From LISTSERV@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Tue Dec 29 16:03:54 1998 Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1998 17:57:39 -0600 From: "L-Soft list server at University of Illinois at Chicago (1.8c)" To: lquilter@HOOKED.NET Subject: File: "FEMINISTSF LOG9811A" ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 01:29:39 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "S.M. Stirling" Subject: Re: Bujold and feminism? warning: LONG posting Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 10/31/98 2:44:21 PM Mountain Standard Time, Lesley_Hall@CLASSIC.MSN.COM writes: >If women weren't around at all, the whole deal might be different?> -- possibly, but not necessarily. Certainly a lot of the behavioral differences between the sexes we observe are learned, but I think some aren't, particularly those dealing with sex _per se_. Certainly, they're things which authors tend to get wrong when writing about a character of the other gender -- I always take extra trouble with 'em and do a lot of research and consulting. As the saying goes, it ain't what you don't know that'll getcha, it's what you think you know that ain't so... 8-). ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 22:30:22 PST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Daniel Krashin Subject: Greed as a motive for writing Content-Type: text/plain >From: Mike Stanton >Subject: Re: Subject: Greed as a motive for writing > >On 29 Oct 98, at 9:53, Daniel Krashin wrote: > >> Money is indeed a lovely thing, but publication also serves as >> 1)a validation of the writer >> 2)the only way to get one's work before a whole bunch of people, >> some of whom may be changed forever by it. > >I'm not suggesting that it's the _only_ motivator - simply that for the >overwhelming majority of writers it would be the major one. But many >writers (like me for example) lack the talent to write a bestseller so for >them the prestige, self-validation and the sheer pleasure of being >published are important motivators. I must be honest, everytime I see a >story of mine in print - even if I didn't get a byline - I feel really >good. But of course I feel a lot better when the cheque comes in! I guess I can't see where we disagree, except in the definition of greed. You get pleasur e from publication (why don't you get a byline, by the way?), but also really like the money. You'd probably like to get more money, too. So are you greedy? If that means you're greedy, I guess most writers are. So is everybody who hopes to win the lottery. [snip] >> True. Frex, J.D. Salinger apparently is still writing, somewhere, >> but no longer wants anyone to read his stuff. I am sure there are >> other talented writers out there who will not, for whatever reason, >> take the necessary steps to get their work published (submitting >> it in a decent format, rewriting to editorial request, etc.) >> Then there are people who only publish in SF fanzines, or zines in >> general, or on the Web... > >Let's examine your statements carefully. What I derive from them is that >you believe that there are writers out there who could write fantastic >bestsellers like Stephen King's. BUT they don't do so because they're too >lazy to prepare for publication or they prefer publishing in "... SF >fanzines, or zines in general, or on the Web". You surely can't be >serious! I don't think I can write like King, and I'm not so sure it would help me to do so, since the world already has one King. What I (and most writers) would like is to become a bestseller for what *I* do well. And surely you would not deny that there are plenty of writers ot there who don't even get in the race for literary/financial success: writers of fanfic or slash fiction, the writers of Internet erotica, people who never submit their work to editors or persist in submitting it to completely inappropriate editors and never bother to figure it out, etc. etc. Not to mention fanwriters, who do incredible work (sometimes) and give it away for the price of letter of comment or a fanzine in exchange. >> Literary ambition is a lot more complicated than you give it credit >> for, Mike. I think the best argument against your idea that greed >> is the primary motivator for writers is the fact that writing is >> so financially unrewarding for most people! Most writers are making >> less than minimum wage for the time they put in. They'd do better >> temping as secretaries. > >You're going from the sublime to the ridiculous. Of course most writers >earn little, but I'd be surprised if almost all of them weren't hoping to >make it big one day. Writing certainly has intangible benefits that raise >it far above better-paying but soul-destroying "McJobs" like temping, >waitering or street sweeping. But I'll bet there are very few writers who >practice their art for a pittance when they could be earning real money on >(for example) the stock exchange. Well, one anecdote I read recently: when Robert Sawyer, the current SFWA prez, decided to try to write full-time, he first accumulated 100,000 C$ from his regular job to keep him going until his career picked up. Presumably, he could have kept going with the accumulation of wealth... Anyway, this discussion is getting suspiciously dialog-ish, so maybe we should take it to e-mail (if needed) and spare our listmates. Danny P.S. Hi, Mr. Stirling! I'm thrilled to have you on the list! ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 00:33:00 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Michael Marc Levy Subject: Re: Houseplants of Gor Comments: To: Catherine Asaro In-Reply-To: <363AB8CC.3@sff.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I don't remember the artist's name, but somebody who submits regularly to various sf con art shows (could it be Phil Foglio?) has done a series of wonderful book jacket parodies of the Gor books. My favorites are Cost Accountants of Gor and Buckets of Gor Mike Michael M. Levy levym@uwstout.edu Department of English levymm@uwec.edu University of Wisconsin-Stout off. ph: 715-834-6533 Menomonie, WI 54751 hm. ph: 715-834-6533 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 00:49:22 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Michael Marc Levy Subject: Re: Bujold and feminism? warning: LONG posting In-Reply-To: <199810311846.MAA19819@etsuodt.tamu-commerce.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII >Sorry to go on for so long: maybe only a wildly radical feminist reader >who's read gonze feminist theory and is trained in close reading/literary >criticism could see such stuff in Bujold--but I didn't make it up. It's >there, and I say her work is stealth feminism! >Robin Robin, your reading of Bujold makes perfect sense to me. Bujold comes from a fairly conservative, technocrat sort of background--her father was an engineer and so are her brothers. In some ways the protagonist of Falling Free is her father. Her professional training is as a medical technician. I think that at heart she isn't really all that political, but that she grew up in a family where competence was assumed and she was expected to pull her own weight. She's more of a gut level feminist than a doctrinaire feminist and to a very great extent her own consciousness has been raised by her interactions with the people who have read her work. At least that's the impression I've gotten from talking with her. I also think that, at least on an emotional level, both Miles and Cordelia are much more intensely autobiographical characters than is common in science fiction. Mike Michael M. Levy levym@uwstout.edu Department of English levymm@uwec.edu University of Wisconsin-Stout off. ph: 715-834-6533 Menomonie, WI 54751 hm. ph: 715-834-6533 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 01:52:32 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "S.M. Stirling" Subject: Re: Hello! Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 10/31/98 10:43:41 PM Mountain Standard Time, mathews@UNM.EDU writes: << Welcome, Steve! Can't wait for the sequel to ISLAND IN THE SEA OF TIME.> -- glad to hear that. Was it ever discussed here? BTW, you can see the first chapters of the sequel at: http://www.av.qnet.com/~fourls/island/island.htm ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 00:55:51 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Michael Marc Levy Subject: Bujold--Ethan of Athos In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII One of the things I've always treasured about Ethan of Athos is that it provides one of the few depictions in science fiction (or in the mainstream for that matter) of men (gay or straight) who actually enjoy taking care of children (as I do) and who are actually good at it. Mike Levy ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 04:38:38 -0400 Reply-To: asaro@sff.net Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Catherine Asaro Subject: Re: Welcome, Steve and Suze/Severna MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hey Steve and Severna! Welcome to the list. It's good to see you here. :-) Best regards Catherine Asaro http://www.sff.net/people/asaro/ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 09:47:52 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: marie Subject: Re: Bujold and feminism? warning: LONG posting MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Thank you Robin for your detailed comments. As a relative newcomer to contemporary SF, I appreciate all the information you've taken the time to present. It clarifies for me some of the issues discussed in the list. Marie ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 04:34:13 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "S.M. Stirling" Subject: Re: Bujold and feminism? warning: LONG posting Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I agree -- that was a powerful explication of Bujold. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 06:35:45 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Santanico Subject: Re: "Hurt-Comfort" misogyny Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 03:11 AM 31/10/98 -0400, you wrote: >Hi, Santico. I had a similar experience. I was at a signing and I >picked up a book from a shelf during a lull. It was one of the Norman >reprints. The people I was signing with were chatting with the >bookstore owners when all of the sudden they were interrupted by a loud >"Good grief!" from my direction. When they inquired, I showed them what >I was reading and said, "I apparently opened it up to a, uh, rather >explicit page." Their response was, "It would have been the same no >matter where you opened it." > >I have to admit, if someone had never read a science fiction book and >they picked up a Gor novel as their first, it wouldn't be a surprise if >they got a rather strange view of sf! > >Best regards >Catherine Asaro >http://www.sff.net/people/asaro/ Hi Catherine, *sigh* Another unfortunate encounterer of the inexplicably popular Gor novels, eh? I feel your pain. Perhaps we should start some kind of a support group: "Women Disgusted By The Gor Novels" or something along those lines. Although I have to say my experience with Gor was, thankfully, more private than yours. After all, it is generally not considered socially acceptable to violently hurl a book across a room in public, whereas in private no one can hear you scream "I hate you, John Norman!" However, whilst I am an avowed member of the Anti-Gor League (doesn't actually exist, but I wish it did), I have to say I _loved_ the "Houseplants of Gor" parody that ME Hunter sent to the list. If you're reading this, ME, thanks for the laughs - and oh, there were many. The scary thing is, I can actually see a future Gor novel along those lines. Although I have to say, my personal choices for future Gor titles would be "Morris Dancers of Gor", "Mimes of Gor" and "Performance Artists of Gor". I'll leave the possible plotlines to your imagination. Sant. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 12:49:20 -0500 Reply-To: everett@wavetech.net Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: John Everett Till Subject: Castration and Autarchs MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Janice E. Dawley wrote: > John Everett Till wrote: > > *The Autarch, if memory serves is a hermaphrodite. What are we to make > > of that? > > IIRC, the Autarch was a man who was neutered for failing the test that > Severian passes. It was explained to Severian at one point what would > happen to him if he failed, and I thought it funny that so many previous > Autarchs had refused to take the test because they were afraid of being > desexed! "Hm... certain doom with the dying of the old sun or the chance > that I might become a eunuch. ...I'll take certain doom!" A-ha! That makes a *lot* of sense given two aspects of the Jesus Myth: 1.) The source code for the myth is the ancient contest between Set and Osiris. When Set kills Osiris, chops up his body, and scatters the pieces, the only piece that Isis can't are the genitalia of Osiris. He is resurrected without them, and becomes the judge of the dead in the underworld. 2.) Jesus meets a eunuch. His followers are not pleased that he talks to one. Jesus' response: "Blessed are those who become eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven." #2 has been one of the theological justifications for the celibacy of Catholic clergy. The idea is that some people are called upon to become sympolic eunuchs for the sake of the mystical body of Christ -- to "sacrifice" the reproductive potential of their own genitalia, in order to ensure the reproduction of the Church. -- "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced," Cleon said airily. --Foundation's Fear, Gregory Benford ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 13:34:25 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Phoebe Wray Subject: Re: Tomorrow's Children Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I have Vonda McIntyre luscious collection called Fireflood and other stories... The "snake" one is spectacular, and called "Of Mist, Grass and Sand," the names of the healing snakes. It's a wonder. best phoebe ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 14:35:51 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Phoebe Wray Subject: Re: sf books about children Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Two favorites that come to my mind are LeGuin's The Ship That Sang, and Childhood's End by -- ??. Sorry, too much Samheim. smiling, phoebe ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 14:41:26 -0500 Reply-To: feldsipe@erols.com Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: suzanne feldman Organization: or lack thereof Subject: Online con: strong wimmin MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit It's sort of short notice, but if anyone's interested, the Sci Fi Channel has an online con today. I'll be on the STRONG WIMMIN IN SF with Catherine Asaro and Dennis Danvers at 4pm Eastern. The con is HERE: http://www.scifi.com/scifi.con/ the CHAT is here: http://www.scifi.com/scifi.con/chat/frames.cgi Let's get some relevant FEMINIST SF questions going instead of the ones about Princess Leia's hair. Suze/Severna ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 20:30:23 MET Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Anthea Hartley Stanton Subject: Re [*FSFFU*] Bujold and feminism? warning: LONG posting Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Re [*FSFFU*] Bujold and feminism? warning: LONG posting On 31 Oct 98, at 12:46, Robin Reid wrote: > Bujold is not interested in writing feminist utopias (but there aren't a > whole lot of those being done anymore). She is interested in writing > accessible books and selling them (she says so). But I remember a > discussion a few months ago where various people on the list were > complaining about the "difficulty" of reading some of those writers who > write in more complicated styles... I was heavily involved in that discussion and suggested that literature aimed at the "mainstream" SF/F reader sold better than feminist SF/F because the "mainstream" stuff was more accessible and generally better writing. I was promptly lambasted for my pains. I'm not repeating this for the sake of saying "I told you so". I'm saying it because I believe that feminist SF/F is changing for economic reasons - feminist authors who don't write commercially viable books can't get them published. Probably most feminist SF authors are at best "mid-list" and a hot topic of gossip among analysts at the Frankfurt Book Fair last month was the number of publishers who're concentrating on their "big boys" and dumping their much of their mid-list. Authors who were once steady sellers are finding themselves on the outside looking in. And many of the tough decisions are being made by _women_. > And, unlike the braincandy/space operas that are out > there, her characters change over time; they are > continually faced with new problems to solve > (if she keeps writing about them--I would love to > see more of Cordelia, but oh well, sigh), and they > age and have to deal with the changes that come across with that. This is why I originally found Bujold's work difficult to take. Her characters change and mature through a series but they also grow in volume so that, as the series progresses, the characters and their histories gradually take over the entire story - usurping the plot and the declining number of ideas she comes up with as a series progresses. Worse, the characters are so "full" that it's too difficult to start in the centre of a series. Unfortunately I started out with _The Vor Game_ and found I needed to read _The Warrior's Apprentice_ before I could get a firm grip on Miles. I found _Ethan of Athos_ fairly interesting but I had _Brothers in Arms_ in my TBR pile for six months without before finishing - and I only did that because I'd read _Barrayar_ which I thought was excellent. On the other hand, I found _Memory_, _Cetaganda_ and especially _Komarr_ easily readable, exciting good character development but with plenty of ideas as well. I get the feeling that over the last 2-3 years, she's either acquired a good editor or she's taken stock, realised she wasn't putting out her best and tried to make her work more accessible to the average reader who hasn't followed the series. AJ Anthea Hartley Stanton (ajhs@usa.net) _______________________________________ Michael love I sent in all the expense claims including the B/card. Please ensure that all travel vouchers are signed and returned to Suzie before 6/11. How many times do I have to tell you to sign the hotel bills when you get them? Will meet you in the lobby at 11:30; I won't have eaten so don't eat we'll have breakfast. Claudia phoned to thank us for the flowers. Told her we wouldn't make it before late on the 21st. Don't forget Helen. Sleep well Anthea ____________________________________________________________________ Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 19:59:05 UT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lesley Hall Subject: Re: sf books about children Wilmar Shiras, _Children of the Atom_: I think the first story in this linked collection ('In Hiding', about a superintelligent child) has already been mentioned - much anthologised Lesley Lesley_Hall@classic.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 20:09:01 +0000 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Mike Stanton Subject: Re: Greed as a motive for writing Comments: cc: ajhs@usa.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On 31 Oct 98, at 22:30, Daniel Krashin wrote: > Anyway, this discussion is getting suspiciously dialog-ish, so > maybe we should take it to e-mail (if needed) and spare our > listmates. I agree but- as initiator of the topic - I hope you'll allow me the last word... > I guess I can't see where we disagree, except in the definition of > greed. You get pleasur e from publication (why don't you get a > byline, by the way?), but also really like the money. You'd > probably like to get more money, too. So are you greedy? Of course I'm greedy. I should explain that we travel often and widely, and that my employers allow us to string on the side. I'd be stupid to pass up the chance of making extra bucks. As for the byline - what we and - I suspect - most others like us usually get is "From our XYZ correspondent" at the best or having my work incorporated into a staff writer's feature at the worst. But we get paid either way. > Well, one anecdote I read recently: when Robert Sawyer, the current > SFWA prez, decided to try to write full-time, he first > accumulated 100,000 C$ from his regular job to keep him > going until his career picked up. Presumably, he could have > kept going with the accumulation of wealth... Sometimes you have to take risks. Perhaps Sawyer took a cold, calculated decision - income drop now, riches later. He seems to be doing fairly well but whether it paid off, I couldn't say because I don't know what proportion of a year's salary C$100k - which isn't much money to start afresh on - represented. I can sympathize with such a decision. Mike Stanton (m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk) ______________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 18:10:49 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Nina M. Osier" Subject: Honor Harrington Series MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This is a thank you to the person whose post brought David Weber to my attention. I don't remember who you are, but I've read "On Basilisk Station," "The Honor of the Queen," and half of "The Short Victorious War" since last Monday. This is worse than having an open box of chocolates in the house...! ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 18:31:32 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Phoebe Wray Subject: Re: Honor Harrington Series Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I think I seconded someone else. But I have ALL the Honor Harrington series. Last one (In Enemy Hands) just came out in paper. And it's a cliffhanger. So we'll have to wait months and months to find out what happens. Some people seem not to think these are "feminist." Actually, I don't care. Damn good reading. best, phoebe ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 18:43:33 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Bertina Miller Subject: Re: Animated sf In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I think your right on the idea that the hero is supposed to be sort of untouchable when it comes to human foibles, at least in the comic books. I think the anti-hero idea is a way to distinguish between the more "realistic" hero/ine and the unfallable one. Anyone know any more? Bertina bmiller@medmail.mcg.edu On Fri, 30 Oct 1998, Marina wrote: > Hmm. Does not that make them more like real humans? Has anyone ever seen > a real-life hero who was "all-positive"? I don't think that's even > possible. I think it's funny that when an image of a hero is in any way > realistic (i.e. includes dark sides) he or she becomes anti-hero... > > This concept of anti-hero seems to mean that a hero should have no > negative qualities. Maybe that's just me, but that just does not make > sense. It is not possible, in my opinion, for a person (especially an > outstanding individual that a hero should be) not to get on people's > nerves every once in a while. If calling a hero that's simply human an > "anti-hero" is a literary tradition, it is a very strange one. > > The fact that Aeon was not a "goody-goody" on a quest to save some child, > or a man-hater with a "painful past", or a virgin warrior -- like so many > other stereotypical feminist heroes -- was what to me made > her so great. She likes her enemy -- so she sleeps with him every once in > a while, but it does not make her lose her identity (except one totally > stupid episode) nor prevents her from kicking his butt on regular basis. > She can risk her life to rescue her friends, but she would kill them if > they betray her. She likes helping people, even when they are total > strangers, but she does not let anyone take advantage of her. I think > this combination of emotinal complexity, intelligence, and the ability to > act reasonably in any situation is what makes her so incredibly cool. If > she was a one-sided "all-good" person, she would not be just boring, she'd > be completely unreal -- kind of like Brady bunch. > > IMHO, > Marina > > P.S. I'm not a linguist, but the concept of "anti-hero" seems rather > meaningless to me. I wonder why it was invented, to label the heroes > who are more complex than breakfast cereal? > > On Thu, 29 Oct 1998, Bertina Miller wrote: > > > An anti-hero isnt necessarily a villain, just a love/hate relationship she > > has with the audience as she does with the "hero" of the show, Trevor. It > > seems at times she is working for a cause and other times it seems she has > > her own agenda, which is never fully made clear. I think the show doesnt > > want the audience to know what she is all about, just like it seems to > > show Trevor wanting only to enhance his own personal gain. That would make > > him a villain but not really. > > http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html > > "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society > is selling at the time." > Naomi Wolf > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 1 Nov 1998 19:25:39 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Phoebe Wray Subject: Re: Animated sf Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 11/1/98 11:43:59 PM, Bertina wrote: <> Yes. Heroine/hero -- rising above, winning, warts and all. Although we can find some throughout world literature, the anti-hero/ine as a "type" is pretty peculiar to 20th century. The hero/ine was humanized partly by Freud/Jung (especially) and the idea that nobody is perfect. I think people just could not longer accept the hero/ine who had no faults, was always brave/loyal/courageous/self-effacing/winning. It didn't ring true and didn't ring bells in the soul. It does our hearts good to know that, despite failings, one can still rise above, sail to the stars. best, phoebe ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 08:13:37 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Pat Subject: Re: Hello! In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sun, 1 Nov 1998, S.M. Stirling wrote: > In a message dated 10/31/98 10:43:41 PM Mountain Standard Time, > mathews@UNM.EDU writes: > > << Welcome, Steve! Can't wait for the sequel to ISLAND IN THE SEA OF TIME.> > > -- glad to hear that. Was it ever discussed here? > > BTW, you can see the first chapters of the sequel at: > > http://www.av.qnet.com/~fourls/island/island.htm Not yet. We're only discussing published works, and there's a list that gets voted on every few months. Next up is Nalo Hopkinson's BROWN GIRL IN THE RING.> Patricia (Pat) Mathews mathews@unm.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 15:13:58 0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Petra Mayerhofer Subject: Re: P.D.James In-Reply-To: <3638A4EB.DCCFA1C@bigfoot.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT On 29 Oct 98 Maria Hayball wrote: > Has anyone read P.D:James 'Children of Men'? It's > about a near future when children are no longer > born. I'd like your feelings about the book. I've read this novel several years ago. I had read most of her mystery novels and was curious how she would write SF. I found the first part of the book, i.e. when the initial situation is described, very compelling. But I did not like the rest of the book, the plot was very weak compared to the original idea of the book. One possibility could have been to describe how the society handles the 'die-out', psychologically and practically. It was done a bit, but in a careless way. IMO the book is not feminist at all, neither in ideas nor in characters, more the opposite. I remember only one female character who is the mother of the first new baby (male). And this woman was presented in a very traditional way. IMO the book read like the testament of a woman not liking the present society. It had many religious overtones. Petra P.S.: I have not received any emails from this listserve since last Friday. Was it a quiet weekend or is there a break down somewhere? In case it is the latter please excuse if this email is redundant. *** Petra Mayerhofer **** mayerhofer@usf.uni-kassel.de *** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 08:26:38 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jane Franklin Subject: Re: Tomorrow's Children Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >>> Anny Middon 10/30 5:08 PM >>> an anthology of 50s/60s stories for/about children -- what a terrific idea! How about that Ray Bradbury story where the kids have the room with the virtual reality capability (except not called that -- the story of course predates VR) where they create an African veldt and end up turning it into reality and getting killed? Or the one where the children lock the girl in the closet so she misses "All Summer in a Day" on the planet where the sun shines only one day a year. On this note, was anyone in a program for allegedly "gifted" children using "junior great books", in which we read age-inappropriate and traumatizing short stories? I encountered the two stories above when I was in third or forth grade and was way to young for at least the second one. While I think I was enriched by reading it, it really scared me in a big adult way that I was not ready to handle, especially since everybody picked on me (sob, sob...I'm over it now) anyway. There was a lot of science fiction in those books. And I've also had this realization that an awful lot of children's books share elements of magic realism, perhaps because children are in some senses an oppressed minority with a distinct culture against a background of adult culture...(as I recall this was some part of someone's comment on magic realism) I'm also glad so many people read Tomorrow's Children, although if anyone finds a copy for themselves I will probably burglarize their house... ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 09:50:17 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Allen Briggs Subject: Re: Hello! Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > Not yet. We're only discussing published works, and there's a > list that gets voted on every few months. Next up is Nalo Hopkinson's > BROWN GIRL IN THE RING.> This is for the Book Discussion Group (BDG), at least. I don't think there's anything limiting the list at large from discussing unpublished or out-of-print works, and there's certainly room for discusssing literature outside the BDG reading list. ;-) [I doubt that Pat meant to imply otherwise, and it's possible that Steve meant to ask about the BDG, specifically, but I feel that a clarification is necessary. I don't think this changes the answer to the question that Steve asked, though. ] -allen -- Allen Briggs - briggs@ninthwonder.com Try free *nix: http://www.netbsd.org/, http://www.freebsd.org/, http://www.linux.org/, http://www.openbsd.org/ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 07:49:27 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Candioglos, Sandy" Subject: Re: Tomorrow's Children MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" I remember "Junior Great Books"!!! My school only did it for a few years; I think I was in 5th and 6th grade when I read them; the only thing I distinctly remember from them is a reference in one of them to "blue suede shoes" (it was central to the plot; the main character was trying to save money to buy some), and the teacher had to explain the cultural reference, because none of us connected it to Elvis. I'll have to see if I still have any of those books lying around. -Sandy -----Original Message----- From: Jane Franklin [mailto:JFrankln@FAMPRAC.UMN.EDU] Sent: Monday, November 02, 1998 6:27 AM To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] Tomorrow's Children >>> Anny Middon 10/30 5:08 PM >>> an anthology of 50s/60s stories for/about children -- what a terrific idea! How about that Ray Bradbury story where the kids have the room with the virtual reality capability (except not called that -- the story of course predates VR) where they create an African veldt and end up turning it into reality and getting killed? Or the one where the children lock the girl in the closet so she misses "All Summer in a Day" on the planet where the sun shines only one day a year. On this note, was anyone in a program for allegedly "gifted" children using "junior great books", in which we read age-inappropriate and traumatizing short stories? I encountered the two stories above when I was in third or forth grade and was way to young for at least the second one. While I think I was enriched by reading it, it really scared me in a big adult way that I was not ready to handle, especially since everybody picked on me (sob, sob...I'm over it now) anyway. There was a lot of science fiction in those books. And I've also had this realization that an awful lot of children's books share elements of magic realism, perhaps because children are in some senses an oppressed minority with a distinct culture against a background of adult culture...(as I recall this was some part of someone's comment on magic realism) I'm also glad so many people read Tomorrow's Children, although if anyone finds a copy for themselves I will probably burglarize their house... ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 15:54:33 +0000 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Edward James Subject: Re: P.D.James In-Reply-To: <3638A4EB.DCCFA1C@bigfoot.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 29 Oct 1998, Maria Hayball wrote: > Has anyone read P.D:James 'Children of Men'? It's > about a near future when children are no longer > born. I'd like your feelings about the book. > Marie > I suspect that the feelings of many people on P.D. James's side of the Atlantic are biassed by the fact that she vehemently denied that this science-fiction book is science fiction ("because it is literature") and by her publicly expressed condemnation of science fiction. Unfortunatley Baroness James, as she now is (no relation!), is a very public figure these days, and wields influence in literary circles. Brian Aldiss once wrote to her saying that "several people have written to me saying that your CHILDREN OF MEN has a remarkable similarity to my own science fiction novel GREYBEARD" (and so it does: set in Oxford, about a world in which no new children are being born) and Baroness James wrote back saying "send me the names of these people who have written to you and I shall sue". Allegedly, of course. Yours, Edward James ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 17:55:56 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Maria Hayball Subject: Re: P.D.James Comments: cc: Edward James MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I 'd like to thank Edward James for his answer. I didn't know about the SF denial. I tend to assume that someone is plainly uninformed when I hear the 'SF not literature' argument. It's their loss. Of course some phillistines may say mystery fiction is not literature either. I'll look out for B.Aldiss 'Greybeard'. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 12:56:56 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "S.M. Stirling" Subject: Re: Hello! Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 11/2/98 7:14:16 AM Mountain Standard Time, mathews@UNM.EDU writes: << Not yet. We're only discussing published works >> -- ah... "Island in the Sea of Time" _is_ a published work... March '98. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 10:12:13 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jennifer Krauel Subject: BDG: Snow Queen discussion begins Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" It's time to begin discussing our November book, Joan Vinge's "Snow Queen". I admit to only being 3/4 of the way through the book so far; the weather was just too fine this weekend to spend it all on Tiamat with Moon and the gang. I hope to finish it tonight. What did you think? I would describe Snow Queen, at least so far, as "woman-centric space opera." Do you agree? Comparing it to some of our earlier books, it's much harder to pin this one down -- you can't just say it's about gender, or about child abuse, or a re-telling of the story of Arthur et al. How would you describe what this book is about? What other books would you compare it with? Could it have been shorter without compromising the story or the characters? For those of you who've finished the book, does it close the story or are we left with the need to read the sequels? If you have read the sequels, how do they compare with this book? Jennifer jkrauel@actioneer.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 16:11:57 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Ruth Jost Subject: Transcripts from author chats MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Hi everyone You may be interested in checking out the transcripts from recent chats at Sci-Fi Con 3.0 with some of our most-discussed (!) authors. The panel discussion on Strong Women Characters with Catherine Asaro and Severna Parks is at: http://www.scifi.com/transcripts/1998/StrongWomenCharacters.html Chat with OS Card is at: http://www.scifi.com/transcripts/1998/OrsonScottCard.html Sorry I didn't get a chance to let you all know about these chats before they actually happened (sadly i missed both myself for reasons of timezone incompatibility)but the transcripts are worth a look. Cheers Ruth == Equal Pay Watch Australia: news, info and resources on pay equity. http://www.users.bigpond.com/rj_gj/index.html _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 18:32:20 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Joyce Jones Subject: Hurt-Comfort misogyny Thank you ME Hunter for the wonderful parody "Houseplants of Gor". I breathlessly await a canned tomatoes of Gor trilogy. Joyce ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 01:47:42 -0500 Reply-To: Lilith Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lilith Subject: Re: Tomorrow's Children MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit <> What, pray tell, is "age-inappropriate" and "traumatizing" literature? Shades of the rigid classifications that my school library inflicted upon me when I was a precocious and book-loving (and well-advanced in reading above my "age group") elementary school child -- "No, dear, you can't take out books from that shelf yet, that's for the fourth grade and you're still in third grade." "But I've read all the books on the third-grade shelf!" "Well you'll just have to wait until next week when the new books come in." Fortunately my parents had gotten me a public library card when I was four years old... Lilith ******************************************** ************Hell's Half Acre************** * http://www.concentric.net/~Ligeia * ******************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 23:09:53 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Cynthia Gonsalves Subject: Re: Honor Harrington Series In-Reply-To: <363CEA79.48AE0429@mint.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 06:10 PM 11/1/98 -0500, you wrote: >This is a thank you to the person whose post brought David Weber to my >attention. I don't remember who you are, but I've read "On Basilisk >Station," "The Honor of the Queen," and half of "The Short Victorious >War" since last Monday. This is worse than having an open box of >chocolates in the house...! Splorfle! I love it...now my idea of big fun would be a nice big box of chocolate and the 9th Honor book in my greedy little paws. Pity I have to wait at least another year...snif...whine... It's not high literature, but *damn*, it's fun and I'm addicted to her trials and tribulations as well as her ability to kick serious booty. Wish the captain of the good ship Voyager had gone to the RMN Academy with Honor... Cynthia -- "I had to be a bitch, they wouldn't let me be a Jesuit." -Matt Ruff in Sewer, Gas, and Electric Sharks Bite!!! http://members.home.net/cynthia1960 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 2 Nov 1998 23:23:35 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Candioglos, Sandy" Subject: Re: Tomorrow's Children MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Dang!! I think I'd read all the books in the whole elementary school library by the time I was in 3rd or 4th grade (along with most of the "J" books at the local public library). Darn good thing they didn't try that with me. I would have gone home and complained to my parents, and my dad (being an teacher at the Jr. high), probably could have gotten me around it. I can't even IMAGINE telling kids they CAN'T read something they want to. I think all the original poster was talking about was that she was given a book and TOLD to read it (as opposed to it just being available), and she felt traumatized by the stories. Telling children they have to read a certain book is NOT the same thing as telling them they can't read certain books, by a long shot. I don't think she was suggesting that she shouldn't have been allowed to read it, just that maybe she shouldn't have been TOLD to read it. -Sandy > -----Original Message----- > From: Lilith [SMTP:ligeia@concentric.net] > Sent: Monday, November 02, 1998 10:48 PM > To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU > Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] Tomorrow's Children > > < using "junior great books", in which we read age-inappropriate and > traumatizing short stories? I encountered the two stories above when I > was > in third or forth grade and was way to young for at least the second one. > While I think I was enriched by reading it, it really scared me in a big > adult way that I was not ready to handle, especially since everybody > picked > on me (sob, sob...I'm over it now) anyway. There was a lot of science > fiction in those books.>> > > > What, pray tell, is "age-inappropriate" and "traumatizing" literature? > Shades of the rigid classifications that my school library inflicted upon > me > when I was a precocious and book-loving (and well-advanced in reading > above > my "age group") elementary school child -- "No, dear, you can't take out > books from that shelf yet, that's for the fourth grade and you're still in > third grade." "But I've read all the books on the third-grade shelf!" > "Well > you'll just have to wait until next week when the new books come in." > Fortunately my parents had gotten me a public library card when I was four > years old... > > Lilith > > > ******************************************** > ************Hell's Half Acre************** > * http://www.concentric.net/~Ligeia * > ******************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 13:18:33 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Elethiomel Subject: Re: BDG: Snow Queen discussion begins Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" At 2-11-1998 19:12, Jennifer Krauel said: >Comparing it to some of our earlier books, it's much harder to pin this one >down -- you can't just say it's about gender, or about child abuse, or a >re-telling of the story of Arthur et al. How would you describe what this >book is about? What other books would you compare it with? I think ostensibly it's a retelling of the Snow Queen fable written by Hans Christian Andersen, a rather cruel story as all his are. The original story is also, curiously enough (since it was written in times when feminism was IIRC unheard of and by a man) about a resorceful young woman who saves a thoroughly passive male from a Bad Mother. The brigands and the fact that the young male plays with ice in the Snow Queen Castle are also there in Andersen's story. It would be interesting to compare the two text and see how Vinge read the fable and how much she added. I think, btw, that the underlaying structure of the fable is what makes The Snow Queen so superior to its sequel. Anna F. Dal Dan http://www.fantascienza.com/sfpeople/elethiomel Anna esta' en la linea ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 13:24:38 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Elethiomel Subject: Re: P.D.James [OT] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" At 2-11-1998 16:54, Edward James said: >I suspect that the feelings of many people on P.D. James's side of the >Atlantic are biassed by the fact that she vehemently denied that this >science-fiction book is science fiction ("because it is literature") and >by her publicly expressed condemnation of science fiction. Unfortunatley >Baroness James, as she now is (no relation!), is a very public figure >these days, and wields influence in literary circles. Her mysteries are also overrated in my opinion. Ruth Rendell is much superior and especially her Barbara Vine books have excellent psychological insight as well as incredibly good plots. I don't think you can portrait two female characters that are as flawed and at the same time as sympathetic as the two sisters in A Dark-Adapted Eye. This is OT but if anybody is interested in good, serious mystery fiction she should check her out. Anna F. Dal Dan http://www.fantascienza.com/sfpeople/elethiomel Anna esta' en la linea ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 07:30:55 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: ME Hunter Subject: Re: Hurt-Comfort misogyny In-Reply-To: <000101be06e9$d3e501e0$54d72299@default> (message from Joyce Jones on Mon, 2 Nov 1998 18:32:20 -0800) Just to clear up any confusion, I am not the author of "Houseplants of Gor." That distinction goes to Elle, creator of the webpage whoseURL I posted with the original message. I am merely the forwarder, who thought it was appropriate to the conversation. Frankly, I've never read any of the Gor books...having read this and other references to it, it's never occurred to me that I might enjoy it. E. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 07:55:50 +0000 Reply-To: chuard@earthlink.net Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Comments: Authenticated sender is From: geminiwalker Subject: Re: Tomorrow's Children In-Reply-To: <199810312257.RAA12531@login6.fas.harvard.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > Jane Franklin wrote: > > : Now that everyone mentions it, I remember that it was called Tomorrow's > : Children. I would give a lot of money for that book. It had a story > : they later made an inferior Twilight Zone (and a Simpsons) out of --a boy > : who can read minds and has bizarre powers and has taken his town away from > : the world or possibly destroyed the whole world except for the town. That > : was one of the spookiest stories I've ever read. > > Ah, yes. "It's a Good Life", by Jerome Bixby. Starring Bill Mumy > (more recently Lennier on Babylon 5) as the little monster of a boy. > I thought it was one of the more effective Twilight Zones, but then > I've read the story many more times than I've seen the show so I may > be blurring the differences between them. > > It's an excellent book; I bought it used from our town library. > For some reason there are *lots* of disturbing stories of children > collected in there. The two that pop to mind are the baby who is the > first of the new species (Homo Superioris or something like that) and > the baby whose mother was worried that she might be born deformed but > is perfectly happy with how she turns out. Just teasers, not spoilers. :) > > Claudia > > This thread keeps reminding me of one of my favorite stories about a young women who comes to a small almost tribal village to teach and the children drag their feet on the floor all the time and when she finally convinces them to pick their feet up, it turns out they can fly ... that they were actually from another place or time or something and had been so taunted and harassed in their first years that they had been taught as children not to express their alien nature at all ... but I can't remember the name of the story, anybody else ever read it? It did become a TV movie at some point ... ...geminiwalker chuard@earthlink.net Dare to be monstrous. -- dorothy allison ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 08:37:26 -0500 Reply-To: kp6185a@american.edu Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Krista Park Subject: Quote Help MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Does anyone know where the phrase "Ghost in the Machine" comes from? I've seen it used in the movie _Brazil_ and I've read it in Cadigan's _Tea from an Empty Cup_, but I want to know when it was first used. Thank You. Krista Park kp6185a@american.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 07:19:17 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Pat Subject: Re: Hurt-Comfort misogyny In-Reply-To: <000101be06e9$d3e501e0$54d72299@default> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 2 Nov 1998, Joyce Jones wrote: > Thank you ME Hunter for the wonderful parody "Houseplants of Gor". I > breathlessly await a canned tomatoes of Gor trilogy. > > Joyce No. Attack of the KILLER tomatoes of Gor!> Patricia (Pat) Mathews mathews@unm.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 09:20:36 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: J-F Pilote Subject: Drop me off the list !!!! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Thank you very much :) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 10:28:34 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Debra Euler Subject: Gor Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain >>Frankly, I've never read any of the Gor books...having read this and other references to it, it's never occurred to me that I might enjoy it. I'd never read any of them either until after I read "Houseplants of Gor" this past summer. I get a lot of enquiries about the Gor books here at work, since we (DAW) were the long-time Gor publisher, so I thought I'd pick one up from the shelf to while away the time while I was doing some scanning..... Oh, my, that *really* was one of the most *offensive* things I'd ever read! It didn't even have camp value! And what was particularly personally disgusting was that this volume had the main female character kidnapped from the very same Long Island mall I occaisonally shop at. Ick, ick ick. Debra ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 07:51:39 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Maryelizabeth Hart Subject: because I know y'all care ... Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I'm back! Didja miss me? Saw Candas Jane Doerty and Kate Elliot at the World Fantasy Convention this past weekend. Promised Candas to direct her to the info from the discussion of BLACK WINE. Can someone send me to the correct place for the archives on this discussion? Also saw Kris Rusch, but forgot to mention her BDG stint. Hi, Steve Stirling! Nice to be on a list with you. You were one of the first authors I ever contacted way back when as a fan... Tired and fuzy headed, but glad to be home, Maryelizabeth Mysterious Galaxy 619-268-4747 3904 Convoy St, #107 800-811-4747 San Diego, CA 92111 619-268-4775 FAX http://www.mystgalaxy.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 19:00:24 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Sharon Clark Subject: Stepford Husbands (Was: Women as Robots) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit A while back, we were talking about women as robots and the "Stepford Wives". I have seen a (made for t.v.?) movie of that where the women weren't replaced with androids, but instead were drugged into submission -- made me think of all those Hollywood wives who go in for the yearly facelifts along with their valium. I saw this movie on television several years ago (at least 3 years ago). Has anyone else seen this movie? I LOVED the end where a large group of these women who had come out of their drugged stupor killed (ripped to shreds with their salon nails more likely) the head of the Men's Association with their bare hands while making high pitched screams that sounded like dolphins. On a related note, I saw a book last week titled "Stepford Husbands". The blurb on the back made some sort of reference to the Stepford Wives and women doing something similar to their husbands(though the way it was written it sounded like the men were being drugged to make them less aggressive and dominant but not necessarily to make them domestic slaves). Has anyone read this book or know of it? Is this an anti-feminist book? - Sharon Clark ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 08:16:40 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Keith Subject: Re: Quote Help Comments: To: Krista Park In-Reply-To: <363F0716.60CD@american.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 3 Nov 1998, Krista Park wrote: > Does anyone know where the phrase "Ghost in the Machine" comes from? > > I've seen it used in the movie _Brazil_ and I've read it in Cadigan's > _Tea from an Empty Cup_, but I want to know when it was first used. > There was an old Police album out with that title - early 1980's - but they probably picked it up from somewhere else. I'm still recovering from the mention on this list that my all-time favorite science fiction title "Ten Thousand Light Years From Home" was taken from the hated Rolling Stones. I reserve the right to believe they lifted it, too! Kathleen ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 11:33:24 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jane Franklin Subject: Re: Quote Help Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit As I recollect, the phrase "ghost in the machine" was used in some famous philosophy thing about what people would be like as society industrialized...I'm thinking late 19th century, early 20th. But maybe I'm totally wrong. >>> Keith 11/03 10:16 AM >>> On Tue, 3 Nov 1998, Krista Park wrote: > Does anyone know where the phrase "Ghost in the Machine" comes from? > > I've seen it used in the movie _Brazil_ and I've read it in Cadigan's > _Tea from an Empty Cup_, but I want to know when it was first used. > There was an old Police album out with that title - early 1980's - but they probably picked it up from somewhere else. I'm still recovering from the mention on this list that my all-time favorite science fiction title "Ten Thousand Light Years From Home" was taken from the hated Rolling Stones. I reserve the right to believe they lifted it, too! Kathleen ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 12:51:59 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Demetria M. Shew" Subject: Re: Quote Help Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 11/3/98 9:34:14 AM Pacific Standard Time, JFrankln@FAMPRAC.UMN.EDU writes: << "Ghost in the Machine" >> I remember vaguely, about a zillion years ago, the nuns explaining to us that in greek plays when the plot hit a wall, a 'god' would be lowered down to the stage to do a miracle and get things going again...and that was the 'god' or 'ghost' in the machine. This is a VERY old memory, so consider with caution. Madrone ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 10:17:19 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jessie Stickgold-Sarah Subject: Re: Quote Help & Election Day In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 03 Nov 98 08:16:40 PST." Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > Does anyone know where the phrase "Ghost in the Machine" comes from? My sources indicate (ie, I looked it up on AltaVista) that the phrase originated with Descartes. If I'm correctly interpreting the mishmash of information available, the "ghost in the machine" is the mind. For his actual theory and what it's supposed to mean, you should find something more reputable than philosophy class tests and term papers. But it definitely wasn't the Police. :) On an unrelated note, all you US citizens should go out and vote! jessie ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 12:27:36 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Marina Subject: Re: BDG: Snow Queen discussion begins In-Reply-To: <19981102181534752.AAB240.232@jennifer.actioneer.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Snow Queen was in fact the first book of the list selected for discussion that I read when BDG list was announced (the only one besides the Sparrow that existed in my university library). I loved it, and I read it in one evening. On Mon, 2 Nov 1998, Jennifer Krauel wrote: > I would describe Snow Queen, at least so far, as "woman-centric space > opera." Do you agree? I agree that it's probably not a presentation of complicated ideas like Shadow Man, nor a complex literary creation like Black Wine. However, I think that as an adventure book it is, it's very, very good. I loved the concept of a woman who chooses her own path and follows it whatever it takes and no matter what anyone thinks. I think it's a book about an individual choice and determination to achive it despite the circumstances, even if no one else thinks it's the right one. By the way, I liked the original "Snow Queen", by Hans Christian Andersen (the guy who also wrote The Little Mermaid, by the way) the most of his books. I wonder why Disney never made an animated movie of that one. That fairy tale beats the Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, and even the Little Mermaid (which originally ended very tragically) combined. Maybe it's being "too feminist" -- a guy abducted by an evil queen sitting there and waiting while his girlfriend goes though all kinds adventures to rescue him, basically, the "knight and the princess" in reverse -- made it ineligible for a screen version. Anyway, going back to Joan Vinge's interpretation. I loved the hero, Moon, her courage and the ability to get out from any situation. The episode when she keeps going towards the cave to become a cybil after her boyfriend flakes out, despite the fact that they had promised to "win or lose together" was one of my favorite. Maybe because it was so different from the traditional setup when a woman always follows her "beloved" in sickness and health and whatever idiotic decision he happens to make. At the same time, when she wants to get him back no amount of other people's lecturing on "why do you want this jerk after all he had done to you" she keeps fighting for it and wins again. Honestly, by the end of the book I myself kind of wished for her to choose someone else, like that patrician guy from another planet. But since she decided to stick with whom she wanted -- oh well. After all, male heroes on the quest for their beloved never focus on whether the object of the rescue effort is worth going through so much trouble, either. I quess women have a right to want whoever they please just as well. That what makes a love object an object, after all. One's love is what makes him worthy, even if as a person he's a total piece of something. It's about the right to make your own choice, be it "good" or "bad" in other people's eyes. And if you don't like it anymore, make another one because it's your decision, not because those around you say that "it's not good for you". It's the right to make your own mistakes and learn from them, you know. I've had plenty of friends getting furious with me for not living my life the way they wanted me to, "for my own good", so I found Moon's example pretty inspiring. > > Comparing it to some of our earlier books, it's much harder to pin this one > down -- you can't just say it's about gender, or about child abuse, or a > re-telling of the story of Arthur et al. How would you describe what this > book is about? IMHO, it's personal quest for love, power, and desire to make a difference in the lives of people around you. At least Moon, unlike Essa and Ea of Black Wine, took responsibility for the fate of her people and would not walk away from the conflict in the fear of "becoming like her enemies". She was a fighter, and probably one of the best images of a female hero I've ever seen. > Could it have been shorter without compromising the story or the characters? Maybe. But it won't be as much fun. > For those of you who've finished the book, does it close the story or are > we left with the need to read the sequels? I have not read the sequel, even though I've heard there is one, The Summer Queen. I don't know if I want to read it, since sequels have an unfortunate tendency to suck. The story is perfect as it is. Even though the battle of the planet for technological independence and the revival of the ancient system of informaitonal interchange that underlines the abilities of cybils could be interesting. By the way, I think that _Snow Queen_ is a very curious combination of science fiction and fantasy. To be honest, it took me almost the whole book to realize that the three-leaf sign of the cybils is the modern symbol of Biohazard. Another theme that I found very provoking was the idea of becoming immortal at the expense of infertility and killing intelligent beings. What would you all do if faced with this choice? For instance, if there was a way to become immortal without killing the creatures, would you to do that? Would you want to live -- and stay young -- forever? Why or why not? Marina http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society is selling at the time." Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 10:43:47 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Keith Subject: Re: Quote Help & Election Day In-Reply-To: <9811031817.AA22520@shoebox-greetings.pa.dec.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 3 Nov 1998, Jessie Stickgold-Sarah wrote: > > My sources indicate (ie, I looked it up on AltaVista) that the phrase > originated with Descartes. If I'm correctly interpreting the mishmash of > information available, the "ghost in the machine" is the mind. Wow! Doesn't matter if it's correct or not, what a metaphor! Thanks for providing a word-lover with another great one. BTW, *is* there a long latinesque phrase for a lover of words? I come up with philophile, but that sounds a tad awkward. Like catharthic would have, if those cheatin linguists hadn't shifted the rules. Kathleen ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 15:10:11 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Patricia Monk Subject: Re: Quote Help & Election Day In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Philologist exists, but that's no reason not to get creative. Wordhog, anybody? ************************************************************** Dr Patricia Monk patmonk@is.dal.ca Department of English Dalhousie University HALIFAX Nova Scotia B3H 2S3 ignorance is curable * stupidity is forever ************************************************************** On Tue, 3 Nov 1998, Keith wrote: > On Tue, 3 Nov 1998, Jessie Stickgold-Sarah wrote: > > > > My sources indicate (ie, I looked it up on AltaVista) that the phrase > > originated with Descartes. If I'm correctly interpreting the mishmash of > > information available, the "ghost in the machine" is the mind. > > Wow! Doesn't matter if it's correct or not, what a metaphor! Thanks for > providing a word-lover with another great one. > > BTW, *is* there a long latinesque phrase for a lover of words? I come up > with philophile, but that sounds a tad awkward. Like catharthic would > have, if those cheatin linguists hadn't shifted the rules. > > Kathleen > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 14:14:18 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "S.M. Stirling" Subject: Re: Honor Harrington Series Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Children are a lot tougher than we think, idea-wise. I'd be very reluctant to restrict their reading; if they can read it, let them. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 11:34:52 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Stephanie Jackson Subject: Snow Queen Sequel Content-Type: text READ THE SEQUEL. Not only is it just as well written as The Snow Queen, but the Summer Queen clears up most of the mysteries that we are still left with at the end of the Snow Queen. And I won't ruin it by saying any more than that. > > Snow Queen was in fact the first book of the list selected for discussion > that I read when BDG list was announced (the only one besides the Sparrow > that existed in my university library). I loved it, and I read it in one > evening. > > On Mon, 2 Nov 1998, Jennifer > Krauel wrote: > > > I would describe Snow Queen, at least so far, as "woman-centric space > > opera." Do you agree? > > I agree that it's probably not a presentation of complicated ideas like > Shadow Man, nor a complex literary creation like Black Wine. However, I > think that as an adventure book it is, it's very, very good. I loved the > concept of a woman who chooses her own path and follows it whatever it > takes and no matter what anyone thinks. I think it's a book about an > individual choice and determination to achive it despite the > circumstances, even if no one else thinks it's the right one. > > By the way, I liked the original "Snow Queen", by Hans Christian Andersen > (the guy who also wrote The Little Mermaid, by the way) the most of his > books. I wonder why Disney never made an animated movie of that one. > That fairy tale beats the Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, and even the > Little Mermaid (which originally ended very tragically) combined. Maybe > it's being "too feminist" -- a guy abducted by an evil queen sitting there > and waiting while his girlfriend goes though all kinds adventures to > rescue him, basically, the "knight and the princess" in reverse -- made it > ineligible for a screen version. > > Anyway, going back to Joan Vinge's interpretation. I loved the hero, > Moon, her courage and the ability to get out from any situation. The > episode when she keeps going towards the cave to become a cybil > after her boyfriend flakes out, despite the fact that they had promised to > "win or lose together" was one of my favorite. Maybe because it was so > different from the traditional setup when a woman always follows her > "beloved" in sickness and health and whatever idiotic decision he happens > to make. At the same time, when she wants to get him back no amount of > other people's lecturing on "why do you want this jerk after all he had > done to you" she keeps fighting for it and wins again. Honestly, by the > end of the book I myself kind of wished for her to choose someone else, > like that patrician guy from another planet. But since she decided to > stick with whom she wanted -- oh well. After all, male heroes on the > quest for their beloved never focus on whether the object of the rescue > effort is worth going through so much trouble, either. I quess women have > a right to want whoever they please just as well. That what makes a love > object an object, after all. One's love is what makes him worthy, even if > as a person he's a total piece of something. > > It's about the right to make your own choice, be it "good" or "bad" in > other people's eyes. And if you don't like it anymore, make another one > because it's your decision, not because those around you say that "it's > not good for you". It's the right to make your own mistakes and learn > from them, you know. I've had plenty of friends getting furious with me > for not living my life the way they wanted me to, "for my own good", so I > found Moon's example pretty inspiring. > > > > > Comparing it to some of our earlier books, it's much harder to pin this one > > down -- you can't just say it's about gender, or about child abuse, or a > > re-telling of the story of Arthur et al. How would you describe what this > > book is about? > > IMHO, it's personal quest for love, power, and desire to make a difference > in the lives of people around you. At least Moon, unlike Essa and Ea of > Black Wine, took responsibility for the fate of her people and would not > walk away from the conflict in the fear of "becoming like her enemies". > She was a fighter, and probably one of the best images of a female hero > I've ever seen. > > > Could it have been shorter without compromising the story or the characters? > > Maybe. But it won't be as much fun. > > > For those of you who've finished the book, does it close the story or are > > we left with the need to read the sequels? > > I have not read the sequel, even though I've heard there is one, The > Summer Queen. I don't know if I want to read it, since sequels have an > unfortunate tendency to suck. The story is perfect as it is. Even though > the battle of the planet for technological independence and the revival of > the ancient system of informaitonal interchange that underlines the > abilities of cybils could be interesting. > > By the way, I think that _Snow Queen_ is a very curious combination of > science fiction and fantasy. To be honest, it took me almost the whole > book to realize that the three-leaf sign of the cybils is the > modern symbol of Biohazard. > > Another theme that I found very provoking was the idea of becoming > immortal at the expense of infertility and killing intelligent beings. > What would you all do if faced with this choice? For instance, if there > was a way to become immortal without killing the creatures, would you > to do that? Would you want to live -- and stay young -- forever? Why or > why not? > > Marina > > http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html > > "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society > is selling at the time." > Naomi Wolf > > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 12:32:12 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Pat Subject: Re: Tomorrow's Children Comments: To: geminiwalker In-Reply-To: <199811031259.EAA23089@swan.prod.itd.earthlink.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 3 Nov 1998, geminiwalker wrote: > This thread keeps reminding me of one of my favorite stories > about a young women who comes to a small almost tribal village > to teach and the children drag their feet on the floor all the time > and when she finally convinces them to pick their feet up, it > turns out they can fly ... that they were actually from another > place or time or something and had been so taunted and harassed > in their first years that they had been taught as children not to > express their alien nature at all ... but I can't remember the name > of the story, anybody else ever read it? It did become a TV movie > at some point ... > Zenna Henderson, one of the PEOPLE stories.> Patricia (Pat) Mathews mathews@unm.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 15:05:00 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Debra Euler Subject: Re: Honor Harrington Series -Reply Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain >>> "S.M. Stirling" wrote: Children are a lot tougher than we think, idea-wise. I'd be very reluctant to restrict their reading; if they can read it, let them. I believe that. However, then you end up with evil little children like me who particularly enjoyed doing school book reports on novels with salacious content. I remember doing one on Dhalgren by Delaney when I was in the 5th grade. My teacher was scandalized when she realized that the book had menage a trois scenes. Cie la vie. BTW, hi there, Steve. We met at the DAW party at this past Worldcon. Debra ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 15:12:03 +0000 Reply-To: chuard@earthlink.net Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Comments: Authenticated sender is From: geminiwalker Subject: Re: Quote Help & Election Day In-Reply-To: <9811031817.AA22520@shoebox-greetings.pa.dec.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > > Does anyone know where the phrase "Ghost in the Machine" comes from? > > My sources indicate (ie, I looked it up on AltaVista) that the phrase > originated with Descartes. If I'm correctly interpreting the mishmash of > information available, the "ghost in the machine" is the mind. For his actual > theory and what it's supposed to mean, you should find something more > reputable than philosophy class tests and term papers. > > But it definitely wasn't the Police. :) > > On an unrelated note, all you US citizens should go out and vote! > > jessie > > I learned in one of my English classes many, many years ago that "Deus ex machina" is a plot device that was used in ancient Greek plays when they had painted themselves into a corner ... it's the sign of a weak story line when something magical happens that the reader could not have predicted because the foundation wasn't laid for it in order to tie up loose ends of the plot. A God that drops out of the sky to pull everything together, so to speak. ...geminiwalker chuard@earthlink.net Dare to be monstrous. -- dorothy allison ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 14:19:12 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: Re: BDG: Snow Queen (Long) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Well, this was my third go-round with *The Snow Queen*. I'm interested in what other people have to say because I can't figure out quite why this book has stuck with me. When I first read it back in college I found the characters unconvincing (except for BZ Gundhalinu, who was and remains my favorite), but having read it a couple more times, and having grown older in the intervening years :), I find that I am able to fill in the gaps with my own observations of people. This time I also found myself visualizing some scenes as if I were watching a movie, which is pretty unusual for me. In feminist terms it's a mixed bag (but stronger than I had thought). There are women aplenty and they are a varied lot: Moon, the Innocent, Good Woman; Arienrhod, the Cold, Ambitious Evil Woman; Jerusha, the Conflicted Career Woman; Fate, the Mystical, Wise Woman; Tor, the Everyday Shmoe Woman (hey, I'm amusing myself here!); Blodwed, the Selfish, Feral Girlchild with a Hidden Heart o'Gold; Elsevier, The Good Samaritan Woman (Mother Wannabe). They aren't this cut and dried, obviously. I enjoyed the nuances of the characters. Moon, for example, turns out to be more similar to her clone-mother than one would expect of a good vs. evil story. Even at the beginning we see that she is very serious about pursuing her own fate when she presses on through the sibyl choosing place, leaving Sparks behind. And this is not presented as a bad thing. In fact, it seems at the end of the book (and more so in the sequel, *The Summer Queen*) that Arienrhod's plan worked (except for some details, like the union of summer and winter clans and no more water of life...) I quite enjoyed the character of Jerusha. Her POV often has a sarcastic quality I can identify with. I actually laughed out loud at one scene where she receives a mysterious package and idly thinks to herself, "I hope it's a bomb." And I LOVED the scene where she easily disarms Starbuck and says, "An energy weapon should never be aimed at anything unless you're willing to see it blown apart." While pointing it at him. Heh heh. The whole subplot of her difficulties dealing with insubordination and resentment among her policemen really reminded me of the *Prime Suspect* series starring Helen Mirren. It was made very clear that she had to do twice as well as the men to even be tolerated by them. I could taste the frustration. Some things I didn't like: the Moon/Sparks romance. I imagine it's just me, but the thought of two children who have been best friends since birth having a sexual relationship makes me feel oogy. Too much like incest. And though it gives her the chance to go adventuring, I didn't like the fact that Moon's main goal throughout the novel is tracking down her lover. Something that struck me after our recent discussion is that this and all the works of Joan Vinge that I have read can be described as "hurt/comfort fiction" par excellence! (Mostly hurting and not much comforting, actually.) Is this complicated by the fact that the person being comforted is sometimes the main, POV character, as in the *Psion* series? Jennifer Krauel asked: > Could it have been shorter without compromising the story or the > characters? Yes, I think so, but I'm not sure what could be cut. *The Summer Queen* could DEFINITELY have been shorter. > For those of you who've finished the book, does it close the story or > are we left with the need to read the sequels? If you have read the > sequels, how do they compare with this book? I think the first book is pretty self-contained. The second book, *World's End*, is strangely disconnected from the other two and is very different in tone. It's told from Gundhalinu's point of view (I recall it as being in the first person, though I no longer have a copy to confirm it) and struck me as being a rewrite of Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" in a science fictional setting. (Vinge even quotes from "Heart of Darkness" at the beginning of the book.) There was something I liked about it, but I don't think it went over well with critics or with most readers, which may explain why the third book, *The Summer Queen* encompasses much of its material and can be read as a straight sequel to the first book. *The Summer Queen* makes a quantum leap in length (to 950 pages) and in breadth (lots more characters and a much longer time frame). To me it seems bloated, but still somewhat interesting. In case anyone is interested, here are some links to versions of the fairy tale: Complete Hans Christian Andersen version in 7 parts: http://www.math.technion.ac.il/~rl/Andersen/snow_que.html A couple others: http://www.teelfamily.com/activities/snow/snowqueen.html -- Janice E. Dawley ............. Burlington, VT http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/jedhome.htm Listening to: Dave Matthews Band - Two Step "Reality is nothing but a collective hunch." - Lily Tomlin ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 10:53:43 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: Re: Quote Help MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Re: "ghost in the machine" The term was used by the French philosopher René Descartes (1596-1650). The "ghost" is the immaterial spirit or thought of a human being; the "machine" is the physical body. Often known as "Cartesian Dualism" because body and mind are held to be two separate entities. -- Janice E. Dawley ............. Burlington, VT http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/jedhome.htm Listening to: Dave Matthews Band - Two Step "Reality is nothing but a collective hunch." - Lily Tomlin ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 12:43:09 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Cera Kruger Subject: Zenna Henderson In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.19981031003537.007784b4@flink.com> from Rebecca at "Oct 31, 98 00:35:37 am" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Rebecca writes: > > Amazon also has a listing for Zenna Henderson!!! > > Ingathering : The Complete People Stories of Zenna Henderson > by Zenna Henderson, Mark Olson, Priscilla Olson (Introduction), Marr Olson > (Editor) [...] > There were some terrific stories about children in these two books and in > _The Wonder Box_. I also strongly reccomend _Holding Wonder_ (which may be _The Wonder Box_ under a different name?) -- it's fourteen or so short stories, mostly about women & children. I haven't read through it in a long time, but my recollection is that all of the stories are good, and a few are intensely disturbing. -- Cera -- Cera Kruger -++- diony@idiom.com -+- http://www.requiem.com -++- SFLAaE/BS "And it's alright if you hate that way / hate me cause I'm different / hate me cause I'm gay / Truth of the matter come around one day / so it's alright." -- Emily Saliers (Indigo Girls' _Shaming of the Sun_) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 13:43:32 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Stephanie Jackson Subject: Re: BDG: Snow Queen (Long) In-Reply-To: <363F5730.BD94211A@together.net> from "Janice E. Dawley" at Nov 3, 98 02:19:12 pm Content-Type: text [serious snip] > I think the first book is pretty self-contained. The second book, > *World's End*, is strangely disconnected from the other two and is very > different in tone. It's told from Gundhalinu's point of view (I recall > it as being in the first person, though I no longer have a copy to > confirm it) and struck me as being a rewrite of Conrad's "Heart of > Darkness" in a science fictional setting. (Vinge even quotes from "Heart > of Darkness" at the beginning of the book.) There was something I liked > about it, but I don't think it went over well with critics or with most > readers, which may explain why the third book, *The Summer Queen* > encompasses much of its material and can be read as a straight sequel to > the first book. *The Summer Queen* makes a quantum leap in length (to > 950 pages) and in breadth (lots more characters and a much longer time > frame). To me it seems bloated, but still somewhat interesting. > The /second/ book? I've never heard of this before. Is it still in print? It seems like the Summer Queen is the sequel... flow from one to the other is pretty equal. -Stephanie ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 16:55:25 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Nina M. Osier" Subject: Re: Honor Harrington Series MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit 'Tis my humble opinion that the producers of Star Trek have no idea what to do with the captain of the good ship Voyager, so as Catherine Asaro pointed out in that "chat" that this list brought to my attention yesterday the character is seriously under-utilized. I enjoy Kate Mulgrew in the role, but I cringe every time I hear someone in the Trek universe address a female officer as "sir" or "mister." You would think there was something inferior about being a "ma'am" or a "ms."! (Reminds me of a friend who wanted to call a female Episcopal priest "father" so she would "feel equal.") That one's a problem that the Harrington universe does not have, thank goodness. Now if even David Weber would get over the idea that forever and always, marriage will mean taking a husband's surname and children MUST use their father's name.... Ah, well. I can't have everything. Nina Cynthia Gonsalves wrote: > At 06:10 PM 11/1/98 -0500, you wrote: > >This is a thank you to the person whose post brought David Weber to my > >attention. I don't remember who you are, but I've read "On Basilisk > >Station," "The Honor of the Queen," and half of "The Short Victorious > >War" since last Monday. This is worse than having an open box of > >chocolates in the house...! > > Splorfle! I love it...now my idea of big fun would be a nice big box of > chocolate and the 9th Honor book in my greedy little paws. Pity I have to > wait at least another year...snif...whine... > > It's not high literature, but *damn*, it's fun and I'm addicted to her > trials and tribulations as well as her ability to kick serious booty. Wish > the captain of the good ship Voyager had gone to the RMN Academy with Honor... > > Cynthia > > -- > "I had to be a bitch, they wouldn't let me be a Jesuit." > -Matt Ruff in Sewer, Gas, and Electric > Sharks Bite!!! http://members.home.net/cynthia1960 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 14:27:15 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: The Other Gretchen Subject: Re: Honor Harrington Series In-Reply-To: <5c2710bd.363f560a@aol.com>; from S.M. Stirling on Nov 3, 1998 14:14:18 -0500 Mime-Version: 1.0 On Nov 3, S.M. Stirling wrote: > Children are a lot tougher than we think, idea-wise. I'd be very reluctant to > restrict their reading; if they can read it, let them. Hear hear! I was introduced to SF because I'd read all of the horse and dog stories in the children's library, and most of the mysteries, and had actually restarted the Hardy Boys series. (I never really liked Nancy Drew.) My mother was desperate to get me out of that particular rut, so she gave me _Citizen of the Galaxy_. Well, that was lots of fun, so I started reading science fiction in my methodical way, starting with Heinlein, of course. I reread _Stranger in a Strange Land_ later, and realized that I had been thoroughly oblivious to the sexual content at age 10; there was a lot more book there at age whenever in my teen years it was that I did the rereading. Not that I'm proposing Heinlein as feminist science fiction.... :) The only thing I remember scaring me from childhood was one particular Grimms fairy tale, the one telling why ears of corn (wheat) are smaller now than they used to be. Basically, the Lord still walked the earth back then, and a vain mother used a handful of corn to clean mud off her daughter's skirt. Jesus got pissed off about this waste and cursed humanity with smaller crop yields. For some reason this bothered me a lot, even compared to the sorts of gruesome torture people tended to get subjected to in Grimms fairy tales. -- The Other Gretchen >-< gretchen@flick.com >-< http://www.flick.com/~gretchen/ (IF I READ ANOTHER .SIG QUOTING RUSS SMITH I AM GOING TO PUKE) -- from a .sig by Michael Moore, moore@peruvian.utah.edu -- as quoted by Russ Smith on TooMUSH ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 18:48:59 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Phoebe Wray Subject: Re: Quote Help Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit It ain't the Stones... earlier earlier and my brain is not telling me when it was. But it will. to be continued. phoebe ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 18:52:35 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Phoebe Wray Subject: Re: Stepford Husbands (Was: Women as Robots) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 11/3/98 5:22:19 PM, you wrote: <> That sounds like the original Stepford Wives. They weren't androids. They were drugged and brain-washed. A siren went off (think it was a siren) and they all dutifully pulled out their pillboxes and took the pill that made them docile and sweet. best phoebe ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 18:54:07 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Tanya M. Bouwman-Wozencraft" Subject: Re: sf books about children Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 98-11-01 14:36:46 EST, you write: << Two favorites that come to my mind are LeGuin's The Ship That Sang, and Childhood's End by -- ??. Sorry, too much Samheim. smiling, phoebe >> Isn't Childhood's End by Clarke? Also, Anne McCaffrey wrote a book called The Ship Who Sang, did both writers use similar titles? Or did you get them confused? Tanya ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 19:05:05 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Phoebe Wray Subject: Re: Quote Help Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 11/3/98 5:53:25 PM, you wrote: << a 'god' would be lowered down to the stage to do a miracle and get things going again...and that was the 'god' or 'ghost' in the machine. >> Nope, that's the deus ex machina. The "god in the machine." The other quote is later, late 19th century I think. best phoebe ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 19:57:00 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Phoebe Wray Subject: Re: sf books about children Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Oh yes... about Ship That Sang (McCaffrey) and Childhood's End (Clarke)... as I said, too much Samheim. Great stories, both. And thanks to those who knew the authors. lightly phoebe ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 11:50:59 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Caroline Heske Subject: that movie... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Sharon... I haven't seen the movie, but the plot sounds similar (or a deliberate twist on) the Bacchae by Euripides. Except the final bloodbath of the women stems from resentment rather than desire... Is this within the realm of possibility? ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 20:02:37 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "S.M. Stirling" Subject: Re: Honor Harrington Series -Reply Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 11/3/98 1:06:58 PM Mountain Standard Time, DEBRA.EULER@PENGUIN.COM writes: << BTW, hi there, Steve. We met at the DAW party at this past Worldcon. >> -- Hi, Debra! I remember that party -- things were winding down. You folks publish a lot of my friends! ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 18:02:42 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Erin Garrett Organization: None Subject: Re: Quote Help MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: MULTIPART/MIXED; BOUNDARY="Boundary_(ID_Ux2aEz6EZ0aP19XsDrS2mA)" This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --Boundary_(ID_Ux2aEz6EZ0aP19XsDrS2mA) Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT I think you're right. In Latin it would be Deus ex machina. In literary studies we still use the term, and basically apply it to anytime an obviously constructed intervention (a god or something godlike) appears/occurs in order to conveniently save a hero. Too bad we don't use the machine anymore. I like seeing the puppetmaster. Demetria M. Shew wrote: > In a message dated 11/3/98 9:34:14 AM Pacific Standard Time, > JFrankln@FAMPRAC.UMN.EDU writes: > > << "Ghost in the Machine" >> > > I remember vaguely, about a zillion years ago, the nuns explaining to us that > in greek plays when the plot hit a wall, a 'god' would be lowered down to the > stage to do a miracle and get things going again...and that was the 'god' or > 'ghost' in the machine. > > This is a VERY old memory, so consider with caution. > > Madrone --Boundary_(ID_Ux2aEz6EZ0aP19XsDrS2mA) Content-type: text/x-vcard; name=vcard.vcf; charset=us-ascii Content-description: Card for Erin Garrett Content-disposition: attachment; filename=vcard.vcf Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT begin: vcard fn: Erin Garrett n: Garrett;Erin email;internet: egarrett@du.edu note: "Without a metaphor I cannot live." MWS, March 17, 1823 x-mozilla-cpt: ;0 x-mozilla-html: TRUE version: 2.1 end: vcard --Boundary_(ID_Ux2aEz6EZ0aP19XsDrS2mA)-- ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 20:04:28 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "S.M. Stirling" Subject: Re: Honor Harrington Series -Reply Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit And I remember horrifying my elementary school teachers -- this was in the early 60's -- by bringing in and reporting on what I was reading at the time. Mostly Edgar Rice Burroughs, the ones like "Savage Pellucidar", with the Frazetta covers, invariably including 'stone-age' women in fur bikinis with butts a yard across and... well, let's put it this way -- they could have been ads for the Wisconsin Dairy Board. At the time (being about 7) I merely thought "how do they keep their balance?" ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 12:11:49 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Caroline Heske Subject: Re: Honor Harrington Series -Reply MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain >>>> "S.M. Stirling" wrote: >Children are a lot tougher than we think, idea-wise. I'd be very >reluctant to restrict their reading; if they can read it, let them. For several years now I have been working on a fantasy book that primarily uses children - particularly girls - as characters, but is aimed at an adult audience. I'm trying deliberately to avoid the idea of a coming-of-age story - arguing that the children have experiences valid in themselves, not because of what it will shape them into as adults. (This relates to one of my areas of contention within feminism - the way adolescents are portrayed as victims of 'false consciousness' rather than differently situated women). The story contains violent and sexually explicit scenes. My question is: does anyone know of any books/movies? written with these aims? ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 21:21:20 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Rebecca Subject: Re: Zenna Henderson In-Reply-To: <2093892@flc.flink.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 02:50 PM 11/3/98 CST, you wrote: >Rebecca writes: >> >> Amazon also has a listing for Zenna Henderson!!! >> >> Ingathering : The Complete People Stories of Zenna Henderson >> by Zenna Henderson, Mark Olson, Priscilla Olson (Introduction), Marr Olson >> (Editor) >[...] >> There were some terrific stories about children in these two books and in >> _The Wonder Box_. > >I also strongly reccomend _Holding Wonder_ (which may be _The Wonder >Box_ under a different name?) -- it's fourteen or so short stories, >mostly about women & children. I haven't read through it in a long >time, but my recollection is that all of the stories are good, and a >few are intensely disturbing. > > >-- Cera > > Yes, _Holding Wonder_! There is another book called _The Anything Box_ and I think the cover showed a child holding a wonderous box. Hence my confusion. I don't remember having four books by Henderson, but I am holding _Holding Wonder_ and it not autographed by the Olympic gold medal winner Jean Claude Kiley--ah, the things we do when we are young!--so I must conclude that I do have another Henderson around here somewhere. Rebecca ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 19:10:18 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jennifer Krauel Subject: Re: Hello! In-Reply-To: <19981102095017.I20135@canolog.ninthwonder.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 09:50 AM 11/02/98 -0500, Allen wrote: >> Not yet. We're only discussing published works, and there's a >> list that gets voted on every few months. Next up is Nalo Hopkinson's >> BROWN GIRL IN THE RING.> > >This is for the Book Discussion Group (BDG), at least. >I don't think there's anything limiting the list at large from >discussing unpublished or out-of-print works, and there's certainly >room for discusssing literature outside the BDG reading list. ;-) > >[I doubt that Pat meant to imply otherwise, and it's possible that Steve > meant to ask about the BDG, specifically, but I feel that a clarification > is necessary. I don't think this changes the answer to the question > that Steve asked, though. ] > Welcome Steve and Suzanne! We do have organized discussions monthly, but as Allen points out we are of course open to discussing any book at any time. I don't remember us discussing any of Stirling's books offhand, but I know that I've mentioned Speaking Dreams myself once or twice. Just picked up the sequel this week and hope to get to it soon! At the moment we're discussing Vinge's Snow Queen, and upcoming discussions include: December The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell January Brown Girl in the Ring, by Nalo Hopkinson February The Female Man, by Joanna Russ March A Fisherman of the Inland Sea, by Ursula K. LeGuin April Jaran, by Kate Elliot You can read more about the organized discussions plus read archives of previous discussions here: Jennifer jkrauel@actioneer.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 19:33:39 -0800 Reply-To: lynnx@mc.net Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Heather Law Organization: Interstellar Trading Company Subject: Re: Snow Queen Sequel MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit An animated version of the Snow Queen, although not Disney, was released in the Fifties. I never saw it, but I did see the very rare soundtrack. Carol Mitchell ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 22:24:26 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: Re: BDG: Snow Queen (Long) In-Reply-To: <199811032143.NAA01266@rally.otaking.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 01:43 PM 11/3/98 -0800, Stephanie Jackson wrote: >The /second/ book? I've never heard of this before. Is it still in > print? It seems like the Summer Queen is the sequel... flow from one > to the other is pretty equal. It's available at Amazon.com for $3.99. You might also be able to order it from Maryelizabeth at Mysterious Galaxy (http://www.mystgalaxy.com). Or even get it at a used book store. You can see the gap in *The Summer Queen*, actually. When Gundhalinu gives Kullervo a brief explanation of how he came to World's End to look for his brothers, the journey across the desert with Ang and Spadrin, and his experiences with Song at Fire Lake... that is a summary of the second book. I think it's a little hard to understand his state of mind at this point in the novel (page 260 or thereabouts) without having read the second book, but it's not crucial. ----- Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/jedhome.htm Listening to: Dave Matthews Band -- Two Step "...the public and the private worlds are inseparably connected; the tyrannies and servilities of the one are the tyrannies and servilities of the other." Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 22:48:02 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: J-F Pilote Subject: Drp me off that list ! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Disconnect my e-mail from that group or I'll submit a complaint for privacy invasion to the government ! ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 23:42:18 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Heather MacLean Subject: Re: Drp me off that list ! Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" You have to unsubscribe yourself. Either you, or someone using your computer, subscribed to the list from your e-mail account. Following are the instructions. I am in no way officially connected to this group. ------------------------------------------- Welcome to FeministSF - a list for fans, writers, activists and scholars to discuss feminist science fiction. Your list owner is Laura Quilter (lauramd@uic.edu). To unsubscribe, mail a message to: listserv@listserv.uic.edu and in the body of the message type: unsubscribe feministsf If you have any problems contact the list-owner. ---------------------------------------------- At 10:48 PM 11/3/98 -0500, you wrote: >Disconnect my e-mail from that group or I'll submit a complaint for privacy invasion to the government ! > > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 22:06:42 PST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Karen Kirschling Subject: Re: Quote Help MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain >I remember vaguely, about a zillion years ago, the nuns explaining to us that >in greek plays when the plot hit a wall, a 'god' would be lowered down to the >stage to do a miracle and get things going again...and that was the 'god' or >'ghost' in the machine. "deus ex machina". yes? ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 3 Nov 1998 14:11:31 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Stahl, Sheryl" Subject: Re: OT word lover MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain I thought logophile sounded perfectly reasonable and went dictionary browsing. Its not in Webster's 3 (unabridged) but I did find logomachy "a dispute over or about words ... " logomania " abnormal talkativeness: logorrhea "pathologically excessive and often inchoherent talkativeness" I really think logophilia should have been there. sigh. sheryl > BTW, *is* there a long latinesque phrase for a lover of words? I come up > with philophile, but that sounds a tad awkward. Like catharthic would > have, if those cheatin linguists hadn't shifted the rules. > > Kathleen > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 01:55:23 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Heather MacLean Subject: Re: OT word lover Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" A paranomasiac is a lover of puns. And a logodaedalist is one who is skilled at words (and inventing new ones). Logophile, or motamateur? *grins* Heather =) http://www.zipcon.net/~hlm ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 02:47:35 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Joyce Jones Subject: Killer tomatoes Thanks, Patricia, That would be much better. Take that you Gorgons or Gorons or Gorgoyles or whatever they are. Joyce > Thank you ME Hunter for the wonderful parody "Houseplants of Gor". I > breathlessly await a canned tomatoes of Gor trilogy. No. Attack of the KILLER tomatoes of Gor!> ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 04:20:01 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Joyce Jones Subject: BDG Snow Queen I agree The Snow Queen isn't as beautifully literate as Black Wine, but wasn't it fun to read a novel that started at the beginning, had characters who interested you, continued through the middle and ended at the end? And in the meantime, it gave quite a bit to think about. Marina talked about Moon following Sparks even though he was perhaps not the right guy for her. She said, "One's love is what makes him worthy, even if as a person he's a total piece of something." Kind of a "Stand by your man" kind of thing. I didn't buy it. Seeing how self-centered, easily lead and petulant Sparks was, I can't believe he's really the kind of guy that's going to be much help to Moon in saving their world. In fact, I believe at one point Moon even says that maybe the Sibyl machine just used her need to rescue Sparks as a way to get her back to the planet to effect change. I really think without this kind of psychic push she wouldn't have felt such a need to join herself with him. He did after all murder the sacred mers. "Oh my man I love him so" shouldn't dismiss that kind of evil, not with someone as strong as Moon. I was hoping she'd end up with BZ. He was almost as strong as she and honorable. Or if she didn't end up with him, well, there's a whole planet. I don't see that she'd maintain this tie to Sparks. Guess I have to read the sequel. Speaking of honor. Did anyone think of the Kharemough as representing the Japanese with their emphasis on honor, ancestry and technology? A concern Janice had with the Moon/Sparks romance was that since they had been best friends since birth, it seemed too much like incest. I didn't have any problem with the natural sexuality between the two children. Didn't Margaret Mead say that the Samoans "practiced" having sex with each other as they were children? I agree. It would seem that most cultures would have found the relationship pretty incestuous since they had been raised together. But then there's Catherine and Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights. Didn't they have that same childhood relationship, though not since babyhood? And for a relationship that really needed to be continued, how about Tor and Pollux? Weren't they perfect for each other? If Marge Piercy could do it in, what was that He She And It? Why couldn't Joan Vinge have a little inter-entity coupling here? Marina's commented about accepting infertility in order to achieve immortality. I guess that's how it would have to be done. They didn't have space flight, so their planet couldn't support beings that could both reproduce and live forever. Am I missing something? How did the High Officials from offworld manage to maintain their fertility? I have no doubt that people would kill intelligent beings in order to live forever, but even more basic than that question, to me, was why would anyone want to be immortal anyway? I should have thought that even Arienrhod was showing signs of boredom. Janice, what an apt comparison of Jerusha and Helen Mirren's Prime Suspect character, "the difficulties dealing with insubordination and resentment among her policemen...that she had to do twice as well as the men to even be tolerated by them." Now, if they make a movie, Helen has to be there. I very much enjoyed the book and just found the original Hans Christian Andersen Snow Queen in some books of children's stories my mother gave me, so I can't wait to read it. Oh, one more thing. I was reading the end of the book as I watched election coverage. It was nice to envision Newt Gingrich going down in that boat along with the Winter Queen. What a pity, not yet. Joyce ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 09:08:22 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jane Franklin Subject: Re: Honor Harrington Series Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit I've been trying to post my reply to this all yesterday, but my email is funny. Now, I just know you all think I'm in favor of infantile censorship, which is not the case. First, when I wrote about traumatizing stories, I was being just a teeny bit sarcastic, but it didn't come through. Second, to resend a post I tried to send before: I was in the junior great books program when I was eight. We read that John Cheever story where the man is swimming through his neighbors' swimming pools, "The Rocking Horse Winner", and a British story called "The Destructors". This story is a metaphor for class conflict in post-war Britain, and in it a gang of wild children tear down an old man's historic house. It's a great story, but it really makes much more sense if you know a little about Britain. When I was eight (maybe a rather young eight) it really scared me; would people break into our house and tear it down, I wondered? Was this okay in Britain, a land I had encountered chiefly in Sherlock Holmes and in children's books? Why didn't the police help the old man? Now you may think that these are all productive questions and that an introduction to violent class conflict at the age of eight is a good thing...maybe it is. But I think that some stories are so sophisticated in their workings and rely so much on the ability to understand metaphor that they are not really the best choices for young children. This was an age when I was reading, by my own choice, Madeline L'Engle's Ring of Endless Light, Michel Ende's Neverending Story (much more complex than the movie), the Swiss Family Robinson, the Cantubury Tales, Dickens--the point is, I was reading books that challenged my ability to understand vocabulary and plot rather than my ability to understand metaphor. And did we get an explanation of those stories that we read for the gifted program--this is what literary metaphor is, this is what was happening in Britain? No, we did not. Could I have understood class war at the age of eight? Probably not. The people who planned the series, I still contend, confused the ability to understand plot with the ability to assimilate philosophy. For most of the group, the stories were a bore. (I was fascinated yet terrified...I think I was the only one of the group to grow up to actually like to read for fun, or that's how it seemed as I grew up with the very careful what you compel children to read. Would you, for example, sit a little kid who had expressed no interest in the Holocaust down, not with Anne Frank's diary, but with the difficult and frightening film Night and Fog? And would you explain nothing about the film? And would you follow it up with the Killing Fields? If I had been reading those stories because I found them at our house (where we have most of them, actually) or stumbled across them in the library (where we had no restrictions either) that would have been different. But even so, some things are in general not child-appropriate. I would not give an eight year old a copy of American Psycho or a volume of hardcore pornography. (Not to compare Cheever to either of those things in any larger sense) I don't like this idea that everything is okay for children just because they think they might be interested in it. I don't like making blanket rules for all children, since there's always the exceptional child. I do think that a little well-intentioned mentoring, coupled by a willingness to turn a blind eye now and then, is a good idea when a kid is under eleven or twelve. And there is a difference between pretty much letting a kid look around unchecked and handing stuff to the kid. I had a pretty liberal childhood, intellectually--at least where my parents were concerned. And most of the adults I met were so thrilled that here was a child who actually liked to read that they didn't really stand in my way. So I never faced those "I'm sorry, that's on the shelf for the nine year olds" situations. I just think the Junior Great Books program, as practiced in my school, was not the best place for us to encounter those stories. I read a lot of puzzling stuff at that age, but it was mostly stuff I wanted to puzzle over. I was not Star Bright from Tomorrow's Children, able to understand everything easily from the moment I could talk. I was just a kid. And as a teacher, I know that the best way to teach is to use materials a little past your students' abilities, not miles away. Children aren't adults. That's why things hurt worse and are scarier when we're little. Think about that girl in Welcome to the Dollhouse. If someone dyke-baits me now, I laugh. When I was twelve, it was terrifying. Or think about Cat's Eye. And on another note, anyone read that Neil Postman book about literacy and the creation of childhood? I think that sums up my feelings rather well, but I'll spare you so much OT at one go. Anyway, I wrote this up better yesterday, sent it, and it disappeared into cyberspace. >>> "S.M. Stirling" 11/03 1:14 PM >>> Children are a lot tougher than we think, idea-wise. I'd be very reluctant to restrict their reading; if they can read it, let them. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 09:19:06 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jane Franklin Subject: Re: Honor Harrington Series >>> The Other Gretchen 11/03 4:27 PM >>> On Nov 3, S.M. Stirling wrote: > Children are a lot tougher than we think, idea-wise. I'd be very reluctant to > restrict their reading; if they can read it, let them. Hear hear! (Jane continues) The difference between all this and what I was describing is that you guys chose to read what you did. I too read a lot of stuff I wasn't "supposed to", and my parents didn't stop me, as long as I was reasonably discreet if they'd actually forbidden the book. (I suppose the rationale was that if I wanted to read it enough to sneak it, then it was probably ok) And again, I think by the time I was ten or eleven I could have handled the stories we read. But eight was a little young...note that it was not violence that scared me, it was incomprehension of how the societies in the stories worked. A little explanation or even some good discussion questions might have cleared everything up. I guess I never was into reading things to shock other people, though. Except I remember insisting that, according to books I'd read, our justice system was entirely fraudulent. My sixth grade teacher said this was nonsense, starting me on my lifelong desire to win every single arguement... :) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 07:38:43 PST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: susan mcdermott Subject: Re: Drop me off the list !!!! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain >Subject: [*FSFFU*] Drop me off the list !!!! >To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU > >Thank you very much :) > ME as well thanks! Susan McDermott ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 10:45:51 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Stahl, Sheryl" Subject: Re: captain janeway MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain I vaguely remember that at the beginning of the show she specifically said she did not want to be called 'sir' - I think she wanted just 'captain' . I don't remember when that switched. > 'Tis my humble opinion that the producers of Star Trek have no idea what > to do > with the captain of the good ship Voyager, so as Catherine Asaro pointed > out in > that "chat" that this list brought to my attention yesterday the character > is > seriously under-utilized. I agree! - I think they are sometimes confused about Chikote (sp?) also - how does a male second in command interact with captain. I haven't been able to watch regularly lately but it seems that they either have a formal captain/second role or that they are hinting at intimacy - they don't seem to interact as friends/buddies. sheryl > I enjoy Kate Mulgrew in the role, but I cringe every > time I hear someone in the Trek universe address a female officer as "sir" > or > "mister." You would think there was something inferior about being a > "ma'am" or a > "ms."! > Nina > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 10:48:18 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: J-F Pilote Subject: Unsubscribe feministsf MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I'm unsubscibed and I still receive messages dammit !!!!!!!!!!! ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 10:49:03 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Joe Sutliff Sanders Subject: Re: FAQ list Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Friends, This sort of posting has been coming up frequently of late. Perhaps we should consider posting a monthly FAQ so that people such as those below are reminded from time to time of how to sign off. I know that they have received this information before, but they have evidently mislaid or forgotten about it. Has the idea of a monthly/biweekly/weekly FAQ for the list been bantered about before? It has worked well on other listservs. Joe At 07:38 AM 11/4/98 PST, you wrote: >>Subject: [*FSFFU*] Drop me off the list !!!! >>To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU >> >>Thank you very much :) >> >ME as well thanks! > >Susan McDermott > >______________________________________________________ >Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 10:33:44 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jane Franklin Subject: Re: Honor Harrington Series -Reply Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit There's a story in Women of Wonder II whose title escapes me that fills the bill almost exactly... Children ARE a lot tougher than we think, but that doesn't mean that every experience is the best experience for them. You can, after all, grow up a wild child in the ruins of bombed-out Dresden, survive, and ultimately flourish, but that doesn't mean that the ruins of Dresden make a fine summer camp. I don't think you can say that children should always be protected or children should never be protected, that there is something no child should read or that there is something every child should read. Nor do I think that just because a child lives to grow up its childhood must have been optimal. I could have done without several of my youthful experieces, like being beaten up and dumped in the snow on a busy street in a placid suburban neighborhood, less than a block from the house where one of my friend's mothers lived. And I think that now that I am an adult, were toughs attacking me on that street, someone would move to help me. But because I was a kid, the fact that I was having my face pounded into a bloody pulp by the ice didn't count. Kids were just being kids. The point is, it's true that children have valid experiences. But just like adults, they shouldn't be assumed to live in a vacuum. Being beaten up was an entirely valid experience that none the less would never happen in that way to an adult. Anyway, to add a science fictional angle, I was interested that someone was reading Delaney in fifth grade...how were people's early experiences with "adult" science fiction? I remember reading Deathbird Stories by Harlan Ellison when I was eleven or so all in one sitting and being amazed by what then seemed to me to be the adultness of the tone of the stories. I felt as if I had been lifted up above my daily concerns, as it were. I wish Harlan were as thrilling for me now...what was the allure of the book you chose, or maybe ended up with? And how did you end up with it? I remember reading a lot of Anne McCaffrey when I was nine, especially the ones with the gifted female musician who was unappreciated by her boring parents. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 08:57:13 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Candioglos, Sandy" Subject: Re: Honor Harrington Series -Reply MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain You're talking about DragonSong, DragonSinger, and DragonDrums - DragonSong was one of my favorite books for quite a while when I was about that age. I loved Menolly. :) I remember reading the other Pern books and being (comparatively) bored by them because they were so much more political, and less personal. I also liked the Earthsea trilogy; I liked Tombs of Autan best, because it also had a young female protagonist. I also really liked, at an even younger age, Sylvia Engdahl's books, especially Enchantress from the Stars. DragonSong was given to me by my dad (a janitor at the Jr. High he taught at had found it, and it had been in the lost and found for a while, so he brought it home to me). I was just glad he'd brought me the first of the series instead of the last. :) The others I found on my own at my elementary school library, or the local public library (I was blessed with a library within walking distance that had a decent children's section, and a wonderful ILL system). I don't remember any librarians ever helping me pick books out, but I do remember just looking at the shelves, and pulling books off based on what the covers looked like. I probably read some real dogs, that way, but thankfully, I don't remember them. -Sandy > -----Original Message----- > From: Jane Franklin [SMTP:JFrankln@FAMPRAC.UMN.EDU] > Sent: Wednesday, November 04, 1998 8:34 AM > To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU > Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] Honor Harrington Series -Reply > > There's a story in Women of Wonder II whose title escapes me that fills > the bill almost exactly... > > Children ARE a lot tougher than we think, but that doesn't mean that every > experience is the best experience for them. You can, after all, grow up a > wild child in the ruins of bombed-out Dresden, survive, and ultimately > flourish, but that doesn't mean that the ruins of Dresden make a fine > summer camp. I don't think you can say that children should always be > protected or children should never be protected, that there is something > no child should read or that there is something every child should read. > Nor do I think that just because a child lives to grow up its childhood > must have been optimal. I could have done without several of my youthful > experieces, like being beaten up and dumped in the snow on a busy street > in a placid suburban neighborhood, less than a block from the house where > one of my friend's mothers lived. And I think that now that I am an > adult, were toughs attacking me on that street, someone would move to help > me. But because I was a kid, the fact that I! > was having my face pounded into a bloody pulp by the ice didn't count. > Kids were just being kids. The point is, it's true that children have > valid experiences. But just like adults, they shouldn't be assumed to > live in a vacuum. Being beaten up was an entirely valid experience that > none the less would never happen in that way to an adult. > > Anyway, to add a science fictional angle, I was interested that someone > was reading Delaney in fifth grade...how were people's early experiences > with "adult" science fiction? I remember reading Deathbird Stories by > Harlan Ellison when I was eleven or so all in one sitting and being amazed > by what then seemed to me to be the adultness of the tone of the stories. > I felt as if I had been lifted up above my daily concerns, as it were. I > wish Harlan were as thrilling for me now...what was the allure of the book > you chose, or maybe ended up with? And how did you end up with it? I > remember reading a lot of Anne McCaffrey when I was nine, especially the > ones with the gifted female musician who was unappreciated by her boring > parents. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 08:51:19 PST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Multimedia Productions Subject: Re: Unsubscribe feministsf MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain I have just about had it with this loser! What do you all say we turn him in for abuse to abuse@sympatico.ca ?? >From owner-feministsf@listserv.uic.edu Wed Nov 4 07:57:58 1998 > >I'm unsubscibed and I still receive messages dammit !!!!!!!!!!! > ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 18:58:44 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Sharon Clark Subject: BDG: Snow Queen (and Summer Queen) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Janice Dawley wrote: >Some things I didn't like: the Moon/Sparks romance. I imagine >it's just me, but the thought of two children who have been best >friends since birth having a sexual relationship makes me feel >oogy. Too much like incest. And though it gives her the chance >to go adventuring, I didn't like the fact that Moon's main goal >throughout the novel is tracking down her lover. The constant searching for a FAR-from-ideal lover annoyed me too...perhaps because it (i.e. an obsession with a love object who is not really worthy) struck a little too close to home. Your first love, especially if it's someone you've been close to from childhood, can be an extremely powerful blindspot--it can often turn into an obsession. Even very intelligent people can be "blind" when it comes to love. That's why the Sparks fixation rang true to me. I thought they were cousins (how distant I don't remember), which to my 20th-century western mind means incest. ----------------------------------------- ->SPOILER ALERT! (Summer Queen)<- What did you think of Airenrhod? Just how truly "evil" did she actually turn out in the book? Do you think she would have still exploited the mers for the water of life had she known that the sibyls are real and that the destruction of the mers would lead to a complete breakdown of the sibyl information network? I think her cloning herself and allowing her clone(s) to be raised as a Summer was a stroke of genius. It gets into the whole nature/nuture question. This move by Airenrhod, whether she realized it at the time or not, made it possible to unite the Summers and the Winters. Were this not to happen, Tiamat would continue to be exploited by the Hegemony, perhaps forever. The Tiamat-Hegemony relationship seemed to me very analogous to the relationship between 3rd world and 1st world nations today. What do you think? -Sharon Clark ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 19:10:55 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Sharon Clark Subject: BDG: Snow Queen sequels--World's End MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Janice Dawley wrote: >I think the first book is pretty self-contained. >The second book, *World's End*, is strangely >disconnected from the other two and is very >different in tone. It's told from Gundhalinu's >point of view (I recall it as being in the first >person, though I no longer have a copy to confirm >it) and struck me as being a rewrite of Conrad's >"Heart of Darkness" in a science fictional setting. >(Vinge even quotes from "Heart of Darkness" at the >beginning of the book.) There was something I liked >about it, but I don't think it went over well with >critics or with most readers, which may explain why >the third book, *The Summer Queen* encompasses much >of its material and can be read as a straight sequel >to the first book. *The Summer Queen* makes a quantum >leap in length (to 950 pages) and in breadth >(lots more characters and a much longer time frame). >To me it seems bloated, but still somewhat interesting. I was hoping someone would mention "World's End" and how it compares/connects with "The Summer Queen". I have read both "The Snow Queen" and "The Summer Queen," but recently discovered that there was a book in between them (i.e. "World's End"). Is it worth reading this book? How much of it is encompassed in "The Summer Queen"? ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 19:19:46 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Sharon Clark Subject: Re: Stepford Husbands (Was: Women as Robots) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Phoebe Wray wrote: >That sounds like the original Stepford Wives. >They weren't androids. They were drugged and >brain-washed. A siren went off (think it was >a siren) and they all dutifully pulled out their >pillboxes and took the pill that made them >docile and sweet. It was a siren. But (judging from the earlier comments here about REPLACING the women) I thought we were talking about a version where the men had built android copies of their wives as replacements. I seem to remember seeing a film version of this too (earlier than I saw the sirens and drugs version). I'm still wondering about that book STEPFORD HUSBANDS. It was in the paperback remainders section (really cheap: $2.25) and I wondered if I should buy it. But if it's one of those reactionary anti-feminist books, though I think it was written by a woman, I don't feel like wasting my time on it. Forgive me if this has already been addressed before my posting--I receive the discussion in digest form.... -Sharon ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 12:26:32 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Phoebe Wray Subject: Re: Quote Help Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Finally remembered, with a little help from my friends. 1960's book by Arthur Koestler called "The Ghost in the Machine." best phoebe ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 18:30:57 MET Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Anthea Hartley Stanton Subject: Re: Quote Help Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On 3 Nov 98, at 19:05, Phoebe Wray wrote: > Nope, that's the deus ex machina. The "god > in the machine." The other quote is later, late > 19th century I think. Only vain people cite themselves so I won't say that I attributed the quote "The dogma of the Ghost in the machine" in my MSc dissertation to : Ryle, Gilbert 1949. _The Concept of Mind_. I notice that Janice E Dawley mentioned Rene Descartes but I haven't been able to confirm that. Everyone knows of his criticisms of the "mechanistic" or "machine" model of humans ("...a machine made by the Hands of God, which is incomparably better arranged, and adequate to movements more admirable than is any machine of human invention" and lots more) in _Discours..._ but "ghost" (or the French equivalent) just seems such an odd concept for Descartes to use especially when one would have expected him to use "soul". Perhaps Janice can give us a tighter citation? Interestingly Deist's _A concise dictionary of theological and related terms_ gives "Deus ex machina (L): 'The god from the machine', a contrived improbable solution to a difficulty facing a character in a literary work." I wonder why it would appear in a dictionary of theology - unless the writer was making a statement about the nature of God! AJ Anthea Hartley Stanton (ajhs@usa.net) _______________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 18:34:28 MET Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Anthea Hartley Stanton Subject: Re: sf books about children Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On 3 Nov 98, at 19:57, Phoebe Wray wrote: > Oh yes... about Ship That Sang (McCaffrey) and Childhood's End (Clarke)... > as I said, too much Samheim. I really liked _Acorna : The Unicorn Girl_ by Anne McCaffrey & Margaret Ball - both as a book about and a book for children. It was a bit formulaic but like most McCaffrey books very entertaining. It came out in mass paperback earlier this year I think. AJ Anthea Hartley Stanton ___________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 12:35:11 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Debra Euler Subject: Re: Honor Harrington Series -Reply -Reply Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain >>>I was interested that someone was reading Delaney in fifth grade...how were people's early experiences with "adult" science fiction? That was me. I read a lot of "adult" SF (and other types of literature) at a young age. That doesn't mean that I really understood all the issues, but I definitely preferred adult stuff to kid's lit, because I had probably already read all the good childrens literature easily available at the time. Anyway, the issue with me now is that I haven't read many of the big SF and fantasy classics (Dune, Heinlein, Lord of the Rings) since before I was in high school, and I wonder how I'd feel about them now--especially since I'm a lot more attuned to feminist issues as an adult. Has anyone gone back and re-read stuff they loved when they were young and been disappointed? Debra ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 18:32:46 MET Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Anthea Hartley Stanton Subject: Re: Honor Harrington Series Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On 3 Nov 98, at 16:55, Nina M. Osier wrote: > I enjoy Kate Mulgrew in the role, but I cringe every time I hear > someone in the Trek universe address a female officer as "sir" or > "mister." You would think there was something inferior about being > a "ma'am" or a "ms."! (Reminds me of a friend who wanted to call a > female Episcopal priest "father" so she would "feel equal.") That > one's a problem that the Harrington universe does not have, thank > goodness. There was also a trend some time ago of using the "Emperor, King, Lord etc" instead of "Empress, Queen, Lady etc" which struck me as ludicrous (imagine MZB's _The Lord of Avalon_). That seems to have slowed down though thank goodness because I used to wonder whether authors did it because they were secretly contemptuous of the women in their target market. It also irritates me when authors have a male character compliment a female one with the phrase "you've got big balls". Why a woman should be flattered by being falsely credited with a set of male organs, I've got no idea. Of course I've heard women "complimented" by men in this way - usually with disguised contempt. AJ Anthea Hartley Stanton (ajhs@usa.net) __________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 13:24:50 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: Re: OT - Quote Help MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Anthea Hartley Stanton wrote: > I notice that Janice E Dawley mentioned Rene Descartes but I haven't > been able to confirm that. Everyone knows of his criticisms of the > "mechanistic" or "machine" model of humans ("...a machine made by the > Hands of God, which is incomparably better arranged, and adequate to > movements more admirable than is any machine of human invention" and > lots more) in _Discours..._ but "ghost" (or the French equivalent) > just seems such an odd concept for Descartes to use especially when > one would have expected him to use "soul". Perhaps Janice can give us > a tighter citation? Alas, I can't at this point. I searched throughout the Internet (even signing up for a seven-day trial subscription to the Encyclopedia Britannica), but though the phrase is mentioned in connection with Descartes over and over again, it's always quoted in English! I suspect it ends in "dans la machine", but the first word is an unknown. Could be "l'esprit" (spirit) or "l'âme" (soul), which begs the question of why it would be translated as "ghost" rather than "spirit" or "soul." My German-speaking friend informs me that the German word "geist" could lead to this sort of confusion, as it means BOTH "soul" and "ghost" in the senses that we know them. So perhaps the word was translated first into German and then into English? Or perhaps the English translation was made at a time when the word "ghost" was closer to the German meaning of "geist"? (In Old English the meaning was identical, which explains phrases like "give up the ghost" to mean "die".) Anyone with a encyclopedia of philosophy that can help? -- Janice E. Dawley ............. Burlington, VT http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/jedhome.htm Listening to: Dave Matthews Band - Two Step "Reality is nothing but a collective hunch." - Lily Tomlin ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 14:05:39 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: Re-reading Childhood Favorites MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Debra Euler wrote: > Has anyone gone back and re-read stuff they loved when they > were young and been disappointed? Yup. Some of Madeleine L'Engle's books are painful to me now. Can't stand Anne McCaffrey any more. There are others but I can't recall them at the moment (blocking out the agony?). Some books I read as a child and DIDN'T like, but enjoy as an adult. Le Guin's Earthsea books, for example. I also recently reread a couple of H.M. Hoover's novels and found them very pleasing, whereas as a child I thought they were merely OK. -- Janice E. Dawley ............. Burlington, VT http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/jedhome.htm Listening to: Dave Matthews Band - Two Step "Reality is nothing but a collective hunch." - Lily Tomlin ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 14:09:38 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: Introduction to "Adult SF" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Jane Franklin wrote: > Anyway, to add a science fictional angle, I was interested that > someone was reading Delaney in fifth grade...how were people's early > experiences with "adult" science fiction? [...] what was the allure > of the book you chose, or maybe ended up with? And how did you end > up with it? I remember reading a lot of Anne McCaffrey when I was > nine, especially the ones with the gifted female musician who was > unappreciated by her boring parents. Coincidentally enough, Anne McCaffrey's Pern books were my entry point into "adult science fiction." I started with the "young adult" Harper Hall books (*Dragonsong*, *Dragonsinger* and *Dragondrums*) when I was 11 or so and it was a natural leap to the Dragonrider books, which as Sandy mentioned, were a lot more concerned with power struggles and politics. They were also sexually explicit to a degree I found uncomfortable, partly because I really didn't want to think about it at that age, but also because the sex was linked to violence in a disturbing way. (Perversely, the romance/sex aspects of the books came to fascinate me later.) The dragons were what I liked about the books to start with. I was the kind of kid who read lots of "animal books", fiction and nonfiction (Black Stallion, anyone?). Dragons were even better than horses. :) But I gradually became interested in decoding the "real" underpinnings of this fantastical world (for example, I was tickled to discover that "agenothree" was HNO3, or nitric acid). This puzzle-solving impulse is still a major motivator for me to read SF. I really am not fond of Anne McCaffrey any more, but I'm glad I read the books then. -- Janice E. Dawley ............. Burlington, VT http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/jedhome.htm Listening to: Dave Matthews Band - Two Step "Reality is nothing but a collective hunch." - Lily Tomlin ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 14:24:53 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: Re: BDG: Snow Queen sequels--World's End MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sharon Clark wrote: > Is it worth reading [World's End]? [S P O I L E R S} Depends on what you like, I guess. If you think you'd enjoy getting inside BZ's head as he is humiliated and abused, infected by the sibyl virus and driven close to insane, all in a hellishly hot nightmare setting... go for it! Personally, I dug it. ;) > How much of it is encompassed in "The Summer Queen"? The events themselves are not present in *The Summer Queen*, except for his sibyl link with Moon, which we see from her side on pp. 102-105. BZ does recount them briefly to Kullervo, though. Plotwise, you're not missing anything. -- Janice E. Dawley ............. Burlington, VT http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/jedhome.htm Listening to: Dave Matthews Band - Two Step "Reality is nothing but a collective hunch." - Lily Tomlin ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 12:39:44 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Keith Subject: Re: Quote Help & Election Day In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 3 Nov 1998, Patricia Monk wrote: > Philologist exists, but that's no reason not to get creative. Wordhog, > anybody? > I love it! I've been referring to word-origin enthusiasts as "rootalists" - this fits right in :) Kathleen (who now wonders about scatologists, if philologists are lovers of words) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 15:36:56 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Anna Fallas Subject: Children Books MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi, This is my first posting! My name is Anna and I live in Costa Rica, Central America. I've been reading the postings for over 2 months now and I've been mustering all my courage to finally write this! ----------------------THIS GOT DREADFULLY LONG! BE ADVISED!-------------- I wanted to share how, when and why I learnt to read and what I read when I was a child. I learnt to read when I was bearely five. That was because my father taught me at home the basics, after much pestering him: I wanted to be like him and "read books" (he is a retired history teacher now). Till the age of nine I was an avid reader of "children literature". Before going to bed at mights, father would always tell my brother, my sister and I a story. Of course he promptly ran out of children stories! So he just carried on with mythology (classic and some obscure ones too). As far as I can tell my brother and sister never got much out the "mythology nights". I asked them some time ago and they can barely remember those stories, and mainly they remember their favourite children stories. I guess they were too young. I for one, can tell you that I was terrorized! I must have been six and my brother four, my sister two, when he started with his "mythology nights". I would awake in the middle of the night expecting to find dragons and centaurs under my bed! I wouldn't dare getting up and going to the toilet since I might bump into a Gorgon or some other creature. I guess I also enjoyed being terrified a bit! Those bed time stories finished when we moved to a bigger house with separate rooms for my brother and my sister and I. I had already started to take books to bed anyway and my brother followed my example shortly afterwards when he was six. I started to become "addicted" to books when we were living in France (my father had won a scholarship to get his Ph D in History there). I discovered public libraries (there aren't many now in my country and there were practically none when I was a kid some twenty-something years ago!). I read all there was on the "children shelves". At the beginning my brother and I had not quite understood the mecanics of "borrowing books". We were simply given 3 purple cards each. We were told that we could take one book per card and that we should come back in two weeks. So my brother and I would methodically comb the shelves looking for exciting books to read (based on the title and cover). We would borrow three books each and go home and read them all (the six of them) in a week. Then we would miserably spend another week waiting for the "right time" to go back to the public library. We spent nearly 6 months that way until a very kind librarian explained to us that we could come back for more, as soon as we were done with those! She was also the same woman who would "authorise" books from other shelves. I mean by that, that I somehow knew some books were not "right for my age". So I would always ask her to give me the books. She never said no. She frowned a couple of times on some books and I remember her asking me if my parents kept and eye on what I read. I told her that my dad always checked what we took out. Which was the truth. He might sometimes make comments on how boring/interesting/difficult he thought I might find the book. He was always there if there was something I did not understand. My mother didn't like my reading, but that is another story. Although between the ages of 7-15 my brother and I read exactly the same books, we turned out to be widely different people, which has always amazed me! He is religous, rather conservative and a lawyer. He's married. I'm not married, I was a militant in a left wing organisation from the age of 19 to 25. I've had several jobs, some more interesting than others. I went back to school to try finishing a degree in Computer Science (2 more years to go!) and I call myself an agnostic. I started to read English at the age of 14. I had this friend my same age, from the U.S.A that lived down here with a garage crawling down with books in English. Science Fiction books in English. One day I asked him what were his three favourite sci-fi books in English. He asked me why since he knew my English was rather basic. I told him that I was just going to teach myself to read in English! Star Wars had been released in Latin America over a year after its original release in the States and it was a rage! I had read Jules Vernes (all his books several times) and I was just ready, I guess, to start with other things. That day I came out of his garage with: "Dune", "Fantanstic Voyage" and "Logan's Run". Not his favourite books exactly (" Dune" he recommended though)." Fantastic Voyage" and "Logan's Run". I chose them because I had seen the film. I thought I would have already a general idea of what the book was going to be about! Of course all I got that time was just the gist of the stories. Although I didn't give up. A couple of years later I could understand over 80% of the books I read in English. Now it is very funny to go over a book in English I had read at that time. I get all sort of surprises! As far as my experience goes, reading books about violent/harrowing topics is not the same as being exposed to the same on TV. A book you can always stop reading it, can come back to it, skip parts, reread, think them over. With TV which is, in my opinion, much more passive, one sometimes find it dificult not to watch something, especially if you are a child! Well I think that's the end of my post! Those brave and courageous souls who read it till the very end deserve a big "thank you for your time"! Anna Fallas redwood_dragon@cybergal.com PS:Since English is not my native language I accept criticisms on my "style". I always make collocation mistakes! ----------------------------------------------------- Get free email from CMP at http://www.cmpnetmail.com/ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 12:59:43 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Keith Subject: Re: OT word lover In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.16.19981104000152.51a76f68@zipcon.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 4 Nov 1998, Heather MacLean wrote: > A paranomasiac is a lover of puns. And a logodaedalist is one who is skilled > at words (and inventing new ones). Logophile, or motamateur? > > *grins* Stop! Stop! I give up! Motamateur, indeed. *chortles*[1] Kathleen [1] "Jabberwocky", by logadaedlist Lewis Carroll. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 16:52:50 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Nina M. Osier" Subject: Re: captain janeway MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit It's standard Starfleet protocol for all officers, regardless of gender, to be "sir"; Janeway's preference for "captain" and tolerance of "ma'am" is her own personal wish. I find it really surprising that the producers and scriptwriters do seem to have such a rough time with that male second-in-command business, because it's already common enough in our own society. Yes, I'm an old-time Trek fan. That's why I am saddened that first it took forever for "the Franchise" to get a woman into that command chair, and now they often don't know what to do with her! My staff at work is all male, for pete's sake, and it's not a problem for me...why is it a problem hundreds of years from now? ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 16:55:19 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Nina M. Osier" Subject: Re: Honor Harrington Series MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Does this relate to Freud's theory that all women envy all men their male organs? I find that one ludicrous, for sure! Nina Anthea Hartley Stanton wrote: > > > It also irritates me when authors have a male character compliment a female > one with the phrase "you've got big balls". Why a woman should be flattered by > being falsely credited with a set of male organs, I've got no idea. Of course > I've heard women "complimented" by men in this way - usually with disguised > contempt. > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 16:10:55 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Marina Subject: Re: BDG Snow Queen In-Reply-To: <002c01be07ed$72e1d940$0b4b2599@default> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 4 Nov 1998, Joyce Jones wrote: > Marina talked about Moon following Sparks even though he was perhaps not the > right guy for her. She said, "One's love is what makes him worthy, even if > as a person he's a total piece of something." Kind of a "Stand by your man" > kind of thing. Well, in fact I meant something very different. Let's see if I can explain it. Have you noticed how in most traditional stories men risk their lives to win over / rescue a woman who's main and only feature is "divine beauty"? Often the hero never even met her, but heard of her need of rescuing and decided that he is in love with her. Even if the lady has any good qualities besides her looks, it is unknown to the reader, because it's kind of -- not the point. What's "important" is that the hero loves her and wants to save her from danger, and the story is actually about him, she's just an honorable excuse for his adventures. Well, I see Snow Queen as the same story the other way around. Since in the original, Anderson's Snow Queen, there was no way to allow a girl to go adventuring just because she felt like it, this "boyfriend in distress" provided a good excuse. Besides, it provided a good "romantic" underline to the story, which is not that bad. Even though I don't like romance novels by themselves, a good portion of sexual/emotional tension usually does good to any action (a good example of that is X-Files). Basically, what I am saying, Sparks here is not a "man to stand by", but simply a sex object, and therefore his value as a person is immaterial. It's kind of like sugar -- it does not have much nutritional value and is bad for your teeth, but it's sweet, and has a lot more pleasant taste than broccoli. Or chocolate cake -- even those who are obseesed with extra pounds devulge themselves every once in a while. What I'm trying to say -- we have a right to like what we like and want what we want, even if it's "bad for you". Moon wanted that jerk, for whatever reason, and was willing to take risks for that, and she did not need anyone's approval for her choice. That's her chocolate cake, and she did not need to justify it, IMHO. Taking away the person's right to make that choice, even if it's a wrong one, is one step towards stuff like arranged marriages. Besides, I think it might be fun to date someone clearly morally and intellectually inferior. That's why so many guys like bimbos. of course, you'd probably eventually get tired of being with a stupid person, but on the other side -- no one said it has to be forever. To be honest, I also kind of hoped that Moon would switch to that off-worlder guy. But she did not, and I can understand why. Apart from the kind of cynical stuff above, sometimes it's impossible to break a bond with a person you love even if he eventually develops very unattractive qualities. Whether it's good or bad -- it's life. It can be the same as family bonds: most people cannot stop loving their parents even if they are cruel and abusive or stop loving their children even if they turn out to be mass murderers. Even Unabomber's brother had his qualms about turning him in. I know, people always say "That's family, family is different!" But why is it different? At least one chooses the boyfriend, family is just whoever you're stuck with, whether you like them or not. If you can love you family members despite them being jerks and/or morons and are supposed to forgive their idiotic behavior, why judge a boyfriend differently? The same actions cannot be good or bad depending on who does them to you. In which case, how "standing by your man" would be any worse than "standing by your child/sibling/parent"? Assholes are assholes, if you forgive some of them, you've got to forgive the others as well. > Speaking of honor. Did anyone think of the Kharemough as representing the > Japanese with their emphasis on honor, ancestry and technology? Honestly, I did not like Kharemough that much. It seemed like an extremely snobbish, caste-based society. Besides, in my opinion, honor is something different from having to kill oneself at the sign of the first failure. I respect people's choice to die, but making it a social oblication is too much. This is why Moon's friend had to drop out of that society, too. > > A concern Janice had with the Moon/Sparks romance was that since they had > been best friends since birth, it seemed too much like incest. What about Ea and Annabel in the Black Wine? They did not just grow up together, they were actually half-sisters. The only difference is that Moon and Sparks are heterosexual. > Marina's commented about accepting infertility in order to achieve > immortality. I guess that's how it would have to be done. They didn't have > space flight, so their planet couldn't support beings that could both > reproduce and live forever. Am I missing something? How did the High > Officials from offworld manage to maintain their fertility? No kidding. Sparks was a son of one of those officials, with his grandfather looking younger than his dad because he had started on that immortality juice earlier. How did that happen? I have no doubt > that people would kill intelligent beings in order to live forever, but even > more basic than that question, to me, was why would anyone want to be > immortal anyway? I should have thought that even Arienrhod was showing > signs of boredom. Hell, I'd never get bored! Life, world, and people are just way too interesting to ever see it all and get tired. Even if you see the whole world, things change all the time, so you can as well can start seeing it all over again. You can write books, invent new machines, make scientific discoveries, learn new languages, create works of art, or just sit there and contemplate the meaning of life, for that matter. I'd love to live forever. Especially if you can have children by cloning . > I very much enjoyed the book and just found the original Hans Christian > Andersen Snow Queen in some books of children's stories my mother gave me, > so I can't wait to read it. It's funny that there is not one single Snow Queen movie in the US. Back in the Soviet Union, there were more screen versions of it than of Cinderella. The same as Shakespeare's Twelvth Night (his most feminist play, if you ask me) -- back home, I've seen different movie and TV versions of it about 20 times, while I've never even heard of a movie production of Romeo and Juliet. By the way, talking about Twelvth Night -- it has the similar idea of a woman in love with a guy (not a particularly bright one). This woman, Viola, dresses like a man and becomes his servant to be able to hang around the object of her affection. This guy, her boss, sends her to woo "the most beautiful woman in the city" he and everyone else has a crush on. Since Viola is a woman, or maybe because she is smart, she manages not only get through to the city beauty who normally would not see anyone, but gets her to fall in love with Viola herself, thinking that she's a man. Of course the situation is brough back to decent by the timely appearance of Viola's twin brother, who looks exactly alike. So that other woman marries him (dragging him to a church to get married the first time she sees him, thinking it's Viola -- women in this play are very far from being subtle about getting what they want), and Viola's master, after getting over the "betrayal of his servant" and such, meekly weds to Viola. I think that Twelvth Night is the best of Shakespeare's plays ever. the reason I mention it here, however, is the fact that it has exactly same setup -- a strong woman attracted to a jerk. And Count Orsino is a jerk. The only time he makes an extensive speech in a play he talks about women being uncapable to love, and that some woman's feelings towards him would be nothing comparing to his undying passion to that beauty he hardly ever met. And he is not very smart, either. Who in the right state of mind would send another man to woo a woman for him? In other words, this seems an on-going thread in culture -- strong women always choose weak men. Maybe because strong men are too afraid of competition. Or maybe because all men are raised to believe that the only possible setup is when the woman is less smart, strong, successful than the man, and strong men have the willpower to insist on domination while the weaker ones agree to yield the power. Whatever is the reason, for what I have seen it's how it works in real life, too. I used to believe that it is possible to find a person whom you could both love and respect and who would not try to put you down nor expect you to control him either. I don't think it's possible, though. Even in science fiction, the only remotely equal relationships are always gay. Oh well. Love is not a basic necessity, you can do fine without it. If I had a choice, I'd rather live forever :). Marina http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society is selling at the time." Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 14:38:12 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Joyce Jones Subject: BDG Snow Queen I just read the Hans Christian Andersen Snow Queen, and it puts Sparks in a different light. In his story a wicked hobgoblin makes a mirror with the power of causing all that is good and beautiful to look poor and mean. The mirror falls from the sky and breaks into a hundred million pieces. If a piece got into a person's eye that person saw life perverted and had an eye only for that which is evil. If a splinter got into a person's heart his heart became a lump of ice. In the story Gerda and Kay (Moon and Sparks) are happy loving children who appreciate the beauty of nature. Kay gets a splinter of the mirror in his eye and one in his heart so he sees roses and Gerda as ugly and doesn't care that his rejection hurts Gerda's feelings. Kay is kidnapped by the Snow Queen. (During that scene he is so frightened that while he tries to say the Lord's Prayer he can only remember the multiplication table. Was that the original or was my book a later version? What a clever touch.) The Snow Queen kisses his forehead "It went to his very heart, which was already almost a frozen lump; but, a moment more, and he grew to like it. He no longer felt the cold that was around him." Gerda goes through several trials and finally finds Kay. (During the journey, by the way, she is helped by a reindeer whom Joan Vinge makes into BZ. This was even more creative than making him up from nothing.) She is also helped by a Finn woman who says, "I can give her no more power than she has already. Don't you see how men and animals are forced to serve her?" Several folk said that about Moon, didn't they? "Suddenly little Gerda stepped through the great portal of cutting winds into the palace. She repeated her evening prayer, and the winds dropped as if lulled to sleep. Then she entered the vast, empty, cold halls. There she beheld Kay and knew him at once. She flung her arms around his neck, held him fast and cried, 'Kay, sweet little Kay! Have I found you at last?' But he sat quite still, stiff and cold. Then little Gerda wept hot tears which fell on his breast, and they thawed his heart and melted away the bit of mirror there. He looked at her, and she sang (a little Christian song). At the sound of the song, Kay burst into tears; he wept so much that the last splinter was washed from his eye. Then he cried, 'Gerda, sweet little Gerda! Where have you been so long? And where have I been?' 'How cold it is here!' said he. 'How empty and cold!' And he clung fast to Gerda, who laughed and wept for joy." In order for me to think Sparks worth of Moon or able to help her in making a true change on the planet, there would have to be something to indicate that those slivers were melted from his heart or washed from his eyes. If his acquiescence to Arienrhod's evil plans had been due to some kind of drug or mechanical device induced hypnosis, then there would be a chance he could be "de-programmed" and become the kind of "helpmeet" that Moon needed. But he just seemed to go along with her out of loneliness and anger, kind an expression of personal weakness. So I don't know what would be used to make him strong except maybe a reconversion to the nature based religion, possibly mediated by the mers. But I thought the book made clear that that wasn't going to happen. Then again, he could have been compelled to do the Snow Queen's bidding by that same force that allows Moon to get what she needs from everyone. If so, maybe Moon's force could make him a good partner. She couldn't really force him into the spiritual centeredness that she had though. He was always farther away from that than she. No, I guess have have to stick with my original assessment. He's just not strong enough for her. Joyce ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 18:02:55 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: J Bocchino/Sarasota Cty Subject: Re: Quote Help In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Technicality, but I think that the term the nuns were referring to is deus ex machina....ghost _out_ of the machine.....but I'm not a latin scholar.... JB On Tue, 3 Nov 1998, Demetria M. Shew wrote: > In a message dated 11/3/98 9:34:14 AM Pacific Standard Time, > JFrankln@FAMPRAC.UMN.EDU writes: > > << "Ghost in the Machine" >> > > I remember vaguely, about a zillion years ago, the nuns explaining to us that > in greek plays when the plot hit a wall, a 'god' would be lowered down to the > stage to do a miracle and get things going again...and that was the 'god' or > 'ghost' in the machine. > > This is a VERY old memory, so consider with caution. > > Madrone > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 17:14:00 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Marina Subject: Re: Children and Scary stories In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 4 Nov 1998, Jane Franklin wrote: > Could I have understood class > war at the age of eight? Probably not. Cultural difference :). In the Soviet Union, the class war (curtesy of Marx) was the most basic concept of society, taught, explained, and mentioned excessively starting from preschool. In fact, most of the children's stories had directly or indirectly something to do with the class war concept. After all, it's not that complicated -- "nice poor people opressed by bad rich capitalists, with good Comminists on the quest to liberate all good people in the world". Marxism was our version of Sunday school (plus we did not have to go anywhere on Sundays). In fact, the concept of class war is a lot simpler than for instance religion, and people often drag their kids to Bible study when they can barely read... I'm not really arguing with you :). I just thought it was funny that you found class war a diffucult concept at the age of eight. I remember our Literature teacher getting frustrated in fourth grade when none of us could understand how the "bad" guy in a 19th century novel could be bad if he was "on the side of the poor", while the people he betrayed and murdered during a peasant revolt (the victims were the main "good" characters) were those "bad rich" people. We were taught to see everything as a class war, (as everything is, according to Marxist theory) so none of us could understand why in that novel "good" and "bad" characters were assigned backwards. I realize that for a child in a Western civilization class theory might have been different. But I think it has more to do with individual upbringing. Had you been raised in the Soviet Union, it would seem as simple as Tom and Jerry (which is kind of philosophically close, too :) ). However, I agree with you that some books can be scary for children. i personally read a few of those that made me feel very, very, bad. Even though no one was making me read them. I was just bored, and that was the only ones I found around the house at that moment. I still remember a story about a guy who was flying to Mars or something, and remembering how he had once run over a little boy while speeding on a country road and buried him in the field so no one will find out. The man kept that little boy's ballcap with him, at all times. His guilt became some sort of ultimate feeling of his soul, and once he had that, he no longer suffered over his cheating wife leaving him. Something like that. It still makes me sick when I think about that story. I cannot evne explain what scared me about it. It was just so unpleasant. I wish I remembered it's title or the author, so I could find it and figure out what was that all about. I think that not allowing children read scary books would not be a solution, though. For one thing, they will read them anyway. Besides, what frightens one child may be simply overlooked by another one. I think a better approach would be to make sure that the child would feel comfortable to ask the adults about the things that are bothering her. So she could count on their comfort. But that's true about all scary things, not just books. And i totally agree with you that children should not be forced to read things they are not comfortable with. A friend of mine, who is from Germany, told me once that she had been very uncomfortable in her first sex education class which they had at about the age of eight. She was upset that almost all the pictures in the textbook were of naked women, and since at that age, being naked was perceived as shameful, the fact that girls' bodies were so exposed while the boys' were not, made her feel very bad. She told her mother about that, and her mother came and talked to the teacher. I don't remember how they resolved it, I think both women agreed with the girl but could not do much about it. However, I think it's important that she could at least share her feelings with adults who could talk to her and try to make her feel better. There are lots of things in this world that are not pretty even to an adult, let alone a child, but i think it's possible for children to learn to deal with that, as long as they are not thrown into "sink or swim" situation in order to do so. They can avoid getting hurt as long as there are adults who could explain things to them and hug them when they are too scared. IMHO, Marina http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society is selling at the time." Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 11:06:53 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Caroline Heske Subject: Re: Honor Harrington Series -Reply MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain > >Anyway, the issue with me now is that I haven't read many of the big >SF and fantasy classics (Dune, Heinlein, Lord of the Rings) since >before I was in high school, and I wonder how I'd feel about them >now--especially since I'm a lot more attuned to feminist issues as an >adult. Has anyone gone back and re-read stuff they loved when they >were young and been disappointed? Yes, C.S. Lewis' Perelandra and Narnia books I very much enjoyed when I was young - but now I find them very difficult to stomach. Lord of the Rings remains one of my favourite books - I think the all-male tone is better than some more modern books with an all-male tone and token females that is expected to make everything alright. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 11:19:14 +1300 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jenny Subject: Bujold and feminism MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit A question for Steve Stirling - I didn't understand what you meant by this post about Ethan of Athos - can you please elaborate? >-- possibly, but not necessarily. Certainly a lot of the behavioral differences between the sexes we observe are learned, but I think some aren't, particularly those dealing with sex _per se_. I agree with whoever it was who suggested that men might be significantly different (even nice) if they weren't having to monitor themselves and police each other about being sissy, effeminate or in other ways "like women". However, I do agree with you that Ethan of Athos did show a "nice" male world. Ethan was so serious and naive - it was a delicious book. Jenny Rankine ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 16:16:49 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jo Ann Rangel Subject: Re: Children and Scary stories In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 05:14 PM 11/4/98 -0600, you wrote: >On Wed, 4 Nov 1998, Jane Franklin wrote: > >> Could I have understood class >> war at the age of eight? Probably not. > >Cultural difference :). Hiya 8) Cultural difference I can agree with definitely...I am Mexican-American and from the time I could register a complete thought process I learned that there are other Mexican-Americans who regarded my family as not worthy to have anything to do with...I remember being 7 or 8 and feeling crummy that this girl at my elementary girl was trying to keep certain girls of our same race as her friends because their Daddies owned businesses and Daddies like mine worked as a laborer...the differences were prescribed by the parents definitely (do not associate with those children they are not like you), it happened a lot while I went to school, class difference was definitely something youngsters were aware of...now I am only talking about my personal experience from within my own race. When I was 12 or 13 I first learned about the caste system in India from a library book and that gave me the framework to place my experience in, only in America the class thing is more subtle sometimes...Funny thing for my father and I was, we would laugh at those people later on, we looked as if we were of some "lower" standards to them, but we had happiness and love where they had standards that only they belived in giggle...I mean their standards set them up to not be able to handle the tough situations or tradgedies that happen to families, they never learned compassion and empathy, or if they believed they had it it was reserved for "their kind." Anyway there I go again getting off the topic...Have to catch a bus for school, thanks Marina for bringing this up, there are a lot of people on the planet who underestimate what little kids do pick up 8) Jo Ann ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 20:10:05 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Joe Sutliff Sanders Subject: Re: Children Books Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Dear Anna, What an interesting post! I'm glad you finally got up the courage to send something to us. I don't really have much to say about what you wrote, except that I am astounded by your language ability (do you speak French, too?) and tenacity. Oh, and that you used the word "collocation"! Are you able to find the books that we will be discussing here? I think you would like _The Sparrow_ especially. Joe ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 20:16:50 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Joe Sutliff Sanders Subject: Re: BDG Snow Queen Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 02:38 PM 11/4/98 -0800, you wrote: >"Suddenly little Gerda stepped through the great portal of cutting winds >into the palace. She repeated her evening prayer, and the winds dropped as >if lulled to sleep. Then she entered the vast, empty, cold halls. There >she beheld Kay and knew him at once. She flung her arms around his neck, >held him fast and cried, 'Kay, sweet little Kay! Have I found you at last?' >But he sat quite still, stiff and cold. Then little Gerda wept hot tears >which fell on his breast, and they thawed his heart and melted away the bit >of mirror there. He looked at her, and she sang (a little Christian song). >At the sound of the song, Kay burst into tears; he wept so much that the >last splinter was washed from his eye. Then he cried, 'Gerda, sweet little >Gerda! Where have you been so long? And where have I been?' 'How cold it >is here!' said he. 'How empty and cold!' And he clung fast to Gerda, who >laughed and wept for joy." Thanks for looking up the original on this. It helped me get more out of a book that really didn't do much for me. This passage reminded me of Anne Williams' idea of the Female Gothic. One of the key elements is that the heroine of Female Gothic is able to look inside another character and see the "real" person beneath the facade. Others have believed that the facade was all there was, but the Female Gothic heroine helps the character to redefine/recreate her/himself. That seems to work here, and, again, it helps me a bit with understanding why I should give a rip about the romantic relationship in _SQ_. Joe ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 21:26:04 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Demetria M. Shew" Subject: Re: Quote Help Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 11/3/98 4:08:12 PM Pacific Standard Time, Zozie@AOL.COM writes: << Nope, that's the deus ex machina. The "god in the machine." The other quote is later, late 19th century I think. best >> Well, at least I got it half right!! I WAS wondering about the ghost part. I think there's a book by a feminist writer titled "Dea ex machina". One of these days I have to get my books organized.... Madrone ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 14:20:26 +1300 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jenny Subject: Quote help MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit About deus ex machina - I've had the feeling from the last few Sherri Tepper books that I've read that this is what she uses to get her characters and societies out of a bloodbath. Since she is writing about societies where the gods are living and present, it's not as obvious a patch up as it has been in some plays and other literature. But it felt like that to me. I can't remember what the name was of the book I felt it strongest about - the gods lived in the basement, anyway, and their doors shut with clangs. (Isn't it wonderful what images stay in your mind long after you finish a book?) Jenny Rankine ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 23:03:09 +0000 Reply-To: chuard@earthlink.net Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Comments: Authenticated sender is From: geminiwalker Subject: Re: FAQ list In-Reply-To: <3.0.32.19981104104903.00941250@pop.uky.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Some of the lists I am on put unsub information in the signature line of every post. It avoids this kind of nonsense and saves wear and tear on the listowner as well. FWIW ...geminiwalker chuard@earthlink.net > Friends, > > This sort of posting has been coming up frequently of late. Perhaps we > should consider posting a monthly FAQ so that people such as those below > are reminded from time to time of how to sign off. I know that they have > received this information before, but they have evidently mislaid or > forgotten about it. Has the idea of a monthly/biweekly/weekly FAQ for the > list been bantered about before? It has worked well on other listservs. > > Joe > > At 07:38 AM 11/4/98 PST, you wrote: > >>Subject: [*FSFFU*] Drop me off the list !!!! > >>To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU > >> > >>Thank you very much :) > >> > >ME as well thanks! > > > >Susan McDermott > > > >______________________________________________________ > >Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com > > > > > > Dare to be monstrous. -- dorothy allison ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 23:29:17 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: Re: BDG Snow Queen In-Reply-To: <002c01be07ed$72e1d940$0b4b2599@default> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 04:20 AM 11/4/98 -0800, you wrote: >Speaking of honor. Did anyone think of the Kharemough as representing the >Japanese with their emphasis on honor, ancestry and technology? With its caste system and naming conventions (initials as first names) Kharemough seemed modeled more on India. The physical appearance of the Kharemoughi fit with this too. But obviously there was other source material too. And Marina wrote: >Honestly, I did not like Kharemough that much. It sure would drive me crazy! Joyce Jones wrote: > A concern Janice had with the Moon/Sparks romance was that since they had > been best friends since birth, it seemed too much like incest. And Marina added: > What about Ea and Annabel in the Black Wine? They did not just grow up > together, they were actually half-sisters. The only difference is that > Moon and Sparks are heterosexual. Yes, that relationship bothered me a little too. But not as much since they were not "pledged" like Moon and Sparks were. For whatever reason an *exclusive* incestuous relationship bothers me more than a casual one. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I was pulling for the BZ-Moon connection and Sparks the self-involved brat was in the way. Monogamy. Ugh. ----- Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/jedhome.htm Listening to: R.E.M. -- Up "...the public and the private worlds are inseparably connected; the tyrannies and servilities of the one are the tyrannies and servilities of the other." Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 23:48:15 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "S.M. Stirling" Subject: Re: BDG Snow Queen Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 11/4/98 3:18:31 PM Mountain Standard Time, my0203@BRONCHO.UCOK.EDU writes: << Have you noticed how in most traditional stories men risk their lives to win over / rescue a woman who's main and only feature is "divine beauty"? Often the hero never even met her, but heard of her need of rescuing and decided that he is in love with her. Even if the lady has any good qualities besides her looks, it is unknown to the reader, because it's kind of -- not the point. >> -- well, the stories arose in an era of arranged marriages, when spouses were picked for you by your family. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 23:59:45 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "S.M. Stirling" Subject: Re: Bujold and feminism Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 11/4/98 5:36:25 PM Mountain Standard Time, jrankine@HRC.GOVT.NZ writes: << I agree with whoever it was who suggested that men might be significantly different (even nice) if they weren't having to monitor themselves and police each other about being sissy, effeminate or in other ways "like women". >> -- actually, my gut feeling is the contrary. Men (or adolescent boys) are generally more uncivilized in all-male groups where women don't come into the picture (also a lot more uncouth). That's their default state. They moderate it around women to avoid unpopularity. Much of the social interaction between the sexes stems from a shifting compromise. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 23:03:32 -0700 Reply-To: camiller@gte.net Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Cathie Miller Subject: humility MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Perhaps those who are frustrated because they have not been dropped from the list despite their trying to sign off should read the rules they were sent when they first signed on. Perhaps they are trying to sign off incorrectly? ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 02:04:08 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: ME Hunter Subject: Re: BDG: Snow Queen sequels--World's End In-Reply-To: <364098AF.1054E846@cas.et.tudelft.nl> (message from Sharon Clark on Wed, 4 Nov 1998 19:10:55 +0100) _World's End_ is a very different book than anything else of Vinge's I've read. It is much more internally focussed and sometimes extremely disturbing. I've read it a couple of times and found that it grows on me. E. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 00:12:01 -0700 Reply-To: camiller@gte.net Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Cathie Miller Subject: Values? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The discussion regarding values and who should teach them has been interesting. Who should teach them is one consideration, but who DOES teach them is something else. Few people have mentioned, other than in passing, the influence of television on children. I think television is pervasive and by far the most impactful of all media for most of us. We are all familiar with the practice (either of ours or of someone else's) of using the television as a babysitter. And using it thus when the babies are two and three indoctrinates them to television as a teacher and as a companion. We could probably argue interminably the virtues and dangers of television where kids (or any other humans) are concerned. But as a vehicle for the teaching of values, television is particularly insidious. Who among us can compete with it? It takes a very strong person to control what her child will watch, how much she will watch, and sometimes even when she will watch. It is even more difficult for us because I'd hazard to say almost all of us have been raised on television, ourselves, and are still addicted to it. While this reading group may be less addicted to television than the general public, it is probably still a habit for most of us. And the act of watching television is passive, solitary (even in a group, usually), and not an activity in which critical faculties normally come into play. And, even the best of television is basically a diversion from other opportunities: contemplation, creativity, discussion, and, yes, reading. In view of this passive acceptance of what's in front of us on the tube, values put forth on television are major influences in pre-adolescent and adolescent lives. Teens tend to watch the same shows and pattern themselves after people on those programs whom they see as their peers. And I feel that most television fair geared toward adolescents is rife with examples of individuals manipulating others, lying to others without consequence, making fun of others and never having to empathize with their victims, gathering and tossing out friendships as if we are all interchangable, making decisions unilaterally and being shown to be wiser than everyone else, usually the clueless parent-figures. And the overriding outcome is that there is no real punishment. An I'm sorry is all that's required. No one ever really LOSES, because to show young people that they can LOSE is seen as being unnecessarily brutal. Television fair which is NOT ostensibly geared toward adolescents (but which, strangely, is marketed to them and aired during their prime viewing times) is often viewed by them, anyway. Judging from what people I work with and a few of my friends who are parents tell me, their children are unmoved by the blatant sexual innuendoes and the violence and the biting sarcasm (cynicism) which innundates them during any given period of viewing. It's just no big deal. However, simply by virtue of its being no big deal, it desensitizes us. Of course, banning it is unpracticable. But, I feel it plays a major part in instilling values, few of which are positive. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 01:07:43 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Santanico Subject: Re: Honor Harrington Series -Reply Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 11:06 AM 5/11/98 EST, you wrote: >> >>Anyway, the issue with me now is that I haven't read many of the big >>SF and fantasy classics (Dune, Heinlein, Lord of the Rings) since >>before I was in high school, and I wonder how I'd feel about them >>now--especially since I'm a lot more attuned to feminist issues as an >>adult. Has anyone gone back and re-read stuff they loved when they >>were young and been disappointed? > >Yes, C.S. Lewis' Perelandra and Narnia books I very much enjoyed when I >was young - but now I find them very difficult to stomach. Lord of the >Rings remains one of my favourite books - I think the all-male tone is >better than some more modern books with an all-male tone and token >females that is expected to make everything alright. Personally, I've never had much of a problem with mostly male-centered books, as long as they're well-written. I'm a big fan of HP Lovecraft's stories, and HPL seldom ever included female characters. I'm of the opinion that if a story works, it works, no matter what sex the characters are. Also, I don't mean to be insulting, but I find that often people who complain about the lack of female characters in all-male stories have no problem whatsoever with all-female stories, which it would seem is the same ol' double standard thang all over again... Sant. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 09:45:16 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: sc Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Janice E. Dawley wrote: > > Debra Euler wrote: > > Has anyone gone back and re-read stuff they loved when they > > were young and been disappointed? > > Some books I read as a child and DIDN'T like, but enjoy as an adult. Le > Guin's Earthsea books, for example. > > -- > Janice E. Dawley ............. Burlington, VT > http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/jedhome.htm > Listening to: Dave Matthews Band - Two Step > "Reality is nothing but a collective hunch." - Lily Tomlin Me too on LeGuin's Earthsea books. Between the ages of 12 and about 22 I re-read Lord of the Rings every year and found it a thrilling, enjoyable adventure. I re-read it again a couple of years ago (aged 40) and found it racist, sexist, classist and still a thrilling, enjoyable adventure. There's no doubt I'll read it again in the future, most likely with the same result. To paraphrase someone in an earlied post said, when a good story works, it works. It's just whether you can cope with all the baggage around it. Cheers SC -- "Take what you want", said God. "Take it - and pay for it." Old Spanish proverb, quoted in "South Riding" by Winifred Holtby ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 10:44:34 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: schant Subject: Re: Values? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cathie Miller wrote: And the act of > watching television is passive, solitary (even in a group, usually), and > not an activity in which critical faculties normally come into play. You've never heard me muttering curses at the TV when some pop-science programmme makes massive assumptions in an awestruck voice-over to swelling music! And I generally LIKE pop-science - when it's not patronising - because it gives me the chance to discuss, contemplate, and even read about issues that are interesting but way beyond my field of expertise. > And, even the best of television is basically a diversion from other > opportunities: contemplation, creativity, discussion, and, yes, reading. > And the best of television can stimulate people to take all those other opportunities. And the worst of television can give your brain a really good rest after a hard day's wrestling with those opportunities. In other words, you can pick and choose. SC -- "Take what you want", said God. "Take it - and pay for it." Old Spanish proverb, quoted in "South Riding" by Winifred Holtby ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 03:24:07 PST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Kate Willshaw Subject: Re: Sylvia Engdhal - childrens literature MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Hey, I've never heard anyone else talk about Sylvia Engdhal! I remember her story, Heritage of the Star really affected me when I first read it - aged 10 or so. I also read another one by her - can't remember the title about a woman who had telepathic powers and was sent to another culture (planet?) as an envoy. This culture was sceptical/in fear of "otherness" so she was tortured and was put into an isolation tank where all her senses were supressed. I just remeber being outraged that a society could treat it people like that with the connivance of the government. I think it was at this point my eyes were opened to the fact the government and police weren't always the good guys which up to then I had believed. Reading - a subversive thing if ever there was one....! Oh yeah - Im new to the list, nice to meet you all. I'm enjoying the children's literature discussion, its bringing back memories of staying up all night reading by torchlight under the covers! ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 03:43:32 PST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Kate Willshaw Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain I read Lord o t rings at age 8 and then at least once a year til I was 16 or 17. I have read it once since and found it tedious and hard going. Mainly I think because of the lack of decent female characterisation, and the lack of real-seeming relationships behind the characters. Also I suppose there have been so many modern books written in a similar vein with a better balanced male/female cast as such. The first adult sci-fi was Childhoods End (Clarke) which shocked me at age 9 and still shocks me now. The surprising thing is that it was my mother who encouraged me to read it - I'd moaned I was bored and had read all my books so she pulled it off the bookshelf and said try this! It was as if the floodgates had opened. Dune was incomprehensible at age 13, and having re-read it recently seems incredibly contrived. Ursula le Guin's Earthsea books are and were a perennial favourite - and I love the last book, Tahanu although I would have probably found it difficult when I first read the other three. The world they are set in seems incredibly real and solid, a fictional state which a lot of other authors strive for, but few achieve. It is almost as if you can imagine life taking place there without her writing about it. Im really interested in others first experiences with adult SF+F - keep sending in the experiences! Kate ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 08:22:55 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Bertina Miller Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites In-Reply-To: <3640A583.6900EF42@together.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Why are L'Engle's books painful to you? Anne McCaffrey books were romance novels to me then, but now I dont care for them, not "cant stand them." I have always loved the Earthsea books by Le Guin then and now. There was one book that I recall reading as a child but didnt quite understand it fully, it was called "Black Alice" or something and looking back, I would greatly enjoy rereading that one. Bertina bmiller@medmail.mcg.edu On Wed, 4 Nov 1998, Janice E. Dawley wrote: > Debra Euler wrote: > > Has anyone gone back and re-read stuff they loved when they > > were young and been disappointed? > > Yup. Some of Madeleine L'Engle's books are painful to me now. Can't > stand Anne McCaffrey any more. There are others but I can't recall them > at the moment (blocking out the agony?). > > Some books I read as a child and DIDN'T like, but enjoy as an adult. Le > Guin's Earthsea books, for example. I also recently reread a couple of > H.M. Hoover's novels and found them very pleasing, whereas as a child I > thought they were merely OK. > > -- > Janice E. Dawley ............. Burlington, VT > http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/jedhome.htm > Listening to: Dave Matthews Band - Two Step > "Reality is nothing but a collective hunch." - Lily Tomlin > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 08:24:46 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Bertina Miller Subject: Re: Introduction to "Adult SF" In-Reply-To: <3640A672.98B72C26@together.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII For some reason the Pern novels I never quite became interested in them. Dragons were not my thing, I preferred unicorns. My 2 cents, Bertina bmiller@medmail.mcg.edu On Wed, 4 Nov 1998, Janice E. Dawley wrote: > Jane Franklin wrote: > > Anyway, to add a science fictional angle, I was interested that > > someone was reading Delaney in fifth grade...how were people's early > > experiences with "adult" science fiction? [...] what was the allure > > of the book you chose, or maybe ended up with? And how did you end > > up with it? I remember reading a lot of Anne McCaffrey when I was > > nine, especially the ones with the gifted female musician who was > > unappreciated by her boring parents. > > Coincidentally enough, Anne McCaffrey's Pern books were my entry point > into "adult science fiction." I started with the "young adult" Harper > Hall books (*Dragonsong*, *Dragonsinger* and *Dragondrums*) when I was > 11 or so and it was a natural leap to the Dragonrider books, which as > Sandy mentioned, were a lot more concerned with power struggles and > politics. They were also sexually explicit to a degree I found > uncomfortable, partly because I really didn't want to think about it at > that age, but also because the sex was linked to violence in a > disturbing way. (Perversely, the romance/sex aspects of the books came > to fascinate me later.) > > The dragons were what I liked about the books to start with. I was the > kind of kid who read lots of "animal books", fiction and nonfiction > (Black Stallion, anyone?). Dragons were even better than horses. :) But > I gradually became interested in decoding the "real" underpinnings of > this fantastical world (for example, I was tickled to discover that > "agenothree" was HNO3, or nitric acid). This puzzle-solving impulse is > still a major motivator for me to read SF. I really am not fond of Anne > McCaffrey any more, but I'm glad I read the books then. > > -- > Janice E. Dawley ............. Burlington, VT > http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/jedhome.htm > Listening to: Dave Matthews Band - Two Step > "Reality is nothing but a collective hunch." - Lily Tomlin > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 08:35:30 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Bertina Miller Subject: Re: Honor Harrington Series -Reply In-Reply-To: <19981105000653.434.qmail@hotmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I always love Tolkein, and I think I will always love "The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe" by Lewis, but I never read his Perelandia books until I was older and took a science fiction class. Actually I never liked the other issues of the Narnia series, just the original story. Bertina bmiller@medmail.mcg.edu On Thu, 5 Nov 1998, Caroline Heske wrote: > > > >Anyway, the issue with me now is that I haven't read many of the big > >SF and fantasy classics (Dune, Heinlein, Lord of the Rings) since > >before I was in high school, and I wonder how I'd feel about them > >now--especially since I'm a lot more attuned to feminist issues as an > >adult. Has anyone gone back and re-read stuff they loved when they > >were young and been disappointed? > > Yes, C.S. Lewis' Perelandra and Narnia books I very much enjoyed when I > was young - but now I find them very difficult to stomach. Lord of the > Rings remains one of my favourite books - I think the all-male tone is > better than some more modern books with an all-male tone and token > females that is expected to make everything alright. > > ______________________________________________________ > Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 08:46:29 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Bertina Miller Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites In-Reply-To: <3641E42C.26FF@schant.demon.co.uk> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII How could you call Tolkein racist or sexist? His heroes were of a different race than Humans! His character Eowyn killed the Nazgul captain! Come on now, I think you didnt reread the stories except in a negative slant! Bertina bmiller@medmail.mcg.edu On Thu, 5 Nov 1998, sc wrote: > Janice E. Dawley wrote: > > > > Debra Euler wrote: > > > Has anyone gone back and re-read stuff they loved when they > > > were young and been disappointed? > > > > > Some books I read as a child and DIDN'T like, but enjoy as an adult. Le > > Guin's Earthsea books, for example. > > > > > -- > > Janice E. Dawley ............. Burlington, VT > > http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/jedhome.htm > > Listening to: Dave Matthews Band - Two Step > > "Reality is nothing but a collective hunch." - Lily Tomlin > > Me too on LeGuin's Earthsea books. > > Between the ages of 12 and about 22 I re-read Lord of the Rings every > year and found it a thrilling, enjoyable adventure. I re-read it again a > couple of years ago (aged 40) and found it racist, sexist, classist and > still a thrilling, enjoyable adventure. There's no doubt I'll read it > again in the future, most likely with the same result. > > To paraphrase someone in an earlied post said, when a good story works, > it works. It's just whether you can cope with all the baggage around it. > > Cheers > SC > -- > "Take what you want", said God. "Take it - and pay for it." > Old Spanish proverb, > quoted in "South Riding" by Winifred Holtby > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 13:56:44 +0000 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "M.J.Norman" Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Kate said: >Im really interested in others first experiences with adult SF+F - keep >sending in the experiences! I think the first things I read that I consciously identified as SF were Andre Norton's books, specifically one called "Moon of Three Rings" (I think), sometime before the age of 10. The idea that someone could transfer their consciousness to an animal, even temporarily, was thrilling to me.* I've not seen that book, or others connected to it, since then. I remember very little about the plot. I do remember being quite pleased when the librarian told me Andre Norton was a woman. I think my love of her stories got me to start looking for other women SF/F writers. *I loved stories about animals (I read the original "Bambi" novel, by Felix Salten, countless times ) and I too was a fan of Black Stallion books :) I'd read everything of Jack London's that I could find in our school library before I reached my teens. Finding Andre Norton led me to SF/F. The next SF author I _remember_ reading was Heinlein, though there were probably a few inbetween. My best friend and I took turns buying his novels and read nearly everything of his in print. We were a bit young to understand some things, but we were both very interested in ESP phenomena. I remember his approach to that was more physical than magic-oriented, so it gave us "hope" :) that we could learn these things too, some day. Oh well. I haven't tried re-reading Heinlein since getting out of university. I think the last one I re-read struck me as very sexist and I've been reluctant to destroy the remembered excitement of when I first read them. A family friend introduced me to Tolkien in my early teens. I've re-read the trilogy over and over and I still love it. Yes, the women are all supporting cast, but I don't care. If someday my own writing gets within shouting distance of the richness of his storytelling, I'll be happy. I'd love to find "Moon of Three Rings" again. Maybe I'll check out the online bookstores.... Monica ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 08:35:07 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Joe Sutliff Sanders Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 09:45 AM 11/5/98 -0800, you wrote: >Between the ages of 12 and about 22 I re-read Lord of the Rings every >year and found it a thrilling, enjoyable adventure. I re-read it again a >couple of years ago (aged 40) and found it racist, sexist, classist and >still a thrilling, enjoyable adventure. There's no doubt I'll read it >again in the future, most likely with the same result. >SC SC, There really isn't space to get into a full discussion of it here, but my thesis was about this very issue. I had re-read the Narnia stories just before getting time to read TLOTR for the first time, and an idea about TLOTR began boiling away in the back of my mind. This bloomed into the argument that the trilogy is grounded in sexist/classist beliefs but eventually strives to portray that only characters who have achieved a balance of femininity and masculinity can be fully successful. My conclusion was that Tolkien is portraying a world at the crossroads, which of course it is, with two characters in particular who model what he considers to be truly effective, meaningful, hopeful characters: Eowyn and Frodo. I guess it seemed like a proto-feminist work to me. Maybe a feminist work by a member of the patriarchy who loved his mother too much to write a misogynist work. Joe ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 08:28:07 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jane Franklin Subject: Re: Honor Harrington Series -Reply -Reply Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >>> Debra Euler 11/04 11:35 AM >>> > Has anyone gone back and re-read stuff they loved when they were young and been disappointed? Don't get me started...Tanith Lee, for one. I read a whole bunch of her short stories when I was eleven; returning to them some years later, I was amazed by the clunkiness of the prose. A lot of the fifties and sixties sf I read--all those yards and yards of Asimov stories, Arthur C. Clarke, etc. Actually, I now realize that when I was younger, I read without really thinking of whether I liked or disliked what I read. Even while I was reading him, Clarke bored me; I just didn't recognize what being bored by a book felt like. And there are books I was uncomfortable with when I was little, and only now I can clearly articulate why. I always felt, for example, that those Susan Calvin stories were unfair. I identified with her very much and it always upset me. I never felt that it was correct or neccessary that smart women be ugly and unloved; I just felt that this was an unjust social law. Which, I suppose, made me ripe for feminism when I finally heard about it. Actually, I remember my father telling me when I was about seven that all the feminst battles had been won and the movement had dried up. I had seen some thing on Sesame Street that had led to my asking my mother something, which led to a description of feminism, which sounded very exciting to me. Anyway, I was very disappointed by my father's comment, and it took me some years to realize that the whole thing was still going. Anyway, I never really reread those Asimov stories--they seemed pretty basic, but as I got older, I realized that they really were a shuck, it wasn't just me. On the other hand, some stuff has held up really well, and some stuff I've hated and then liked again. Actually, I stayed up late last night thinking about this stuff and about childhood and reading. I never really felt confined in my reading by anyone, and in general my early encounters with adults were pretty good. I was very lucky--the evil adults came later, when I could see them as anomalies rather than (to lift from Orwell) the armies of inexorable law. Most of the rules I encountered weren't arbitrary; more like rules about not crossing the street when there were cars coming. So the result for me has been an (occasionally exaggerated) respect for authority in my personal life, coupled with a crusading spirit for political stuff. Kind of a mixed bag. Whereas my friends who had bad early encounters with authority developed a useful natural disrespect which occassionally shaded into cynicism that produced quietism. Again, a mixed bag. (I was thinking about this because it wasn't until I was twelve or thirteen that I wanted to irritate my teachers by doing scandalous book reports, mainly because I always really liked my teachers and just went along with things. What I read outside of school I pretty much left outside, I don't know why, really.) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 07:35:04 -0700 Reply-To: camiller@gte.net Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Cathie Miller Subject: oops MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Re: my posting headed, 'Values?' Well, I've done it again. I've incorrectly routed email. (Isn't that a Federal offense?) This was for another group. If this posting did not make sense, it's not because you've missed something. Please forgive me. Chris P.S. of course, _this_ is my favorite group. 8^) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 07:41:47 -0700 Reply-To: camiller@gte.net Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Cathie Miller Subject: Our Guys MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit L.B. wrote: > As long as one Leslie exists and is ignored, we are all guilty of her > rape. um... no. Chris ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 09:04:18 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jane Franklin Subject: Re: Children and Scary stories Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit I guess what I meant about understanding class war was more the nuances than the fact, but your post reminds me of my students in China and the Chinese textbooks of English-language stories we had--all dutiful stuff about social justice which bored them silly. (At that age, it would have fascinated me, but they'd been steeped in it and it didn't explain the disgraceful behavior of the Chinese government) At that age, from fairytales and things, I understood quite well that the poor would hate the rich and that the two groups weren't on the same side. I just didn't know British history, so I didn't recognize the class groups in the story that upset me--and, as I said, no one explained it. It was just a story, to me, about inexplicable hate that might strike anywhere. And what ever your feelings about class hate, it's not some mystic thing based in hormones or the stars. But I do agree that children in general shouldn't be forbidden to read things, especially things that are sitting around the house or school. I read, for example, "Our Town", when I was eight or so, and it really scared me, especially all those dead people sitting around on folding chairs. (Come to think of it, I was younger than eight) At the time I was religious, and it made me assume--since I could never think of Heaven as fun--that we'd all sit around and be bored in the afterlife. And I'd want to squirm, like I did on folding chairs at PTA meetings, and it would be an eternity of squirming and boredom. But actually the scene where Emily relives a happy day from her life--that was a new thing to me, that kind of sadness. Even now that's sort of the saddest kind to me. Easily as upsetting as the Destructors (the British story) but because I read it on my own I feel I assimilated it better. So seriously, children in Russian schools genuinely didn't understand that someone could be bad and on the side of the poor in a story? At least not at first? Ah, childhood brainwashing...the content changes but the occurrence remains, here there and everywhere. >>> Marina 11/04 5:14 PM >>> On Wed, 4 Nov 1998, Jane Franklin wrote: > Could I have understood class > war at the age of eight? Probably not. Cultural difference :). In the Soviet Union, the class war (curtesy of Marx) was the most basic concept of society, taught, explained, and mentioned excessively starting from preschool. In fact, most of the children's stories had directly or indirectly something to do with the class war concept. After all, it's not that complicated -- "nice poor people opressed by bad rich capitalists, with good Comminists on the quest to liberate all good people in the world". Marxism was our version of Sunday school (plus we did not have to go anywhere on Sundays). In fact, the concept of class war is a lot simpler than for instance religion, and people often drag their kids to Bible study when they can barely read... I'm not really arguing with you :). I just thought it was funny that you found class war a diffucult concept at the age of eight. I remember our Literature teacher getting frustrated in fourth grade when none of us could understand how the "bad" guy in a 19th century novel could be bad if he was "on the side of the poor", while the people he betrayed and murdered during a peasant revolt (the victims were the main "good" characters) were those "bad rich" people. We were taught to see everything as a class war, (as everything is, according to Marxist theory) so none of us could understand why in that novel "good" and "bad" characters were assigned backwards. I realize that for a child in a Western civilization class theory might have been different. But I think it has more to do with individual upbringing. Had you been raised in the Soviet Union, it would seem as simple as Tom and Jerry (which is kind of philosophically close, too :) ). However, I agree with you that some books can be scary for children. i personally read a few of those that made me feel very, very, bad. Even though no one was making me read them. I was just bored, and that was the only ones I found around the house at that moment. I still remember a story about a guy who was flying to Mars or something, and remembering how he had once run over a little boy while speeding on a country road and buried him in the field so no one will find out. The man kept that little boy's ballcap with him, at all times. His guilt became some sort of ultimate feeling of his soul, and once he had that, he no longer suffered over his cheating wife leaving him. Something like that. It still makes me sick when I think about that story. I cannot evne explain what scared me about it. It was just so unpleasant. I wish I remembered it's title or the author, so I could find it and figure out what was that all about. I think that not allowing children read scary books would not be a solution, though. For one thing, they will read them anyway. Besides, what frightens one child may be simply overlooked by another one. I think a better approach would be to make sure that the child would feel comfortable to ask the adults about the things that are bothering her. So she could count on their comfort. But that's true about all scary things, not just books. And i totally agree with you that children should not be forced to read things they are not comfortable with. A friend of mine, who is from Germany, told me once that she had been very uncomfortable in her first sex education class which they had at about the age of eight. She was upset that almost all the pictures in the textbook were of naked women, and since at that age, being naked was perceived as shameful, the fact that girls' bodies were so exposed while the boys' were not, made her feel very bad. She told her mother about that, and her mother came and talked to the teacher. I don't remember how they resolved it, I think both women agreed with the girl but could not do much about it. However, I think it's important that she could at least share her feelings with adults who could talk to her and try to make her feel better. There are lots of things in this world that are not pretty even to an adult, let alone a child, but i think it's possible for children to learn to deal with that, as long as they are not thrown into "sink or swim" situation in order to do so. They can avoid getting hurt as long as there are adults who could explain things to them and hug them when they are too scared. IMHO, Marina http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society is selling at the time." Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 11:22:33 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Patricia Monk Subject: Re: Our Guys In-Reply-To: <3641B92A.1D89@gte.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII L.B. wrote: > As long as one Leslie exists and is ignored, we are all guilty of her > rape. _At the very least_, you need to qualify this by saying "As long as one Leslie IS KNOWN to exist and her rape is ignored . .." and you need to be more accurate by saying ". . . we are all guilty of condoning it." I am afraid this spoils your pretty rhetoric, but it has the advantage of being at least marginally more sensible than the original. BUT I regard myself as twice liberated: first, from being told what to do or be by men, and second, from being told what to do or be by women. I am not about to become part of your collective "we" - what I am or am not guilty of is my business. ************************************************************** Dr Patricia Monk patmonk@is.dal.ca Department of English Dalhousie University HALIFAX Nova Scotia B3H 2S3 ignorance is curable * stupidity is forever ************************************************************** On Thu, 5 Nov 1998, Cathie Miller wrote: > L.B. wrote: > > > As long as one Leslie exists and is ignored, we are all guilty of her > > rape. > > um... no. > > Chris > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 10:02:41 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jane Franklin Subject: Re: Children and Scary stories Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit I feel like "The Trouble with Tribbles". I made a little tiny post about what I felt was an inappropriate curriculum choice, and it seems like assumptions have been multiplying about what I meant. What _did_ I mean? I meant that some curriculum choices are poor. I meant that I did not understand British history in detail when I was eight. I meant that elaborate social philosophies were beyond me. I meant that this choice of a story I had to read was poor, and that it was made worse by the lack of explanation. I did NOT mean: 1. That books should be forbidden to children who ask for them--I never said children my age should never read the story I found so problematic, just that it was not the best choice for a textbook. 2. That children's experiences are not valid, do not count, etc. 3. That children don't have a sense of social justice--I know I did, and I have been involved in left politics to the extent that they were available since I was thirteen. But, gotta admit, I did not read any Marx til I was twenty, and the concept of _class war_ as outlined in the Communist Manifesto didn't reach my consciousness till I was at least 12. (That is, not the need for social justice, not that my family was poor and others weren't, but that the working class and the ruling class have nothing in common, that a specter is haunting Europe, and that the Long Distance Runner is getting pretty Lonely) I was called a communist by my classmates from the time I was nine, because I stood up to a professional propagandist who came to our school to tell us about the evils of Russia and that all Russians wanted to kill all Americans. The only thing I said to challenge this was that people were people, and that Russians in general would probably rather live their lives than kill Americans for fun. All I meant about the story was that it didn't make clear why the boys hated the old man unless you knew a bit about literature and British history. Most of what I think about children and appropriateness has to do with very young children. I'll be honest with you--I wouldn't take a six year old to Alien, unless circumstances were very particular. As to chilren over the age of ten, I don't really think they should be kept from books or movies that they are interested in. Younger than ten, I am in favor of a little discretion, mostly in terms of television and movies. Otherwise, if a child really wants to read something and doesn't get bored by it, then it's probably ok. If anyone wants to know, my family was not too much above the poverty line when I was little, kept afloat only by the fact that my rich maternal grandparents loaned us money to buy our house, so that we could repay them at leisure. My clothes were mostly badly fitting handmedowns and I got teased about them all the time, also about my father's unglamorous job and the naively revealed fact that we shopped at Kmart. I wouldn't bring this in, but I feel put rather in the position of bad, fascist, priviledged person who wants all children to read Pat-the-Bunny until the're old enough for military training--in contrast to all you liberated swinging people who have the correct views on children. Which might well be the case, except for the fact that I think a lot of assumptions have been made about what I actually said. >>> Jo Ann Rangel 11/04 6:16 PM >>> At 05:14 PM 11/4/98 -0600, you wrote: >On Wed, 4 Nov 1998, Jane Franklin wrote: > >> Could I have understood class >> war at the age of eight? Probably not. > >Cultural difference :). Hiya 8) Cultural difference I can agree with definitely...I am Mexican-American and from the time I could register a complete thought process I learned that there are other Mexican-Americans who regarded my family as not worthy to have anything to do with...I remember being 7 or 8 and feeling crummy that this girl at my elementary girl was trying to keep certain girls of our same race as her friends because their Daddies owned businesses and Daddies like mine worked as a laborer...the differences were prescribed by the parents definitely (do not associate with those children they are not like you), it happened a lot while I went to school, class difference was definitely something youngsters were aware of...now I am only talking about my personal experience from within my own race. When I was 12 or 13 I first learned about the caste system in India from a library book and that gave me the framework to place my experience in, only in America the class thing is more subtle sometimes...Funny thing for my father and I was, we would laugh at those people later on, we looked as if we were of some "lower" standards to them, but we had happiness and love where they had standards that only they belived in giggle...I mean their standards set them up to not be able to handle the tough situations or tradgedies that happen to families, they never learned compassion and empathy, or if they believed they had it it was reserved for "their kind." Anyway there I go again getting off the topic...Have to catch a bus for school, thanks Marina for bringing this up, there are a lot of people on the planet who underestimate what little kids do pick up 8) Jo Ann ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 10:20:54 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Stacey Holbrook Subject: Re: Introduction to "Adult SF" In-Reply-To: <3640A672.98B72C26@together.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 4 Nov 1998, Janice E. Dawley wrote: (snip) > Coincidentally enough, Anne McCaffrey's Pern books were my entry point > into "adult science fiction." I started with the "young adult" Harper > Hall books (*Dragonsong*, *Dragonsinger* and *Dragondrums*) when I was > 11 or so and it was a natural leap to the Dragonrider books, which as > Sandy mentioned, were a lot more concerned with power struggles and > politics. My entry point into SF/F was Andre Norton. I was bored one summer day and pulled a couple of books off my brother's (forbidden to little sisters) book shelf. Those books were a revelation to me. I had never realized that there was a whole other universe of fiction out there. Good bye *Little House on the Prairie*, hello Witchworld! It wasn't long before I was reading Heinlein, Asimov and McCaffrey. I was pretty indiscriminate and would read anything I could get my hands on. I remember feeling like I had unearthed a wonderful treasure and wondering if the rest of the world had caught on. Sometimes I wish I could have that wonderful feeling of discovery again when I open a new SF/F book. > Janice E. Dawley ............. Burlington, VT > http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/jedhome.htm > Listening to: Dave Matthews Band - Two Step > "Reality is nothing but a collective hunch." - Lily Tomlin > Stacey (ausar@netdoor.com) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 11:11:17 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Bertina Miller wrote: > Why are L'Engle's books painful to you? Not all of them are painful. Back in 1991 I reread two L'Engle books, *The Moon By Night* and *A House Like a Lotus*. Both are "coming of age" stories, dealing with issues of sexuality and friendship. I was struck by the contrast between Vicky Austin and Polly O'Keefe, the respective protagonists of the two books. I found Vicky unbearably passive when it came to physical intimacy -- boys always had to kiss her, she never could kiss them. Polly was quite venturesome in comparison. No doubt this has something to do with when the books were written (1963 and 1985). I do wonder what I would make of the lesbian character in *A House Like A Lotus* if I were to reread it now. I also have a problem with the occasional moral smugness and very obvious Christian content of her books. *Many Waters* was just too much for me. (I have the same problem with the Narnia books -- though it's true I haven't even tried to reread them in many years.) That said, I still think she's an interesting author and I really liked some of her more realistic novels, like *The Small Rain*. -- Janice E. Dawley ............. Burlington, VT http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/jedhome.htm Listening to: R.E.M. -- Up "Reality is nothing but a collective hunch." - Lily Tomlin ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 03:21:45 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Caroline Heske Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Actually, if you really want to be picky, I think there's a lot in Tolkien that reflect the values of his time. Group of nice, country individuals (with a distinctly British culture) have to head off into the strange mysterious East, forced to battle hordes of 'uncultured' stupid evil individuals. If you consider the time Tolkien was writing and his own experiences in WW1, the different species seem a rather thin veil for his underlying (and perhaps subconscious) ideas. As to sexism... well I don't think it's so much sexism as an 'overlooking' of women. There's Rosie - Sam's future wife, and that's about all we know about her; Arwen - Aragorn's future wife, Elrond's daughter, and very beautiful; and of course Eowyn - the only female character fully fleshed-out. I like Eowyn a lot as a character, but still there are some things that grate... she seems only to be given any coverage in the story because she's a warrior. This would not be a problem, except that it's not tempered by any other valued female roles... It's also assumed that the 'real' problems are out on the battlefield with the men, whereas women are safely cloistered away in their idyllic homes... The one disrupted home we see - the Sackville-Baggins - seems only disrupted because it's run by an aggressive woman, Lobelia. Even considering all this, I still find Lord of the Rings a wonderful book in itself... though I think maybe I'd be less tolerant if it were written today. >How could you call Tolkein racist or sexist? His heroes were of a >different race than Humans! His character Eowyn killed the Nazgul captain! >Come on now, I think you didnt reread the stories except in a negative >slant! > ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 10:23:36 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jane Franklin Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit It's funny, I've had such a love-hate relationship with the Lord of the Rings. I've read it probably about twenty times by now; I've also written several extensive and hate-filled critiques of it on class and race lines. I really enjoy reading it, because I see, like a stack of transparencies, all my past responses to it lined up over each other. I don't read it for the story or for the characters, but for the thinking I do each time. That was a book that my parents delayed reading to me until I was...um...eight, I think. I wanted to read it sooner, and they said I wouldn't understand it. Possibly true, but I was all agog to read it after the Hobbit, which they read to me out of the blue when I was six or seven. That was exciting. My mother just picked it up one evening in the living room and started reading to me. In some ways, maybe the hobbit is more woman-friendly, in that "symbolic female" sense. I was six, I recall now. That book was a real revelation. It seemed much bigger somehow than everything else I'd been reading--not longer, so much as containing a larger world. Also, the idea that adventure could just show up and you could just go, that was very important. And the mountains, since I live where it's very flat. Another really reveletory life changing book which I read much later was the Dispossessed. I was at the time an anarchist among liberals. It wasn't really the anarchism that impressed me but the ideas about suffering and the ideas about travel and return and also the part where the servant in A-Io says to Shevek, Ah, but we look up at you and at least there's no more of _them_, no more owners. I lived mentally in that book for a good part of a year. It colored everything. I had dreams about Anarres. On this list I probably appear to you as conservative and dull, but I too have my high dreams of justice. >>> Kate Willshaw 11/05 5:43 AM >>> I read Lord o t rings at age 8 and then at least once a year til I was 16 or 17. I have read it once since and found it tedious and hard going. Mainly I think because of the lack of decent female characterisation, and the lack of real-seeming relationships behind the characters. Also I suppose there have been so many modern books written in a similar vein with a better balanced male/female cast as such. The first adult sci-fi was Childhoods End (Clarke) which shocked me at age 9 and still shocks me now. The surprising thing is that it was my mother who encouraged me to read it - I'd moaned I was bored and had read all my books so she pulled it off the bookshelf and said try this! It was as if the floodgates had opened. Dune was incomprehensible at age 13, and having re-read it recently seems incredibly contrived. Ursula le Guin's Earthsea books are and were a perennial favourite - and I love the last book, Tahanu although I would have probably found it difficult when I first read the other three. The world they are set in seems incredibly real and solid, a fictional state which a lot of other authors strive for, but few achieve. It is almost as if you can imagine life taking place there without her writing about it. Im really interested in others first experiences with adult SF+F - keep sending in the experiences! Kate ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 10:35:43 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jane Franklin Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit What's racist and sexist in Tolkien is his depiction of (in no particular order): the men of far Harad, the Easterlings and Southerlings, who are cruel and ignorant and non-white, very much like British ideas of colonial peoples: his stereotypes of Dwarves and Elves and their languages, which are rooted, I think, in ideas about Eastern Europeans and Jews; how he writes about the indigenous people of Middle Earth who are uncivilized etc; how all the women in the book must be married to be fulfilled; how Galadrial, who makes all the smart comments, continually tells Celeborn how he's the smarter one; how Arwen Undomiel has one line in the entire trilogy and yet is the big beautiful inspiration for Aragorn. I could go on, but you get the idea. (You also see how obscessed I am by these books, which I love. I collect different editions, although my favorite remains the late sixties paperbacks with the hallucinogenic/icelandic birds and dragons) But who can dismiss the elegaic tone of the books, the way they're freighted with regret over a world grown cold. Who can be unmoved by a world in which kings are actually noble and good, justice is attainable, and you really can get the bad guys, just for once? To me, Sauron is my own particular blend of Ronald Reagan, bad INS policy, rich selfish evil people, and stupid teachers. The justice expressed in Eowyn's victory (silly and oversiplified as it is) expresses all my longings for political upheaval. >>> Bertina Miller 11/05 7:46 AM >>> How could you call Tolkein racist or sexist? His heroes were of a different race than Humans! His character Eowyn killed the Nazgul captain! Come on now, I think you didnt reread the stories except in a negative slant! Bertina bmiller@medmail.mcg.edu On Thu, 5 Nov 1998, sc wrote: > Janice E. Dawley wrote: > > > > Debra Euler wrote: > > > Has anyone gone back and re-read stuff they loved when they > > > were young and been disappointed? > > > > > Some books I read as a child and DIDN'T like, but enjoy as an adult. Le > > Guin's Earthsea books, for example. > > > > > -- > > Janice E. Dawley ............. Burlington, VT > > http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/jedhome.htm > > Listening to: Dave Matthews Band - Two Step > > "Reality is nothing but a collective hunch." - Lily Tomlin > > Me too on LeGuin's Earthsea books. > > Between the ages of 12 and about 22 I re-read Lord of the Rings every > year and found it a thrilling, enjoyable adventure. I re-read it again a > couple of years ago (aged 40) and found it racist, sexist, classist and > still a thrilling, enjoyable adventure. There's no doubt I'll read it > again in the future, most likely with the same result. > > To paraphrase someone in an earlied post said, when a good story works, > it works. It's just whether you can cope with all the baggage around it. > > Cheers > SC > -- > "Take what you want", said God. "Take it - and pay for it." > Old Spanish proverb, > quoted in "South Riding" by Winifred Holtby > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 21:47:29 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jennifer Krauel Subject: Re: BDG Snow Queen the fairy tale In-Reply-To: <001901be0843$ceeb22e0$57422599@default> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 02:38 PM 11/04/98 -0800, Joyce wrote: >I just read the Hans Christian Andersen Snow Queen, and it puts Sparks in a >different light. Thanks for the excellent synopsis, Joyce. How clueless I was to not pick up on the fairy tale link. In fact while I was reading the book I kept thinking it was called Winter Queen... The fairy tale synopsis also explains the whole reason for the teenage zookeeper interlude, which otherwise to me seemed rather pointless. That's one whole section and set of minor characters I thought could easily be cut out, but then I could have cut out the BZ character, and others of you seemed to like him, so what do I know. Joyce's point about the extent of Sparks' conversion upon Moon's return (crying out the mirror shard) seems a good one. I really felt ambivalent about the extent of Sparks' ability to overcome his stint on the dark side -- compare this to the slow ascent of the main character in Griffith's Slow River, where you really believe she's going to regain her sense of self-worth. On the other hand, the possibility for conflict makes me much more interested in reading Summer Queen. I also love Marina's point that his worthiness as an adventure trophy is irrelevant when you compare it to traditional stories. In this case the story is more interesting given the extra dimension added by Sparks interacting with the Dark Moon, but of course Moon doesn't know all that's going on. The amount of time in the actual story that she has to deal with the extent of the change is not that great, not great enough in my mind to overcome her single-minded fixation on his idealized memory. Again, I will be quite interested to see if she loses patience with him in the sequel. Jennifer jkrauel@actioneer.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 11:14:40 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Marina Subject: Re: Our Guys In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII L.B. wrote: > As long as one Leslie exists and is ignored, we are all guilty of her > rape. Well, as a person who had been victimized at some point (even though it never got to the actual rape, thanks to God more than people), I say -- yes, we are! There've been hundreds of people seeing what was being done to me, and no one -- not even one person -- tried to interfere. I remember hearing once one man asking another: "Have you heard what they were saying about her?" "The other guy said -- yes, so? You wanna tell them to shut up?" The first man shrugged and said: "She's not my daughter. Besides" -- he grinned -- "she probably likes it!" The subject was my male co-workers loudly discussing their plan to gang-rape me. Hope those two "innocent bystanders" burn in Hell. Along with all the others who thought it was "not their business." I remember that at the moment, I wished that some day, I could see that guy -- the one who said he was not going to do anything because I was not his daughter -- being beaten to death in front of my eyes. So I could say "He's not my father" and drive off. I probably would not do that. But thinking that surely felt good at the moment. Marina http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society is selling at the time." Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 11:37:17 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Marina Subject: Re: Children and Scary stories In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 5 Nov 1998, Jane Franklin wrote: > I feel like "The Trouble with Tribbles". I made a little tiny post > about what I felt was an inappropriate curriculum choice, and it seems > like assumptions have been multiplying about what I meant. I think you are right, Jane :). It seems the argument became more on the topic whether children should be allowed to read what they like. Which is yes. Meanwhile, your original post was on that children should not be forced to read what they do not like. Which they should not. I think everyone pretty much agrees on both points. It just happened to open the gates to the flood of everyone (including me) jumping on the opportunity to blabber about their childhood reading expereinces :). I don't think you need to apologize for anything you said. I would not take a six-year-old to watch Alien, either. My parents once took me to a sf movie where an android was graphically blown apart when I was five, and I refused to go to movies with them at all for quite some time after that. They also used to take me to high-art movies, like the ones by Tarkovsky,and while it gave me the opprotunity to brag that I've seen most of his films at preschool age, they also scared me quite a bit. I don't think I would want to put my children through that. And there is no way I'm a fascist because of it. Neither are you. Marina http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society is selling at the time." Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 11:44:56 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Robin Reid Subject: gendered compliments (sex organs) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" The posts about males complimenting a woman for having balls, or big balls, reminds me of when my wonderful mentor (an Elizabethan specialist, Shakespeare scholar) from undergraduate school made full professor (since there were only two women in the English department at the time, she may have been one of the first/few women to make that status), a male colleague in Theatre wrote her a congratulatory note and said that the "guys" always told each other they were "top stallion in the herd" when they made full professor, but he wasn't sure what to say to her!!!!!!!!! *sigh* of course this was during the seventies. Robin ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 18:38:14 +0000 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Mike Stanton Subject: Re: Bujold and feminism Comments: cc: ajhs@usa.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On 4 Nov 98, at 23:59, S.M. Stirling wrote: > -- actually, my gut feeling is the contrary. Men > (or adolescent boys) are generally more uncivilized > in all-male groups where women don't come into > the picture (also a lot more uncouth). That's > their default state. They moderate it around > women to avoid unpopularity. My own observations with adolescent boys involved in martial arts and fencing is that boys _may possibly_ be slightly less uncouth when girls are around but they're certainly a lot more aggressive. Or take young men in a bar: by themselves they tend to be just noisy but give them a female gallery to play to and aggression rears its ugly head. This is something that makes some SF ring false to me. I thought that Elizabeth Moon's _Hunting party_ and _Once a hero_ in particular suffered from this defect. On your own work : I've just finished the 3 excellent _Draka_ series books. Did I detect a hint in _Marching..._ of H A L Fisher's "If Napoleon had escaped to America" (from Squires' 1932 _If it happened otherwise_)? Also enjoyed _The city who fought_ which I thought was by far the best of McCaffrey's 'body in a bottle' universe. Mike Stanton (m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk) ______________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 19:42:11 MET Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Anthea Hartley Stanton Subject: Re: OT - Quote Help & Cyrano de Bergerac Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On 4 Nov 98, at 13:24, Janice E. Dawley wrote: > Alas, I can't at this point. I searched throughout the Internet (even > signing up for a seven-day trial subscription to the Encyclopedia > Britannica), but though the phrase is mentioned in connection with > Descartes over and over again, it's always quoted in English! I suspect it > ends in "dans la machine", but the first word is an unknown. Could be > "l'esprit" (spirit) or "l'âme" (soul), which begs the question of why it > would be translated as "ghost" rather than "spirit" or "soul." The reason I asked was because like so many science students with pretentions to being a "Renaissance (wo)man" I spent many happy hours in postgrad debating "cogito ergo sum" vs "cogito quod sum" ("I think therefore I am" vs "I think because I am"). I felt I knew Descartes so well that I could call him "Rene" . On a trivial personal note: I learnt to read Rene's 17C French because of science fiction. When I was 14, my father gave me Aldington's translation of Hercule Savinien Cyrano (yes he avec le nez) de Bergerac's _L'histoire comique des etats et empires de la lune._ and _L'histoire....du soliel_ (among the first science fiction books) which made me determined to read the originals! If anyone reads French or can get a copy of a translation (hopefully Aldington's), Cyrano de Bergerac's sf works are *well worth* reading. AJ Anthea Hartley Stanton (ajhs@usa.net) _______________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 19:54:58 MET Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Anthea Hartley Stanton Subject: Re: BDG Snow Queen & incest Comments: cc: m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On 4 Nov 98, at 4:20, Joyce Jones wrote: > I agree The Snow Queen isn't as beautifully literate > as Black Wine, but wasn't it fun to read a novel that > started at the beginning, had characters who interested > you, continued through the middle and ended at the end? > And in the meantime, it gave quite a bit to think about. I found it the most _enjoyable_ of the BDG books thus far - not the least because it lack the 'preachy" tone of some of the others (especially _Shadow Man_ - my first and last Scott). I thought that the Moon/Sparks romance was Vinge's way of pointing up the strength and, paradoxically, the vulnerability of her main character. Here was Moon, clone of the all-powerful Snow Queen, putative saviour of the world, strong and confident, chasing after the petulant anti-hero, Sparks, who was not only weak but the brutal slaughterer of the mers. Had Sparks been a strong, dominant sort of man, it would have reduced Moon simply to a female sidekick. The fact that Moon loved Sparks, knowing he was grossly unworthy, in such an unquestioning way ('my lover right or wrong') added - for me - an interesting flawed dimension to a character who might otherwise have appeared too perfect. It made Moon into a much more sympathetic person. I can't see a relationship between BZ and Moon working as well. Moon was drawn back by the machinations of the Snow Queen acting through the weakness of a loser. In the way he was described, it would have struck me as unbelievable for BZ to have acted like Sparks and thus to have drawn Moon into the Snow Queen's ambit. > A concern Janice had with the Moon/Sparks romance was > that since they had been best friends since birth, > it seemed too much like incest....[snip]... > It would seem that most cultures would have found the > relationship pretty incestuous since they had been > raised together. Incest, certainly in our and other Western cultures, requires blood relationship (see Freud's _Totem and taboo_). I don't see how *unrelated* lifelong friends becoming lovers can possibly incestuous - however they're brought up. I do see the problem Vinge highlighted with 'youthful sexuality' although I don't see why it should be any worse than 'normal'. Many women - myself included - have found there are advantages to snagging one's future lover young: not only does it mean one avoids many teenage traumas and insecurities, but one can also be sure he doesn't have latent defects like a penchant for wearing women's underwear. AJ Anthea Hartley Stanton (ajhs@usa.net) _____________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 11:05:42 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Candioglos, Sandy" Subject: Re: Sylvia Engdhal - childrens literature MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" I think the one you're describing is "enchantress from the stars". Did you know that Sylvia Engdhal has a web page? http://www.teleport.com/~sengdahl/ - I found this link when I was going through MaryAnne's WONDERFUL page of "recommended children's SF+F" (MaryAnne's home page is at http://www.iam.com/maryanne/; the kids list is at http://www.iam.com/maryanne/kidsf.html). Everybody here that's been talking about the books they read as a kid should take a look at this list; I found a bunch that I had read and had forgotten about!! -Sandy -----Original Message----- From: Kate Willshaw [mailto:kwillshaw@HOTMAIL.COM] Sent: Thursday, November 05, 1998 3:24 AM To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] Sylvia Engdhal - childrens literature Hey, I've never heard anyone else talk about Sylvia Engdhal! I remember her story, Heritage of the Star really affected me when I first read it - aged 10 or so. I also read another one by her - can't remember the title about a woman who had telepathic powers and was sent to another culture (planet?) as an envoy. This culture was sceptical/in fear of "otherness" so she was tortured and was put into an isolation tank where all her senses were supressed. I just remeber being outraged that a society could treat it people like that with the connivance of the government. I think it was at this point my eyes were opened to the fact the government and police weren't always the good guys which up to then I had believed. Reading - a subversive thing if ever there was one....! Oh yeah - Im new to the list, nice to meet you all. I'm enjoying the children's literature discussion, its bringing back memories of staying up all night reading by torchlight under the covers! ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 13:36:41 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Marina Subject: Re: BDG Snow Queen & incest In-Reply-To: <19981105185458.9149.qmail@www08.netaddress.usa.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 5 Nov 1998, Anthea Hartley Stanton wrote: > Many women - > myself included - have found there are advantages to snagging one's future > lover young: not only does it mean one avoids many teenage traumas and > insecurities, but one can also be sure he doesn't have latent defects like a > penchant for wearing women's underwear. Why would that be a defect :) ? Isn't it nice when a man follows his feminine side? Half-joking, Marina http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society is selling at the time." Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 14:47:08 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: Re: BDG Snow Queen & incest MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Anthea Hartley Stanton wrote: > Incest, certainly in our and other Western cultures, requires blood > relationship (see Freud's _Totem and taboo_). I don't see how > *unrelated* lifelong friends becoming lovers can possibly incestuous - > however they're brought up. I didn't say it *was* incest technically (though in fact Moon and Sparks are first cousins, which may or may not be incest depending on who you talk to); I said it *felt* like incest to me. Some anthropologists have theorized that there is a mechanism at work in the human mind that tends to discourage sexual relations between people who are raised together during a crucial age range, up to age 6, I think (Westermarck). There was some corroborative evidence gathered from children, unrelated by blood, who were raised in kibbutzim. I don't know what the current thinking about this is. I took an entire anthro course on the incest taboo but that was about ten years ago. Certainly incest does occur sometimes even when the conditions Westermarck outlined are met. -- Janice E. Dawley ............. Burlington, VT http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/jedhome.htm Listening to: R.E.M. -- Up "Reality is nothing but a collective hunch." - Lily Tomlin ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 14:59:46 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Marina Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 5 Nov 1998, Bertina Miller wrote: > How could you call Tolkein racist or sexist? His heroes were of a > different race than Humans! His character Eowyn killed the Nazgul captain! > Come on now, I think you didnt reread the stories except in a negative > slant! Well, not to detract from Tolkien's ability to tell a fascinating story, his orks and other bad guys were suspiciously close to the common stereotypes against Oriental people. Especially the way he described their language. Concerning Eowyn, what he did to her made me mad the most. She was my favorite character. The whole point Tolkien making by picturing her love to Aragorn a "typical woman's infatuation which is not half as valid as the feelings of a man" made me kind of sick. In my opinion, she was way ahead of Arwen by all means. Honestly, Arwen impressed me as a bimbo, she hardly said or did anything in the whole book other than sitting there looking pretty and tragic and inspiring Aragorn to his heroic deeds. Talking about worthiness of the objects of desire, even Spark of the Snow Queen seemed to have more personality than Arwen. So why Aragorn would prefer her to Eowyn? It seemed to me as a poster illustration on the point that "Women cannot coose their mate, so they should not even try, because they would only get hurt!" Yuck. Besides, at the end, when everyone and a dog seemed to get some kingdom to rule, or at least some important and respected position, Eowyn was sent into oblivion with the left-over guy who became her husband. The latter, to the bargain, despite his quite remarkable personal qualities got nothing better than having to yield everything he had to someone else. Finally, at the very end of the book, each more or less important character got a follow-up on the rest of their lives -- how long they lived, where they dies, and that sort of thing. Everyone except Eowyn and Faramir. Apparently, their fate was not considered important. When I just started reading the Ring series (I read Hobbit and the first two books of the Lord of The Ring back home, in Russian, at the age of 19, and the third book -- a few months ago, at the age of 24) it stroke me that there was almost no female characters there altogether. Just think about it. In all four books, the only female characters (let alone heroes) that are even mentioned are: -- an evil aunt of Frodo and Bilbo, the mean old woman named Labinia or something like that who constantly conspired to squeeze them out of their property; -- the wife of the First Man (Tom Bombadil, if I remember correct); I don't remember her name, but she was a Daughter of the River, and her main action was being beautiful and lighting her surroundings with her warm smile; she never says a word; -- Galadriel, the Queen of Elves. Very smart, very powerful, pretty much ruling for her husband who is nominally the king, but just sits there; the only female character besides Eowyn who has any depth; -- Arwen, her daughter; Hardly says a word or does anything besides suffering for some unspecified reason; the classic fair lady existing for purely ornamental purposes and to serve as the male hero's love object; and finally, -- Eowyn, the best of them all, who's constantly punished for her strength. That's all, I don't think I missed anyone. Comparing to the number of male characters in the story, it seems that in Tolkien's world, females constituted about 3 percent of the population instead of 50 percent. Talking about different perception of the same book at different age, when I read the first three parts, I just found this denial of women's existant kind of bizzaire. I think I decided that the author must have been gay -- that's what in my culture is thought of men who don't pay any attention to women. When I finally read the last part, five years later, I found his treatment of women simply insulting. Everything, and especially his treatment of Eowyn. Even her killing that Nazgul dude was pictured as a half-unintentional, impulsive act to protect her father (for the lack of babies at the site in need of protection, I guess). And her desire to become a warrior was presented as nothing more than an act of despair of a woman rejected by the man she loved. Which evaporated as soon as she found herself another man. Does not that remind you of the famous concept that all feminists -- and strong women in general -- are "poor spinsters with no man to love them" who would get over their desire for independence as soon as they "get themselves a husband"? I think Tolkien was a complete woman-hater. Someone who did not want them in his life in any form, not even as mothers, lovers, or baby-machines. Marina http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society is selling at the time." Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 15:56:25 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Joe Sutliff Sanders Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 02:59 PM 11/5/98 -0600, you wrote: >Well, not to detract from Tolkien's ability to tell a fascinating story, >his orks and other bad guys were suspiciously close to the common >stereotypes against Oriental people. Especially the way he described >their language. This is largely true. > >Concerning Eowyn, what he did to her made me mad the most. . . .In my opinion, she was way >ahead of Arwen by all means. Again, I have to agree about Eowyn's worth. > >Besides, at the end, when everyone and a dog seemed to get some kingdom to >rule, or at least some important and respected position, Eowyn was sent >into oblivion with the left-over guy who became her husband. I have to disagree here. First of all, he is not "left over," he is in many ways perfect for Eowyn. Both have been overlooked because of their siblings, both are skilled in war but have shown mercy, both are intelligent, both have gone through a period of bitterness, a period of healing, a period of being trapped by the system. . . . Also, Eowyn is not at all sent into oblivion. In fact, she tells her husband/fiance that she is going off to take care of her own business because it's something she has to do. She doesn't ask his permission, she just goes and does what's important to her. > >Finally, at the very end of the book, each more or less important >character got a follow-up on the rest of their lives -- how long they >lived, where they dies, and that sort of thing. Everyone except Eowyn and >Faramir. This bothered me, too. > >When I just started reading the Ring series (I read Hobbit and the first >two books of the Lord of The Ring back home, in Russian, at the age of >19, and the third book -- a few months ago, at the age of 24) it stroke me >that there was almost no female characters there altogether. Again true. I argue elsewhere that this is because Tolkien is presenting a world that is grounded in patriarchy. It's a world where only males have been allowed any sort of power for all of history, indeed only very masculine males. However, when stereotypical men like Boromir and Gandalf (not to mention stereotypical women like Arwen) can't win the war, a feminine hobbit and a masculine woman step in and take care of business. I think that the narrative is actually more effective for coming out of and then denying the patriarchal tradition. > >Just think about it. In all four books, the only female characters (let >alone heroes) that are even mentioned are: > >-- an evil aunt of Frodo and Bilbo, the mean old woman named Labinia or > something like that who constantly conspired to squeeze them out of > their property; > >-- the wife of the First Man (Tom Bombadil, if I remember correct); I > don't remember her name, but she was a Daughter of the River, and her > main action was being beautiful and lighting her surroundings with her > warm smile; she never says a word; > >-- Galadriel, the Queen of Elves. Very smart, very powerful, pretty much > ruling for her husband who is nominally the king, but just sits there; > the only female character besides Eowyn who has any depth; > >-- Arwen, her daughter; Hardly says a word or does anything besides > suffering for some unspecified reason; the classic fair lady existing > for purely ornamental purposes and to serve as the male hero's love > object; > Quite so. However, they are all introduced in the first book, which I interpret as Tolkien setting the reader up to believe that this world is patriarchal. Again, I think it makes his story stronger that it begins there and ends on the heels of two victories won by a feminine male and a masculine female. > >Even her killing that Nazgul dude was pictured as a >half-unintentional, impulsive act to protect her father (for the lack of >babies at the site in need of protection, I guess). This is an important reading here. I feel that the scene deserves more scrutiny than this summary provides. For example, the text makes quite clear that Eowyn is invoking masculine and feminine traits in her victory over the Nazgul. She doesn't just fight him because she's a woman who wants to protect others, she also fights him because she is angry and wants blood. She's out for revenge--which seems to me more stereotypically masculine than feminine. There's more, but you'll have to read my thesis for it. >And her desire to >become a warrior was presented as nothing more than an act of despair of a >woman rejected by the man she loved. I don't think this is an accurate reading. Eowyn is a bad ass before she ever falls in love. She has trained to become a warrior and is interested in being a warrior long before she falls for the ostentious hero. >Does not that remind you of the famous concept that all feminists -- and >strong women in general -- are "poor spinsters with no man to love them" >who would get over their desire for independence as soon as they "get >themselves a husband"? It does. However, I don't think that's what happens to Eowyn. She decides to give up the battlefield because she has found something better. And no one on this listserv would claim that "independence" can only be found in the role of a warrior. She is still independent (see my comments on her departure above), just not killing people. > >I think Tolkien was a complete woman-hater. Someone who did not want them >in his life in any form, not even as mothers, lovers, or baby-machines. > >Marina > I can see why you think that. It sounds like the story really pissed you off, and I wouldn't blame you for refusing to see it from another point of view. However, if you decide to try another one, see if this one makes any sense. It may not. Joe ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 13:41:00 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Bonnie Bouman Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I wouldn't say Tolkien was a woman hater -- more that he was "of the old school." We can't place total blame on people in history who were merely living what they knew -- thousands of years from now people will probably look back at us and think we were regarding a variety of things. He was of early-to-mid 1900s England, probably grew up in a small town... perspective. Many of these points are true ... but... I don't want my adoration, or that of new readers of The Lord of the Rings to be decimated! I want to enjoy it as great story and savor it as great literature, and read modern stuff too. Giving thanks that people are becoming more aware of women & gender equality issues, and that both men & women now write SF. LOTR is just so glorious. To me it almost doesn't seem worth nitpicking about what sex the characters are. Plenty of books that were sexist *and* bad! ;-> //Bonnie On Thu, 5 Nov 1998, Marina wrote: > On Thu, 5 Nov 1998, Bertina Miller wrote: > > > How could you call Tolkein racist or sexist? His heroes were of a > > different race than Humans! His character Eowyn killed the Nazgul captain! > > Come on now, I think you didnt reread the stories except in a negative > > slant! > > Well, not to detract from Tolkien's ability to tell a fascinating story, > his orks and other bad guys were suspiciously close to the common > stereotypes against Oriental people. Especially the way he described > their language. > > Concerning Eowyn, what he did to her made me mad the most. She was my > favorite character. The whole point Tolkien making by picturing her love > to Aragorn a "typical woman's infatuation which is not half as valid as > the feelings of a man" made me kind of sick. In my opinion, she was way > ahead of Arwen by all means. Honestly, Arwen impressed me as a bimbo, she > hardly said or did anything in the whole book other than sitting there > looking pretty and tragic and inspiring Aragorn to his heroic deeds. > Talking about worthiness of the objects of desire, even Spark of the Snow > Queen seemed to have more personality than Arwen. So why Aragorn would > prefer her to Eowyn? It seemed to me as a poster illustration on the point > that "Women cannot coose their mate, so they should not even try, because > they would only get hurt!" Yuck. > > Besides, at the end, when everyone and a dog seemed to get some kingdom to > rule, or at least some important and respected position, Eowyn was sent > into oblivion with the left-over guy who became her husband. The latter, > to the bargain, despite his quite remarkable personal qualities got > nothing better than having to yield everything he had to someone else. > > Finally, at the very end of the book, each more or less important > character got a follow-up on the rest of their lives -- how long they > lived, where they dies, and that sort of thing. Everyone except Eowyn and > Faramir. Apparently, their fate was not considered important. > > When I just started reading the Ring series (I read Hobbit and the first > two books of the Lord of The Ring back home, in Russian, at the age of > 19, and the third book -- a few months ago, at the age of 24) it stroke me > that there was almost no female characters there altogether. > > Just think about it. In all four books, the only female characters (let > alone heroes) that are even mentioned are: > > -- an evil aunt of Frodo and Bilbo, the mean old woman named Labinia or > something like that who constantly conspired to squeeze them out of > their property; > > -- the wife of the First Man (Tom Bombadil, if I remember correct); I > don't remember her name, but she was a Daughter of the River, and her > main action was being beautiful and lighting her surroundings with her > warm smile; she never says a word; > > -- Galadriel, the Queen of Elves. Very smart, very powerful, pretty much > ruling for her husband who is nominally the king, but just sits there; > the only female character besides Eowyn who has any depth; > > -- Arwen, her daughter; Hardly says a word or does anything besides > suffering for some unspecified reason; the classic fair lady existing > for purely ornamental purposes and to serve as the male hero's love > object; > > and finally, > > -- Eowyn, the best of them all, who's constantly punished for her > strength. > > That's all, I don't think I missed anyone. Comparing to the number of > male characters in the story, it seems that in Tolkien's world, females > constituted about 3 percent of the population instead of 50 percent. > > Talking about different perception of the same book at different age, when > I read the first three parts, I just found this denial of women's existant > kind of bizzaire. I think I decided that the author must have been gay -- > that's what in my culture is thought of men who don't pay any attention > to women. > > When I finally read the last part, five years later, I found > his treatment of women simply insulting. Everything, and especially his > treatment of Eowyn. Even her killing that Nazgul dude was pictured as a > half-unintentional, impulsive act to protect her father (for the lack of > babies at the site in need of protection, I guess). And her desire to > become a warrior was presented as nothing more than an act of despair of a > woman rejected by the man she loved. Which evaporated as soon as she found > herself another man. > > Does not that remind you of the famous concept that all feminists -- and > strong women in general -- are "poor spinsters with no man to love them" > who would get over their desire for independence as soon as they "get > themselves a husband"? > > I think Tolkien was a complete woman-hater. Someone who did not want them > in his life in any form, not even as mothers, lovers, or baby-machines. > > Marina > > > http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html > > "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society > is selling at the time." > Naomi Wolf > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 19:01:33 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Cyn Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Kate said: >Im really interested in others first experiences with adult SF+F - keep >sending in the experiences! My aunt sent me The Kin of Ata Are Waiting for You - by Dorothy Bryant when I was nine, then someone handed me Dragonsong, and I read passionately for years. Some things stick with me and some don't - after reading so much it seems a shame how much I've forgotten though my tastes have changed. This list has been great in helping me find new stuff - Thanks to all Cyn ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 10:11:03 +0900 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: JoAnn Subject: Re: gendered compliments (sex organs) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Robin Reid wrote: > a male colleague ... said that the "guys" always > told each other they were "top stallion in the herd" when they made full > professor, but he wasn't sure what to say to her!!!!!!!!! Thanks for the horselaugh -- it's interesting that they would have assumed that there would be more than one stallion in a herd. In fact, there can only be one herd stallion. He tolerates colts (baby male horses) until they reach adolescence, then banishes them from his group. The young stallions generally roam around in a bachelor band until they can steal a couple of mares and start their own herd, or else challenge a herd stallion for possession of his band of mares. There is, however, a lead *mare* in each herd. She decides where they go, leads the way in flight, administers justice, settles disputes, even dictates the order in which the stallion will breed the mares. JoAnn ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 20:18:34 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Bertina Miller Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites In-Reply-To: <19981105162146.20957.qmail@hotmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Yes it would be a different story all together if it was written in 1998 rather than in the 30s when it was first conceived. Bertina bmiller@medmail.mcg.edu On Fri, 6 Nov 1998, Caroline Heske wrote: > Actually, if you really want to be picky, I think there's a lot in > Tolkien that reflect the values of his time. Group of nice, country > individuals (with a distinctly British culture) have to head off into > the strange mysterious East, forced to battle hordes of 'uncultured' > stupid evil individuals. If you consider the time Tolkien was writing > and his own experiences in WW1, the different species seem a rather thin > veil for his underlying (and perhaps subconscious) ideas. > > As to sexism... well I don't think it's so much sexism as an > 'overlooking' of women. There's Rosie - Sam's future wife, and that's > about all we know about her; Arwen - Aragorn's future wife, Elrond's > daughter, and very beautiful; and of course Eowyn - the only female > character fully fleshed-out. I like Eowyn a lot as a character, but > still there are some things that grate... she seems only to be given any > coverage in the story because she's a warrior. This would not be a > problem, except that it's not tempered by any other valued female > roles... It's also assumed that the 'real' problems are out on the > battlefield with the men, whereas women are safely cloistered away in > their idyllic homes... The one disrupted home we see - the > Sackville-Baggins - seems only disrupted because it's run by an > aggressive woman, Lobelia. > > Even considering all this, I still find Lord of the Rings a wonderful > book in itself... though I think maybe I'd be less tolerant if it were > written today. > > >How could you call Tolkein racist or sexist? His heroes were of a > >different race than Humans! His character Eowyn killed the Nazgul > captain! > >Come on now, I think you didnt reread the stories except in a negative > >slant! > > > > > ______________________________________________________ > Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 20:15:05 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: donna simone Subject: OT: 'Balls' ( gendered compliments ) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To Anthea, Nina and Robin 's comments, To offer an alternate view.....I spent 10 years as an officer in the US Navy. Frequently, I was the only female officer the sailors had (or would ever) experienced. In those years, the highest compliment I was paid by the predominantly male sailors was "LT, you got balls". On those occasions, it was clear to me always that I was being honored not ridiculed. To my understanding from context, "having balls" was vernacular for: recognition of courage, strength against odds, bullheadedness with "management politics", and most importantly "standing up for my troops". To this day, my chest puffs out when I hear it. Those sailors convinced me it was a noble "appendage" to possess. graciously offered, donna donnaneely@earthlink.net ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 19:30:39 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Joanna Goltzman Subject: re-reading kids books Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Caroline Heske wrote: Yes, C.S. Lewis' Perelandra and Narnia books I very much enjoyed when I was young - but now I find them very difficult to stomach. I, too, have a hard time with the Narnia books as an adult. I loved them when I was little. I read _The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe_ over and over again, but I never understood Lewis' religious or sexist views until I re-read the Narnia books as an adult. I'm wondering if books with subtle views an adult wouldn't want a child to have access to--kind of how I feel about the Narnia books now--can be harmful to kids, but I guess if the child doesn't understand some aspects of the books she can't be harmed by them. Unless the child understands those aspects somehow on an unconscious level? I also wonder how reading can help a child adopt certain views as their own. If I had a little girl, for example, I'd want her to read as many books with strong female characters as I could find because I'd want her to develop empowering ideas about being female. On the other hand, as a child I know that while I had access to some books with strong female characters, I also had access to a lot of books without such characters. Yet, I still developed into a feminist. I know books can affect people's lives, but I'm really not sure to what extent a single book can be harmful or empowering. Joanna ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 20:37:01 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Bertina Miller Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Have you thought on the times that it was written, plus the fact he is also writing of a time (supposedly) before his own and in an alternate universe. Just because the bad creatures in the story "sound" to you like certain races doesnt mean Tolkein intentionally meant to portray the characters as them. He wrote of a people much like Native Americans, but that doesnt mean they are meant to be considered Native American. He was using this as a device to portray prejudice and use it to not directly offend anyone in his time. If anything he was expressing the need to end such prejudices. If you recall, in the end of the trilogy, the point of the story was that the future would be different, in some ways for the good and in some ways for the bad. That is how I look at Tolkein and what he wrote of. He sounds a lot less bigoted than many others of his time who blatently put characters of different races and national origins in the story and use them as the evil or "bad" characters. Like "Injun Joe" character in Mark Twain. Bertina bmiller@medmail.mcg.edu On Thu, 5 Nov 1998, Marina wrote: > On Thu, 5 Nov 1998, Bertina Miller wrote: > > > How could you call Tolkein racist or sexist? His heroes were of a > > different race than Humans! His character Eowyn killed the Nazgul captain! > > Come on now, I think you didnt reread the stories except in a negative > > slant! > > Well, not to detract from Tolkien's ability to tell a fascinating story, > his orks and other bad guys were suspiciously close to the common > stereotypes against Oriental people. Especially the way he described > their language. > > Concerning Eowyn, what he did to her made me mad the most. She was my > favorite character. The whole point Tolkien making by picturing her love > to Aragorn a "typical woman's infatuation which is not half as valid as > the feelings of a man" made me kind of sick. In my opinion, she was way > ahead of Arwen by all means. Honestly, Arwen impressed me as a bimbo, she > hardly said or did anything in the whole book other than sitting there > looking pretty and tragic and inspiring Aragorn to his heroic deeds. > Talking about worthiness of the objects of desire, even Spark of the Snow > Queen seemed to have more personality than Arwen. So why Aragorn would > prefer her to Eowyn? It seemed to me as a poster illustration on the point > that "Women cannot coose their mate, so they should not even try, because > they would only get hurt!" Yuck. > > Besides, at the end, when everyone and a dog seemed to get some kingdom to > rule, or at least some important and respected position, Eowyn was sent > into oblivion with the left-over guy who became her husband. The latter, > to the bargain, despite his quite remarkable personal qualities got > nothing better than having to yield everything he had to someone else. > > Finally, at the very end of the book, each more or less important > character got a follow-up on the rest of their lives -- how long they > lived, where they dies, and that sort of thing. Everyone except Eowyn and > Faramir. Apparently, their fate was not considered important. > > When I just started reading the Ring series (I read Hobbit and the first > two books of the Lord of The Ring back home, in Russian, at the age of > 19, and the third book -- a few months ago, at the age of 24) it stroke me > that there was almost no female characters there altogether. > > Just think about it. In all four books, the only female characters (let > alone heroes) that are even mentioned are: > > -- an evil aunt of Frodo and Bilbo, the mean old woman named Labinia or > something like that who constantly conspired to squeeze them out of > their property; > > -- the wife of the First Man (Tom Bombadil, if I remember correct); I > don't remember her name, but she was a Daughter of the River, and her > main action was being beautiful and lighting her surroundings with her > warm smile; she never says a word; > > -- Galadriel, the Queen of Elves. Very smart, very powerful, pretty much > ruling for her husband who is nominally the king, but just sits there; > the only female character besides Eowyn who has any depth; > > -- Arwen, her daughter; Hardly says a word or does anything besides > suffering for some unspecified reason; the classic fair lady existing > for purely ornamental purposes and to serve as the male hero's love > object; > > and finally, > > -- Eowyn, the best of them all, who's constantly punished for her > strength. > > That's all, I don't think I missed anyone. Comparing to the number of > male characters in the story, it seems that in Tolkien's world, females > constituted about 3 percent of the population instead of 50 percent. > > Talking about different perception of the same book at different age, when > I read the first three parts, I just found this denial of women's existant > kind of bizzaire. I think I decided that the author must have been gay -- > that's what in my culture is thought of men who don't pay any attention > to women. > > When I finally read the last part, five years later, I found > his treatment of women simply insulting. Everything, and especially his > treatment of Eowyn. Even her killing that Nazgul dude was pictured as a > half-unintentional, impulsive act to protect her father (for the lack of > babies at the site in need of protection, I guess). And her desire to > become a warrior was presented as nothing more than an act of despair of a > woman rejected by the man she loved. Which evaporated as soon as she found > herself another man. > > Does not that remind you of the famous concept that all feminists -- and > strong women in general -- are "poor spinsters with no man to love them" > who would get over their desire for independence as soon as they "get > themselves a husband"? > > I think Tolkien was a complete woman-hater. Someone who did not want them > in his life in any form, not even as mothers, lovers, or baby-machines. > > Marina > > > http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html > > "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society > is selling at the time." > Naomi Wolf > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 21:19:47 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: donna simone Subject: S. Sturgis Anthologies Available!!!!! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit GREAT NEWS!!! The anthologies edited by Susanna Sturgis, that I mentioned previously, are still available from the author. Sturgis reports that she has copies of all three books and will ship them to any interested purchasers until the supplies are exhausted. Price: US$6.00 each (that price includes postage). She said that folks should email her privately if they are interested. The titles again: '89 Memories and Visions, '90 Women Who Walk through Fire, and '91 'Tales of Magic Realism by Women: Dreams in a Minor Key'. I add again, they are a fantastic bridge between the 70's series Women of Wonder and todays plethora of short story collections that represent feminist/women authored SFF stories. Susanna Sturgis' email address: sjs2@capecod.net best, donna ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 22:25:54 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Phoebe Wray Subject: Re: gendered compliments (sex organs) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 11/6/98 1:13:33 AM, you wrote: <> "Lead mare" might work, but "brood mare" wouldn't, somehow. Always interesting to chart the matriachies among the non-humans. The more sentient the creature, it seems, the more prone to looking to mother. Sperm whales, a great example, the Bonobo... many others. Has something to do with the way their societies are structured (always a fertile idea in SF/F) and perhaps more to do with territories and the education of the young. Cockroaches are matriarchies. I've forgotten the "real" number, but it's something like 80-90% of all roaches are female, and they train their babies. I had a similar semantic problem, though not so acute, when I was a "Fellow" at Yale. Hmmmm lightly lightly, phoebe zozie@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 23:35:58 -0500 Reply-To: Lilith Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lilith Subject: Re: children and children's books MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit First off I have to say I can't comment on the "Snow Queen" because it is still on my list of "must read sometime in the future" books. So I will address the various threads about children's reading and children's books, which I think I can speak of on some authority since I was a) a "bookworm" as a child and b) have read most of the kid's books cited here. (Though for a fact I don't consider Lord of the Rings to be a book written solely for children, but I first read it in my early teens so will count it as one. But our public library kept it in the adult section, and it was sold at Waldenbooks in the Science Fiction section not the children's book section.) Anyway -- first, Jane: Now, you've got to expect that on a mailing list people are going to pick up on one little point in your post and pick it to death, you really do! :-) But I at least was not trying to invalidate your experience as a child or tell you you were a library-nazi that advocated forbidding preteens from reading anything but My Little Pony books. I guess what I meant to say was that I have real trouble with terms like "age-appropriate." I realize that there has to be some sort of criteria to classify things by and we have to have terms to label concepts with, but this idea, that there is something like "age-appropriate" reading, I am personally against. After all, not all children mature mentally at the same pace, and what might frighten one child (bugs, ghost stories, etc.) might be seen as fun or interesting by another. Besides, from your posts I gather that what bothered you wasn't so much that what you had to read in school but the fact that you weren't properly taught any background to the stories, but tossed in to "swim" without any context. That is no way to teach literature, even to so-called "gifted" students. I seem to remember from my schoolroom days (lo these many years ago) that we were taught to analyze the background of every story, discussed the history and social factors that the author was trying to illustrate and so on. I guess schools were better even in the seventies when I went. My Introduction to Science-Fiction: My childhood introduction to science-fiction was also Andre Norton, and she is still one of my favorite writers. I still have a lot of paperback versions of her novels, and refuse to trade them in at the used bookstore. The first book of hers I had read was also (like somebody else here whose name I forget) Moon of Three Rings. Before her I refused to touch sci-fi -- I can't exactly remember why. I think I felt I wasn't "ready" for it - even though I was an avid watcher of Star Trek, go figure. I preferred to read mysteries -- I did read Nancy Drew even though she was a goody-two shoes -- at least she was a girl who was smart and figured things out, and she got to go to all these exotic places, and she had a loyal boyfriend who was pretty much at her beck and call! I also liked her female friend named George, though she had another girlfriend who was kind of vain and silly, I think, a typical "girly-girl", and I didn't care much for her. But anyway, someone at the library told me I would really like Moon Of Three Rings, and I did - the first thing to strike me about it was the alienness of the culture (well, to me) in the story, which seemed to me to be written without any worry that a kid reading the book would be confused or put off. Then of course I went and read all her books and got to know her themes (one is all her main characters are usually outcasts in some way, usually either due to some physical difference from their fellows which is used to judge them unfairly or their circumstances which are again used against them). Then I graduated to other science fiction writers, like Le Guin, Heinlein, etc. I liked some Heinlein books, but I found that finally one can only read so many books with characters who are cornfed midwestern Americans grafted onto fantastic plots. Actually, most of my favorite science fiction writers are female (Norton, Le Guin, Vonda McIntyre, etc.). Most of the male authors, at least the ones I encountered in the seventies, seemed to write mostly male-fantasies involving scary monster aliens, pliant damsels in need of rescue or at least a man to protect them from said monster aliens, jut-jawed Gary Cooperish macho stud heroes, and/or lots of important Ideas that plot coherency and good dialogue were sacrificed in service of. (Sorry about the clumsy grammar - I'm too tired to think of a better way to word that sentence.) And those were in the stories that _didn't_ involve lots of long descriptions of invented futuristic machinery! It also seemed to me that female scifi authors wrote more well-rounded characters of _every_ sex and race (including aliens). But fantasy is a different thing altogether. I think Le Guin's book of essays "Language of the Night" says it best - science-fiction is blue, and fantasy is red (or was it the other way around?), and if you mix them together you get purple. (Which is her way of saying that it is not a very good idea to mix them together...) Also, she said that fantasy is archetype, so the characters in a fantasy are not supposed to be "well-rounded" like the characters in a realistic novel (or a science-fiction novel, I would say now). Which is why the criticisms of Tolkien and the reading of LOTR from the same viewpoint that we would approach a realistic or a science-fictional novel look so silly. For instance, Tolkien had no intention of writing realistic characters -- the Hobbit and LOTR and the Silmarrillion and all the other stories and unfinished manuscripts and paintings he did was basically a lifelong work on an entire imaginary world, which in turn came about, I believe, from stories he would make up for his children. (As well as his extensive knowledge of history, linguistics, ancient myths and sagas of Northern Europe, his religion - he was Roman Catholic -- and so on.) But his primary reason for writing his stories was for sheer enjoyment in his created world, not to Put Women in Their Place or to push the values of a patriarchal society down everyone's throat. Besides, I got the sense from reading the novel like a 575,789,797 times (LOL) that women are the real important people in Tolkien's world, although they are not always rushing around importantly like the male characters from action to action. However, they are usually the catalysts for that action or the inspiration behind the actions in the novels. For instance, it is the Galadriel who is shown as being wiser than her husband. (I have often wondered if Tolkien chose to deliberately underwrite the character of um, whatsisname, to underscore this point. Even in the posthumously-published Silmarillion is full of Galadriel episodes, but her husband whatever his name is - my books are in the other room! is not given many scenes in any of the stories.) And the elves call on Elbereth or Varda, the "Queen of Heaven" -- not any other male Valar -- and so on. However distasteful that may seem to us modern females who want a piece of the action too, the woman-as-the-catalyst ideal is a rather female-centered vision of the universe, though one not personally appealing to me. To that sort of thinking, the most important things in life are peace and the home, not war and travel/questing. So the choice of Eowyn is seen as a "higher" one, peace-making not war-making. But men in Tolkien's world are also supposed to choose the same as Eowyn: Faramir is the example of the ideal of the "reluctant warrior", who fights only because he has no other choice, and Frodo is the "reluctant hero", not at all the mighty macho stud hero of many male fantasies, and it is he who performs the most important act, which all the other activity was a prelude to or a distraction from. I could go on and on about this book....but it is by no means simply a racist, sexist, masturbatory fantasy! It has been a long time since I read a biography of Tolkien, so I can't remember what his exact ideas are about feminism and such were -- but his female characters, idealized and archetypal as they are, are incredibly complex compared to most of the female characters C.S. Lewis came up with! I enjoyed the Narnia books as a child but I read them after LOTR, so I had Tolkien to compare them to already...and I enjoyed them _in despite_ of the characters, not because of them. For instance Lewis came up with some effectively scary scenes and situations here and there, such as the trip to the rescue the prince in "the Silver Chair" and the scene of the destroyed world in the one featuring the Victorian-era children, the title of which escapes me. But I was cold to his characters -- all but Eustace, the little snot no one liked until he learned a little humiliation, and his patient girlfriend (I can't remember her name though, but she was one of the few girls in the stories who wasn't a smug little creature I would probably have wanted to smack in real life). Lewis did not conceal his dislike of uppity wimmin very well, and especially disliked scholarly and scientific females, and girls who did not act as mainly support for the males in the world (unless the boys misbehaved, then they were permitted to show displeasure). Also his Christianity was clumsily obvious in the Narnia creation with the character of Aslan, etc. The problem with the Narnia books is that they are basically basic Boys Own Adventure stories in imaginary lands, full of typically British kids and "fantastic" creatures who were just obvious representative of other aspects of British fictional characters (the nasty school headmaster, the bumptious Cockney lout, the Stalwart Prince Royal, and so on). My fingers have no more strength to type so... later! Lilith ******************************************** ************Hell's Half Acre************** *http://www.concentric.net/~Ligeia* ******************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 05:28:40 +0000 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Mike Stanton Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On 5 Nov 98, at 14:59, Marina wrote: > I think Tolkien was a complete woman-hater. Someone who did not want them > in his life in any form, not even as mothers, lovers, or baby-machines. Your posting is so broadly venomous it's impossible to comment on it in detail - especially since you have contextualized Tolkien's work to the point of condemning and condemned a man born in 1892 for not being as sensitive and politically correct as a man born in the 1980s. But one point you made does stand out. How can you call him a "complete woman hater" when his whole life is dramatic proof otherwise? Tolkien's love affair with his wife Edith is the stuff of which legends are made. He met and fell in love with her when he was 16 and she 19. In spite of the opposition of relatives and his guardian, enforced separation, his genteel poverty and later the ravages of war, the love affair grew until they married in March 1916 when he was only 24. They remained married until her death on 22 November 1971 - 61 years later. He died in 1973 and - at his express wishes using the phrase "... in their death they were not divided".- he is buried in the same grave as his wife. The rest of what you say is based on equally dubious readings of his work and life. Mike Stanton (m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk) _______________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 01:10:17 -0800 Reply-To: lynnx@mc.net Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Heather Law Organization: Interstellar Trading Company Subject: Re: Tomorrow's Children MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit My public library wouldn't let me take books out of the adult section, although they didn't keep me from reading them there. The situation got really idiotic sometimes, like splitting up a group of sequels. They put the ones involving children in with the kids books, then when the same character got older the book went into the adult collection. When she married and had children those books were for kids. As far as science fiction is concerned, a lot of it got classified as being for kids. And not all libraries had the rules. I read Slan at a county library when I was 11. Also Children of the Atom. I could identify more with it than with the Heinlein juveniles. Carol Mitchell ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 01:06:29 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Marina Subject: Re: OT: 'Balls' ( gendered compliments ) In-Reply-To: <010301be0922$e4294300$1bb11b26@donna> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Well, although I don't think I had that many guys telling me I had balls, or any other kind of compliment other than "you look very pretty". Even though I did get quite a few (half-scared) "you're The Man!". However, I often say that I have balls myself. Usually in the context of "Because I've got more balls than he (name) does." "Plus," I say, "they are inside, so they don't get on my way." "They are called ovaries", I add if the person still does not get it and make a comment on the comparative size of brains as well. I kind of say it as a joke, to be honest. Or to shock some guy who's asking for it. My other favorite used to be "I have a T-shirt, on one side it says 'Guess who's my hero', and on the other side it has a picture of Lorena Bobbit". I actually once scared a fraternity guy with that one, to the point that he lost his "cool" jokes about women, said "you're crazy", and flaked off. As Beavis and Butt-head would say, that was pretty cool. Some of my friends assume that I hate men. That's not true. I hate jerks. And I've got pretty good reasons for that. In any case, if someone complimented the size of my balls, I would not get offended. :) Marina http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society is selling at the time." Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 02:00:23 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Marina Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites In-Reply-To: <802566B4.001E16DF.00@osiris.postmaster.co.uk> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII LOL. This time I pissed off a Tolkien fan. OK, mister: First of all, I did not contextualize the guy in any way. Besides the fact that I don't know what contextualize means (and too lazy to get a dictionary right now), my post was nothing more than simply saying how his book made me feel. Sorry if my feelings about his writing are different from yours, but the fact that you adore him does not make _me_ obliged to like him. If I found his presentation of women insulting, that's my opinion, and you are not going to change it, _especially_ by spitefull comments. Second, his passionate love towards his wife does not prove his not being sexist, because: a) all sexist men think they are the only ones who truly "appreciate" women, which "explains" their desire to treat them as a delicate flower. The whole romantic tradition of knighthood is largely based on that. Of course, it extends only on "nice" women which means compliant and willing to submit to a set of very strict rules; b) love is not the same thing as respect; as it follows from the point a), a man can be passionately in love with a woman without considering her a human being; she's just an object of his (great) love, in need of constant control "for her own good"; c) finally, people who start with undying eternal passion sometimes end up hating each other's guts in the same proportion some 40-50 years down the road. Case in point: Leo Tolstoy and his wife. When they were young, he dedicated poems to her, when they grew old, they were having such viscious fights that after one of them, Tolstoy walked out in a blizzard, got pneumonia and died. In any case, my posting had nothing to do with Tolkien's personal devotion to his wife. It was my opinion about his book, and even if he was extremely appreciative of women in reall life, it did not appear so to me from his writing. All this said, you might be surprised that I used to be a fan of Tolkien, too. When I read his first three books, I thought it was one of the best fantasy story I had ever encountered. Which it could be, if it did not regard women as "objects of inspiration" in the best case. I feel very compassinate with him living in "bad times". However, if everyone went along with whatever crap constitutes the "mainstream views" at their time, those views would have never evolved to anything better. Hainlain can be called a "product of his time" as well, and I liked his books when I was a kid, too. However, I cannot read them now, because his sexism turns my stomach. Ursula Le Guin did not start writing in 1998, either. She did not write sexist stuff because of the bad old times, did she? Whenever you live, you have a choice -- to go with a flow or to think for yourself. Tolkien did not just go with the flow, he relished in it and glamorized it. I still like how he writes. I just don't like the fact that women are completely absent from his stories. I'd like to see a four-volume story with only four male characters whose main activity is to inspire the numerous women heros for their heroic actions while themselves safely stuffed into various castles. That is the way I feel. Shoot me for that if you want to. Venomously, Marina On Fri, 6 Nov 1998, Mike Stanton wrote: > On 5 Nov 98, at 14:59, Marina wrote: > > > I think Tolkien was a complete woman-hater. Someone who did not want > them > > in his life in any form, not even as mothers, lovers, or baby-machines. > > Your posting is so broadly venomous it's impossible to comment on it in > detail - especially since you have contextualized Tolkien's work to the > point of condemning and condemned a man born in 1892 for not being as > sensitive and politically correct as a man born in the 1980s. > > But one point you made does stand out. How can you call him a "complete > woman hater" when his whole life is dramatic proof otherwise? > > Tolkien's love affair with his wife Edith is the stuff of which legends are > made. > > He met and fell in love with her when he was 16 and she 19. In spite of the > opposition of relatives and his guardian, enforced separation, his genteel > poverty and later the ravages of war, the love affair grew until they > married in March 1916 when he was only 24. They remained married until her > death on 22 November 1971 - 61 years later. He died in 1973 and - at his > express wishes using the phrase "... in their death they were not > divided".- he is buried in the same grave as his wife. > > The rest of what you say is based on equally dubious readings of his work > and life. > > > Mike Stanton (m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk) > _______________________________________ > http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society is selling at the time." Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 20:22:49 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Caroline Heske Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Marina wrote: Ursula Le Guin did not start writing in 1998, >either. She did not write sexist stuff because of the bad old times, did >she? Actually, curiously, when I was younger I found the Earthsea trilogy - particularly no. 1 and 3 very difficult because it seemed so male-oriented. Even Tenar had to have a man come in and tell her she was up shit creek, change her name, wipe out her civilisation, and basically destroy her life. I remember sitting and wondering for ages (at about 10 or 11) how can a woman write stuff that seems so sexist? ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 20:34:53 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Caroline Heske Subject: Re: re-reading kids books MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Joanna wrote: >If I had a little girl, for example, I'd want her to read as many books with >strong female characters as I could find because I'd want her to develop >empowering ideas about being female. On the other hand, as a child I know >that while I had access to some books with strong female characters, I also >had access to a lot of books without such characters. Yet, I still developed >into a feminist. I know books can affect people's lives, but I'm really not >sure to what extent a single book can be harmful or empowering. I know that some stories had an *enormous* influence on me as a child, I've thought of the recurrently ever since I've heard/read them, and they've influenced many of my major life decisions. They include Lord of the Rings, a fairytale called 'East of the Moon, West of the Sun' (or vice-versa, not sure...), and the TV series 'Astroboy'. None of these had strong female characters, though when I was young this didn't discourage me, cause I didn't really distinguish much between the genders. However, I would have liked some strong female role-models once I hit about 10. The first book I remember that I actually remember thinking 'I'd like to be her' is - strangely enough - The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan. It was the first book I ever read with a group of strong *young* women, and that made a big difference, cause it's hard when you're ten to identify with mothers (as most strong female characters seem to be) cause you already have one telling you what to do all the time. I find Xena to be a good source of female role-models - cause althought the characters behave unrealistically, they're strong, they're more interested in living life than looking sexy (and the latter is not a prerequisite for the former)... ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 04:00:09 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Santanico Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >I still like how he writes. I just don't like the fact that women are >completely absent from his stories. I'd like to see a four-volume story >with only four male characters whose main activity is to inspire the >numerous women heros for their heroic actions while themselves safely >stuffed into various castles. But isn't that just as bad? Shouldn't we be trying for equality between sexes instead of the old "Eye For An Eye" system, which naturally makes the other sex defensive and results in even more "damsel in distress" stories written in revenge, which of course results in more anti-male stuff, and ad nauseum? Just because male writers can be chauvinistic, does this mean female writers should, too? I personally dislike stories where any character who represents his or her sex is degraded just to make the hero or heroine's sex look better by comparison. It's more of an achievement to have two equals along for the ride, and prove their own strengths and weaknesses on bases of character, not gender. I think the problem with re-evaluating classics in a politically correct context is that that context simply didn't exist when they were written. I love Gothic novels (Ann Radcliffe, Horace Walpole, Matthew Lewis etc), the basic plots of which are usually how a dark, sinister man imprisons a beautiful, virtuous young girl in a dark, dank castle. These novels, I realise, are probably considered sexist as all hell, but the simple fact is, despite their "damsel in distress" plotlines, they're _fun_. Often the point of literature is to enlighten, but other times it's just to entertain. Attempting to read more into a story like that can often rob it of its sheer entertainment value. I see "Lord of the Rings" as an entertainment story, not one designed to make you think hard about it. This kind of book - a "1984", or a "Handmaid's Tale" - is the type that should be evaluated in a political context. Plus, it's worth remembering that when the Gothic novel first appeared, its primary audience was women. However, I'm willing to admit there are some books seemingly designed to entertain that are just really ugly. Once again, the Gor novels come immediately to mind; however, Tolkien I don't think can really be lumped in along with misogynists like John Norman, whom I freely and actively despise. Everyone's entitled to their own opinion of course; this is just mine. Realising she's probably going to get flamed for a lot of what she's said just now, Sant ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 08:09:14 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Bertina Miller Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites In-Reply-To: <802566B4.001E16DF.00@osiris.postmaster.co.uk> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII A man who understands the nature of romance! Thanks Mike! Bertina bmiller@medmail.mcg.edu On Fri, 6 Nov 1998, Mike Stanton wrote: > On 5 Nov 98, at 14:59, Marina wrote: > > > I think Tolkien was a complete woman-hater. Someone who did not want > them > > in his life in any form, not even as mothers, lovers, or baby-machines. > > Your posting is so broadly venomous it's impossible to comment on it in > detail - especially since you have contextualized Tolkien's work to the > point of condemning and condemned a man born in 1892 for not being as > sensitive and politically correct as a man born in the 1980s. > > But one point you made does stand out. How can you call him a "complete > woman hater" when his whole life is dramatic proof otherwise? > > Tolkien's love affair with his wife Edith is the stuff of which legends are > made. > > He met and fell in love with her when he was 16 and she 19. In spite of the > opposition of relatives and his guardian, enforced separation, his genteel > poverty and later the ravages of war, the love affair grew until they > married in March 1916 when he was only 24. They remained married until her > death on 22 November 1971 - 61 years later. He died in 1973 and - at his > express wishes using the phrase "... in their death they were not > divided".- he is buried in the same grave as his wife. > > The rest of what you say is based on equally dubious readings of his work > and life. > > > Mike Stanton (m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk) > _______________________________________ > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 08:12:38 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Bertina Miller Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Marina I suppose you never read Tolkein's other works-poems, essays, short stories and other novels in which women are the main characters! Bertina bmiller@medmail.mcg.edu On Fri, 6 Nov 1998, Marina wrote: > LOL. This time I pissed off a Tolkien fan. OK, mister: > > First of all, I did not contextualize the guy in any way. Besides the fact > that I don't know what contextualize means (and too lazy to get a > dictionary right now), my post was nothing more than simply saying how his > book made me feel. Sorry if my feelings about his writing are > different from yours, but the fact that you adore him does not make _me_ > obliged to like him. If I found his presentation of women insulting, > that's my opinion, and you are not going to change it, _especially_ by > spitefull comments. > > Second, his passionate love towards his wife does not prove his not being > sexist, because: > > a) all sexist men think they are the only ones who truly "appreciate" > women, which "explains" their desire to treat them as a delicate flower. > The whole romantic tradition of knighthood is largely based on that. Of > course, it extends only on "nice" women which means compliant and willing > to submit to a set of very strict rules; > > b) love is not the same thing as respect; as it follows from the point a), > a man can be passionately in love with a woman without considering her a > human being; she's just an object of his (great) love, in need of > constant control "for her own good"; > > c) finally, people who start with undying eternal passion sometimes end up > hating each other's guts in the same proportion some 40-50 years down the > road. Case in point: Leo Tolstoy and his wife. When they were young, he > dedicated poems to her, when they grew old, they were having such viscious > fights that after one of them, Tolstoy walked out in a blizzard, got > pneumonia and died. In any case, my posting had nothing to do with > Tolkien's personal devotion to his wife. It was my opinion about his > book, and even if he was extremely appreciative of women in reall life, it > did not appear so to me from his writing. > > All this said, you might be surprised that I used to be a fan of Tolkien, > too. When I read his first three books, I thought it was one of the best > fantasy story I had ever encountered. Which it could be, if it did not > regard women as "objects of inspiration" in the best case. > > I feel very compassinate with him living in "bad times". However, if > everyone went along with whatever crap constitutes the "mainstream views" > at their time, those views would have never evolved to anything better. > Hainlain can be called a "product of his time" as well, and I liked his > books when I was a kid, too. However, I cannot read them now, because his > sexism turns my stomach. Ursula Le Guin did not start writing in 1998, > either. She did not write sexist stuff because of the bad old times, did > she? > > Whenever you live, you have a choice -- to go with a flow or to think for > yourself. Tolkien did not just go with the flow, he relished in it and > glamorized it. > > I still like how he writes. I just don't like the fact that women are > completely absent from his stories. I'd like to see a four-volume story > with only four male characters whose main activity is to inspire the > numerous women heros for their heroic actions while themselves safely > stuffed into various castles. > > That is the way I feel. Shoot me for that if you want to. > > Venomously, > Marina > > On Fri, 6 Nov 1998, Mike Stanton wrote: > > > On 5 Nov 98, at 14:59, Marina wrote: > > > > > I think Tolkien was a complete woman-hater. Someone who did not want > > them > > > in his life in any form, not even as mothers, lovers, or baby-machines. > > > > Your posting is so broadly venomous it's impossible to comment on it in > > detail - especially since you have contextualized Tolkien's work to the > > point of condemning and condemned a man born in 1892 for not being as > > sensitive and politically correct as a man born in the 1980s. > > > > But one point you made does stand out. How can you call him a "complete > > woman hater" when his whole life is dramatic proof otherwise? > > > > Tolkien's love affair with his wife Edith is the stuff of which legends are > > made. > > > > He met and fell in love with her when he was 16 and she 19. In spite of the > > opposition of relatives and his guardian, enforced separation, his genteel > > poverty and later the ravages of war, the love affair grew until they > > married in March 1916 when he was only 24. They remained married until her > > death on 22 November 1971 - 61 years later. He died in 1973 and - at his > > express wishes using the phrase "... in their death they were not > > divided".- he is buried in the same grave as his wife. > > > > The rest of what you say is based on equally dubious readings of his work > > and life. > > > > > > Mike Stanton (m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk) > > _______________________________________ > > > > http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html > > "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society > is selling at the time." > Naomi Wolf > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 08:13:59 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Bertina Miller Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites In-Reply-To: <19981106092250.14562.qmail@hotmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I have to agree, Carol. I loved the Earthsea trilogy then as now but it was rather Male-oriented! Bertina bmiller@medmail.mcg.edu On Fri, 6 Nov 1998, Caroline Heske wrote: > Marina wrote: Ursula Le Guin did not start writing in 1998, > >either. She did not write sexist stuff because of the bad old times, > did > >she? > > Actually, curiously, when I was younger I found the Earthsea trilogy - > particularly no. 1 and 3 very difficult because it seemed so > male-oriented. Even Tenar had to have a man come in and tell her she > was up shit creek, change her name, wipe out her civilisation, and > basically destroy her life. I remember sitting and wondering for ages > (at about 10 or 11) how can a woman write stuff that seems so sexist? > > ______________________________________________________ > Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 08:15:58 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Bertina Miller Subject: Re: re-reading kids books In-Reply-To: <19981106093454.5165.qmail@hotmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Again I have to hand it to you, Jordan is refreshingly different in his portrayal of strong minded independent women and Xena is a role model. Bertina bmiller@medmail.mcg.edu On Fri, 6 Nov 1998, Caroline Heske wrote: > Joanna wrote: > > >If I had a little girl, for example, I'd want her to read as many books > with > >strong female characters as I could find because I'd want her to > develop > >empowering ideas about being female. On the other hand, as a child I > know > >that while I had access to some books with strong female characters, I > also > >had access to a lot of books without such characters. Yet, I still > developed > >into a feminist. I know books can affect people's lives, but I'm really > not > >sure to what extent a single book can be harmful or empowering. > > I know that some stories had an *enormous* influence on me as a child, > I've thought of the recurrently ever since I've heard/read them, and > they've influenced many of my major life decisions. They include Lord > of the Rings, a fairytale called 'East of the Moon, West of the Sun' (or > vice-versa, not sure...), and the TV series 'Astroboy'. None of these > had strong female characters, though when I was young this didn't > discourage me, cause I didn't really distinguish much between the > genders. However, I would have liked some strong female role-models > once I hit about 10. The first book I remember that I actually remember > thinking 'I'd like to be her' is - strangely enough - The Eye of the > World by Robert Jordan. It was the first book I ever read with a group > of strong *young* women, and that made a big difference, cause it's hard > when you're ten to identify with mothers (as most strong female > characters seem to be) cause you already have one telling you what to do > all the time. I find Xena to be a good source of female role-models - > cause althought the characters behave unrealistically, they're strong, > they're more interested in living life than looking sexy (and the latter > is not a prerequisite for the former)... > > ______________________________________________________ > Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 09:21:34 -0500 Reply-To: J Bocchino/Sarasota Cty Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: J Bocchino/Sarasota Cty Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Marina said " love is not the same thing as respect; as it follows from the point a), a man can be passionately in love with a woman without considering her a human being; she's just an object of his (great) love, in need of constant control "for her own good"; If there's not a chinese curse that says "May you experience a passionate love affair," there should be. JB ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 08:36:55 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Robin Reid Subject: "the question of what guys are" (was: Bujold) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Interesting to see the number of comments on my summary of _Ethan of Athos_ that seemd to make the point of assuming that how "males in all male groups" behave in our culture is some essentialist/natural way for males to behave. And this view of male behavior wasn't any too positive--eek! almost sexist!! ;) -- in fact, I have had male friends who did not "qualify" for inclusion in male groups through the male bonding rituals and processes our culture requires (starting with observing my brother from a young age endure what I now can only call harassment, public humiliation, and physical torture). As a feminist, I don't believe that "all men" are naturally ANYTHING, and using observations of some male groups in our culture to generalize about all men is a problem, as would be using observations of women in our culture to generalize about all women. The nature vs. nurture debate has not been resolved--the extent to which culture modifies "natural" behaviors is still being debated. A friend recently told me of studies which show that the only INSTINCTIVE fear which human babies show is fear or falling (when a baby is put down quickly, they try to grab and hang on)--all other fears (spiders, snakes, etc.) seem to be taught/learned. I haven't read the studies, but it is an interesting thought (she told me about it in the context of our discussing how students in this part of the country are trained in creationism--and how this fear of falling might be a link to our shared primate past, or that's how she uses it in her classes). So is the default male instinct aggression all the time for all males???????????? I dunno, but a careful reading of Bujold's novel shows that she does present males on Athos who are Not Like Ethan (his "brother" for example), and that the society does have outlets for men who do not choose to live within the "rules," who do not want to bond and have children or care for children. They go off to some frontier area or somethig--cannot remember exactly, but Bujold doesn't make the mistake of assuming all males will be alike in an all male culture...... Robin ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 09:38:58 -0500 Reply-To: J Bocchino/Sarasota Cty Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: J Bocchino/Sarasota Cty Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites In-Reply-To: <19981106092250.14562.qmail@hotmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII (red-faced) I was quite old before I was able to read a book and be objective of the protagonist (Earthsea was also my first experience with 'adult' scifi), so many nuances of these books escaped my attention. I am intrigued now, to read and re-read and see if the sexism that is being perceived is simply the difference between strong people and weaker ones (physically, mentally, whatever...). If someone (thanks to all my college professors) had not taken the lead and shown me that I didn't _have_ to like the protagonists of a written work, I may very well have been still down in the dungeon too...I guess my point is that I appreciate strength used for "good" wherever it comes from. JB Caroline wrote" "Actually, curiously, when I was younger I found the Earthsea trilogy - particularly no. 1 and 3 very difficult because it seemed so male-oriented. Even Tenar had to have a man come in and tell her she was up shit creek, change her name, wipe out her civilisation, and basically destroy her life. I remember sitting and wondering for ages (at about 10 or 11) how can a woman write stuff that seems so sexist? Jean Bocchino Libraries Support Services Manager Sarasota County Libraries Department ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 09:15:45 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Joe Sutliff Sanders Subject: Re: Tolkien--sexist?(was:Re-reading Childhood Favorites) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Below I answer the posting, but, since it seems to be of relevance, I'm going to put a chapter from my thesis, which deals with Eowyn at great length, on my webpage. Here's the address. Please stop by. http://sac.uky.edu/~jcsand1/ (Marina, responding to Mike): > Sorry if my feelings about his writing are >different from yours, but the fact that you adore him does not make _me_ >obliged to like him. If I found his presentation of women insulting, >that's my opinion, and you are not going to change it, _especially_ by >spitefull comments. Marina, I'm sorry if we've made you think that we want to force our opinions down your throat. That's not what we're trying to do. However, I'm bothered by your comment that we're not going to change your opinions. Of course, we won't change your opinions, if anyone will, you would change your own. But are you saying that you aren't interested in considering as valuable the opinions of other posters? Surely not. The quotation above, however, led me to believe that you are only willing to *post* your opinions here, not read and weigh those of your colleagues who have likewise thought these issues through in feminist terms. > >Second, his passionate love towards his wife does not prove his not being >sexist, because: This is probably true. > >a) all sexist men think they are the only ones who truly "appreciate" >women, which "explains" their desire to treat them as a delicate flower. I can't agree with this at all. "*All* sexist men"? I seriously doubt that Andrew Dice Clay thinks he "appreciates" women in the context that he treats them as delicate flowers. Unless by "treat" you mean trample into the mud. >b) love is not the same thing as respect; Of course, this depends on one's definition of love. I find the two mutually inclusive (is that a phrase?) to the extent that I would not consider a person to be in love with another if s/he didn't respect that person. (though I suppose you can have respect without love. . . .) But I haven't seen anything to indicate that JRRT didn't respect his wife as well as love her, even if we agree that the two terms can be used independently. Has anyone else out there got some light to throw on this subject? > >c) finally, people who start with undying eternal passion sometimes end up >hating each other's guts in the same proportion some 40-50 years down the >road. This is quite true, but I don't see how it relates to what Mike said, since JRRT died years after his wife did and had the phrase "... in their death they were not divided" inscribed on the stone. Further, it seems that your parallel with Tolstoy is faulty in that Tolstoy was leaving his family when he was caught in that fatal snowstorm, but JRRT asked to be buried in the same grave as his wife--not only did he want to be with her in life, but also in death. The two examples seem to share few similiarities. >In any case, my posting had nothing to do with >Tolkien's personal devotion to his wife. On the contrary, your posting had very much to do with it. In fact, the posting in question ended with the sentence: >I think Tolkien was a complete woman-hater. Someone who did not want them >in his life in any form, not even as mothers, lovers, or baby-machines. > > JRRT's wife was, to him, a mother (to his children) and a lover (to himself). That makes the discussion of her relationship with him of utmost relevance to your posting. > even if he was extremely appreciative of women in reall life, it >did not appear so to me from his writing. This is an important point, and one that I am interested in hearing your (and others') opinions on. I've got a lot tied up in the issue of how gender is handled in that trilogy (the other writings set in Middle Earth provide fertile ground for discussion, but that's just too large a scope for this poor scholar), and I am quite interested in what you have to say about your opinions on his writing. >Which it could be, if it did not >regard women as "objects of inspiration" in the best case. I'll refer you to my last response to your previous post, in which I argue that JRRT starts out the trilogy on this foot--demonstrating that females in ME are normally relegated to the role of inspiration only--so that his mixing of genders at the end of the narrative is that much more potent. > >I feel very compassinate with him living in "bad times". Oddly enough, I don't. It matters hardly a whisker to me if a sexist comes from sexist times. The fact that someone from such times did not have the insight to challenge those notions does not convince me that we should give that person a break. I find that argument dissatisfying, much like saying that these amazing writers should be coddled because "they're only children [of their times?], after all, what do you expect? You can't hold them to our lofty adult goals." >Ursula Le Guin did not start writing in 1998, >either. She did not write sexist stuff because of the bad old times, did >she? Well said. > >Whenever you live, you have a choice -- to go with a flow or to think for >yourself. Tolkien did not just go with the flow, he relished in it and >glamorized it. And again, I disagree. The trilogy (which I assume you're referring to here, since you said above that you were trying to address TLOTR, not JRRT, in your original post) does not relish gender stereotypes. In fact, if Frodo were typically male, he would have killed Gollum long before reaching Mt. Doom, which means that he would have lost his will to the Ring, and Smeagol wouldn't have been around to bite his finger off, and a new Dark Lord would have arisen. . .the quest would have been a dismal failure. Likewise, if Eowyn were only feminine, she would not have trained to be a warrior, she would not have been able to stand against trained killers at Pelennor, and Aragorn would have been slain by the Nazgul. . .the quest would have been a dismal failure. The text, far from reinforcing gender stereotypes, encourages the reader to experience victory by characters who have learned to cross over the boundaries dictated by society. > >I just don't like the fact that women are >completely absent from his stories. This is another time when I feel that you are exaggerating, and that it hurts your argument. There are quite a number of women in TLOTR, many of which you listed in a previous post. What's important is what becomes of women, or, as I would argue is even more important, what becomes of gender. > >That is the way I feel. Shoot me for that if you want to. > >Marina I hope that I haven't given you the impression that I consider you a bad person because of your views or even that you are deserving of punishment for holding them. However, I would encourage you to soften your reaction to the text long enough to give an honest and optimistic consideration of your peers' ideas on the subject. Then go back to your own view if you want. Joe ps (to everyone): don't forget to stop by the URL given above. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 08:47:25 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Robin Reid Subject: Thoughts on Tolkien discussion Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" On a pesonal level, I loved Tolkien when I was a child and adolescent, and still think his work has some incredible aspects.....but I can understand some of the issues of race/class/gender that are coming up as problems for some readers. On another level, I hate to see the discussion shift to ONLY whether or not the author was sexist/racist/classist or whatever. There's something to be said about the cultural context in which an author lives (although Tolkien's would certainly have included British feminist movements!!!! which did exist at that point). Toni Morrison has a good book on racist constructions in American literary canonical writers (i.e. all white, mostly men) in which she carefully distinguishes between authors as human beings, and authors as using the CULTURAL and LINGUISTIC material available to them. This issue is an important one to me because I do so much multicultural work, and it's hard to work with students if discussion degenerates to X is an evil person because SOME elements of a complex literary work are racist or sexist. It's easy to try to dismiss some people as BAD; it's harder to admit that language/culture/institutions are systematically racist, sexist, etc. (And I don't just mean American society/culture/institutions.) It's hard to go against that whole system of beliefs. Some of us working in this field think a background reason for students' desire to simply identify some authors as racist (or to claim they cannot be racist or sexist because they wrote such 'good stories') is that the media nowadays has portrayed the most extreme racists as EVIL MONSTERS while ignoring the (to me) even more frightening fact that the whole way racist operates is by the "decent" majority of a population sharing those beliefs. One of the kindest, gentlest, sweetest men I know (he's over 70) holds the racist beliefs that were common when he was growing up. He still often regrets the changes this college has undergone since African American students were "allowed" to attend. Sorry--this issue is extremely complicated and I have to go get ready for class, so I'm probably not making much sense. Will try to tlak more later. robin ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 09:34:10 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jane Franklin Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Marina, do you find any differences in feel between Tolkien in Russian and Tolkien in English? The interesting thing about Tolkien is that he is both racist and anti-racist, both sexist and anti-sexist, at the same time. On the one hand, his stereotypes of the Southerlings and so on are blatently racist, but integral to the story of the book is the idea that different races are valuable and even the idea that a race of stay-at-homes canproduce a hero. On a third hand, racial characteristics and race differences are something Tolkien really believes in. Elves are just not like Dwarves, and it's not just a matter of looks. The thing is, Tolkien is not anti- or proto-feminist so much as he is pre-capitalist. His version of monarchy is the old school, ruling-in-the-name-of-God version. That is, Aragorn is not only the high king, he's also a good guy. He really does put the people's interests above his own. (I'm not saying this is how it WAS pre-capitalism, obviously it wasn't; it's just that the myth was differnent) And as to women--it's not that Tolkien sees himself as keeping women down, or sees women as inferior; he just sees women as totally different from men, with a different place in the universe and different capabilities. Just like Elves--(I hate elves) they don't choose to be good, noble, and so on; they're just born that way. Part of why they're boring. But against this tapestry of static characters and racial nature, Tolkien draws the people who don't fit in. They're the ones who make history. Frodo is a hobbit, and ought to be boring. Eowyn ought to be like Goldberry and Rose. Even Gollum ought to have been a good little river dweller. Most people, in the Tolkien universe, are just regular and need rules and kings. Some few don't, but that doesn't mean the demos should have a free hand. Ask yourself this--who would you rather be with--Aragorn, or Farmir? Aragorn is a snotty, emotionally withholding jerk, even if he is king. Faramir is actually accessible. And Arwen--don't get me started. Is she annoying, or what? She shapes up a little in the epilogue, though. See, I think Tolkien is sexist. He thinks women aren't generally fit for "male" things like kingship or whatever. He thinks women have this mystical feminine side. But unlike, say, Reverend Wildmon, Tolkien has a place for exceptions. And he also thinks that what women have (according to him) is really valuable and neccessary. He's not responding to feminism by cracking down on women; he's simply pre-theory. So to my mind that makes him less irritating. Now has anybody noticed how classist he is? >>> Marina 11/05 2:59 PM >>> On Thu, 5 Nov 1998, Bertina Miller wrote: > How could you call Tolkein racist or sexist? His heroes were of a > different race than Humans! His character Eowyn killed the Nazgul captain! > Come on now, I think you didnt reread the stories except in a negative > slant! Well, not to detract from Tolkien's ability to tell a fascinating story, his orks and other bad guys were suspiciously close to the common stereotypes against Oriental people. Especially the way he described their language. Concerning Eowyn, what he did to her made me mad the most. She was my favorite character. The whole point Tolkien making by picturing her love to Aragorn a "typical woman's infatuation which is not half as valid as the feelings of a man" made me kind of sick. In my opinion, she was way ahead of Arwen by all means. Honestly, Arwen impressed me as a bimbo, she hardly said or did anything in the whole book other than sitting there looking pretty and tragic and inspiring Aragorn to his heroic deeds. Talking about worthiness of the objects of desire, even Spark of the Snow Queen seemed to have more personality than Arwen. So why Aragorn would prefer her to Eowyn? It seemed to me as a poster illustration on the point that "Women cannot coose their mate, so they should not even try, because they would only get hurt!" Yuck. Besides, at the end, when everyone and a dog seemed to get some kingdom to rule, or at least some important and respected position, Eowyn was sent into oblivion with the left-over guy who became her husband. The latter, to the bargain, despite his quite remarkable personal qualities got nothing better than having to yield everything he had to someone else. Finally, at the very end of the book, each more or less important character got a follow-up on the rest of their lives -- how long they lived, where they dies, and that sort of thing. Everyone except Eowyn and Faramir. Apparently, their fate was not considered important. When I just started reading the Ring series (I read Hobbit and the first two books of the Lord of The Ring back home, in Russian, at the age of 19, and the third book -- a few months ago, at the age of 24) it stroke me that there was almost no female characters there altogether. Just think about it. In all four books, the only female characters (let alone heroes) that are even mentioned are: -- an evil aunt of Frodo and Bilbo, the mean old woman named Labinia or something like that who constantly conspired to squeeze them out of their property; -- the wife of the First Man (Tom Bombadil, if I remember correct); I don't remember her name, but she was a Daughter of the River, and her main action was being beautiful and lighting her surroundings with her warm smile; she never says a word; -- Galadriel, the Queen of Elves. Very smart, very powerful, pretty much ruling for her husband who is nominally the king, but just sits there; the only female character besides Eowyn who has any depth; -- Arwen, her daughter; Hardly says a word or does anything besides suffering for some unspecified reason; the classic fair lady existing for purely ornamental purposes and to serve as the male hero's love object; and finally, -- Eowyn, the best of them all, who's constantly punished for her strength. That's all, I don't think I missed anyone. Comparing to the number of male characters in the story, it seems that in Tolkien's world, females constituted about 3 percent of the population instead of 50 percent. Talking about different perception of the same book at different age, when I read the first three parts, I just found this denial of women's existant kind of bizzaire. I think I decided that the author must have been gay -- that's what in my culture is thought of men who don't pay any attention to women. When I finally read the last part, five years later, I found his treatment of women simply insulting. Everything, and especially his treatment of Eowyn. Even her killing that Nazgul dude was pictured as a half-unintentional, impulsive act to protect her father (for the lack of babies at the site in need of protection, I guess). And her desire to become a warrior was presented as nothing more than an act of despair of a woman rejected by the man she loved. Which evaporated as soon as she found herself another man. Does not that remind you of the famous concept that all feminists -- and strong women in general -- are "poor spinsters with no man to love them" who would get over their desire for independence as soon as they "get themselves a husband"? I think Tolkien was a complete woman-hater. Someone who did not want them in his life in any form, not even as mothers, lovers, or baby-machines. Marina http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society is selling at the time." Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 09:36:12 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jane Franklin Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit I think that if it bothers people, it's worth looking at. I think it should be possible to recognize that a book is deeply problematic AND ok to enjoy. And ok to criticize. >>> Bonnie Bouman 11/05 3:41 PM >>> I wouldn't say Tolkien was a woman hater -- more that he was "of the old school." We can't place total blame on people in history who were merely living what they knew -- thousands of years from now people will probably look back at us and think we were regarding a variety of things. He was of early-to-mid 1900s England, probably grew up in a small town... perspective. Many of these points are true ... but... I don't want my adoration, or that of new readers of The Lord of the Rings to be decimated! I want to enjoy it as great story and savor it as great literature, and read modern stuff too. Giving thanks that people are becoming more aware of women & gender equality issues, and that both men & women now write SF. LOTR is just so glorious. To me it almost doesn't seem worth nitpicking about what sex the characters are. Plenty of books that were sexist *and* bad! ;-> //Bonnie On Thu, 5 Nov 1998, Marina wrote: > On Thu, 5 Nov 1998, Bertina Miller wrote: > > > How could you call Tolkein racist or sexist? His heroes were of a > > different race than Humans! His character Eowyn killed the Nazgul captain! > > Come on now, I think you didnt reread the stories except in a negative > > slant! > > Well, not to detract from Tolkien's ability to tell a fascinating story, > his orks and other bad guys were suspiciously close to the common > stereotypes against Oriental people. Especially the way he described > their language. > > Concerning Eowyn, what he did to her made me mad the most. She was my > favorite character. The whole point Tolkien making by picturing her love > to Aragorn a "typical woman's infatuation which is not half as valid as > the feelings of a man" made me kind of sick. In my opinion, she was way > ahead of Arwen by all means. Honestly, Arwen impressed me as a bimbo, she > hardly said or did anything in the whole book other than sitting there > looking pretty and tragic and inspiring Aragorn to his heroic deeds. > Talking about worthiness of the objects of desire, even Spark of the Snow > Queen seemed to have more personality than Arwen. So why Aragorn would > prefer her to Eowyn? It seemed to me as a poster illustration on the point > that "Women cannot coose their mate, so they should not even try, because > they would only get hurt!" Yuck. > > Besides, at the end, when everyone and a dog seemed to get some kingdom to > rule, or at least some important and respected position, Eowyn was sent > into oblivion with the left-over guy who became her husband. The latter, > to the bargain, despite his quite remarkable personal qualities got > nothing better than having to yield everything he had to someone else. > > Finally, at the very end of the book, each more or less important > character got a follow-up on the rest of their lives -- how long they > lived, where they dies, and that sort of thing. Everyone except Eowyn and > Faramir. Apparently, their fate was not considered important. > > When I just started reading the Ring series (I read Hobbit and the first > two books of the Lord of The Ring back home, in Russian, at the age of > 19, and the third book -- a few months ago, at the age of 24) it stroke me > that there was almost no female characters there altogether. > > Just think about it. In all four books, the only female characters (let > alone heroes) that are even mentioned are: > > -- an evil aunt of Frodo and Bilbo, the mean old woman named Labinia or > something like that who constantly conspired to squeeze them out of > their property; > > -- the wife of the First Man (Tom Bombadil, if I remember correct); I > don't remember her name, but she was a Daughter of the River, and her > main action was being beautiful and lighting her surroundings with her > warm smile; she never says a word; > > -- Galadriel, the Queen of Elves. Very smart, very powerful, pretty much > ruling for her husband who is nominally the king, but just sits there; > the only female character besides Eowyn who has any depth; > > -- Arwen, her daughter; Hardly says a word or does anything besides > suffering for some unspecified reason; the classic fair lady existing > for purely ornamental purposes and to serve as the male hero's love > object; > > and finally, > > -- Eowyn, the best of them all, who's constantly punished for her > strength. > > That's all, I don't think I missed anyone. Comparing to the number of > male characters in the story, it seems that in Tolkien's world, females > constituted about 3 percent of the population instead of 50 percent. > > Talking about different perception of the same book at different age, when > I read the first three parts, I just found this denial of women's existant > kind of bizzaire. I think I decided that the author must have been gay -- > that's what in my culture is thought of men who don't pay any attention > to women. > > When I finally read the last part, five years later, I found > his treatment of women simply insulting. Everything, and especially his > treatment of Eowyn. Even her killing that Nazgul dude was pictured as a > half-unintentional, impulsive act to protect her father (for the lack of > babies at the site in need of protection, I guess). And her desire to > become a warrior was presented as nothing more than an act of despair of a > woman rejected by the man she loved. Which evaporated as soon as she found > herself another man. > > Does not that remind you of the famous concept that all feminists -- and > strong women in general -- are "poor spinsters with no man to love them" > who would get over their desire for independence as soon as they "get > themselves a husband"? > > I think Tolkien was a complete woman-hater. Someone who did not want them > in his life in any form, not even as mothers, lovers, or baby-machines. > > Marina > > > http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html > > "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society > is selling at the time." > Naomi Wolf > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 10:34:48 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: No Name Available Subject: Re: Childhood Reading, Adult SF Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit >From the looks of the previous posts, I may be writing from another generation. The first "adult" SF I read must have been Wells and Verne; at least I was reading both of them by 4th grade (blame/thank my mother). She had some well- meant but fuzzy ideas about a child's reading ability. When I was in second grade, she took away my small books and started handing me unabridged novels--- Kidnapped, Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, Little Women, Toby Tyler (!), Howard Pyle's Robin Hood, Huck Finn, Kim--- one a month for years. I was an early reader, and eager to chew my way through almost anything, but it was strange going. She also had an old high-school lit book, from the 1930s. It had a section from Ivanhoe and Conan Doyle's White Company, as well as a little translated Verne. I was hooked on 19th c. language and storytelling, by then; even so, I liked Wells more than Verne. I loved first- person narratives, the feeling of being taken along on a ride. And I remember setting my brother and two neighbor sisters up on collapsed lawn chairs as our time machines, taking trips under the pear trees in the back yard. Before that, I remember Eleanor Cameron's Mushroom Planet books, and shortly afterward, Heinlein's kid books and Ray Bradbury. I did try Andre Norton, but didn't like her. I also got my hands on some William Tenn and Eric Frank Russell. And, finally, Naomi Mitchison's Memoirs of a Spacewoman, right before L'Engle's Wrinkle in Time was first published. By Jr High, I was reading any adult SF I came across, fairly indiscriminately, as I recall. I can't tell what adult fantasy I read first-- I've been trying to remember, but I read so much, especially if it had anything to do with time-fantasy, or anything vaguely related to Arthurian legend, mythology, folktales--- many of which were not "children's" books, and many of which must have had fantasy elements. And then again, in the late 50s and early 60s, "fantasy" wasn't a marketing category for adults the way it is now. I remember reading T.H. White's Arthurian books at about the same time I hit Tolkien, when I was about 15 (when Ballantine first put them out in paperback); my tattered old copies of Eddison and Howard are from around then, too; that's about the best I can do. I still have those cheap battered childhood novels, and I read them again every once in a while. Some of the earliest, that I loved, I can still slip into with the same drugged wonder I had the first time around, although there are a few new jolts. Rereading Cameron, as an adult, was a joy; L'Engle still absorbing; Bradbury very nostalgic, but a little sentimental; Heinlein, less fun. William Mayne is as haunting and wonderful as ever, maybe even more so now. William Tenn's stories still have that terrific feel to them, but their profound sexism makes them as hard to enjoy now as Disney's reissued "classics." I must have shrugged a lot of that off, as a younger reader, or consigned his ditsy women and horny men to bimbo-limbo. I will say that that old absorbing thrill, being lost in a good read of a new book, is very hard to find these days. Kathleen M. Friello (new list address) ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 10:29:31 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jane Franklin Subject: Re: re-reading kids books Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >>> Joanna Goltzman 11/05 7:30 PM >>> I'm wondering if books with subtle views an adult wouldn't want a child to have access to--kind of how I feel about the Narnia books now--can be harmful to kids, but I guess if the child doesn't understand some aspects of the books she can't be harmed by them. Unless the child understands those aspects somehow on an unconscious level? I also wonder how reading can help a child adopt certain views as their own. I guess the way I feel is that a kid should read as much as possible...I like to think the forces of good will win out eventually. So much, too, depends on how what a kid reads is backed up in experience. For example, it was easier for me to identify with strong male characters, smart characters, and so on--which accounts for part of why Tolkien wasn't problematic--because my parents always valued my intelligence and expected that I would be able to do things. Maybe strong female characters could make up for the lack of parental support, but for me, the support was the key. Also that my parents talked about a lot of stuff and that we had a lot of books around. Also, they never watch TV. We have a VCR now, and they average a couple movies a week, but no one in our house ever watched network television. And my parents were firmly anti-racist. They never hectored me about it, but I always got the feeling that racist behavior was despicable. So when I realized that the Calormens in C.S. Lewis were meant to be Muslims, I was just deeply appalled. It spoiled the books for me. It's funny that it bothers me more than the sexism of the books. On the other hand, the Last Battle was also instrumental in resolving my religious ideas when I was still religious. If you recall, the unbelievers go, more or less, to Hell. This includes almost all the Calormens, except for one of them who acts honorably even though he has the wrong religious views. In the C.S. Lewis universe, this counts, and he goes to heaven. When I was younger, not only did I worry a good deal about going to hell myself, but I also worried a lot about non-Christian people. Even though Lewis could be an awful pig, I was a much happier girl after reading that book. In some ways, it's pretty condescending to say "your religion is wrong, but you can still go to heaven anyway" but it meant a lot to me. So, anyone else have large philosophical questions answered in childhood by science fiction? You know, I even dream about this list from time to time. Last night I had a dream about the list in which the Angel Moroni (one of the Mormon angels) appeared to me. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 10:43:11 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Michael Marc Levy Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites In-Reply-To: <19981106092250.14562.qmail@hotmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Fri, 6 Nov 1998, Caroline Heske wrote: > Marina wrote: Ursula Le Guin did not start writing in 1998, > >either. She did not write sexist stuff because of the bad old times, > did > >she? > > Actually, curiously, when I was younger I found the Earthsea trilogy - > particularly no. 1 and 3 very difficult because it seemed so > male-oriented. Even Tenar had to have a man come in and tell her she > was up shit creek, change her name, wipe out her civilisation, and > basically destroy her life. I remember sitting and wondering for ages > (at about 10 or 11) how can a woman write stuff that seems so sexist? > LeGuin herself has commented on what she now sees as the sexism in her own early writing, confessing that when she wrote some of her earlier fiction she was still caught up in the traditional view of the male as active hero and the female as passive heroine. The fourth book of Earthsea, Tehanu, is in part a specific attempt to revision that universe in more consciously feminist terms. Much of her recent short fiction can also be seen in these terms as well. Michael Levy ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 11:52:34 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Anne Vespry Subject: Re: Childhood Reading, Adult SF In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Fri, 6 Nov 1998, K. Friello wrote: > I can't tell what adult fantasy I read first-- I've been trying to remember, > but I read so much, especially if it had anything to do with time-fantasy, or > anything vaguely related to Arthurian legend, mythology, folktales--- many of > which were not "children's" books, and many of which must have had fantasy > elements. Though I probably come in a generation later, these were my first Fantasy novels too -- probably 'cause they were what my parents read. I remember the loving the Pyle "Robin Hood", and T.H.White's Arthurian Saga. I also devoured all colours of Lang's Fairy Books. Though I liked it whenever I ran into female characters who were smart, capable and fully dimensioned, it never really bothered me to read books with all or mostly male casts. As far as I was concerned, if I -- an only child -- could put myself in the place of the (always picked upon, usually triumphant) youngest sibling in a folk tale why shouldn't I -- a girl -- put myself in the place of a boy. That is and was just a part of the suspension of disbelief. I'd say now that it's still in many ways easier to read books with no female characters than ones in which there are badly realized ones. > I will say that that old absorbing thrill, being lost in a good read of a new > book, is very hard to find these days. Indeed... Anne Anne Vespry ******* http://www.vex.net/~maverick After Stonewall Bookshop ***** never forget avespry(at) *** only dead fish ollisdotuottawadotca * swim WITH the stream ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 11:00:41 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jane Franklin Subject: Re: Childhood Reading, Adult SF Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Has anyone read a book called "The Silver Link, the Silken Tie"? Or "Anna to the Infinite Power"? Children's sf I just now remembered. How about those "Pool of Fire" books? I also read a lot of Wells at a very young age. We had a giant book of all his short stories. Some of them made me feel quite ill. Also, the one about the people-eating octopi--I still try not to think about that when I'm swimming. I really feel like I could absorb upsetting literature much better when I chose to read it, even without explanations. I guess if it didn't bore me then I was ready for it on some level. I must have been seven or so when I was reading Wells, since I remember reading him on the way to piano lessons. I never had any trouble with early 20th century and 19th century writing styles either, and for this reason was a mystery and trouble to my classmates. Although I still have serious trouble with Henry James's prose. I really like him, but he is one of the few authors I read slowly slowly slowly. >>> No Name Available 11/06 9:34 AM >>> >From the looks of the previous posts, I may be writing from another generation. The first "adult" SF I read must have been Wells and Verne; at least I was reading both of them by 4th grade (blame/thank my mother). She had some well- meant but fuzzy ideas about a child's reading ability. When I was in second grade, she took away my small books and started handing me unabridged novels--- Kidnapped, Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, Little Women, Toby Tyler (!), Howard Pyle's Robin Hood, Huck Finn, Kim--- one a month for years. I was an early reader, and eager to chew my way through almost anything, but it was strange going. She also had an old high-school lit book, from the 1930s. It had a section from Ivanhoe and Conan Doyle's White Company, as well as a little translated Verne. I was hooked on 19th c. language and storytelling, by then; even so, I liked Wells more than Verne. I loved first- person narratives, the feeling of being taken along on a ride. And I remember setting my brother and two neighbor sisters up on collapsed lawn chairs as our time machines, taking trips under the pear trees in the back yard. Before that, I remember Eleanor Cameron's Mushroom Planet books, and shortly afterward, Heinlein's kid books and Ray Bradbury. I did try Andre Norton, but didn't like her. I also got my hands on some William Tenn and Eric Frank Russell. And, finally, Naomi Mitchison's Memoirs of a Spacewoman, right before L'Engle's Wrinkle in Time was first published. By Jr High, I was reading any adult SF I came across, fairly indiscriminately, as I recall. I can't tell what adult fantasy I read first-- I've been trying to remember, but I read so much, especially if it had anything to do with time-fantasy, or anything vaguely related to Arthurian legend, mythology, folktales--- many of which were not "children's" books, and many of which must have had fantasy elements. And then again, in the late 50s and early 60s, "fantasy" wasn't a marketing category for adults the way it is now. I remember reading T.H. White's Arthurian books at about the same time I hit Tolkien, when I was about 15 (when Ballantine first put them out in paperback); my tattered old copies of Eddison and Howard are from around then, too; that's about the best I can do. I still have those cheap battered childhood novels, and I read them again every once in a while. Some of the earliest, that I loved, I can still slip into with the same drugged wonder I had the first time around, although there are a few new jolts. Rereading Cameron, as an adult, was a joy; L'Engle still absorbing; Bradbury very nostalgic, but a little sentimental; Heinlein, less fun. William Mayne is as haunting and wonderful as ever, maybe even more so now. William Tenn's stories still have that terrific feel to them, but their profound sexism makes them as hard to enjoy now as Disney's reissued "classics." I must have shrugged a lot of that off, as a younger reader, or consigned his ditsy women and horny men to bimbo-limbo. I will say that that old absorbing thrill, being lost in a good read of a new book, is very hard to find these days. Kathleen M. Friello (new list address) ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 17:33:49 +0000 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Mike Stanton Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On 6 Nov 98, at 2:00, Marina wrote: > First of all, I did not contextualize the guy in any way. > [snip] If I found his presentation of women insulting, > that's my opinion, and you are not going to change it, > _especially_ by spitefull comments. My concern lay in your remarks on factual matters - not your opinions on his presentation of women. I have no interest in changing your opinions - on anything let alone Tolkien. I can well understand how someone from the former USSR (especially if of Russian origin) would feel insulted by Tolkien and I sympathize. BUT for the last week, I've been viewing the "benefits" of Soviet rule in the Baltic States so I can also sympathize with Tolkien's point of view. As an example of my concern about "the facts".... > Second, his passionate love towards his wife does > not prove his not being sexist... I never suggested he wasn't sexist - I simply corrected your extravagant statement that he was "a complete woman-hater. Someone who did not want [women] in his life in any form, not even as mothers, lovers, or baby-machines". Let me spell it out: his affection for his mother until her death in 1904 was undoubted; you have agreed that he had a passionate love for his wife; and he had four children (the first born in 1917 and the last in 1929 when his wife was 40). Every part of your statement was wrong. Your views on "love and romance", based as they are on your own culture, education, experience and innate personality traits, are both perfectly relevant to you personally and totally irrelevant to Tolkien's writings. Mike Stanton (m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk) _______________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 09:31:53 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Joyce Jones Subject: children's books When I was in elementary school I somehow got hold of a copy of the Odyssey. Well, of course with all the adventure and monsters and witchcraft I fell completely in love. When I finished it I went to the library and asked if they had anything else by Homer. The librarian evidently decided that I didn't mean "The" Homer and gave me a book about a monkey named Homer, kind of a curious George kind of character, I think. I was very disappointed, animal lover though I might have been. But maybe it was just as well. I don't think the Iliad would have interested me at the time. Joyce ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 18:31:42 MET Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Anthea Hartley Stanton Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On 6 Nov 98, at 3:21, Caroline Heske wrote: > Actually, if you really want to be picky, I think there's a lot in > Tolkien that reflect the values of his time. Group of nice, country > individuals (with a distinctly British culture) have to head off into the > strange mysterious East, forced to battle hordes of 'uncultured' stupid > evil individuals. If you consider the time Tolkien was writing and his > own experiences in WW1, the different species seem a rather thin veil for > his underlying (and perhaps subconscious) ideas. Caroline I'd take the view that there's precious little in Tolkien that DOESN'T reflect the values of his time. He was a typical example of the British middle-class, similar perhaps to my grandfather and great-grandfather who were both West-country solicitors. He wrote initially for his children, partly to entertain but also to instruct them in the virtues of honesty, chivalry, courage and daring which were all the more important in a world rapidly moving towards a catastrophic war with an enemy in the east (his first success _The Hobbit_ {1937} grew out of tales for young children). _Lord of the Rings_, which he worked on for 16 years, was published in 1954/55 when his children were adults and was clearly affected by the frightening expansion of the "evil empire" in Eastern Europe. It's not surprising that he saw the enemy in the east - the enemies of Britain were usually to the east. If you look at the map in _Lord of the Rings_, it's clear that he wasn't thinking about the whole world because the scale of his "arena" is just too small; his map is a simplified map of Europe. Tolkien was a European, steeped in the folklore of Europe; the 'danger from the East' simply reflects European history because, for obvious reasons, most major invasions came from the east. The suggestion that Tolkien's remarks about dwarves, orcs, trolls and so on were racist is beyond belief. These were not only non- human, but they were Tolkien's adaptions of beings which had existed in European folklore for many hundreds of years. The comments he makes about their language reflects his view of them as non-human, not that he modelled them after "orientals". AJ Anthea Hartley Stanton (ajhs@usa.net) ___________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 09:43:26 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Candioglos, Sandy" Subject: Re: Childhood Reading, Adult SF MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" John Christopher!! I remember those stories! I read everything I could find of his on the library shelf. I saw the tripod series recently at Powell's; I had almost completely forgotten their existence until then. Did anybody else read "the grey king" series by Susan Cooper? I loved that series; I've always thought Wales was fascinating. -Sandy -----Original Message----- From: Jane Franklin [mailto:JFrankln@FAMPRAC.UMN.EDU] Sent: Friday, November 06, 1998 9:01 AM To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] Childhood Reading, Adult SF Has anyone read a book called "The Silver Link, the Silken Tie"? Or "Anna to the Infinite Power"? Children's sf I just now remembered. How about those "Pool of Fire" books? I also read a lot of Wells at a very young age. We had a giant book of all his short stories. Some of them made me feel quite ill. Also, the one about the people-eating octopi--I still try not to think about that when I'm swimming. I really feel like I could absorb upsetting literature much better when I chose to read it, even without explanations. I guess if it didn't bore me then I was ready for it on some level. I must have been seven or so when I was reading Wells, since I remember reading him on the way to piano lessons. I never had any trouble with early 20th century and 19th century writing styles either, and for this reason was a mystery and trouble to my classmates. Although I still have serious trouble with Henry James's prose. I really like him, but he is one of the few authors I read slowly slowly slowly. >>> No Name Available 11/06 9:34 AM >>> >From the looks of the previous posts, I may be writing from another generation. The first "adult" SF I read must have been Wells and Verne; at least I was reading both of them by 4th grade (blame/thank my mother). She had some well- meant but fuzzy ideas about a child's reading ability. When I was in second grade, she took away my small books and started handing me unabridged novels--- Kidnapped, Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, Little Women, Toby Tyler (!), Howard Pyle's Robin Hood, Huck Finn, Kim--- one a month for years. I was an early reader, and eager to chew my way through almost anything, but it was strange going. She also had an old high-school lit book, from the 1930s. It had a section from Ivanhoe and Conan Doyle's White Company, as well as a little translated Verne. I was hooked on 19th c. language and storytelling, by then; even so, I liked Wells more than Verne. I loved first- person narratives, the feeling of being taken along on a ride. And I remember setting my brother and two neighbor sisters up on collapsed lawn chairs as our time machines, taking trips under the pear trees in the back yard. Before that, I remember Eleanor Cameron's Mushroom Planet books, and shortly afterward, Heinlein's kid books and Ray Bradbury. I did try Andre Norton, but didn't like her. I also got my hands on some William Tenn and Eric Frank Russell. And, finally, Naomi Mitchison's Memoirs of a Spacewoman, right before L'Engle's Wrinkle in Time was first published. By Jr High, I was reading any adult SF I came across, fairly indiscriminately, as I recall. I can't tell what adult fantasy I read first-- I've been trying to remember, but I read so much, especially if it had anything to do with time-fantasy, or anything vaguely related to Arthurian legend, mythology, folktales--- many of which were not "children's" books, and many of which must have had fantasy elements. And then again, in the late 50s and early 60s, "fantasy" wasn't a marketing category for adults the way it is now. I remember reading T.H. White's Arthurian books at about the same time I hit Tolkien, when I was about 15 (when Ballantine first put them out in paperback); my tattered old copies of Eddison and Howard are from around then, too; that's about the best I can do. I still have those cheap battered childhood novels, and I read them again every once in a while. Some of the earliest, that I loved, I can still slip into with the same drugged wonder I had the first time around, although there are a few new jolts. Rereading Cameron, as an adult, was a joy; L'Engle still absorbing; Bradbury very nostalgic, but a little sentimental; Heinlein, less fun. William Mayne is as haunting and wonderful as ever, maybe even more so now. William Tenn's stories still have that terrific feel to them, but their profound sexism makes them as hard to enjoy now as Disney's reissued "classics." I must have shrugged a lot of that off, as a younger reader, or consigned his ditsy women and horny men to bimbo-limbo. I will say that that old absorbing thrill, being lost in a good read of a new book, is very hard to find these days. Kathleen M. Friello (new list address) ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 12:43:45 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Joe Sutliff Sanders Subject: Re: Childhood Reading, Adult SF Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 09:43 AM 11/6/98 -0800, you wrote: >Did anybody else read "the grey king" series by Susan Cooper? I loved that >series; I've always thought Wales was fascinating. > > -Sandy Sandy, Those books were brilliant! We just found them at the local library, and I begged my wife to trust me enough to read them. She loved them, too. . .perhaps the first time my taste has not led someone astray. . . . Joe ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 09:22:56 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: Re: BDG Snow Queen & incest MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I wrote: > Moon and Sparks are first cousins, which may or may not be incest > depending on who you talk to Obviously, this is wrong. I should have written, "As far as they know, Moon and Sparks are first cousins." -- Janice E. Dawley ............. Burlington, VT http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/jedhome.htm Listening to: R.E.M. -- Up "Reality is nothing but a collective hunch." - Lily Tomlin ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 14:42:34 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Nina M. Osier" Subject: Re: OT: 'Balls' ( gendered compliments ) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Yes, I realize it's often intended most sincerely as a genuine compliment. Just as in my office, several men who insist on calling women "girls" really do not understand why any female would take offense! However, my point was that it's a shame that in order to be complimented for her effectiveness as a leader a woman must be "credited" with anatomy she doesn't possess. Sort of like the annoyance I've felt when on Mother's Day, it's been assumed that I either have children or wish I did because I'm an adult female. I should not have to compare myself to a man anatomically to be strong, effective, etc.; I should not have to measure my worth as a female in terms of offspring produced. There, now I've added another OT thread (sigh). And I do understand why you would accept such a compliment graciously when it was graciously intended. We live in this world, not the ones we and our favorite writers imagine. Nina donna simone wrote: > To Anthea, Nina and Robin 's comments, > > To offer an alternate view.....I spent 10 years as an officer in the US > Navy. Frequently, I was the only female officer the sailors had (or > would ever) experienced. In those years, the highest compliment I was > paid by the predominantly male sailors was "LT, you got balls". On those > occasions, it was clear to me always that I was being honored not > ridiculed. To my understanding from context, "having balls" was > vernacular for: recognition of courage, strength against odds, > bullheadedness with "management politics", and most importantly > "standing up for my troops". To this day, my chest puffs out when I hear > it. Those sailors convinced me it was a noble "appendage" to possess. > > graciously offered, > donna > donnaneely@earthlink.net ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 20:14:21 +0000 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Mike Stanton Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites Comments: cc: ajhs@usa.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On 6 Nov 98, at 8:09, Bertina Miller wrote: > A man who understands the nature of romance! Thanks Mike! A fine compliment! Thank you Bettina. Seriously though I think that _ordinary_ men are much more "romantic" that they're generally given credit for ... both in their everyday life and in their reading tastes. If one looks at the best-selling mainstream sf/f works on Amazon.com and in bookshops, an astonishingly high proportion are romantic in marked degree. I've recommended CJ Cherryl who's surely one of the most romantic of all feminist sf/f writers to many men personally and on mailing lists. Virtually without exception those men who tried her work enjoyed it. Of course men almost never use the term "romance" amongst themselves but when one examines the books they read, almost all contain strongly romantic (not necessarily explicitly sexual) elements... I think where confusion lies is in the difference between "romance" and "sentimentality" ... a distinction some men but many more women have difficulty making. It's an important distinction make because while "romance" adds flavour to an affair, "sentimentality" merely makes a relationship cloying. Mike Stanton (m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk) ____________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 14:24:26 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Marina Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites In-Reply-To: <199811061000.EAA40432@piglet.cc.uic.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Fri, 6 Nov 1998, Santanico wrote: > >I still like how he writes. I just don't like the fact that women are > >completely absent from his stories. I'd like to see a four-volume story > >with only four male characters whose main activity is to inspire the > >numerous women heros for their heroic actions while themselves safely > >stuffed into various castles. > > But isn't that just as bad? Yup, it sure is. Actually, I meant this example as an illustration of the fact that such artificially one-sided story would look kind of ridiculous. So I pretty much agree with you :). Concerning Tolkien's writing, I guess the core of my negative feelings towards him is resentment. He knows how to tell a captivating story, and some parts of the Lord of The Rings are breathtakingly beautiful. At the same time, his fascinating world, in my opinion, does not have hardly any place for women. Have you ever met a guy who is good-looking, intelligent, strong-minded, funny, and just generally a very interesting person, except that he does not consider women human beings? Someone who is brilliant and a good friend but only towards other men, while women to him are only sex objects, so no matter how much you might have in common with him, you know that you cannot even be his friend because to him, you are not a person because you are a woman or belong to a different race? I run across guys like that all the time. People who would have got along with me just fine if only I was not a female. Because seeing a personality like mine in a female is just not something they are comfortable with. This is how I fell about Tolkien's world. It might be glorious and fascinating, but there would be no place for me there other than sitting in some castle waiting till someone else would save the world. Provided, of course that I'm born to some royal family first. I just cannot accept that. Whatever are the great qualities of Tolkien's books, they are like a world-known men-only club. It might have great traditions, history, spirit of brotherhood, or a place for discussion of the most progressive views. But if you are a woman, you can only peek through the window. Talking about times, our time is not particularly equal either -- no woman President, at least in US, no equal pay, scarce repressentation in power structures, raging sexual harassment at work place, no decent child care for working mothers. But we would not want to write mysogyninstic novels like the Gor series because of that, would we? Marina ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 15:02:36 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Marina Subject: Re: Tolkien--sexist?(was:Re-reading Childhood Favorites) In-Reply-To: <3.0.32.19981106091542.0091e320@pop.uky.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Joe, thank you for the extensive and thorough reply. However... > However, I would encourage you to soften your reaction > to the text long enough to give an honest and optimistic consideration of > your peers' ideas on the subject. Then go back to your own view if you want. Well, however -- at least I did not call anyone's opinion "broadly venomous" and whoever is going to lecture me on good manners have to learn to watch his language first. Besides, it would be a good idea to be a little less patronizing about other people's reaction to ideas of the peers who are very far from optimistic, to put it nice. Tolkien's relation to his wife -- good, bad, or any other -- is absolutely irrelevant to his being sexist. For one, because most women-hating men, including serial rapists and murderers, often have at least one woman they adore; and even those who use their political power to exclude women from all areas of public life as much as possible -- like the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan -- consider it their way of protecting women "because they care so much about them". Secondly, even if a man does not express mysogynistic attitudes in his everyday actions, this does not mean he cannot glamorize them in his writing. That person who writes the Gor novels, and others like that -- they are mostly not convicted rapists on the quest to "water the flowers against their will to make them feel more like flowers", are they? The only have the balls to fantasize about that, which is usually the case with that kind of men in general. And their lifestyle or highly romantic marriages do not make their books any less women-hating. It's a fact that I did not read any other of Tolkien's books -- nor do I want to. And my feelings about his gender prejudices are based solely on The Lord of The Rings. Which was was what I was talking about anyway. If he has books with more room for women -- that's great, but it does not change the attitude of _this book_. To be honest, I have heard before of the existance Tolkien fans that relate to his writing the way Christian fundamentalists feel about the Bible -- as the ultimate prefection above any critical approach. But this is the first time I can actually see that. Well, I guess live and learn. Marina http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society is selling at the time." Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 13:09:43 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Pamela Bedore Subject: Re: P.D.James In-Reply-To: <199811021414.PAA27927@cserv.usf.uni-kassel.de> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 2 Nov 1998, Petra Mayerhofer wrote: (about *Children of Men*) > I found the first part of the book, i.e. when the initial situation > is described, very compelling. But I did not like the rest of the > book, the plot was very weak compared to the original idea of the > book. One possibility could have been to describe how the society > handles the 'die-out', psychologically and practically. It was done a > bit, but in a careless way. > I agree. I was really excited by the beginning of the novel, which hinted at all of those issues, but the second half was a big disappointment. I thought it was almost "gutless" to have the new birth at the end. Leona Gom's *The Y Chromosome* has a nice segment - if my memory serves - on how people deal with potential die-out. Cheers, pamela bedore ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 16:16:39 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Demetria M. Shew" Subject: Re: gendered compliments (sex organs) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 11/5/98 5:13:33 PM Pacific Standard Time, sitehund@KDN0.ATTNET.OR.JP writes: << a lead *mare* in each herd. >> The mare stays with the herd her whole life, the males are transient. This is one way that the behavior of the species insures diversity/ Madrone ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 16:18:50 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Demetria M. Shew" Subject: Re: OT: 'Balls' ( gendered compliments ) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 11/5/98 5:19:38 PM Pacific Standard Time, donnaneely@EARTHLINK.NET writes: << Those sailors convinced me it was a noble "appendage" to possess. >> The only way things change is if we change them. Donna, you have Ovaries! Madrone ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 15:21:37 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Marina Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites In-Reply-To: <802566B4.006031C6.00@osiris.postmaster.co.uk> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Well, it is very interesting to know that Tolkien's book had something to do with the USSR. I certainly have not noticed anything like that. Nor anything related to Baltic states to that matter. Your statement about my alleged "inability" to appreciate fine Western literature because of my national origin is racist and based on ethnic prejudice. Concerning sexism, I'm pretty sure you love you mother and wife as well (or so you believe) but the fact that you do not respect women nor their opinions, nor have the intelligence (or balls for that matter) to argue with them without resigning to ethnicity-based insults is the best proof to my point possible. Men like you just cannot stand being disagreed with. That's so much more difficult than buying women flowers, carrying them over puddles, and otherwise treating them like an adored pet. Thanks God for the ethnic conflicts that can always explain one's "inferiority" due to their defects of their cultural upbringing, that's so much more convenient! One more note, mister -- I don't know what you've seen there in Moscow, but I've never lived there, nor in the Baltic states. You don't have a clue about my cultural background, so as the Hear in Alice in Wonderland used to say: "If you don't know, you should not say". Besides, the next time you use that approach to back your argument, why don't you just use Hitler. I'm sure he really liked the idea of the glorious fight of the "fair folk" against the evil culturally inferior dark tribes. Bite me Marina Nov 1998, Mike Stanton wrote: > On 6 Nov 98, at 2:00, Marina wrote: > > > First of all, I did not contextualize the guy in any way. > > [snip] If I found his presentation of women insulting, > > that's my opinion, and you are not going to change it, > > _especially_ by spitefull comments. > > My concern lay in your remarks on factual matters - not your opinions on > his presentation of women. I have no interest in changing your opinions - > on anything let alone Tolkien. > > I can well understand how someone from the former USSR (especially if of > Russian origin) would feel insulted by Tolkien and I sympathize. BUT for > the last week, I've been viewing the "benefits" of Soviet rule in the > Baltic States so I can also sympathize with Tolkien's point of view. > > As an example of my concern about "the facts".... > > > Second, his passionate love towards his wife does > > not prove his not being sexist... > > I never suggested he wasn't sexist - I simply corrected your extravagant > statement that he was "a complete woman-hater. Someone who did not want > [women] in his life in any form, not even as mothers, lovers, or > baby-machines". Let me spell it out: his affection for his mother until her > death in 1904 was undoubted; you have agreed that he had a passionate love > for his wife; and he had four children (the first born in 1917 and the last > in 1929 when his wife was 40). Every part of your statement was wrong. > > Your views on "love and romance", based as they are on your own culture, > education, experience and innate personality traits, are both perfectly > relevant to you personally and totally irrelevant to Tolkien's writings. > > > > Mike Stanton (m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk) > _______________________________________ > http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society is selling at the time." Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 16:08:28 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: NESchaadt Subject: OT: 'Balls'(gendered compliments) In-Reply-To: <90e88dcf.364367ba@aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Among my friends we say 'eggs' as in, "Oooooo! You so bold, you've got eggs!" NS >The only way things change is if we change them. Donna, you have Ovaries! > >Madrone ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 16:01:34 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Bonnie Bouman Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Wow, this week has become so exciting on email. Too exciting, let's calm down! From his email, Marina, I don't think he said something about your not appreciating Western literature because of national origin. It's certainly not racist, how would we have any idea what race you are? (Or ethnicity either.) I think he was making a careful, logical critique of your post, not a ethnically prejudiced unintelligent argument. And I don't think from a couple of emails from an anonymous person, that we can determine whether that person is truly a sexist or not. We might do better to critically examine people's messages and not at their personalities at large -- I'm sure most of us have never met each other.... I didn't really understand the USSR reference, but I think he meant that he visited there and thinks maybe some characters in LOTR were "Russianized?" not that anyone in particular was from there.... I suppose Tolken, comfy now in his double grave, would be glad that his works are inspiring such passionate discussion decades later. Bonnie On Fri, 6 Nov 1998, Marina wrote: > Well, it is very interesting to know that Tolkien's book had something to > do with the USSR. I certainly have not noticed anything like that. Nor > anything related to Baltic states to that matter. Your statement about my > alleged "inability" to appreciate fine Western literature because of > my national origin is racist and based on ethnic prejudice. > > Concerning sexism, I'm pretty sure you love you mother and wife as well > (or so you believe) but the fact that you do not respect women nor their > opinions, nor have the intelligence (or balls for that matter) to argue > with them without resigning to ethnicity-based insults is the best proof > to my point possible. Men like you just cannot stand being disagreed > with. That's so much more difficult than buying women flowers, carrying > them over puddles, and otherwise treating them like an adored pet. > Thanks God for the ethnic conflicts that can always explain one's > "inferiority" due to their defects of their cultural upbringing, that's so > much more convenient! > > One more note, mister -- I don't know what you've seen there in Moscow, > but I've never lived there, nor in the Baltic states. You don't have a > clue about my cultural background, so as the Hear in Alice in Wonderland > used to say: "If you don't know, you should not say". Besides, the next > time you use that approach to back your argument, why don't you just use > Hitler. I'm sure he really liked the idea of the glorious fight of the > "fair folk" against the evil culturally inferior dark tribes. > > Bite me > > Marina > > Nov 1998, Mike Stanton wrote: > > > On 6 Nov 98, at 2:00, Marina wrote: > > > > > First of all, I did not contextualize the guy in any way. > > > [snip] If I found his presentation of women insulting, > > > that's my opinion, and you are not going to change it, > > > _especially_ by spitefull comments. > > > > My concern lay in your remarks on factual matters - not your opinions on > > his presentation of women. I have no interest in changing your opinions - > > on anything let alone Tolkien. > > > > I can well understand how someone from the former USSR (especially if of > > Russian origin) would feel insulted by Tolkien and I sympathize. BUT for > > the last week, I've been viewing the "benefits" of Soviet rule in the > > Baltic States so I can also sympathize with Tolkien's point of view. > > > > As an example of my concern about "the facts".... > > > > > Second, his passionate love towards his wife does > > > not prove his not being sexist... > > > > I never suggested he wasn't sexist - I simply corrected your extravagant > > statement that he was "a complete woman-hater. Someone who did not want > > [women] in his life in any form, not even as mothers, lovers, or > > baby-machines". Let me spell it out: his affection for his mother until her > > death in 1904 was undoubted; you have agreed that he had a passionate love > > for his wife; and he had four children (the first born in 1917 and the last > > in 1929 when his wife was 40). Every part of your statement was wrong. > > > > Your views on "love and romance", based as they are on your own culture, > > education, experience and innate personality traits, are both perfectly > > relevant to you personally and totally irrelevant to Tolkien's writings. > > > > > > > > Mike Stanton (m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk) > > _______________________________________ > > > > http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html > > "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society > is selling at the time." > Naomi Wolf > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 20:06:56 -0500 Reply-To: Lilith Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lilith Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit -----Original Message----- From: Michael Marc Levy To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Date: Friday, November 06, 1998 12:08 PM Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] Re-reading Childhood Favorites >On Fri, 6 Nov 1998, Caroline Heske wrote: > >> Marina wrote: Ursula Le Guin did not start writing in 1998, >> >either. She did not write sexist stuff because of the bad old times, >> did >> >she? >> >> Actually, curiously, when I was younger I found the Earthsea trilogy - >> particularly no. 1 and 3 very difficult because it seemed so >> male-oriented. Even Tenar had to have a man come in and tell her she >> was up shit creek, change her name, wipe out her civilisation, and >> basically destroy her life. I remember sitting and wondering for ages >> (at about 10 or 11) how can a woman write stuff that seems so sexist? >> > >LeGuin herself has commented on what she now sees as the sexism in her >own early writing, confessing that when she wrote some of her earlier >fiction she was still caught up in the traditional view of the male as active >hero and the female as passive heroine. The fourth book of Earthsea, >Tehanu, is in part a specific attempt to revision that universe in more >consciously feminist terms. Much of her recent short fiction can also be >seen in these terms as well. > >Michael Levy > That may be why "Tehanu" is not as good a book as the first three Earthsea novels. At least to me when I read it, the neo-feminist veneer was a distraction, not an enhancement. I for one was sort of disappointed that Tenar became a placid farmer's wife and mother - I thought Le Guin would have at least made her a scholar of some sort, after the adventure she had been through in her youth. Usually Le Guin's portrayal of so-called "salt-of-the-earth" people (farmers, peasants, fisherfolk, and so on) have not rang false as they did in "Tehanu." I just did not believe that the Tenar who escaped her confinement in her country and gave up her position of power to run off into an unknown land with a strange wizard would have been content in the life of a farmer's wife. It made me wonder if Le Guin has not turned into one of those academicians who romanticizes the "simple life of the countryfolk," while knowing nothing about how it _really_ is. I did enjoy the book in part despite my disappointment, but it is not one of her best works. Lilith ******************************************** ************Hell's Half Acre************** * http://www.concentric.net/~Ligeia * ******************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 20:21:27 -0500 Reply-To: Lilith Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lilith Subject: Re: Childhood Reading, Adult SF MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Ooh -- more more! I feel like running to the library (aw it's closed at this hour.) >John Christopher!! I remember those stories! I read everything I could >find of his on the library shelf. I saw the tripod series recently at >Powell's; I had almost completely forgotten their existence until then. I read them too -- but I never grew to be a big fan. His stories were too downbeat for me at that age I guess... > >Did anybody else read "the grey king" series by Susan Cooper? I loved that >series; I've always thought Wales was fascinating. This is one of the series I reread over and over -- and I would wait breathlessly for the next book in the series to be published (this is how I got my fledgelings skills at research -- I learned to look up newly-published books in that big red book they used to keep in the library, and request them, and stuff like that.) I thought the last book in the series was kind of a letdown thoguh, like she had run out of ideas... I loved L'Engle's "Wrinkle in Time" and the second one whose name I forget, and a few other books featuring the descendants of the children in the "Time" books - I especially liked the way Meg's mother was portrayed as a dedicated scientist yet also a wonderful mother, instead of that "careers interfere with raising kids" nonsense (though it helped that her lab was in the house I guess!). But the later books she has come out with - one involving time travel to an Edenic sort of prehistoric world, and some absurd business about a maniacal dictator threatening to blow up the world, just did not work for me. Again, the Christian subtext in the book was only clumsily concealed in the plot. I guess what I don't like are books whose characters and plot are sacrificed for any kind of idea the author wants to put across, no matter how noble or important. I would even rather read a total piece of fluff written by a male chauvinist pig than endure a "Soviet realist" type of polemic badly disguised as a work of fiction, with straw men (and women) in place of characters one can care about. Well, except for those Gor books, those are just gross...... Lilith ******************************************** ************Hell's Half Acre************** * http://www.concentric.net/~Ligeia * ******************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 20:24:10 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Demetria M. Shew" Subject: Re: OT: 'Balls'(gendered compliments) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 11/6/98 2:10:45 PM Pacific Standard Time, nschaadt@WAYMARK.NET writes: << , "Oooooo! You so bold, you've got eggs!" NS >> I LOVE IT!!! Madrone ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1998 13:29:02 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Caroline Heske Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain >From: Jane Franklin Now has anybody noticed how classist he is? Yes, actually. In fact, an incredible number of fantasy/scifi books are - where peasants are chiefly used in fodder for these great battles between good and evil that won't make a damn difference in their lives, anyway. A feudal structure is usually set up as glorious, and the problems with it are less than glossed over. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1998 13:34:23 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Caroline Heske Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Anthea wrote: >The suggestion that Tolkien's remarks about dwarves, orcs, trolls and so on >were racist is beyond belief. These were not only non- human, but they were >Tolkien's adaptions of beings which had existed in European folklore for many >hundreds of years. The comments he makes about their language reflects his >view of them as non-human, not that he modelled them after "orientals". I don't think it's so much that he modelled orcs after orientals, but that he associated one fear with the other. As you correctly pointe out, he's steeped in the values of his time, but why is there no attempt to look at orcs and goblins as misguided or even just different... I know there's that scene where Sam & Frodo overhear them on the road, but although they're given some individuality, there is no potential for communication. Why are there *no* orcs that defect to the 'good' side? It's something to think about. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1998 13:37:32 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Caroline Heske Subject: Re: Childhood Reading, Adult SF MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain >From: "Candioglos, Sandy" >Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] Childhood Reading, Adult SF >To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU >Did anybody else read "the grey king" series by Susan Cooper? I loved that >series; I've always thought Wales was fascinating. Yes, and it prompted me to read the Sharon Penman's trilogy about Wales takeover by England... Susan Cooper, and Alan Garner I thought were both excellent children's fantasy writers. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1998 13:47:17 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Caroline Heske Subject: Sheri S. Tepper MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain I subscribed to this list cause I really want to have a discussion of Sheri S. Tepper's work, but there seem to be no websites, and no-one I know personally has read her stuff. I find her work a mixed bag - when she writes well, it's brilliant - but some of her works just fall flat, grating the same ideas over and over. Does anyone know anything about her personally? And would anyone else agree with me that Sideshow is one of the best books ever written? ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 21:55:12 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Phoebe Wray Subject: Re: Sheri S. Tepper Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Think we have from time to time had some discussion. Gate to Woman's Country, for instance, which I thought was terrific. Haven't read anything else, but there ae a couple in the to be read mountain. best wishes phoebe ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 22:11:01 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites In-Reply-To: <19981107022902.18817.qmail@hotmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Jane Franklin wrote re: Tolkien > Now has anybody noticed how classist he is? And in reply, Caroline Heske wrote: >Yes, actually. In fact, an incredible number of fantasy/scifi books are >- where peasants are chiefly used in fodder for these great battles >between good and evil that won't make a damn difference in their lives, >anyway. A feudal structure is usually set up as glorious, and the >problems with it are less than glossed over. Recently I reread the Westmark trilogy by Lloyd Alexander (more commonly remembered for his Prydain Chronicles) and was enormously impressed by his critique of monarchy. Has anyone else read these books? I remember them making quite an impression on me when I was 12-13 years old, chiefly due to the grim depictions of wartime violence. Upon rereading I was quite taken with the representation of Mickle, the Beggar Queen. She's obviously competent -- and particularly engaging while playing street punk. :) I would recommend them to anyone. The titles are *Westmark*, *The Kestrel* and *The Beggar Queen*. ----- Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/jedhome.htm Listening to: R.E.M. -- Up "...the public and the private worlds are inseparably connected; the tyrannies and servilities of the one are the tyrannies and servilities of the other." Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1998 07:25:53 MET Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Anthea Hartley Stanton Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On 7 Nov 98, at 13:34, Caroline Heske wrote: > I don't think it's so much that he modelled orcs after orientals, but that > he associated one fear with the other. As you correctly pointe out, he's > steeped in the values of his time, but why is there no attempt to look at > orcs and goblins as misguided or even just different... I know there's > that scene where Sam & Frodo overhear them on the road, but although > they're given some individuality, there is no potential for communication. > Why are there *no* orcs that defect to the 'good' side? It's something to > think about. We're perhaps expecting a great deal of "cultural sensitivity" or "relativism" at a time when people tended to see things in black and white. _Lord of the Rings_ took 16 years to write and those 16 years included the rise of the Nazis, the Spanish Civil War, World War II, the Holocaust, Stalin's massacres and the eclipse of great European cultures as they were drawn into the darkness behind the Iron Curtain. Part of Tolkien's appeal to the young people of the 60s/70s, the "Alternative culture" if you will, was his ebullient environmentalism. He, as with so many of his kind like my grandfather, had a profound respect for nature and for the countryside. Even his dwarves respected nature as they "tend[ed] these glades of flowering stone". As you read his descriptions of Saruman's realm, for example, his hatred of uncontrolled industrialization is starkly evident and, even as he wrote, parts of his beloved European cultural heartland were being destroyed in just the same way at the behest of invaders *from the east*. So Tolkien had much to hate. The orcs represented the forces of such great evil that Tolkien could probably no more think of "communication" between Men and his orcs/trolls that you or I could think of establishing bonds with Nazi death camp guards, Stalin's NKVD or the South American death squads. AJ Anthea Hartley Stanton (ajhs@usa.net) ____________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1998 05:29:33 MET Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Anthea Hartley Stanton Subject: Democracies in sf/f Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On 7 Nov 98, at 13:29, Caroline Heske wrote: > Yes, actually. In fact, an incredible number of fantasy/scifi books are - > where peasants are chiefly used in fodder for these great battles between > good and evil that won't make a damn difference in their lives, anyway. A > feudal structure is usually set up as glorious, and the problems with it > are less than glossed over. Such an incredible number in fact that I have been very hard put to think of more than a very few books in which the "revolution" or whatever resulted or was planned to end in a democratic government. The best that seems to happen is that a "mad tyrant" is replaced by a benevolent despot, or an aristocratic / mercantile oligarchy. As for democracies based on our present patterns: I can think of only one, Isaac Asimov's _The stars like dust_; in this the "ancient document" providing the spark behind the rebels is the US constitution. Continuing this train of thought: have you noticed how the battle between "nature" and "nurture" in sf/f has definitely been won by the "nature" side? The overwhelming majority of books emphasise family ties, bloodlines, descent from the great, and the concentration of desirable leadership qualities by leading familial clans. Even if the heroine comes from the spaceport slums of Tatooine, it usually turns out that she's really a direct offspring (as a tiny tattoo on her bottom shows) of Lady Syzyrgy, the greatest Talent of the entire universe! AJ Anthea Hartley Stanton (ajhs@usa.net) _____________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1998 22:31:20 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jessie Stickgold-Sarah Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 06 Nov 1998 22:11:01 EST." <3.0.1.32.19981106221101.00740a04@together.net> I recently read _The Deed of Paksenarrion_ (formerly published as _Sheepfarmer's Daughter_ and _Oath of Gold_ and something else) by Elizabeth Moon. It has an extensive exploration of this issue. There's a whole warrior order founded by a man who led an army of peasants in revolt against some overlord. This semi-religious order dedicates itself to fighting on the side of the oppressed and under-represented. Possibly my favorite part is that towards the end it comes to question the appropriateness of this whole order, in that its members are so militarily supreme that they can't actually imagine what it's like to be an oppressed peasant. Towards the end it does get quite religious, with what seemed to me to be echoes of Christianity, but I don't know how much that was meant and how much was just the syntax used. Speaking of Christianity in F&SF--when I read the Narnia books, I had zero exposure to Christian theology, but I'd read up on all the "old pagan traditions", and been in a couple of theatrical performances that drew heavily on the idea of "sacrificing" the personified harvest in the fall, only to have it rise again in the spring. It seemed obvious to me that that was what was happening with Aslan. Doesn't make the intent any less Christian, but it didn't do much to me when I was ten or eight or whatever. jessie ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1998 07:32:15 MET Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Anthea Hartley Stanton Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On 6 Nov 98, at 15:21, Marina wrote: > Well, it is very interesting to know that Tolkien's book had something to > do with the USSR. I certainly have not noticed anything like that. Nor > anything related to Baltic states to that matter. Your statement about my > alleged "inability" to appreciate fine Western literature because of my > national origin is racist and based on ethnic prejudice. Marina It's wrong to become embroiled in a discussion on subjects with which and with whom one is emotionally involved, but I can'r let this pass. Tolkien's "Land of the shadow" is believed by many of Tolkien's readers (including Michael and I) to have been based on the monstrous tyranny of the USSR which held much of Tolkien's beloved European culture in abject, shabby thrall when he completed _Lord of the Rings_. Some readers (but not us) have even taken his "orcs", "trolls" and Men in the service of the Shadow to represent the Soviet armies, their civilian counterparts and the pro-Soviet collaborators who actually implemented the repression. Based on this, Michael [Stanton]'s comment " someone from the former USSR ...would feel insulted by Tolkien" reflected a fear that you might have unfairly been a victim of this kind of thinking. The comment about the "Baltic republics" showed the other side of the coin; since our extended visit through the former Soviet empire, we find it difficult not to sympathize with *but do not condone* those who view the Soviets, military and civilian, as "orcs" and trolls". This last week in particular, we have both been greatly affected by the ecological and human tragedies that the USSR - out of stupidity, greed and malice - deliberately inflicted on the Baltic States. Both military and civilian personnel have destroyed much of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania's hope for the future. Many Baltic Republics citizens - rightly or wrongly - see the blame resting squarely on those ethnic Russians brought into the Baltics to occupy privileged positions which they are desperately trying to hang on to. I'm not sure how you arrive at your blanket condemnation of someone you've never met, just as I don't understand where you get most of the comments you make. Michael said nothing derogatory about you or your culture; he just corrected factual errors. He was unaware of your origin and problems when he wrote his first note. AJ Anthea Hartley Stanton (ajhs@usa.net) ___________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1998 01:56:19 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Anne Vespry Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19981106221101.00740a04@together.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Fri, 6 Nov 1998, Janice E. Dawley wrote: > Jane Franklin wrote re: Tolkien > > Now has anybody noticed how classist he is? > > And in reply, Caroline Heske wrote: > >Yes, actually. In fact, an incredible number of fantasy/scifi books are > >- where peasants are chiefly used in fodder for these great battles > >between good and evil that won't make a damn difference in their lives, > >anyway. > > Recently I reread the Westmark trilogy by Lloyd Alexander (more commonly > remembered for his Prydain Chronicles) and was enormously impressed by his > critique of monarchy. Wow... I was just about to leap in with the Prydain Chronicles as offering books that *do* look at things from the peasant point of view. Taran's education both as assistant pig keeper and as wandering labourer help him grow from being focused on war as glory to war as bloody awful thing that tramples people's fields and ruins their lives. It's even got strong female characters . Anne Anne Vespry ******* http://www.vex.net/~maverick After Stonewall Bookshop ***** never forget avespry(at) *** only dead fish ollisdotuottawadotca * swim WITH the stream ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1998 03:21:50 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: ME Hunter Subject: Catching up In-Reply-To: <19981107042933.21152.qmail@www0s.netaddress.usa.net> (message from Anthea Hartley Stanton on Sat, 7 Nov 1998 05:29:33 MET) Comments on a few different threads here: Oddly enough, I've usually been struck by how common it is to show feudal systems as completely horrible. I feel as though our culture has largely forgotten that it was a system that developed out of the previous ones and was largely successful for a long time before it began the long road of change toward representative democracy, fascism and dictatorship that we have today, for the most part. Kind of like arranged marriages...of course there are horrible experiences under any system and ways a system can be more satisfying on an individual level, but it's a process and either condemning or glorifying a past system is awfully simplistic. I think this is a trap that sf/f often falls into as a consequence of being set in imaginary worlds. When writing mainstream fiction, the background can be assumed and complexities of individual situations can be examined in rich context. But in order to do the same thing in sf/f, the background has to be drawn in and while some pieces of it may be finely sketched, many of the elements of a world tend to get drawn with broad strokes. I think it is a sign of considerable talent to use these swaths of context with enough dexterity to give readers a real impression of that world. To the person who enjoyed _Deed of Paksennarion_, you should be aware that there's a sequel trilogy that deals with Gird's time and his revolution. I didn't enjoy it as much, frankly, and some of that may have to do with the replacement of the strong female protagonist with males. There are still some good female characters, but the story isn't about them. As far as early influences...I often think of the Earthsea Trilogy as the first sf I read, at age 8 (thanks Anne!), but really I had already read Madeleine L'Engle's _Wrinkle in Time_ and, I think, the Narnia books. I join the crowd who didn't get the Christian allegory until i was told about it much later. (BTW, Edmund's companion in the last book is Jill.) Other early works I read were the John Christopher books, Anne McCaffrey, Zenna Henderson, MZB, Lloyd Alexander. I didn't read the classic male canon (Heinlein, Asimov, Pohl, Niven etc.) until I was in college, so my take on sf/f has always been tilted toward the feminist. I was always allowed to read whatever I liked and I had the luxury of older sisters with whom to discuss anything I wanted. I'm hoping to be more involved with my kids' reading than my parents generally were. And, finally, regarding Sherri Tepper...I think she's a very good storyteller and writes very engagingly. I have, however, grown quite tired of the aliens-secretly-eating-humans plot and I occasionally feel really soiled by the anti-male politics she draws me into. I mean, sure, as I'm reading I'm thinking "Yeah! Get rid of the men!" but when I'm done I think "How would I respond to a book that suggested eliminating women from human society, or at least breeding out of women the traits that are inconvenient and incomprehensible to men?" I enjoyed _Family Tree_, largely because it was mostly free of these politics, replacing them with environmentalism, but I didn't find any of her characters as engaging as Marjorie Westriding or Sam. And I think that's more than enough from me for one night :) E. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1998 21:35:54 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Caroline Heske Subject: Re: Catching up MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain ME Hunter wrote: >condemning or glorifying a past system is awfully simplistic. I think this>is a trap that sf/f often falls into as a consequence of being set in>imaginary worlds. When writing mainstream fiction, the background can be>assumed and complexities of individual situations can be examined in rich>context. But in order to do the same thing in sf/f, the background has to be>drawn in and while some pieces of it may be finely sketched, many of the>elements of a world tend to get drawn with broad strokes. I think it is a>sign of considerable talent to use these swaths of context with enough>dexterity to give readers a real impression of that world. sf/f does fall into this trap often, but I think it's less a matter of the 'talent' of the author than their patience. A good historical fiction writer makes their world authentic by researching the details: what customs were prevalent, what attitudes, which people, what did they wear, what was the architectural style... A sf/f writer has both and easier and more difficult task - they don't have to research these things, and no-one will pick them up if they're details aren't 'right', but at the same time they have to spend the time making all these details up. It takes no genius to make up these details, but it takes patience to keep track of them all, explore every area etc... I've been writing a book for 7 yrs now, and my world has only just begun to flesh out enough for me to get that wonderful sf/f feeling that it exists without my help. And it's only because of hours upon hours of thought, of taking notes, of watching the world around me and twisting it slightly with my imagination... As someone once said - no matter how fantastic your world is, having rivers that run *uphill* is simply a mark of laziness. >And, finally, regarding Sherri Tepper...I think she's a very good >storyteller and writes very engagingly. I have, however, grown quite tired >of the aliens-secretly-eating-humans plot Perhaps we've read different books. My overwhelming impression of Tepper was that she was looking at the faults in human nature - I've only read Grass, Beauty, Raising the Stones, and Sideshow, and they're problems are always caused by humans - human greed, human ignorance, human selfishness... >and I occasionally feel really soiled by the anti-male politics she draws me into. Yes. I don't like the "let's just blame the men" philosophy that was particularly obvious in Grass. Mostly because I feel that feminist problems are far more complex, and all she's doing is giving fuel to anti-feminist critics. Yet at the same time, I get the feeling that there's a lot of personal pain driving the writing... That problems with men that she's had personally are reflected in the books. It's just an impression... but there are some moments with her characters such as Marjorie that have such a ring of truth that I think it might be Tepper herself. I wish I knew more about her life. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1998 08:08:54 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Phoebe Wray Subject: Re: Democracies in sf/f Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 11/7/98 6:28:30 AM, AJ wrote: <> An interesting observation. Hadn't thought of it but, at least in my reading, I concur. Not surprising in books with strong female characters. I've been an environmental activist for over 25 years, and have often noticed that most (not all, but most) local environmental movements (clean up the river, save the Tule Elk, find an appropriate place for the landfill, expand the park) start in someone's kitchen, so to speak. Women have been the sparks of such stuff for decades. <> This is a mirror of our times, too, isn't it? And probably of the generic *human nature*. Somebody speaks up, organizes, leads. (I'm guilty of the familial thing in the novel I'm working on.) When people organize into groups, whether that is a club or a village, there are a few who stand up and speak. I see that happen here in small-town Massachusetts at our town meetings -- who gets up to ask the questions or debate the tax increase? A double-handful of people who have assumed that job, and the non-speakers allow the leadership. If they (the non-speakers) don't agree, some of them will stand up and become speakers, and thereby they become "leaders" as well. Curious thread. Interesting to think about. Thanks, AJ. best phoebe ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1998 08:36:03 -0500 Reply-To: Lilith Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lilith Subject: Re: rereading childhood favorites MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Just a brief note here regarding "classicist" elements in Tolkien and the perception of Orcs as being some sort of stand-in for Orientals or Russians: What is more likely than a simplistic reading of the text as "he just grafted his prejudices onto these characters" is that the forces of "evil" and "good" were actually meant to represent the dualistic side of human nature, at least as it is preceived in some philosophies. In fact (I think in the foreword to teh Silmarrillion, I can't remember) the author is said to have set up the origins of the Orcs as being ancient Elves who were "twisted" by the original Dark Lord, Morgoth -- who is Tolkien's rewriting of Lucifer. (The Christian underpinnings of the Middle-Earth mythos is much more blatantly obvious in the Silmarrillion which is why it's not a very satifying read.) He (Tolkien) is supposed to have set up his world like this: against Elves, Orcs, Men, the other evil men (I think) and then each main protagonist had their opposite number in the forces of evil. Tolkien's anti-industrialism was obvious of course - which (as someone else wrote_ is why so many "flower children" found the book popular -- not because they secretly yearned to return to the time of kings and peasants! I think that Mary Gentle wrote a book or story called "Grunts" which was supposed to be written from the Orcs' point of view - I've never read it, only heard about it. Lilith ******************************************** ************Hell's Half Acre************** * http://www.concentric.net/~Ligeia * ******************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1998 05:38:36 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: aileen familara Organization: MailCity (http://www.mailcity.lycos.com:80) Subject: children's books Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I would like to ask some very general questions about how we have all grown up appreciating fiction from what we have read (or have been given to read) as children. First, how many of us had a choice in the reading material? Did our parents give us books? What kind of access to libraries did each of us have? I live in the Philippines, and as a child and an adolescent, I have always had difficulty finding books within the SF and F vein. Mythology, particularly Western mythology, was considered both fantasy and children's reading in the Philippine context. Next, as adults, how does one go about introducing books to a child or young adult? Of course the easiest way is to lend a book that one particularly liked and to recommend that. But I guess reading has always been an individual discovery, one can only suggest so much to a child. With my sixteen-year old sister, I would let her 'graze' through my books, let her pick one and read it. The discussions we have afterwards are more fruitful than if I had just told her to read only some kinds of work and not others. Another question I would like to ask everybody on this list is whether the books that we have cherished as children and deplored as adults will not be worth recommending to children anymore? The fact that they should, at a young age, be able to make choices for themselves should go towards their education more than just steering them towards a certain views, laudable as these views may be. Aileen Familara Get your FREE E-mail at http://mailcity.lycos.com Get your PERSONALIZED START PAGE at http://personal.lycos.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1998 08:38:41 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: donna simone Subject: OT: Mike & Marina (was Re-reading Childhood Favorites) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To Mike and Marina (and now Anthea?) >It's wrong to become embroiled in a discussion on subjects with which and with >whom one is emotionally involved, but I can'r let this pass.> What is more wrong is to force the entire list to observe what has clearly become a personal debate/argument between you all. Perhaps it could be taken off list if you must persist. donna ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1998 09:15:27 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Candice Bradley and Daniel Byrne Subject: Re: Sheri S. Tepper MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I'm using Gate to Women's Country in my Population and Culture course. They are reading it next week. I've told them they can't discuss it until Friday. They are burning to discuss it. Candice ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1998 10:27:44 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: John Bertland Subject: Re: Democracies in sf/f In-Reply-To: <19981107042933.21152.qmail@www0s.netaddress.usa.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sat, 7 Nov 1998, Anthea Hartley Stanton wrote: > Continuing this train of thought: have you noticed how the battle between > "nature" and "nurture" in sf/f has definitely been won by the "nature" side? > The overwhelming majority of books emphasise family ties, bloodlines, descent > from the great, and the concentration of desirable leadership qualities by > leading familial clans. Even if the heroine comes from the spaceport slums of > Tatooine, it usually turns out that she's really a direct offspring (as a tiny > tattoo on her bottom shows) of Lady Syzyrgy, the greatest Talent of the entire > universe! > Interesting thought, but I disagree. I think this conclusion holds for fantasy much better than it does for science fiction. In sf much of the time you never even hear about the characters' families, something for which it is often criticized. Then again I consciously try to avoid those stories where some young lad turns out to be the son/brother/clone/whatever of the deposed king/emperor and then goes on for three long books to claim his birthright, so my view might be a bit skewed. It does certainly show up in the older space operas and some of the new ones (thus Star Wars), but in sf generally it seems to me that nurture has been winning out over nature for the past few decades. Not that it is as simple as all that - I'm really just referring to the whole "born to a great destiny" idea. Some sf deals with the question more subtlety and more directly with very satisfying results such as C.J. Cherryh's Cyteen. And nowadays so much sf deals with genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and speculative neuroscience which can obliterate the nature/nurture divide itself. -John Bertland ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1998 16:59:12 +0000 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Mike Stanton Subject: Re: rereading childhood favorites Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On 7 Nov 98, at 8:36, Lilith wrote: > Just a brief note here regarding "classicist" elements in > Tolkien and the perception of Orcs as being some sort of > stand-in for Orientals or Russians: You've misunderstood, I think, everybody's intentions. I don't think that anyone said anything or implied anthing about stand-ins, simply that Tolkien's Land of Shadow was *based* on particular societies (perhaps *modelled* is better). No one (as far as I remember) even hinted that Tolkien's philosophy was that simplistic. Who would in view of the wealth of publications on Tolkien and his own voluminous notes? > as "he just grafted his prejudices onto these characters" > is that the forces of "evil" and "good" were actually > meant to represent the dualistic side of human > nature, at least as it is preceived in some philosophies. The particular philosophy you appear to be thinking of would be Manichaeanism. The Manichaeans, of course, regarded Good and Evil as separate principles each with creative powers and certainly one would understand from several comments especially by Treebeard in _Lord of the Rings_ (especially _The Two Towers_) that the "orcs" and "trolls" were *created* by Evil as the equivalents of "elves" and "Ents". This is a question that the Inklings (Tolkien's Oxford conversation group) debated intensively and the results are well-known to Tolkien buffs. Tolkien remained a devout Catholic all his life; his strong faith was partly responsible for the return of C. S. Lewis, one of his closest friends and an Inkling, to Christianity. Would he, could he possibly have accepted the dualistic nature of man in view of the Church's teaching on sin and redemption? For an answer I suggest you read St Augustine's _Confessions_. Further Tolkien and the other members of the Inklings (his Oxford conversation group) were adamant that Evil could NOT create, it could *only* corrupt. This is confirmed in (as you say) _the Silmarillion_ where it is said that Orcs were once avari (Dark Elves) captured by Morgoth. He stated this quite specifically in _Letter 153_, saying that Treebeard was wrong. Thus his view of Evil was Boethian because the "ability to create" is of course essential to the Manichaean view. Anyway, is it likely that a devout Catholic would have accepted a heresy so abominable to the Church that Pope Innocent III preached a Crusade to destroy it? > I think that Mary Gentle wrote a book or story called > "Grunts" which was supposed to be written from the > Orcs' point of view A good book with a striking sub-title "A fantasy with attitude" but the "orcs" in "Grunts!" bear as much resemblance to Tolkien's orcs as Einstein does to a chimp. They're violent but witty, articulate, almost urbane and have an underlying philosophical streak. For those of you who've read Piers Anthony's _Ogre, Ogre_, the orcs' character reminded me of Smash, the ogre in that book. Mike Stanton (m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk) ____________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1998 19:13:35 MET Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Anthea Hartley Stanton Subject: Re: Democracies in sf/f Comments: cc: m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On 7 Nov 98, at 10:27, John Bertland wrote: > Interesting thought, but I disagree. [snip] Some sf deals with > the question more subtlety and more directly with very satisfying > results such as C.J. Cherryh's Cyteen. You cite only one book - _Cyteen_ and that book, of course, is strongly "Family" oriented. If anyone who hasn't read it disagrees, I would suggest checking the excepts on the author's webpage. So it's very difficult to respond to your generalised comments because your statements are too vague. May I suggest that you examine the books cited on this list in the last few months and do a simple weighted calculation (if necessary on a random sampling)? A different approach would be to consider the work of the best-selling feminist sf authors - Bujold, McCaffrey, Tepper, Hambly, Moon, MZB and so on. Perhaps then you will arrive at the same _statistical_ conclusion that I did otherwise we can re-examine your points. > And nowadays so much sf deals with genetic engineering, > nanotechnology, and speculative neuroscience which can obliterate > the nature/nurture divide itself. I'm not sure what the relevance of these comments is since each one of the "techniques" (depending on how you define 'speculative neuroscience') has been used in a work of the type I mentioned. Or are you suggesting that the use of these techniques is incompatible with societies such as I describe? AJ Anthea Hartley Stanton (ajhs@usa.net) __________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1998 15:19:49 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: J Bocchino/Sarasota Cty Subject: Re: children's books In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Aileen wrote: "First, how many of us had a choice in the reading material? Did our parents give us books? What kind of access to libraries did each of us have? Interesting; my father and I were the only readers in my house. He would always take me to the library with him, drop me off in the children's room and head for the adult section. Hence, I was wonderfully free to browse and to select whatever I wished. I don't think my mother ever read much as a child or young woman, so she never paid any attention to what I read. The only downside was not having either of them ever recommend a book that they had especially enjoyed. Thank goodness for librarians! JB ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1998 16:51:41 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Glenda Alexander Subject: prejudice in literature Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit "...'Take what you can use and let the rest rot.' If ever there was an expression designed to protect the health of the spirit, this is it."--Alice Walker, from "In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens" This is how I have had to read most of the books I have ever read, not just sci fi. One reason I subscribe to this list is to find books that I can read without leaving so much to rot. Reading some authors is like loving your relatives in spite of their racism, sexism, etc., knowing that they're all you have and they're not all bad, but they're always going to make you suffer some. Here's to the health of our spirits! Glenda ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1998 18:56:25 -0500 Reply-To: Lilith Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lilith Subject: Re: OT - Tolkien and Manichaeism MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit **This is the last off-topic post on this I'll send to the list from now on -- everybody please use my regular email ligeia@concentric.net if you want to go further with it.** OK Mike -- you spelled out all the philosophies I didn't particularly care to because a) I figured everyone on the list who cared about this particular debate would already have heard of Manichaeism and all the rest and b) I am not particularly interested discussing in the finer points of Christian philosophies on this list. I know about the Inklings &c. -- I read a biography of Tolkien some years ago. And I've read his other stuff too not just the Middle-Earth stuff - though I'd like to get my hands on "The Monsters and the Critics" which I don't think I have read. Basically in your post you just spelled out things I had already said, for some reason -- and you seem to think I didn't understand that the "evil" side of the forces in LOTR were corrupted, not truly "created" -- though he is careful to spell this out in many passages in the book which I am not going to look up and quote here. And yes I know about Manichaeism being considered a heresy to Christians and so on, I did not accuse Tolkien of believing it as you seem to think I have done. Perhaps I was not clear in what I meant by dualism. It was late at night and I couldn't think of a better word to describe the forces of good and nature being arrayed against apparently equal-in-power (if not stronger) forces of corruption and destruction. It is more like "the hand that builds up can also destroy" dilemma that I have seen crop up a lot in Christian philosophical discussions that I have encountered here and there. Anyway I can't remember the exact word for this so I used "dualism" which for some reason made you think of Manichaeism, though surely there are other philosophies which have an either/or view of human nature/existence besides that one. I can certainly see why the thought of the powers of Evil being "creative" would be rejected by a Christian. This passage puzzles me: I said - > >> Just a brief note here regarding "classicist" elements in >> Tolkien and the perception of Orcs as being some sort of >> stand-in for Orientals or Russians: And you said - > >You've misunderstood, I think, everybody's intentions. I don't think that >anyone said anything or implied anthing about stand-ins, simply that >Tolkien's Land of Shadow was *based* on particular societies (perhaps >*modelled* is better). No one (as far as I remember) even hinted that >Tolkien's philosophy was that simplistic. Well hit me on the head with a hammer but I thought that I had read quite a few posts by various people saying just that -- and how different is "stand-in", the term I used, from "modelled on" or "based on"? Not enough to really matter, IMHO. And there were some people who basically accused Tolkien of being "racist and classist" because of this supposed "modelling"! >Who would in view of the wealth >of publications on Tolkien and his own voluminous notes? Not everyone who has commented on this seems aware of these notes or anyway to have read them. Even I have not read _all_ his Middle-Earth stuff that was published after his death. >Would he, could he possibly have >accepted the dualistic nature of man in view of the Church's teaching on >sin and redemption? For an answer I suggest you read St Augustine's >_Confessions_. > Mmmm, no thanks. I think I'll pass. I'll take your word for it. Lilith ******************************************** ************Hell's Half Acre************** *http://www.concentric.net/~Ligeia* ******************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1998 19:24:46 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Nina M. Osier" Subject: Children's Books MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I should say that subject line with tongue in cheek, because I read what I wanted to as a child; if the librarian wouldn't let me take it out of the adult room using Mom's card, Mom got it for me. One of my favorite memories is of having a copy of "You Only Live Twice" with me in Grade 8 science class; the teacher looking at in horror (I might, too, now--but because of Ian Fleming's sexism, not because of the book's sex scenes!), and me saying blandly, "But it's okay, Mr. Wood. Mama gave it to me." Mama was teaching in the room directly under us at the time...I didn't realize then it took guts to let me read anything, including her Abnormal Psychology textbook when she did graduate work. My first two SF books were "Raiders from the Rings," by Alan E. Nourse; and "Ordeal in Otherwhere," by Andre Norton. I was very much interested in the U.S. space program (I was 10 at the time of John Glenn's first flight), and I asked the local librarian for books. She steered me to some solid nonfiction, but thank goodness she also put those two SF volumes into my hands. That did it! Hooked forever! Curiously enough, I never could get into Tolkien. My fellow director at work, who is a Civil War scholar and who's never read any SF that I didn't write, had to tell me what an "orc" was recently. My bookshelves are still groaning with old copies of Andre Norton and Robert Heinlein books--and the only thing I remember reading that scared hell out of me as a child, was a Life magazine issue with a picture of a self-immolating Buddhist monk on its cover. I was home at lunch alone (latch-key kid long before it became a fashionable subject!), I was used to reading Life, so I opened the new issue when I got the mail. I didn't want to sleep alone for weeks...and I've never told my parents, to this day some 30-plus years later, what brought on that terror the house might catch fire. I was not about to risk having my reading censored! Enough Saturday night rambling, Nina ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1998 18:02:20 -0800 Reply-To: shander@cdsnet.net Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Sharon Anderson Subject: Children's Books; "Another Generation" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Thank goodness, Kathleen, there is someone else more than 30 years old on this list! The first sf books I can remember reading were Cameron's Mushroom Planet books. Also, Edward Eager's Half Magic. I inhaled Andre Norton when I found her. Also, the boys' adventuring companions: Kim, Kidnapped, Huck Finn, etc. By high school, I had read the Arthurian legend in about 35 forms: the ones written to sell to those who now buy Barbara Cartland, TH White's version, Le Morte de Arthur, and I can't even remember what all. I do remember reading every single one of Costain's historical books. I also read the entire Bible, cover to cover. I think Revelations was my first introduction to horror stories. Which I assiduously avoid nowadays. I loved Heinlein (then), hated Bradbury, and bought all the Ace Doubles I could lay my hands on. I found Slan fairly early, and subsequently became interested in all variations of telepathy, from the Telsey stories to the horrifying ones about hive minds. I loved Asimov's robot stories. I also adored time travel stories. Oddly, perhaps since I had no one to guide my reading, I didn't find Wells and Verne until I was an adult. Actually, I found Delaney before I found either Wells or Verne. Delaney was a favorite for a long lime. I think I must have been totally unconscious on one level. It never even occurred to me to question that everything I read was written by men, mostly about men. But I remember being angry and disappointed that NOBODY else I knew in school read science fiction, and EVERYONE thought it was for nerds (except I don't think that term had been invented yet). When I was in college, my creative writing teacher Introduced me to "A Rose for Ecclesiastes." Zelazny and Delany took up increasing amounts of my time. But I still hadn't found the women. I was completely ignorant of the existence of Jirel of Joiry and the very few female authors who wrote about women. The first one to wake me up with a slap on the face was Judith Merrill's "That Only A Mother". Shortly afterward, "Houston, Houston , Do You Read?" was published. And THEN I found "When It Changed." And my life changed. It's a good thing it was time for the women to start getting published about then. If they hadn't been, some of us would have gladly spilled blood to make it happen. Sharon L. Anderson ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1998 20:08:05 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Marina Subject: Re: Re-reading Childhood Favorites In-Reply-To: <19981107063215.26978.qmail@www0g.netaddress.usa.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sat, 7 Nov 1998, Anthea Hartley Stanton wrote: > Tolkien's "Land of the shadow" is believed by many of Tolkien's readers > (including Michael and I) to have been based on the monstrous tyranny of the > USSR which held much of Tolkien's beloved European culture in abject, shabby > thrall when he completed _Lord of the Rings_. > Based on this, Michael [Stanton]'s comment " someone from the former USSR > ...would feel insulted by Tolkien" reflected a fear that you might have > unfairly been a victim of this kind of thinking. With all my negative feelings towards the Soviet system, I do not associate my nation with orcs or trolls from Tolkien's book, and assuming that I "might have been offended by its negative representation of orks" because I'd sympathyse with them for that reason, in my opinion, is a little twisted, to put it nice. > The comment about the "Baltic republics" showed the other side of the coin; > since our extended visit through the former Soviet empire, we find it > difficult not to sympathize with *but do not condone* those who view the > Soviets, military and civilian, as "orcs" and trolls". This last week in > particular, we have both been greatly affected by the ecological and human > tragedies that the USSR - out of stupidity, greed and malice - deliberately > inflicted on the Baltic States. The current policies implemented by those "martyred" states, such as depriving all non-native population from the right to vote, employment, and basic human dignity, so thoroughly overlooked by the "progressive" societies of Western Europe is of course a great way to deal with past offenses. In a fashion similar to Nazi's blaming the miserable situation of Germany on the evil actions of wealthy Jews, the Baltic states seem to be great followers of that tradition, also employed, among others, by the Algerian nationalists in the expulsion of the French. The tradition of getting back on minority citizens with no rights for the decades of one's own cowardice in dealing with forces they never dared to confront, partly because that would make them also face their own responsibility for destroying their countries under the excuse that "_they_ made us do it." This glorious attitude is in fact very similar to actions of a guy who would not have the balls to face his domineering wife, but instead would go and beat up his children to prove that he is still "the man". > I'm not sure how you arrive at your blanket condemnation of someone you've > never met, Well, just a guess -- if Mike always claims the opinions of anyone who happens not to share his unquestioning reverence of Tolkien as "broadly venomous", _and_ it is perfectly acceptable in your guys' social circle, that might be just a matter of cultural difference. Here in the wild American South, such behavior kind of waives the person's claim on the ability to handle a civilized conversation and therefore any respect that comes with it. On the other hand, if this is just the way he talks to women who dare to cross him -- well, Anthea, I don't want to make you feel any worse with everything you might have to deal with married to such person, so I'll just end this message. I am very sorry you even got involved in this argument. If you have anything more to say about it, please write to me in private email. Marina P.S. Concerning the sexism of Tolkien as an author -- I still believe that he is just as non-sexist as Pat Buchanan, with the great devotion to his wife, strong family values and all. http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society is selling at the time." Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1998 19:22:08 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jessie Stickgold-Sarah Subject: Re: Democracies in sf/f In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sat, 07 Nov 1998 19:13:35 +0700." <19981107181335.22391.qmail@www0j.netaddress.usa.net> Someone, not the only person to whom this is addressed, said: >So it's very difficult to respond to your generalised comments >because your statements are too vague. May I suggest that you examine >the books cited on this list in the last few months and do a simple >weighted calculation (if necessary on a random sampling)? A >different approach would be to consider the work of the best-selling >feminist sf authors - Bujold, McCaffrey, Tepper, Hambly, Moon, MZB >and so on. Perhaps then you will arrive at the same _statistical_ >conclusion that I did otherwise we can re-examine your points. Recently it seems that there's been a rush to say that one's opponent can only make valid comments if s/he uses the same forms of analysis, or has read the same books, or can follow the increasingly obscure (yet often unexplained) citations of chapter and verse. Could we knock it off? This is a discussion group. It's not quals. It's no one's oral exams. You're not on their review board, you're not weighing them for promotion, you're not on their thesis committee. If you disagree, disagree in a productive way. It seems very disrespectful to say "I can't respond to your comments because you didn't make them with the evidence I'd've used." It's pedantic, it's elitist, and frankly it's dead boring. I mean, "do a simple weighted calculation"? "Read Augustine's _Confessions_ if you don't agree with me"? Excuse me? If that's what I have to do to be allowed to argue with you, then I certainly don't care to. There's a time and a place for precision, meticulous citations, and a harsh adherence to exactly one standard of validation. This is *not* it. I've held off on sending this email twice before, when someone was squashed by a rather imperious declamation along the lines of: "Anderson writes in [Anderson & Howe, 1993] that it's inappropriate to take the Suri-Parisho theory as literally descriptive in this context. When we consider the performance characteristics exhibited without optimization under heavy load, we find that all of your claims are unsubstantiated. Had you considered the results of [Mogul, Maltzahn, Richardson, 1997] you would have realized that..." But this is just driving me up the wall. Now please no one tell me what book to read to show that I'm wrong, okay? thanks, jessie ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1998 16:19:53 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Caroline Heske Subject: Re: children's books MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain >Aileen wrote: >"First, how many of us had a choice in the reading material? Did our >parents >give us books? What kind of access to libraries did each of us have? My father provided my with a lot of more advanced literature, but my school actively discouraged me. I arrived at school already reading the Narnia Chronicles, and when I told the teacher, she wouldn't believe me and insisted I start with 'This is a cat' etc. I had to read through the set reading program, which involved 3 shelves worth of the above, plus another 3 or so shelves of 'Australiana' which is generally about white people doing very boring things in the Australian bush (it was supposed to instil a sense of nationalism or something, but the only thing it did was make me wary of Australian authors - something I am only just beginning to overcome). It wasn't till Gr 3 that I got through them all and was allowed to choose my own reading, and even then the teachers were suspicious. They thought I read Tolkien cause I was being precocious. In fact in one vivid memory we had a class reading session of 30-50min, and I was really into a section and read about 40 pages. When I went to get the teacher to sign my reading book, he told me I was lying, and for the next class sat me in front of the class and made me read the section again aloud. When the class ended, he marked where I had got up to the second time, told me, 'that's how much you read', and signed it into my book. At least that time I was able to borrow Lord of the Rings from home, but otherwise we had to use the school library, which was very limited. The high-school library was better, but they told me as a primary school student that I was not responsible enough to borrow from there. However, after I reached secondary school, I had no problem getting access to any text I wanted. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1998 00:30:03 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: Nature / Nurture (was Democracies in sf/f) In-Reply-To: <19981107181335.22391.qmail@www0j.netaddress.usa.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >On 7 Nov 98, at 10:27, John Bertland wrote: >> Interesting thought, but I disagree. [snip] Some sf deals with >> the question more subtlety and more directly with very satisfying >> results such as C.J. Cherryh's Cyteen. In reply, Anthea Hartley Stanton wrote: >You cite only one book - _Cyteen_ and that book, of course, is strongly >"Family" oriented. If anyone who hasn't read it disagrees, I would suggest >checking the excepts on the author's webpage. > >So it's very difficult to respond to your generalised comments because your >statements are too vague. May I suggest that you examine the books cited on >this list in the last few months and do a simple weighted calculation (if >necessary on a random sampling)? A different approach would be to consider >the work of the best-selling feminist sf authors - Bujold, McCaffrey, Tepper, >Hambly, Moon, MZB and so on. Perhaps then you will arrive at the same >_statistical_ conclusion that I did otherwise we can re-examine your points. Anthea, you make it sound as if John has made an obvious factual error. But the way in which your original statement was worded was far from "exact" compared to his "vagueness." How about both of you come up with some particulars? I haven't read any Elizabeth Moon or Bujold and very little Tepper, Bradley or Cherryh, so I would love to read an overview of political structures and the underpinnings of heroic virtues in their works... As for McCaffrey, she obviously has a thing for royal-blooded characters (Lessa is a great example) and barely critiques the feudal structure of Pernese society in the Dragon books. Though interestingly the Harper Hall trilogy focuses more on low-born, non-royal types who succeed through the persistence of their own efforts. Menolly is the daughter of a Holder but her virtues have nothing to do with her parentage (rather, she must cast off her connection with them to reach fulfillment). Sebell and Piemur appear to have come from humble beginnings. Robinton, however, seems to owe his noble character at least somewhat to his parentage (though I haven't read the new book *Masterharper of Pern* and don't know the details). Of course, family is often the seat of nurture as well as nature, so the mere presence of familial influence is not an indicator of which aspect is important. An interesting spin on this nature/nurture debate is presented in, coincidentally, *The Snow Queen*. Moon and Arienrhod are alike in crucial ways because they share the same genes, but they are also very different because of the way in which each was raised. The sibyl mind chooses Moon over Arienrhod because of her crucial differences from Arienrhod. I think it's an interesting middle ground on the issue. I think John is right that the idea that "royalty will out" is a lot more common in fantasy than it is in science fiction. Certainly I can think of a lot more examples off the top of my head (*The Once and Future King* and a host of Arthurian retellings lead the pack). Of course there is the legacy of that filmic family saga, *Star Wars*, to deal with -- shudder -- but it is hardly representative of the genre as a whole. ----- Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/jedhome.htm Listening to: R.E.M. -- Up "...the public and the private worlds are inseparably connected; the tyrannies and servilities of the one are the tyrannies and servilities of the other." Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1998 00:48:55 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Phoebe Wray Subject: Re: children's books Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I was brought up in a town in Western Pennsylvania, pop 1000. We didn't have a library. The consolidated school, grades 1-12 didn't have a library. But I read from grade one on anything i could get my hands on. My parents bought me books, I bought books with my allowance money. Interesting, I mostly read non-fiction until the 5th grade, except for the texts in school that did have some fiction I vaguely recall. Then, an innovative teacher (still my friend!) turned a part of what was called the "cloak closet" into a library and brought books into the classroom. And I read everything she brought in, mostly fiction. There's a joke in my family about Christmas. I always asked for teddy bears and books as presents. One year my grandmother gave me "Forever Amber" -- which is a sizzling sexy romance -- because she thought it was about a horse. I never told her, and my non-reading parents didn't catch on for quite a while. Didn't get to sci fi/fantasy until high school in California. Got there via Ayn Rand. A weird connection, but nonetheless... But I was never told that I couldn't read something. I read everything -- from milk cartons to Descartes.... I think now that I simply didn't process things I didn't understand. I never was able to talk to anyone about my reading. I do remember my busy mother used to find time to read to me and my friend Dicky Peterson. Mostly animal stories. Not the least bit strange that I've done a lot of nf writing, especially on environmental issues. lightly, phoebe