From: DJ Vollkasko (DJ_Vollkasko_at_gmx.net)
Date: Wed Apr 07 2004 - 11:10:46 PDT
>Date: Mon, 5 Apr 2004 20:29:44 -0700 (PDT)
>From: Ed Kummel <tech_ed_at_yahoo.com>
>Subject: Re: [NTLK] "Bookish Newtonians"
>
>Unfortunatly, I could never get into the "classics".
>Feels too much like high-school! I was the only one in
>my english class who didn't have to do a book report
>of Beowulf...I talked the teacher into letting me do
>Clarks "2001 space odessy" instead! My reasoning was
>that it was just as much a classic as those other
>books she assigned!
Yeah, and you were right on that. But what is classic?
There's heaps of totally freaked-out and hip stuff published ages ago. Many
stories by Doyle read pretty fresh (maybe not the Holmes stuff - I like the
stories, but Holmes is *such* an annoying person!). His Etienne
Gerard-tales are pure joy - really cheeky tales, with much fighting, riding
and loving. Funny, too! And Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu is brilliant to read -
all this blatant "The White Man against the threat of the Yellow
Race"-stuff is so silly from a nowadays viewpoint - but explains much about
what the ideas were that drove the British Empire. And the Conan-tales -
now that *is* classic, same as Lovecraft. Or Cyrano de Bergerac - if I can
ever lay my hands on his writings! His sci fi was very good, a satire of
the powers of this time which angered many powerful people - he was a
scientist and philosopher, and the best swordsman in his time (unlike
Etienne Gerard, Cyrano wasn't fictional - nor was he as awkward as the play
by Rostand suggests). And the Capt. Future-stories... And...
Plus there is much much more stuff -- esp. in the nonfiction part -- that's
really fascinating. Like books about travels in distant lands.
Autobiographies are often interesting. There's technical books, cook books,
books on gardening, books on boats...
Or let me put it this way: Just because a chap is dead don't mean his books
must be boring. A good plot and a well-told tale will work after ages (just
like my 78s, my vinyls, my vintage folding kayaks, my Newton - nah, not
like my Newton, my Newton still dead, but you get the idea).
And there is a bonus of introducing you to the mindset and habits of an
era long past - what did they think, what did they think appropriate, what
was new to them? This may teach a lot, if you have an open mind and open
heart and can bear reading ideas that you don't subscribe to yourself. E.g.
when reading a novel by a very respected author and you find some blatant
chauvinism, you learn what was obviously acceptable at the time and how far
we have progressed since then (or not!).
Also I take issue with many contemporary writers' artless, soulless style.
They might have a nice and original idea for a plot and some possibly
interesting protagonists, and then they overdo it. The curse of the
electronic word processor and the hope to spin the script off as screenplay
kill many stories that would have made good books. Instead, now everything
visual and sensual is described in most painful detail, really
highly-resoluted -- but the characters' personalities are mostly wooden,
roughly sketched replaceable archetypes, acting and only seen from the
outside. There is no more character development, no inner growth or
conflict, no true and painful tragedy, there is only plot, action, scenery,
showdown - like in the movies. I feel a loss there.
Take any great scifi paperback you remember as brilliant from before
1980 and put it next to any good and mediocre stuff from today - you'll
find the mediocre books to be often thicker than the good, and the great
classic to be the thinnest. Those authors back then simply were able to
tell a good tale and knew when it was enough.
>That's why I don't publish those packages on other servers...
No offense meant. I was just trying to rock the boat and wake all the folks
who do books that are freely distributeable to the fact that there *IS* a
place for their books. Why keep anything on your old HD alone if there is
UNNA? ;=}
Cordially, DJV.
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