’m willing to accept that JohnWittle means it literally, although, seriously? You’d trade Shakespeare and James Joyce—Neil Gaiman and Tolkien and Ursula K. Le Guin—for HPMOR? It’s pretty hard for me to wrap my head around that.
Shakespeare I would trade for those weeks of my highschool life back, to spend on learning something more valuable.
James Joyce is an author I have heard of and have an intuition that I would experience social pressure against me if I did not assign him high status. From the reviews I read of Ulysses I would pay money to not have to read it. I don’t object to other people reading it or enjoying the sophistication.
Tolkien’s stories I would trade for MoR. His stories are rather dull. I wouldn’t trade his world or, especially, the overwhelming influence he had on fantasy fiction in general and elves in particular.
Neil Gaiman’s work I would trade, but reluctantly. I enjoyed Stardust. But Gaiman’s work is more typical and substitutes more easily found. Extreme Rational characters and worlds are overwhelmingly rare.
Ursula K. Le Guin? Haven’t read. Is her work closer in style and significance to Joyce, Shakespeare, Gaiman or MoR? If one of the last two I’d add her to my to read list.
I’m not sure “You’d trade?” is the right comparison to make. Perhaps “you would assign higher status to” or “you believe is more sophisticated and polished artwork” would give you the answer desired.
Le Guin is a death worshipper. The major theme of the Earthsea is the folly of the quest for immortality or even survival, and the naturalness of death.
Le Guin is a death worshipper. The major theme of the Earthsea is the folly of the quest for immortality or even survival, and the naturalness of death.
Thankyou. That is the kind of attitude that at times makes me abandon a book in disgust. If I don’t identify with the goals or decisions of the protagonist I tend to be either disinterested in or repulsed by the work. I’ll avoid the author.
I agree about the deathism of Earthsea. And it has other faults, such as the fourth volume (Tehanu) being her turning against (although not entirely) the misogyny of the whole setup of the first three, and with the zeal of the newly enlightened retconning “men evil, women good” onto it. Always Coming Home is full of fluffy woo.
But she also wrote the short story The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, which is worth finding, because it’s about a standard utilitarian problem. I’m sure some philosopher posed it in exactly the form in which her story presents it, but I’ve not been able to track that down. Imagine a utopia — whatever utopia you like — except that it must be sustained by the suffering of a little girl confined in a cell and tortured for ever. It is part of the thought experiment that the utopia and the suffering are necessarily connected: the little girl can only be freed at the cost of ending the utopia. It is alluded to in HPMOR.
My subversive interpretation of Omelas is that the kid whose suffering the good of the entire place depends on is a taxpayer. We tax the kid in suffering, and we use the suffering to buy prosperity for everyone else. Of course, this is a tax which hurts people unequally (the kid: a lot, everyone else: not at all), but even conventional taxes can’t make everyone better off, and this is especially so for taxes that are intended for redistributing wealth.
What makes this interpretation subversive, of course, is that the very same people who talk about how we should consider how our actions affect others are generally the biggest proponents of taxation and wealth redistribution. I’m pretty certain that LeGuin isn’t a libertarian; you’re supposed to read the story and conclude that you’re victimizing others and that you have obligations towards others—not that you’re the victim.and other people have obligations towards you.
As I recall, the especially miserable but obligatory afterlife in the first three books got revised in the last (fifth?) book. The initial state turned out to be a magical working which seemed like a good idea at the time. Anyone remember the details?
I don’t agree with your characterization. I would say that the major theme of the first book is attaining self-knowledge, while the major theme of the second and fourth books is overcoming abuse.
The major theme of the third book is confronting mortality. In that book the land of the dead is portrayed as a terrible place, and the heroes of the book struggle with everything they have and are to escape it. But it’s true that there’s a villain whose quest for immortality is portrayed as selfish and dangerous.
The major theme of the fifth and final book is looking outside the self and understanding others. There’s some business with the land of the dead involved in this one too, but there’s an answer given that I don’t think boils down to death-worship.
Are you making an argument for aesthetic Stalinism?
No, quite clearly not. That being the case it is disingenuous to ask for rhetorical purposes.
Whether a work of art or literature is good is not necessarily related to whether it conveys lessons one agrees with.
Not necessarily, but it is a particularly strong reason. If a piece of fiction has the inferred purpose of conveying a lesson and that lesson is a bad lesson then the value of the piece of fiction could easily be negative. This is different to a non-fiction work that accurately conveys reality. Reality isn’t something that we get to choose, lessons and values are.
Ursula K. Le Guin? Haven’t read. Is her work closer in style and significance to Joyce, Shakespeare, Gaiman or MoR? If one of the last two I’d add her to my to read list.
I thought that A Wizard of Earthsea was a good counterpoint to a lot of the other fantasy books that I read as a child; I think that MoR!Harry would have made a few less mistakes if he had read and grokked it.
Le Guin is a genre writer, like Tolkien and Gaiman. For the most part she’s not stylistically difficult as Shakespeare or Joyce can be, although Always Coming Home is experimental in form.
I think she’s wonderful. Her Earthsea books (A Wizard of Earthsea is the first) are a good accessible jumping-on point if you’re interested in checking her out. Or The Dispossessed if you prefer science fiction. Or one of her short story collections, maybe The Wind’s Twelve Quarters or The Compass Rose.
I would only advise you to stay away from The Left Hand of Darkness—that one won both the Hugo and the Nebula and is the book of hers most likely to be taught in college courses, but she regards it as something of a failed experiment and personally I tend to agree.
Shakespeare I would trade for those weeks of my highschool life back, to spend on learning something more valuable.
James Joyce is an author I have heard of and have an intuition that I would experience social pressure against me if I did not assign him high status. From the reviews I read of Ulysses I would pay money to not have to read it. I don’t object to other people reading it or enjoying the sophistication.
Tolkien’s stories I would trade for MoR. His stories are rather dull. I wouldn’t trade his world or, especially, the overwhelming influence he had on fantasy fiction in general and elves in particular.
Neil Gaiman’s work I would trade, but reluctantly. I enjoyed Stardust. But Gaiman’s work is more typical and substitutes more easily found. Extreme Rational characters and worlds are overwhelmingly rare.
Ursula K. Le Guin? Haven’t read. Is her work closer in style and significance to Joyce, Shakespeare, Gaiman or MoR? If one of the last two I’d add her to my to read list.
I’m not sure “You’d trade?” is the right comparison to make. Perhaps “you would assign higher status to” or “you believe is more sophisticated and polished artwork” would give you the answer desired.
Le Guin is a death worshipper. The major theme of the Earthsea is the folly of the quest for immortality or even survival, and the naturalness of death.
Thankyou. That is the kind of attitude that at times makes me abandon a book in disgust. If I don’t identify with the goals or decisions of the protagonist I tend to be either disinterested in or repulsed by the work. I’ll avoid the author.
I agree about the deathism of Earthsea. And it has other faults, such as the fourth volume (Tehanu) being her turning against (although not entirely) the misogyny of the whole setup of the first three, and with the zeal of the newly enlightened retconning “men evil, women good” onto it. Always Coming Home is full of fluffy woo.
But she also wrote the short story The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, which is worth finding, because it’s about a standard utilitarian problem. I’m sure some philosopher posed it in exactly the form in which her story presents it, but I’ve not been able to track that down. Imagine a utopia — whatever utopia you like — except that it must be sustained by the suffering of a little girl confined in a cell and tortured for ever. It is part of the thought experiment that the utopia and the suffering are necessarily connected: the little girl can only be freed at the cost of ending the utopia. It is alluded to in HPMOR.
My subversive interpretation of Omelas is that the kid whose suffering the good of the entire place depends on is a taxpayer. We tax the kid in suffering, and we use the suffering to buy prosperity for everyone else. Of course, this is a tax which hurts people unequally (the kid: a lot, everyone else: not at all), but even conventional taxes can’t make everyone better off, and this is especially so for taxes that are intended for redistributing wealth.
What makes this interpretation subversive, of course, is that the very same people who talk about how we should consider how our actions affect others are generally the biggest proponents of taxation and wealth redistribution. I’m pretty certain that LeGuin isn’t a libertarian; you’re supposed to read the story and conclude that you’re victimizing others and that you have obligations towards others—not that you’re the victim.and other people have obligations towards you.
As I recall, the especially miserable but obligatory afterlife in the first three books got revised in the last (fifth?) book. The initial state turned out to be a magical working which seemed like a good idea at the time. Anyone remember the details?
I don’t agree with your characterization. I would say that the major theme of the first book is attaining self-knowledge, while the major theme of the second and fourth books is overcoming abuse.
The major theme of the third book is confronting mortality. In that book the land of the dead is portrayed as a terrible place, and the heroes of the book struggle with everything they have and are to escape it. But it’s true that there’s a villain whose quest for immortality is portrayed as selfish and dangerous.
The major theme of the fifth and final book is looking outside the self and understanding others. There’s some business with the land of the dead involved in this one too, but there’s an answer given that I don’t think boils down to death-worship.
Are you making an argument for aesthetic Stalinism?
Whether a work of art or literature is good is not necessarily related to whether it conveys lessons one agrees with.
No, quite clearly not. That being the case it is disingenuous to ask for rhetorical purposes.
Not necessarily, but it is a particularly strong reason. If a piece of fiction has the inferred purpose of conveying a lesson and that lesson is a bad lesson then the value of the piece of fiction could easily be negative. This is different to a non-fiction work that accurately conveys reality. Reality isn’t something that we get to choose, lessons and values are.
I was asking it ingenuously and straightforwardly, actually.
HPMOR is clearly didactic in this way; it’s not at all clear to me that Le Guin’s writing is (with the exception of Omelas).
I thought that A Wizard of Earthsea was a good counterpoint to a lot of the other fantasy books that I read as a child; I think that MoR!Harry would have made a few less mistakes if he had read and grokked it.
Le Guin is a genre writer, like Tolkien and Gaiman. For the most part she’s not stylistically difficult as Shakespeare or Joyce can be, although Always Coming Home is experimental in form.
I think she’s wonderful. Her Earthsea books (A Wizard of Earthsea is the first) are a good accessible jumping-on point if you’re interested in checking her out. Or The Dispossessed if you prefer science fiction. Or one of her short story collections, maybe The Wind’s Twelve Quarters or The Compass Rose.
I would only advise you to stay away from The Left Hand of Darkness—that one won both the Hugo and the Nebula and is the book of hers most likely to be taught in college courses, but she regards it as something of a failed experiment and personally I tend to agree.