Re: CHAT: JRRT

In a message dated 2004:03:05 05:40:11 PM, jcowan@REUTERSHEALTH.COM writes:

>Andreas Johansson scripsit:
>
>> The phrases "genre fiction" and "genre writing" are used as pejoratives
>in English language literary criticism.
>
>Sheer snobbery and nothing but, I fear.
    Yepyep, some of the bestest fiction in my opinion are Hard Boiled
detective/_litterature noir_ and sci-fi.
    What I learned in _Genre Studies_ about Hard Boiled
detective/_litterature noir_ and sci-fi: One genre examines the past from our divided present (i.e.
Dashiell Hammett), the other imagines extrapolations of our shared present
(i.e. William Gibson)... Both are capable of sharp, critical socio-cultural
insights hidden just below the surface-text's tropes, motifs, clichés, etc. down
in the "sub-text."

    And also there is a recent "anti-genre" called "Slipstream" that defies
traditional genre labels and descriptions (thus making life hard for literary
crititics and publishing peeps {Goody!}). IMHO nothing really new there, just
another needed (re)fresh(in') New Wave in literature/_litterature_ ;)

    OBCONLANG OPINION: As one of the chief mangalangers here, I prefer James
Joyce's _Finnegans Wake_ slightly more than Tolkien - purely from a highly
aesthetic and subjective viewpoint, mind you.
    But I like brother Thomas Merton's underrated culture-epic poems, _Cables
to the Ace_ and _Geography of Lograire_ even more - and even go as far to
heres(a)y that ol' papa Ezra Pound's _Cantos_ are positively pale (and rather
"looney tune") in comparison. And oh yeah I can't completely forgive Pound's
errors in transliterating Chinese poetry willy-nilly to suit _his_ pet theory of
poetics.

    I wonder if Ursula Le Guin read(s) Merton... sure seems likely...

--- *DiDJiBuNgA!!* Hang Binary,baby...---

Hanuman "Stitch" Zhang, ManglaLanger (mangle + manga + lang)
<A HREF="http://www.boheme-magazine.net">=> boheme-magazine.net</A>

     Language[s] change[s]: vowels shift, phonologies crash-&-burn, grammars
leak, morpho-syntactics implode, lexico-semantics mutate, lexicons explode,
orthographies reform, typographies blip-&-beep, slang flashes, stylistics
warp... linguistic (R)evolutions mark each-&-every quantum leap...

...languages are "naturally evolved wild systems... So language does not
impose order on a chaotic universe, but reflects its own wildness back." - Gary
Snyder

"Some Languages Are Crushed to Powder but Rise Again as New Ones" -
a chapter on pidgins & creoles, John McWhorter,
_The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language_

= ¡ gw'araa legooset caacaa !
    ¡ reez'arvaa. saalvaa. reecue. scoopaa-goomee en reezijcloo ! =
[Fight Linguistic Waste!
    Save, Salvage, Recover, Scavenge and Recycle!]