(urth) what??

[Daniel Petersen]

On 3/8/2011 7:39 PM, Jane Delawney wrote:

> Despite this GW gives us strong, independent female characters who are
> obviously up against it in their world but who survive and pursue their
> goals none the less: Agia of course; and Dorcas, a real tough cookie who
> despite looking like a teenage girl and despite her internal disarray none
> the less makes her way back from Thrax to Nessus unmolested in time (we are
> led to assume) to be reunited with her son.


Yes, I'm shocked there's not more commentary on Wolfe's *many*
sympathetically and admiringly painted strong female characters of a wide
variety, rather than worrying over misogyny.  (Nettle, Maytera Mint, Maytera
Marble, Captain Chris's lover in Pirate Freedom [can't remember her name,
misogynist that I am!] could all be added to the list).

On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 2:39 AM, David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
 wrote:

> And of course there are those who believe Wolfe is a right-winger, when he
> is plainly just an American Catholic of his times. Such people used to be
> considered "liberal," at least in the old sense of the word---no different
> from anyone else.


Glad you can see political shades - some people are so binary about it.
 Anyway, if a passionate left-winger like China Mieville can love Wolfe even
with what he takes to be Wolfe's 'conservatism', then I think everyone else
should be able to remain open minded and appreciate Wolfe as an artist too.
 It's not like Wolfe is some neo-Nazi fascist - yeesh!  Surely Catholic
Wolfe writing almost nothing but tales about 'pagans', sympathetically and
intelligently drawn, gets compassion in a pluralistic world far more than
his ungenerous readers accusing him of being a crusty reactionary.

DOJP

On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 2:39 AM, David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net>wrote:

> I've seen published academic articles "proving" Milton was a royalist.
>
> And of course there are those who believe Wolfe is a right-winger, when he
> is plainly just an American Catholic of his times. Such people used to be
> considered "liberal," at least in the old sense of the word---no different
> from anyone else.
>
> It was Catholics who threw fake blood on ICBM silos in the 1970s. Now they
> picket clinics. But Wolfe is no extremist, just a farm boy and an ex-Marine.
>
> About the only charge he could be found guilty of that I can see is his
> scarcity of female protagonists/narrators. But it's not that weird in
> Wolfe's generation---he's a bit older than my own father, fer chrissakes,
> who was in Korea a few years after hostilities there ended. And he's an SF
> fanboy. Until a few decades ago, female writers typically used male
> pseudonyms when wrote male narrators. Male writers rarely wrote female
> narrators directly.
>
> When Cordwainer Smith (under a different but male name) wrote a novel with
> a female narrator in the 1940s, this was considered "experimental." Even
> now, not many writers, male or female, successfully cross the gender divide.
> Margaret Atwood is one who does it with almost chilling precision.
>
> On 3/8/2011 7:39 PM, Jane Delawney wrote:
>
>> Sorry can't remember as of this moment if I'm supposed to be top-posting,
>> bottom-posting or interlining, these mailing lists get confusing they all
>> have different rules and I don't have much time.
>>
>> Hard to believe that there are still peeps out there who will admit in
>> public that they have mistaken the writer's depiction of his/her
>> characters/world for that writer's own personal view on whatever subject.
>>
>> It's fiction. GW has created worlds with certain societal norms; given the
>> world we see in BOTNS it's not at all surprising to me that women get
>> something of a raw deal in that world. It's kind of a might is right,
>> chivalry duhhhh? what's that? universe. Despite this GW gives us strong,
>> independent female characters who are obviously up against it in their world
>> but who survive and pursue their goals none the less: Agia of course; and
>> Dorcas, a real tough cookie who despite looking like a teenage girl and
>> despite her internal disarray none the less makes her way back from Thrax to
>> Nessus unmolested in time (we are led to assume) to be reunited with her
>> son. Actually a happy ending, if an obliquely signalled one.
>>
>> (I'd love to have more information about what happened to Cyriaca, who
>> attempted to do much the same thing, but we'll never know).
>>
>> Oh I could go on, but I do think that the idea that GW is a dyed in the
>> wool mysogynist is very, very silly.
>>
>> jd
>>
>> On 08/03/11 22:39, Daniel Petersen wrote:
>>
>>> On a wholly different note, have you all read the latest Silk for Calde
>>> blog
>>> post on Wolfe?  A really well reasoned article on this issue of misogyny
>>> in
>>> Wolfe:
>>>
>>>
>>> http://silk4calde.blogspot.com/2011/03/king-rat-and-abuse-of-women-in-gene.html
>>>
>>> <
>>> http://silk4calde.blogspot.com/2011/03/king-rat-and-abuse-of-women-in-gene.html
>>> >
>>> DOJP
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Urth Mailing List
>>> To post, writeurth at urth.net
>>> Subscription/information:http://www.urth.net
>>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Urth Mailing List
>> To post, write urth at urth.net
>> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ---
>> avast! Antivirus: Inbound message clean.
>> Virus Database (VPS): 110308-0, 03/08/2011
>> Tested on: 3/8/2011 7:54:22 PM
>> avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2011 AVAST Software.
>> http://www.avast.com
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
> ---
> avast! Antivirus: Outbound message clean.
> Virus Database (VPS): 110308-1, 03/08/2011
> Tested on: 3/8/2011 9:39:03 PM
> avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2011 AVAST Software.
> http://www.avast.com
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Urth Mailing List
> To post, write urth at urth.net
> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/attachments/20110309/cd7ed46f/attachment-0004.htm>