| Author | Message | ||
     Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
My two latest blog entries are about the recent controversy surrounding V.S. Naipaul's comments on "women writers". I'm very pleased with this first one, because I think I've found a logical absurdity in the incident that nobody else has yet spotted: http://rhysaurus.blogspot.com/ (I love logical absurdities and paradoxes for their own sake. I don't care what the end result is; I just like the form.) My second blog on this issue is less logical and more 'political' and is more likely to make you gibber in glee privately (while berating me in public). Here we go: http://postmodernmariner.blogspot.com/ One day I'm going to put together a list of my favourite female writers. I imagine that the following names will be near the top: * Ursula Le Guin * Anna Kavan * Githa Hariharan * C.L Moore * Leigh Brackett * Arundhati Roy * Leonora Carrington (mainly a painter but her novel The Hearing Trumpet is superb) * Mary Gentle * Joanna Russ * Pat Cadigan * Angela Carter * Hope Mirrlees * James Tiptree Jr. * Evangeline Walton * Christine Brooke-Rose * Kate Wilhelm * Gina B. Nahai Anyone spot the odd one out? | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.253.174.81 |
Well it's well known that James Tiptree Jr wasn't a man. Is there someone else on the list who is? | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
You're thinking along the right lines, John; but it's not quite that. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
The man who compiled the list was once a woman? | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.253.174.81 |
Leigh Brackett is the only one who had a male movie character named after her Hope Mirrlees is the only one who could speak Zulu Joanna Russ is the only one who pastiched another on the list Oh I don't know.... | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Good to see C.L. Moore on your list, Rhys – the Northwest Smith and Jirel of Joiry stories are pulp classics and among the most nuanced, atmospheric stories to appear in Weird Tales. 'Black God's Shadow', 'Shambleau', 'The Dark Land', 'The Tree of Life', like wow. Anna Kavan, Ursula le Guin and Angela Carter are also great weird fiction writers. Is le Guin the odd one out because she's the only one who used a time machine to plagiarise a bestselling female writer whose work would appear thirty years later? | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.66.23.11 |
Le Guin really annoyed me when she wrote a review of Toby Litt's novel Journey into Space and spent most of the review saying that it was no good because it wasn't anything like her generation starship story. I hate it when writers review like that -"It's not what I would have written so it must be rubbish!" Conceited arrogant t***s that write that type of review | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.253.174.81 |
Well Ms Le Guin's attitude put me off her work in an interview with quite possibly The Third Alternative when she said something like 'Oh Heavens, No! I have absolutely no interest in entertaining my readers.' Down the lavatory The Left Hand of Darkness would have gone except it would have broken up my SF Masterworks set  | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
I don't really care if authors say stupid things. One of my favourite writers is Felipe Alfau, who claimed to be a follower of Franco and did his best to come over as an ultra-grumpy reactionary. You'd never know any of that from his books (which are humane, funny and beautiful) but only from his infrequent interviews. Check this out: http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/book/?fa=customcontent&GCOI=15647100860690&extrasfi le=A075E989-B0D0-B086-B62931732DB31211.html It's one of the greatest contrarian author interviews of all time! Never trust a self-definer, that's what I always say. I'm a self-definer, so never trust me. Wait a moment! If I'm a self-definer then you can't trust me, and if you can't trust me you can't trust what I say, and if I say I'm a self-definer then I can't be one, which means... Etc. Ah, I love paradox, me! The list of female writers above is missing Irčne Némirovsky, Muriel Spark and Clarice Lispector. I really must take more care compiling lists in future! The odd one out is Christine Brooke-Rose. This is because although she's a woman she has a male brain... I'll explain that statement in due course but first I want to give it a proper chance to annoy people... | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
Never trust a self-definer, that's what I always say. Yep. That's bang on, Rhys. Or is it...? | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
Writers can't help but create fictions - even to the point of fictionalising aspects of themselves. I know that much of what I say in interviews, for example, is just made up on the spot. I'm always contradicting myself - often on purpose. Never trust what a writer says because it might just be another story. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
Or is it...? | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
Absolutely, Gary. In interviews it's essential to say things off the top of your head; otherwise you might as well use a script. Readers and critics need to be educated into not taking very seriously things that authors say on the spur of the moment. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
I couldn't agree more, Rhys. Or could I...? | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
My favourite paradox of all is the Sorites Paradox which I'm delighted to report that I discovered independently when I was about 8 years old -- only 3000 years late. Here's another beautiful one; Russell's Antimony:  | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
That's how I try to impress women and get them into bed (the only true motive for all behaviour, achievements and civilisation since the dawn of mankind) -- with my intellect. Other men try it by 'being' socialists and saying compassionate things; or by crying in public and empathising; or by taking on responsibilities and having balding heads; or even by pretending they aren't trying to get women into bed. Some of them are so conditioned by the habit of maintaining the illusion year after year that they become genuinely nice: and then there's no hope, they are forever out of touch with themselves. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Which is just a reiteration of Freud's theory that all human efforts are motivated by desire, however confused or conflicted or sublimated, even in cases where the desire relates to past, future or purely imagined situations rather than ones realisable in the here and now. Desire is rarely pragmatic. I think your argument is plausible if extended to sexual desire in a very non-practical and unconscious sense – as a literal description of practical motives it (literally) leaves a lot to be desired. But as you've already disclaimered your own statements off the face of the earth, why am I bothering? Because at some hidden and irrational level I think it will get me laid, apparently. As Freud may well have said, the id never learns. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.118.74.87 |
That's how I try to impress women and get them into bed You'll discover soon enough that women are not generally impressed by intellect. | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 80.4.12.3 |
As long as they are specifically impressed, that's good enough for me! | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.21 |
With regards to writers adding to their lives via some form of fictional appendage, I once read an interesting article in which a historian wrote that diaries of historical importance are to be taken with a pinch of salt, since no diarist would ever write one without the intention of having it published. Therefore this act negated the whole point of keeping a diary or journal. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
I wonder why self-castration is so frowned upon, nowadays? I mean, if a man really doesn't want to be troubled by ever-fomenting sexual impulses, just couldn't care less... what's the big deal in snipping here and there? Why the shock and horror of it? Most women anyway are, in the sense I'm talking about, all but... I mean, they are not (generalizing here) troubled by an ever-boiling-over sexual tension. The utter lack of female-directed pornography is proof enough of that. But then, I guess I do know why men don't clip their balls... because they have balls.... | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.153.11.198 |
I'm looking forward to Rhys' no doubt singular explanation of his 'odd man out'. Meanwhile, I must say I have always found women to be impressed by anti-intellect | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.21 |
Depends which country you're in. Here in Poland women are very much impressed by intelligence, though it may sometimes be the appearance of intelligence in some cases. | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
Boys, boys! You use your intellect to impress them into bed; and once that is achieved you persuade their soft bodies to yield to you by employing your manly strength. It's a two-stage process... Christine Brooke-Rose... She is obsessed with two things I don't particularly regard as female, namely (a) algorithims, (b) systemisation. She's almost an OuLiPo writer (and female OuLiPo writers are rarer than solid moonbeams). In my list of great female writers above I somehow left out: * Marguerite Duras * Marguerite Yourcenar Inexplicable! | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.27.65 |
"Absolutely, Gary. In interviews it's essential to say things off the top of your head; otherwise you might as well use a script. Readers and critics need to be educated into not taking very seriously things that authors say on the spur of the moment." I can't see any point in giving an interview other than to tell as much of the truth as possible. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
Ramsey, the last thing I want people knowing about me is the truth... so I tend to mask the truth in blarney and bollocks. Let's call it a defence mechanism. | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
I see my own behaviour on forums as "larking about" -- having fun! When I was young, "larking about" was generally a popular pastime, not just among kids but also among adults, but it seems to have fallen out of fashion lately. Wanting to 'tell the truth' in interviews is commendable... but the truth is apt to change over time, become distorted, etc, (unless it's purely analytic truth, but who wants to read lists of a priori tautologies?) In interviews I prefer just to enjoy myself with ironies, paradoxes, etc -- hopefully the reader will be entertained too. For what it's worth, that's my approach. | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
I'll add that often readers don't seem to be amused. The writing world strikes me as a fairly humourless place these days (maybe it always was?) compared to the various other worlds I inhabit or have inhabited... Ironic banter is rarely met with ironic banter: no one seems willing to up the ante. Absurd comments are often slapped down with a deadly serious response. Clearly I'm out of touch! | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.33.242.34 |
Ah, well Rhys - I've had some serious words with some serious people over the last few months about how I don't feel as if I fit into the writing world at all because of that very reason. Who knows if the world was always thus? But seeing as I can't stop myself I see no reason in further analysing it and instead continue to be silly. And now my interview with Sir Edward Bullfrog-Lytton... | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
Rhys - that doesn't reflect the writing world I know. I have a lot of fun and meet some very entertaining and interesting people. If I didn't, I'd stop doing it. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.35.255.176 |
I must say that on the whole funny ghost or horror stories linger much less in my memory than the scary ones. I think that's why I try and write that way. The thing is, humour is so difficult to write. But I have to say a humourless horror story - indeed any story - can be awful. | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 80.4.12.3 |
These days I find I don't really enjoy any fiction that doesn't utilise irony to some degree. 'Straight' prose leaves me cold. Further to what I said above, I have been thinking about 'resigning' from these forums, as the effort of trying to be entertaining does seem to be wasted. | ||
| Kate (Kathleen) Username: Kathleen Registered: 09-2009 Posted From: 86.153.11.198 |
Awww, don't go, Rhys. The world needs more fun and playfulness and witty repartee. You and John always make me smile. Even if I do find the thought of the two of you in a room together extremely frightening. I'm not sure I could handle quite THAT many bad puns. | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 80.4.12.3 |
Thanks Kate. It's a bit demoralising though when people (I suspect deliberately) misunderstand everything I write. For example: "Readers and critics need to be educated into not taking very seriously things that authors say on the spur of the moment." In other words, don't take that statement seriously... It's a variant of the Liar Paradox. Some paradoxical response would have been nice. But instead I get either a political harangue or a flat rebuttal. I'm going to look for a community of absurdists and paradox-lovers instead, I think. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
I'm going to look for a community of absurdists and paradox-lovers instead, I think. I believe there's an encampment of them living on Testo's roundabout, near the Tyne Tunnel. Be quick, before they vanish up their own malapropisms... | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 80.4.12.3 |
Testo? Are you testing me? | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
Stop being so testy. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.27.65 |
"It's a bit demoralising though when people (I suspect deliberately) misunderstand everything I write." I'm afraid it's just me being dull. Getting old, I'm afraid. I apologise. | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 80.4.12.3 |
Don't apologise, Ramsey! It's me. I'm a tesseract-shaped peg in a Mobius-shaped hole. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Rhys, don't worry. When we take you seriously we're just being ironic. But to be honest, sometimes it's clear that you mean business. If the response was always "Ha ha, that's deliciously absurd" and you actually meant it, you'd be somewhat miffed. Have you seen the film Ridicule, set in the world of the pre-Revolution French court? Great stuff. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 81.153.252.217 |
Indeed, over the years, I've often been literally scared at the sight of Rhys' on-line 'anger' - | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
These days I find I don't really enjoy any fiction that doesn't utilise irony to some degree. 'Straight' prose leaves me cold. Hemingway's about the "straightest" prose writer there is... yet quite possibly the "crookedest" so far.... And I agree with Ramsey, I think interviewees should deliver as much truth as they can manage—it makes for wonderful lies. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.31.242.192 |
I never get this kind of attitudinal prescriptiveness. Be silly when the context suggests it, and serious for the same reason. Arthur Koestler defines comic character as that which is inflexible - meaning, the person responds to any and all situations in a mechanical, unvariable manner. Surely using paradox (etc) in certain contexts is as inappropriate as being sombre (etc) in another. Also, don't we all "story" our lives, using rhetorical devices, "spin", "jewelling the elephant", etc? It's hardly the exclusive domain of writers. Every time someone recounts an experience/event in everyday life, it's being slanted, distorted, restructured - hardly ever deliberately, and most commonly to fit with our ongoing life "projects". There's a whole school of psychology that deals with the "narrative" construction of identity. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 81.153.252.217 |
the "narrative" construction of identity ============= Without necessarily wishing to fulfil my own construction, but that's exactly what my first published novel is all about (via a Jules Vernain adveture). Talk about synchronicity! | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.31.242.192 |
There's no point in being dishonest about this. We're all basically trying to "bring off" certain identities by convincing others that we are what we "enact", so that they alone - because we cannot do this singlehandedly; it's the tragic truth of reflexive, intersubjectively-configured consciousness [forgive shitty terms] - can confer upon us the identity we are seeking to establish. That's what Sartre meant by "hell is other people". (Oh, and before some smart arse points it out, I know I've just fallen foul of Koestler observation.) | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.31.242.192 |
Internet forums are, I think, places in which the performative dimensions of identity creation to which I've alluded above become arenas for crafting the self. I emphasis the word "crafting", because unlike face-to-face social engagement - where one has to act on the hoof, and is frequently compromised by unsuspected turns of engagement, frequently "forced" to behave in ungovernable ways - the Internet forum allows for a beat of time in which to second-guess responses to comments, to craft and shape one's material so that one's identity might come off in the way one consciously/subconsciously intends ("Oh, for an edit button!"). We Internet forumers are all on the make. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 81.153.252.217 |
But is there a spine of self that tries to fight back? Like your spine is doing now, Gary. Or is even the spine itself equivalent to a hand in a Punch & Judy Show, waiting for its next glove? | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 81.153.252.217 |
The last two posts crossed. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.31.242.192 |
>>>I'm going to look for a community of absurdists and paradox-lovers instead, I think. Glad to hear you'll be sticking around, Rhys. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.31.242.192 |
>>>But is there a spine of self that tries to fight back? YES. The idea that we're all just performative entities is bollocks. Our "spines" are intricate combinations of genetic code, early social development, chance encounters, "hard-wired" experience, etc. The best way I've ever thought of to define us is one you'll like, Des: we're all variations on a theme of ourselves. But I sincerely believe that none of us know the theme. All we have access to are the variations. The theme is elusive; it's what we're all trying to hear. It's what we seek from other people: tell us who we are! But the effort is forlorn (another Sartrean concept). The for-itself can never become in-itself. The person can never be an object. (Yes, I know I've reverted to Koestler's stooge. I'll say something silly in a minute.) | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.31.242.192 |
>>>Or is even the spine itself equivalent to a hand in a Punch & Judy Show, waiting for its next glove? I like this, actually. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
Also, don't we all "story" our lives, using rhetorical devices, "spin", "jewelling the elephant", etc? It's hardly the exclusive domain of writers. Yep, that's right. But writers get interviewed so they do it in "public" more often. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.31.242.192 |
True enough. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
Or is it...? | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.31.242.192 |
This "contradiction" discourse you've developed doesn't wash with me. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
Or does it...?  To be fair, you never wash anyway. |