Now on my third re-reading of this worthy and highly underrated tome:
All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated, and well-supported in logic and argument than others.
The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time. Douglas Adams. ISBN 0-330-41843-2, p. 98
My next quest will be to try to locate a copy of The Experts Speak (Christopher Cerf and Victor Navasky) as recommended by the sadly missed Douglas.
Showing posts with label Fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fiction. Show all posts
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Fictional prescience?
Still awaiting more details of exactly what I am apparently guilty of - now two weeks since I asked for more details. However, an extension of the deadline has been granted; deadline hopefully not synonymous with "flat line" ...
In the mean time, consider:
"... do you think it stops with me? If that were so, the world would still be ruled by all the other cowards who tried to murder the truth - the Nazis, the Communists, the dictators - and wound up on the trash heap of history." Patterson, Richard North: No Safe Place p295. Random House ISBN 009175320
In the mean time, consider:
"... do you think it stops with me? If that were so, the world would still be ruled by all the other cowards who tried to murder the truth - the Nazis, the Communists, the dictators - and wound up on the trash heap of history." Patterson, Richard North: No Safe Place p295. Random House ISBN 009175320
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Words of Wisdom, from Fiction
After having done (possibly) the wrong thing, but for the right reason ...
"Like a hunter, you feel an adrenaline surge of pleasure at having usurped the province of God. The person who says otherwise is lying. But the emotional attitude you form later varies greatly among individuals. Some will keep their remorse alive and feed it as they would a living gargoyle, to assure themselves of their own humanity; others will justify it in the name of a hundred causes; and they'll reach back in moments of their own inadequacy and failure and touch again those flaming shapes that somehow made their impoverished lives historically significant."
"Like a hunter, you feel an adrenaline surge of pleasure at having usurped the province of God. The person who says otherwise is lying. But the emotional attitude you form later varies greatly among individuals. Some will keep their remorse alive and feed it as they would a living gargoyle, to assure themselves of their own humanity; others will justify it in the name of a hundred causes; and they'll reach back in moments of their own inadequacy and failure and touch again those flaming shapes that somehow made their impoverished lives historically significant."
Heaven's Prisoners (Burke, James Lee). Random House. ISBN 0-09-941562-3
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Did the canon fire its last shot? The demise of the Western Fiction genre
Does anyone read Zane Grey anymore? And who is writing in that genre? "Western Fiction" seems to have gone pretty much to Boot Hill, a very few notable movies excepted. Although there are the usual disparities in definition (Wiki and the well-known literary website Economic Expert, for example), the horses, trail-dust, and other commonalities are independent of the location.
Notably though, in Australia they should have been called "Easterns" or possibly "Northerns"; a Western here would involve a hell of a lot of water. (Western Australians should now feel free to write to your local newspaper editors and complain about bias and Geographism.)
To be honest, I didn't see any evidence in the library of The Western crawling away to die alone in a remote desert cave. The sad truth hit me during a scrap-booking expedition to find a background for an equestrian-themed page. There wasn't one piece of horsey wrapping paper to be had in any of the major retailers or dime stores; not one birthday card, not so much as a set of kids' stickers.
When did kids stop being obsessed with horses? Now that I think about it, even the Animal Stories shelves have accumulated more than the average amount of dust. Maybe it's just me, having grounded my youth around The Loan Ranger, Zorro, and later in life Bonanza and other things with horses in it, but now I wonder if the problems of contemporary youth have a foundation in a lack of equine contact and/or interest? As Will Rogers is credited with saying "The best thing for the inside of a man is the outside of a horse".
!
Notably though, in Australia they should have been called "Easterns" or possibly "Northerns"; a Western here would involve a hell of a lot of water. (Western Australians should now feel free to write to your local newspaper editors and complain about bias and Geographism.)
To be honest, I didn't see any evidence in the library of The Western crawling away to die alone in a remote desert cave. The sad truth hit me during a scrap-booking expedition to find a background for an equestrian-themed page. There wasn't one piece of horsey wrapping paper to be had in any of the major retailers or dime stores; not one birthday card, not so much as a set of kids' stickers.
When did kids stop being obsessed with horses? Now that I think about it, even the Animal Stories shelves have accumulated more than the average amount of dust. Maybe it's just me, having grounded my youth around The Loan Ranger, Zorro, and later in life Bonanza and other things with horses in it, but now I wonder if the problems of contemporary youth have a foundation in a lack of equine contact and/or interest? As Will Rogers is credited with saying "The best thing for the inside of a man is the outside of a horse".
!
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