The Apostle_, >and numerous works of literature, I see precious little mocking of such >things and a great deal of respect for them. The evidence for the >existence of herds and herds of swine out there is lacking. > >I do wish we Mormons could get over the habit of calling everyone a >swine who doesn't believe as we do. Every time we say we should hide >something sacred from everyone, that's exactly what we're doing. My writing must be much worse than even my professors tell me, if this is the conclusion that you draw from my post. :-) Like you urge, I do not equate "sacred" with "secret" nor with "hiding" in the sense that we won't share it. Neither do the church leaders I've heard speak on the subject--at least not those general officers. They often remark that the temples are open to anyone who will prepare themselves to enter (just as Christ promised understanding to anyone who would prepare themselves to hear his "silent"--that is, in some contexts, unhearable--parables). I do, however, equate "sacred" with "silence" *in certain contexts.* The way I understand it is this: when in the temple, we are encouraged to speak about the temple as freely as we want, to ask any question we want, and to discuss openly what we learn and see. When outside the temple, out of respect for the most sacred places on earth--sacred in part precisely *because* they are, though set on hills and brightly lit, both circumscribed by walls of stone and dependent on walls of reverence--we speak in generalities but refrain, because we hold them apart from the everyday and the quotidian, from discussing (verbally or in writing) specifics. This silence is NOT to be construed as an implicit judgment of those around us as swine. Outside the temple I don't choose to speak to my wife or my daughter in specifics about the temple, and vice versa. Does that mean I think they're swine? (We won't ask what they think of me.) Only if "we Mormons" all talked about the specifics of the temple *outside the temple*, but shut up as soon as someone else walked into the room, THEN maybe we'd be calling everyone else swine. My wife's and my silence simply reflects our feeling that to talk about those specifics outside the temple would, in effect, bring those things into the discourse of daily life--which discourse we (my wife and I) don't use in the temple (ie, we don't choose to balance our checkbooks in the celestial room). Thus, they wouldn't be sacred to us anymore, since the definition of sacred is, I think (and I think you think), more productively thought of not as "off-limits" but as "held apart." I'll close this post with the same words I used to close the last one, which I think is what you're also asking for: Here's hoping that we can continue to listen closely and humbly for guidance in our creative efforts, and apply that the same humility to receiving what our fellow artists offer us. Justin Halverson - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2003 10:11:34 -0700 From: "Susan Malmrose" Subject: Re: [AML] _Chicago_ > Some believe that it would be best if we didn't watch this kind of > entertainment, if we didn't appall ourselves occasionally and remind > ourselves of the horrors that happen on this earth. Seems to me that's an > awfully dangerous opinion to keep. I don't have a problem with movies that show appalling acts as long as there is something uplifting to counteract it. I think it's really rare in life that anything just brutally appalling happens without something positive taking place as well. Tragedy and horror bring out tremendous strength in people. (This is my favorite theme in movies--the strength and resiliency of the human spirit.) I've seen enough appalling things in my own family and in my own life, I don't need to see a movie to be reminded of it. In fact, if anything, I need to be reminded of the opposite. :) Susan - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ End of aml-list-digest V2 #42 *****************************