(urth) If I already like ...

[Daniel Petersen]

metafiction without transformation
...
the difference between cleverness and the stereotypical academic's attitude
I read in Crowley and the true spiritual longing I feel when I read Wolfe

I haven't read Crowley, but these perfectly describe the difference between
some speculative fictioneers and the likes of Wolfe for me.

-DOJP


On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 8:03 PM, Marc Aramini <marcaramini at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Well, with for me the difference between Wolfe and Crowley is probably one
> of the underlying ethos and actual belief in the supernatural.
>
> From Crowley:
> "I myself don’t believe in fairies, or ancient magic, or secret histories
> — any more than I believe in the Pickwick Club, or Gormenghast, or
> Winesburg, Ohio."
> Nothing in Crowley has led me to the astonishing moments when I realized,
> wait just a dang minute, these trees are eating people and spitting out
> copies, or wait just a minute, Peter Palmer was born in 1931 - never have I
> felt that there were infinite possibilities lurking under Crowley's prose
> of any spiritual profoundity, though Engine Summer and Little Big come
> close.  The conclusion of the Aegypt cycle really led me to that conclusion
> - underneath it all was banal decisions of everyday life, no transcendence,
> no permanence, metafiction without transformation, without a profound
> organizational principle that honestly and truly believed in itself,
> instantiated itself, without independent existence.
>
> Crowley never really talks about the things that really interest me
> outside of Engine Summer.  Wolfe does, all the time.
>
> I guess I liken it to the difference between cleverness and the
> stereotypical academic's attitude I read in Crowley and the true spiritual
> longing I feel when I read Wolfe.  Crowley is decent - he just doesn't
> speak to me that way, especially in Aegypt, which had some great parts but
> could have done without that ending.
>
>
> --- On *Wed, 4/18/12, DAVID STOCKHOFF <dstockhoff at verizon.net>* wrote:
>
>
> From: DAVID STOCKHOFF <dstockhoff at verizon.net>
> Subject: Re: (urth) If I already like ...
> To: "Craig Brewer" <cnbrewer at yahoo.com>, "The Urth Mailing List" <
> urth at lists.urth.net>
> Date: Wednesday, April 18, 2012, 10:48 AM
>
>   Again, well put. The few times I encounter negative personal (i.e.,
> nonprofessional) reviews of LB, the same causes are cited: repetition,
> inaction, lack of resolution. These are at least observable and therefore superficially
> real---but they are the kind of challenges that made me reread it again
> and again. What DID happen? How DID it end---or did it? To me, a thousand
> pages with only a few gorgeous glimpses of something exalted and unreal
> just behind the veil are well worth it.
>
> Some people may not get it that the story eventually turns back around to
> themselves. What are they left with when the Tale moves on, to wherever it
> goes, and they return to their own lives? Truth and meaning will not be
> delivered to the reader as on a plate---maybe can't even be achieved,
> merely sought and approached. Readers of Wolfe should not find this
> situation unfamiliar.
>
>
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