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From: chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Ken Moreau, Spider Robinson, Art, Helen Keller, and Me
Message-ID: <3140@nsc.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 17-Aug-85 21:02:42 EDT
Article-I.D.: nsc.3140
Posted: Sat Aug 17 21:02:42 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 20-Aug-85 07:15:26 EDT
References: <1153@druri.UUCP>
Reply-To: chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach)
Organization: Uncle Chuqui's Lemming Farm
Lines: 127

I promised myself long ago that I'd simply ignore Davis and his holier than
thou anti-SF attitudes (Davis, if you hate SF half as much as the stuff you
write implies, why do you bother reading this newsgroup? Are you trying
to convert us with this highbrow proselytizing, or are you simply
maoschistic? Hmm... On second though, considering the volumes you pour out
at us, maybe you're sadistic.... :-|). Unfortunately, Davis has made some
comments that just cry out to be beaten into the pulp they ought to have
been written on...

In article <1153@druri.UUCP> dht@druri.UUCP (Davis Tucker) writes:
>
>>I applaud Spider Robinsons comment that "A critic tells you whether 
>>it is *ART*, a reviewer tells you if its a good read".

>Spider Robinson... (the sound of spitting in derision and disgust) knows
>absolutely nothing, or next to nothing, about being a reviewer, as he has
>so amply demonstrated in his review columns, and even less about being a
>critic. Gene Shalit gives more depth; Rona Barret gives more detail;

These is fighting words. Choice of weapons: copies of "battleship earth" 
at 20 paces... I was reading Spider's reviews religiously back in the late,
lamented Galaxy magazine, and he knows the genre quite thoroughly. He knows
what is good writing, and he burns the bad writing (a VERY fitting end for
most of those books) and he has a good grasp for what his audience is
looking for. I think his columns got a little soft when he was working in
Analog, but even he admitted that he simply didn't have the time to do it
right (and finally stopped the columns because of it). 

You seem to make the continuing misassumption that a "CRITIC" (underlined
three times) is there to tell me what I "ought" to be reading. Well, I don't
have a helluva lotta time to read what I "ought" to be reading. I look for a
reviewer that can tell me what to avoid and what I'm going to want to read,
since I simply don't have time to wade through the trash to find what I'm
looking for. I simply don't always WANT to read the sort of stuff I "ought"
to be reading, since reading for me is a relaxation tool. Education or
enlightenment are the only reasons to open a book, no matter how much you
might wish otherwise.

>To you and Spider Robinson (author of such art as "Harry
>Callahan's Crossroad Five-Guys-In-A-Bar-Trade-Stupid-Puns-And-Act-Superior-And-
>Incredibly-Sophomoric"), it is an insult.

Ah, the crux of the problem. You have no sense of humor... Not everybody
can be a Kafka, Davis. Fortunately, or the suicide rate would be MUCH
higher than it is now.

>Art and a "good read" may have no-
>thing to do with each other, but I and many, many others will disagree
>violently at such a purposefully ignorant attitude. These hedonistic tendencies
>will leave you with little fulfillment, less enlightenment, and no under-
>standing of the world outside D&D games and national news programs. To
>ignore art because it gives no pleasure is synonomous with ignoring edu-
>cation because it gives no money. A backward, Luddite, barbarian attitude
>which makes me wonder how anyone who ever held this belief ever got the drive
>and motivation to learn how to read. 

Oh, wombat do! The world simply isn't black and white, and I wish you'd
take a look at reality. I can name a lot of highly entertaining ART books:
Kafka, Cervantes, Dante all come to mind immediately. But I don't always
want art. When I've been under a false floor tracking ethernet cable for 12
hours, picking up a Dickens or a Dostoyevsky would send me jumping off a
local building room. Sometimes, believe it or not, people like to let their
hair down.

>This is not idle electronic banter, and it is not specifically directed at you,
>or at Mr. Robinson. But to champion a "good read" over "great art" is very,
>very egocentric.

Oh, yes it is. And trying to enforce your own limited beliefs on the net is
rather egocentric as well... If you HATE our little ghetto so much, go play
with net.books for a while and let us wallow in our own pleasure. please!

>I have never made any statements to the effect that some-
>thing is good because I enjoy it.

Then I feel sorry for you. I have read many a book that I would say to
anyone is "good" because I enjoyed it. They may not be the strongest
writing or great "literature" but they are enjoyable. If you can't enjoy
what you are doing, why do you bother doing it?

>I have appreciated many works which I did not
>necessarily enjoy or find a "good read". Enrichment of the heart and enlighten-
>ment of the mind do not come to the lazy or the proudly ignorant.

You're being snotty, now. "I'm better than you are because I've walked
through books that I didn't like, because they were good for me". I've done
that, too, but sometimes my brain turns to mush and I simply can't cope
with a good Russian Novel. Or even a bad one. Or Gene Wolfe, for that
matter...

>There are so many closed minds
>in this world,

Now thats an understatement... Did I hear a glass house shudder?

>hold
>Spider Robinson up as a genius and a great writer and a great commentator on
>the human condition.

I do, actually... Well, maybe not a great writer, but a damned good one.
The worst of his essays and stories has more humanism and intelligence than
the best of the Drivel I've seen come out of Davis' keyboard...

Look. If you don't like the stuff, don't read it. And please, quit bleating
at us to stop reading it as well. I happen to LIKE SF, just as I like
"literature". Before you cut off Spider Robinson as a cheap hack, I suggest
you go find a story of his called "The Time Traveller" and read it. Very.
Carefully. More than once. I also suggest you look at some of the more
serious works that have come out of SF: Most of Kurt Vonnegutt; all Harlan
Ellison; Gene Wolfe's New Sun stuff; Kate Wilhelm's "Where Once the Sweet
Birds Sang"; Ray Bradbury; SilverBob's "Dying Inside"; Sturgeon's "Baby is
Three." It is rather obvious that you write each of your essays from a
predetermined point of view, and you seem to do only enough research (if
that) to prove your own points. They are biased, not based in facts, and
not really well written at that. I suggest you know what you're talking
about before you start blathering in the future. There is a LOT of good
stuff (whether or not you call it ART) in SF, and there are a lot of people
that enjoy the SF as ART stuff. There are also a lot of good but not
terribly enlightening books, but they serve a good purpose, too --
enjoyment. You don't seem to understand that word, though, and I pity you
for that... 

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some drivel to drool over...
-- 
Chuq Von Rospach nsc!chuqui@decwrl.ARPA {decwrl,hplabs,ihnp4}!nsc!chuqui

Son, you're mixing ponderables again