Re: OT: art and language and THE DAVINCI CODE

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Cowan" <jcowan@...>


> Sally Caves scripsit:
> > My scientist friend can't tell the difference between
> > the quality in writing between this book and Eco's.  I teach creative
> > writing, and yet I can't explain to him over dinner what feels like
literary
> > writing and what feels like genre writing, and what the cues are that
make
> > for "hack" writing.
>
> Can he explain quantum mechanics over dinner, or why a particular research
> idea is promising whereas another is obviously going to lead nowhere?
> Probably not.  Your kind of science (< "scientia") is just as subtle as
his.

THANK YOU!!  Actually, my scientist friend, a longstanding one, and one with
whom I continually clash, has an arrogant way of posing questions to you.
He wants everything in black and white, and he wants to support the odious
theory that since he can explain to you what an isoceles triangle is, you
ought to be able to explain to him what a good piece of literature is.  So
while we're eating sushi and having a convivial time, the conversation comes
round to teaching genres of science fiction, a genre he "hates," and he
challenges me to "teach" him, right then and there, in the restaurant, in
front of our other friends, what constitutes good science fiction, and what
are its rules.  No SF is good, bear in mind, in his estimation (except
Solaris and 2001: A Space Odyssey), so I'm already in a lose-lose situation.
"No really.  As if I were one of your students come in for office hours."  I
told him that I got paid for that, and let's return to enjoying our dinner.
You see, when Bob wants to engage you in a discussion of something, it's
usually to prove you wrong, or to prove that you can't analyse the problems
of what you study.  I told him he ought to take one of my classes.  It
really does take fourteen weeks to teach people something from scratch about
how to write well.  Especially SF and Fantasy with its rigorous and various
rules.

Sally Caves
scaves@frontiernet.net
Eskkoat ol ai sendran, rohsan nuehra celyil takrem bomai nakuo.
"My shadow follows me, putting strange, new roses into the world."

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