Kevin's Watch

aliantha wrote:

I'm Murrin wrote:Quoting from page 4:

"Even in the seemingly happy conclusion to Mordant's Need, Geraden's situation is disturbingly undermined by a potentially deranging libidinal drive that could well threaten his apparently sunny nuptials."

She's crazy. Either that, or she doesn't like nice guys. Maybe both.

SD -- I grant you, Gilbur's no prize, either.

I certainly don't recall Geraden getting all that feisty. Stead, maybe. Eremis, for sure. Gilbur, with pretty much anything. Even Artagel.

But Geraden? He had to be hit over the head first, didn't he?

..True Kate Simons points out the dangers of psychoanalyzing characters of a "fiction" early on..but then she marches off into the land of Freud..espousing two other psychiatrists who say ,,sure you can psychoanalyze fictional characters,,we do it all the time! but she eventually drops bombs like the following"

"Male characters dominate Donaldson's stories. Many are offensive. One is an actual leper ( oh oh..an actual leper..?? and a actual leper who saves a little girl from a rattlesnake..highly offensive there!!..Kate seems guilty of selective editing and thus missing the Big Picture ) Others are morally deficient and thus read as metaphorically leprous..( no mention of redemption or the ..we are not our failures view) Deprived and dis-empowered they are incapable of acting as ideal role models ..( who ever said that they were to act as ideal role models?) Mostly narrated from male perspectives these fantasies are misogynistic texts that renounce the feminine and deny women full Symbolic status.."

Right after that on page 25 of the 2nd chapter sample read..she continues her rant against "Donaldson's texts".. i mean..aliteration is a subtle form of having sex.. etc etc..That bit reminds me of a recent laff riot we had in the " Other Realities" thread over the " Joy is in the hearing " line.

Sorry, Kate seems to be showing off her broad knowledge of the various schools of modern psychology but rather deficient in understanding where Modern Literature has gone. She relies on Plot to back up her rants,,but doesn't understand that Plot can be and in Donladson's well gifted hands,,IS metaphor it self..She goes on about Semiotic and Symbolism in psychology but seems to have overlooked the idea that the Author and his works are metaphoric..to the point that Plot and any psychoanalytical investigation of..has to consider the metaphor of ..leprous..( as in..we are all flawed,,none of us is pure,,perfect and it is that imperfection that can bring despair..or make us stronger..bring us Hope,,bring us Fear,,make us Fail,,make us succeed..etc..) She totally misses the " exaggerated qualities" that Donaldson's stories have about them.

Kate Simon's sample read gives enough insight for me to understand why the original Surrealists disengaged themselves from the schools of Freud and Jung and all the evolving since. Way too much pretense.. that is..putting forth observations and perceptions as Truth,,with only ethereal theory as foundation. Simons may have been better served to have waited for the Last Chronicles.

Finally..I too do not understand her problem with Mordant's Need and A Man Rides Though..She seems to have a agenda'ed narrow view of Donaldsons work and thus blinds herself from seeing a Bigger Picture....None of Donaldson's characters are perfect, just like none of Us are perfect..

It's the person with too much time in their hands I talked about in the fest. Yammers on about matters such as "the bizarre image of two giants copulating"..."While the First can be seen as stereotypical of vaudeville" (!!!????)...etc.

Bizarre? What if I wrote a scroll about the mating habits of humans and named such amorous affairs "bizarre" as a consequence of their tininess? Someone should spill some joy into her ears, forsooth!
Besides, Gossamer/Pitchwife is just about the cutest couple ever.

Frostheart wrote:It's the person with too much time in their hands I talked about in the fest. Yammers on about matters such as "the bizarre image of two giants copulating"..."While the First can be seen as stereotypical of vaudeville" (!!!????)...etc.

Bizarre? What if I wrote a scroll about the mating habits of humans and named such amorous affairs "bizarre" as a consequence of their tininess? Someone should spill some joy into her ears, forsooth!
Besides, Gossamer/Pitchwife is just about the cutest couple ever.

For a moment, I thought you meant me, but then I did remember that I yammers on about urviles, not giants.

[]

Vraith wrote:

ussusimiel wrote: On my way back from the 'Fest in Albuquerque I spent a few days in Toronto. Due one thing and another I ended up with some spare time on my hands

Son-of-a-BITCH, u.
If I'd a known that, we coulda spent a couple hours or a day hanging out maybe.

Damn! That's disappointing. Even knowing you as well as I do (we're the one person after all) it'd have been great to meet up with you. I was hoping you'd make the 'Fest, but it didn't happen.

If you are ever in Ireland or Europe more generally let me know and we'll settle that two-for-one thing for good and all!

u.

Hey, still haven't heard back from you (provided that you're interested in it). It's just that I'll only have proper computer/internet access for two and a half weeks. After that, it's carrier pigeons and bad German.

I've posted the article that I photocopied in Toronto:

• - The Hero's Education in Sacrificial Love: Thomas Covenant, Christ-figure

It's in The Christan Comparison Cont. thread.

Enjoy and discuss!

u.

Don't know if this link has been posted before, but it is a really insightful interview with SRD on the Barnes and Nobel review site:

• - www.barnesandnoble.com/review/stephen-r-donaldson-the-believer/

u.

That's an awesome find, u.

In the B&N interview, SRD wrote: So I’ll say this: the legacy I crave for myself is to break down the absolutely artificial and arbitrary barricade which has been erected to separate “fantasy” from “literature.” After all, all of the oldest and most enduring literature in every language on the planet is fantasy. That can’t be an accident. And it can’t be because our ancestors (however distant) were stupid: they were not. Why, then, is it considered somehow less than admirable or worthwhile — or necessary — for an ambitious modern man or woman to write fantasy?

Bless you, SRD.

lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/ ... 31766.html

I came across the above link as I was looking at our search results on Google. I recognise the name Dan'l Danehy-Oakes from one of the references that I recorded upthread. He's a contributer to the NY Review of Sc-Fi and seems fairly interested in SRD. I haven't read any of the stuff but it looked good.

u.

He was making some fine points ("the interplay of passion and control") but he loses me when he says,

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:first, to reject the reality of the Land (because by doing so he makes his crime not real)

I'm quite sure he rejected the reality of the Land first, and the rape was a consequence, not a cause, of his unbelief.

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:and second, to impose upon himself in the Land control even beyond what his condition required in his "real" world.

That's just hard to find anywhere in the story. But perhaps I am not interpreting this the way it is intended - perhaps this is based on interpreting denial as control?

Then We Came to the End: The Last Dark, by Stephen R. Donaldson

Interesting review of TLD. Passionate advocacy of the whole series. Is the reviewer anyone we know?

u.

The reviewer really seems to get the series, both it's positives and negatives. The comment section is worth reading.

I'm Murrin wrote:The comment section is worth reading.

That's some comment thread alright! Lots of insightful, passionate responses to the Chronicles in general. It reminds me of someplace

u.

It's interesting to see people pan the Last Chronicles because it's not "super awesome", but just "good". Therefore, it sucks!

To deem it less because it is not more is to heed the counsels of the Despiser. Yeah.

Just starting to read this. I don't recognize the author's name.

Did anybody post a comment to encourage folks to come here?

EDITED to add: Never mind -- I just did. But I suppose it couldn't hurt to pile on...

I'm Murrin wrote:The reviewer really seems to get the series, both it's positives and negatives. The comment section is worth reading.

yes, it is.
and I have a thought that relates to a major topic in those comments, and to various things here...I think it deserves a thread of its own, but threads I start always die, except the silly ones.
It's about the "sexism" and the problem of women.
and my thought is this:
Yes, rape is a thing, it is used to advance the male character/plot [in PART, but I can see how that part could be a real problem].
Other good points related to that.
Many issues on that that deserve consideration...cuz it is fucking complicated, and not just about this one thing, how to work issues/human problems into fiction/characters in general.
Unless we want fiction where all good people/characters do only good things, and all evil characters do only the opposite.
That's stupid and useless in every meaningful way.

The important thing, IMO:
IF one is a member of a group that does "bad things"...
and assuming that just being a member of that group is not the cause of doing "bad things"
THEN: what is the best way to convince one to NOT do those things? To believe they are, in fact, "bad things?"
There are really only two answers, one kind particular, but not helpful on a large scale/long term.
Men can be [somewhat] persuaded that rape is terrible by being raped or by their sister, wife, child being a victim of rape. Still, the ugly truth of that is that in far too many cases the happening destroys the relationship. Because victim, perpetrator, blame, and third party resemblances seriously fuck things up cuz peoples psychological make up is an uncomprehended swamp of unmediated axioms absorbed pre-consciously.
The other is for an in-group person to demonstrate the wrongness.
It is a terrible truth. But one that is starting to be dealt with/addressed.
[[and NOT by GRRM, who someone claimed was better at dealing with the problem, and not exploiting...dork.]]

The horror of men committing rape can be highlighted by making the effect on women known/visible. But prevention requires men convincing men that they are responsible and that there aren't any excuses, BEFORE they do it.
And I think TC does that very well in progress. At first, he claims an excuse. Later he embodies the fact that there AREN't any.

I think the point was made in the comments, regarding GRRM and SRD, that GRRM shows a variety of viewpoints including some very well rounded female characters with agency, whereas SRD, because he is telling a story (in the first trilogy) very closely through the eyes of Thomas Covenant, does not include female characters with their own personalities and agency. And it's possible to acknowledge that characters like Lena are deeply problematic while still knowing that the books probably couldn't have been written a different way and still accomplish what they did.

(That's not to say that the books required Lena to be as two dimensional as she was, but given the perspective we could not have really been shown enough of her that she would ever become a whole person to us.)

I recently came across this site: SF Site which has lots of fantasy and sci-fi reviews and features. If you do a search for Stephen R. Donaldson you get a fair amount of stuff.

I found this review of ROTE which, IMO, makes a couple of interesting points in its general overview.

u.

P.S. Also read this one from SF Signal, which no doubt has been linked before: A Revealing Interview With Author Stephen R. Donaldson.