From: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org (stillpt-digest) To: stillpt-digest@smoe.org Subject: stillpt-digest V3 #100 Reply-To: stillpt@smoe.org Sender: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk stillpt-digest Sunday, June 10 2001 Volume 03 : Number 100 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: t/tolkien? ["David S. Bratman" ] Re: b/gift [Micole Sudberg ] Re: b/comments0608 [Micole Sudberg ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 09 Jun 2001 09:46:35 -0700 From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: t/tolkien? At 09:40 PM 6/8/2001 -0400, DGK wrote: >David: I'd certainly be interested in discussing Tolkien and >his critical heritage (especially since we're going to be "on >hiatus" here for the summer); with the movies coming out it >seems like Tolkien, who had fallen under the cultural radar >for a good long time, has reemerged as a topic for >discussion. It's one of those little fads, pre-movie this time, just like there was a brief (briefer than Tolkien fans often remember it as being) general media fad for mentioning Tolkien during the 60s boom. Oh, look, college students who used to carry around Salinger, Golding, Hesse, and Vonnegut (in that chronological order) are now carrying around Tolkien. By 1967 (the year the Mythopoeic Society was founded), this little media fad was over. >I went and read the piece you rightly spoke disparagingly of >(and I'm a little confused just what that reference to you >was supposed to convey); I also kept the =NYBTR= piece and >would be up to discussing it as well. The reference to me is intended to convey that he interviewed me on the phone for half an hour. Nothing much more. I did say that Tolkien shouldn't be held responsible for his more dubious followers, but I was thinking of David Eddings and other Tolclones, not of -- eek! -- people who dress up in costumes. I also may have been responsible -- I know I said this to him -- for the uncredited observation that Tolkien's posthumous literary remains have been published and studied in as much detail as those of Joyce and Faulkner. Unfortunately I don't have time to go through any of the articles in detail right now. But besides these two and the Salon article, there's also one in the Village Voice, at http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0123/dibbell.shtml. On quick reading (told you I don't have a lot of time) it seems generally intelligent, except for one staggering imbecility: "Tolkien's theory of evil? Well, orcs are, our heroes aren't, and that about sums it up." This is surely the least perceptive remark on Tolkien ever printed. I wish to congratulate this author on a speed-reading of LOTR so fast that he managed to miss all reference to Boromir, Denethor, Gollum, and Saruman, not to mention numerous more subtle points. Shippey also discusses Tolkien's use of evil extensively in his book. >What struck me as odd about both of them is how much credence >they give to Tolkien's detractors (maybe not so odd, since >they are detractors themselves, but still). Ah-ha! When I wrote to the author of the American Prospect article to complain about his snide invective, he claimed that he was being perfectly fair and that he is a Tolkien fan himself. My best guess is that he's suffering from the standard journalist disease, which is an anxiousness about being biased that's so strong, it leads you to bias in the opposite direction. PNH, however, cites the article in his weblog and calls it "remarkably fair." Of course PNH is a master of unintended snide invective himself, as I discover every time I read rasff and find his bludgeon in action. >I venture to >speculate that if one were to compile a =Dictionary of >Literary Invective= to parallel the musical one, =Ulysses= >and =The Waste Land= and =Lolita= (to mention a few other >important 20th century works) would have as many entries as >Tolkien; but how often do you see detractors cited in >discussions of those works? (Discussions of =Lolita= tend to >disparage the movies while assuming the high quality of the >novel.) Because these other works are praised in the academy and disparaged outside of it. Tolkien is the other way around. I am puzzled - and told the writer this - at the sheer vehemence of the hatred of Tolkien by Harold Bloom and Germaine Greer. But I wonder if the answer may be found in your next paragraph. You write, "Fantasy is a crucial genre of the 20th century;" there are people who must be horribly dismayed that this is so. Fantasy got beaten down (to a superficial examination) by modern realism in the 17th century: to someone who approves of that, how horrifying it must be to find fantasy coming back. Like a revival of religion in a secular humanist age. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 09 Jun 2001 23:12:34 -0400 From: Micole Sudberg Subject: Re: b/gift At 07:14 PM 5/30/01 -0400, meredith wrote: >Someone (sorry, I didn't keep all the messages that I meant to) wondered >why it came down to blood, and what it would have come down to had the Key >been an inanimate object. Spike answered this back in the magic shop, when >he said something to the effect that blood is the essence of being human, >it's what makes us alive. If the Key had been put into, say, an aloe >plant, then the aloe would have done the same thing as the blood. Or if it >had been a rock -- split the rock open and the portal would have opened as >soon as the shards hit the ground. I have to wonder what the equivalent of blood would have been if, as Glory once suggested, the Key had turned out to be an umbrella stand. I also don't see how you could "stop the flow of blood" for a broken aloe stalk or a smashed rock. - --m. - -- "Socks are a fact." -- A. S. Byatt, THE BIOGRAPHER'S TALE ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 09 Jun 2001 23:12:34 -0400 From: Micole Sudberg Subject: Re: b/comments0608 At 09:39 PM 6/8/01 -0400, Donald G. Keller wrote: >There seem to be two schools of thought about the episode: those who are >willing to take the problems with the substitution of Buffy for Dawn in >stride because the idea of Buffy's death is so powerful for them (Meredith >and the =Salon= columnist for two); and those for whom the substitution >problem sticks in their craw so much that Buffy's death (complicated by >its obvious temporariness) has no power whatever. Or (3) me, who finds the idea of Buffy's death powerful and such a logical resolution to the season story arc that it overrides the problem of the solution -- but not *nearly* powerful enough to override the certainty of her resurrection after "The Body"'s denial of that as sheer escapism. I would have been stunned and grief-stricken if that had been the series finale; as it is, I was 5% moved and 95% annoyed. We haven't talked much about :Angel: lately, and I have to say that I'm disappointed in the dissipation of the powerful energy built up by the dark Angel arc after "Epiphany". The idea that Angel was tempted to turn not because of his demonic nature but because of his *humanity* was startling and rang true; its connection to the late season theme of his demon self being what most frightens him is tenuous, and frankly I find the latter theme a lot less interesting. >Susan: A recommendation. Due to the special usage of the word >"Watcher" on =Buffy=, I've found it preferable to use >"viewer" when describing...well...us. Which is to say that >when you referred to "watcher" in your bit on "Becoming," I >thought for a second you were talking about Giles. Some people like it because of that, actually. >And I picked up the first issue of Joss Whedon's new 8-issue comic about a >Slayer in the far future, =Fray=. I don't have much to say so far; I'm >interested but not riveted. It's mostly prelude and setup; the setting is >relatively familiar (decayed future, several centuries from now; not as >much like =Dark Angel=, or even =Blade Runner=, as I feared) and the >writing good. But there's not enough yet to make a firm assessment. I'll >report later on in the sequence. I like it a lot. I was afraid that it would show the strains of someone used to another medium working in comics, but Joss' long-standing love of the medium and just general talent have apparently serve him well. It has tremendous kinetic energy -- it rushes along breakneck in terms of both plotting and imagery, and it still works in general cool stuff (I particularly liked Gunther's office) and some intriguing character hints. And I like Melaka Fray quite a bit so far. The future is pretty much standard, but it's done with great glee and a few very neat twists -- which is to say, pretty much the way Joss treats standard horror and fantasy tropes in :Buffy: and :Angel:. Something I wonder about: (Buffy speculation based on Fray #1 spoilers; enter at your own risk) * * * * * * * * * The disappearance (or general weakening) of vampires dates back to the 21st century, which makes me wonder if the conclusion of :Buffy: will be Buffy doing something that causes this -- it would make a nice response to the tension, all along, about not being able to ever truly change the status quo. - --m. - -- "Socks are a fact." -- A. S. Byatt, THE BIOGRAPHER'S TALE ------------------------------ End of stillpt-digest V3 #100 *****************************