tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5375681131276548542.post3969741976908757200..comments2024-02-27T10:53:04.581+01:00Comments on paperpools: Being Ilya GridneffHelen DeWitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07619602559096610012noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5375681131276548542.post-10440172280796086012007-09-01T02:10:00.000+00:002007-09-01T02:10:00.000+00:00The whole idea that you present of emails being of...The whole idea that you present of emails being of literary value isn't too surprising. Many emails I've both sent and received have had a novelesque nature to the point where I've ended plenty of emails with the aside that my email was "becoming a novel." I've sent many emails that I wish I had saved so as to preserve something interesting that I think I said that I would like to refer back to not necessarily for publication but for my own personal reference and enjoyment, and of course, the same with emails from friends. <BR/><BR/>Emails are the modern form of correspondence between friends, lovers, and even enemies; some kind of literary value in them isn't surprising. I love how you put into words something hidden deep in my own mind that had never occured to me to verbalize but once read am in immediate agreement with. I think verbalization is the key to keeping thoughts from dying. I have to write everything down now for fear of losing the thought. There are so many things I've thought and said that I wish I had written down. This is why I started auto-saving my emails a few years ago.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5375681131276548542.post-24238890636589533962007-08-31T23:54:00.000+00:002007-08-31T23:54:00.000+00:00Jenny -- this is terribly kind of you.Jenny -- this is terribly kind of you.Helen DeWitthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07619602559096610012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5375681131276548542.post-17169947519103982092007-08-31T12:09:00.000+00:002007-08-31T12:09:00.000+00:00mith. I LOVED your comments on NH. As readers of a...mith. I LOVED your comments on NH. As readers of an earlier post on Philosophers and Psychologists will know, however, Philosophers say I disagree with you utterly, totally, absolutely, you have completely missed the point, and then go on to restate the original point with minor alterations, while Psychologists say I am in complete agreement with X, X has captured the essence of the problem, I simply want to <I>enhance</I> what X has said -- and then proceed to say something that contradicts the original speaker in every particular.<BR/><BR/>Cynthia. I used to read Kirk, Raven and Schofield on the Fragments of the Pre-Socratics and admire the ingenuity with which they interpreted enigmatic texts. These comments are interesting, but I think only a Kirk, a Raven or a Schofield can do them justice.<BR/><BR/>TAR ART RAT. This is a BRILLIANT, BRILLIANT idea. I may quote your comment in attempting to persuade the reading public that the scheme is not a complete swizz.Helen DeWitthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07619602559096610012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5375681131276548542.post-84971650840813878622007-08-31T08:13:00.000+00:002007-08-31T08:13:00.000+00:00ok, just while reading this email I had a blip of ...ok, just while reading this email I had a blip of an idea- if the reason you can't sell YNH online in pdf is due to the copyright issues witht he images (it is, right?) mayyybe you could simply provide readers (err- downloaders) with the list of links where they must first go to download, print-out, cut, paste and insert the images themselves before readig the book. Like a scavenger hunt, and would circumvent the copyright issues, oder?<BR/><BR/>regarding animals and junkfood- there was a particular park in seattle where I have I have witnessed crowes -on several occasions- dive down and then swoop off carrying:<BR/>-a can of pringles<BR/>-a box of cheez-its<BR/>-a chunk of a burger king hamburger in its paper wrapper."Post-Google" by TAR ART RAThttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06164248659631146885noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5375681131276548542.post-17513507187399072902007-08-30T16:24:00.000+00:002007-08-30T16:24:00.000+00:00There is a world in which I can magically exert my...There is a world in which I can magically exert my will and MAKE the right publisher put out Helen's next novels in just the right way--this is not that world--but in this world, I am going to do everything I can to help this happen, or some acceptable approximation thereof at any rate: H., I am fully at your disposal, let us consult more on this once I am done with my book next week!Jenny Davidsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02295436498255927522noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5375681131276548542.post-17368824433951936722007-08-30T14:02:00.000+00:002007-08-30T14:02:00.000+00:00sorry so didactic, snore snoresorry so didactic, snore snoreUnknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06888415790009588712noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5375681131276548542.post-54477125773493007562007-08-30T14:00:00.000+00:002007-08-30T14:00:00.000+00:00No polluters, really... only flowers. Each of us a...No polluters, really... only flowers. Each of us a flower, a flower before flowers (and never before)... and every moment another opportunity to know it<BR/><BR/>Which is perhaps why the Prince in the Idiot thinks that he can live more intelligently than 'others'-- he can know himself for Ippolit (himself; the small child with whom Christ sits, the flower, reality), by putting a hand on Ippolit's brow, retelling him in touch and in word that he is lovely, lovely... <BR/><BR/>*<BR/><BR/>He can know the reality of Ippolit, not the image of Ippolit, not:<BR/><BR/>I have no illusions, however. My judges will regard all this as a piece of mummery on the part of a madman with a gross liking for the fruit vert. Au fond, ca m'est bien egal. All I know is that while the Haze woman and I went down the steps into the breathless garden, my knees were like reflections of knees in rippling water, and my lips were like sand, and--<BR/> "That was my Lo," she said, "and these are my lilies."<BR/> "Yes," I said, "yes. They are beautiful, beautiful, beautiful!"<BR/><BR/>*<BR/><BR/>blahblah, snoreUnknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06888415790009588712noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5375681131276548542.post-4893388109648429982007-08-30T13:25:00.000+00:002007-08-30T13:25:00.000+00:00Lee: Sorry--I wrote very fast yesterday. I meant t...Lee: Sorry--I wrote very fast yesterday. I meant the decline in the STUDY of poetry. And not that the study of it is getting worse, just that there seem to be fewer people doing it than 30 years ago, 40, 50, years ago. I don't long for the days of the New Critics, but I would like to see more people taking poetry seriously. I didn't mean to be as crusty as I sounded in that comment. All I meant to say was that there are less people studying poetry and writing about poetry in academia. I talk with many very bright people who say they "don't do poetry," that they are "afraid" of poetry. Maybe this fear comes from the fact that they're not introduced to it until very late (college). The novel has taken over almost completely at the grade school and high school levels. <BR/><BR/>Ith: I see. Sorry for going a bit off-topic in my response. And for my R-rated diction. What's interesting is that much of the history a particular book happens to have is concealed: as I think you've said before, you can't write about all of the ways in which the publishing industry has tried to murder your book in its cradle (or at least give it very invasive plastic surgery). It's a shame that readers don't get a truthful account of what happens to a book. There's no such thing as the well of English undefiled in part because there are so many polluters--but in order to continue getting published what you can get published, I imagine you would have to keep silent about many of your experiences with the polluters.Mithridateshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09071591560485370221noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5375681131276548542.post-50257930724151480382007-08-30T12:31:00.000+00:002007-08-30T12:31:00.000+00:00Re the elms, re fire and light, re carniverousness...Re the elms, re fire and light, re carniverousness/vegandom, re 'shoot him'/'literary theft!', re the garden of gethsemane, re fallen into future/past and not...<BR/><BR/>i don't see the behavioral contradictions; to my mind, one is only by way of its also being two...Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06888415790009588712noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5375681131276548542.post-61507313825210462692007-08-30T11:07:00.000+00:002007-08-30T11:07:00.000+00:00Lee -- There are people who can compartmentalise t...Lee -- There are people who can compartmentalise the mind, one way or another, so that they can put the writing part of the mind in a box and self-publish, hold a job, all sorts of things, and then take it out of the box. I can't do that. <BR/><BR/>Mith -- I think I was thinking of NH as a way of thinking of possible worlds. There is a possible world in which I met the editor who eventually published TLS when we were both at Oxford in the early 80s. There is a possible world in which my first agent sent him the book in 1996, when he had a senior job at a London publishing house. There is a possible world in which David went into publishing instead of selfishly choosing a career as a Latinist. Those are worlds in which a book called The Seventh Samurai was published in 1997 without interference from dim copy-editors, worlds in which that book is followed by a series of books of comparable ambition. In the world we inhabit, with the history it happens to have, books came into existence in response to the apparent impossibility of getting that book published. Of course, one can always look at any text as it stands and analyse it on its own terms, but the fact that the author wrote this book rather than another may be incomprehensible without a mental picture of where this world stands in relation to other possible worlds.Helen DeWitthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07619602559096610012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5375681131276548542.post-44798392325331363912007-08-30T06:38:00.000+00:002007-08-30T06:38:00.000+00:00Mith, do you mean the decline of poetry or the dec...Mith, do you mean the decline of poetry or the decline of American poetry?Leehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13770069472552779217noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5375681131276548542.post-42795692729406387742007-08-30T06:25:00.000+00:002007-08-30T06:25:00.000+00:00I don't mean walking away. There are other options...I don't mean walking away. There are other options. Starting your own publishing company like Susan Hill is one. POD is another. And here's another:<BR/><BR/>http://www.a-e-m-gmbh.com/wessely/fneid1.htm<BR/><BR/>And then there's the American tradition of people like Wallace Stevens and Charles Ives, who were <I>both</I> business executives and influential artists.<BR/><BR/>Many writers who make money from their talent - or at least make their entire living from it - have only a modest talent to begin with.<BR/>Their real talent is probably for making money - not necessarily to be despised, but an entirely different thing.<BR/><BR/>And if IG writes such fascinating emails, why doesn't he at least blog? I for one would love to read him!Leehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13770069472552779217noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5375681131276548542.post-89207932173239622412007-08-29T18:44:00.000+00:002007-08-29T18:44:00.000+00:00Quickly (at work, hawkish boss galumphed out to ga...Quickly (at work, hawkish boss galumphed out to gargle fourth mocochocolattewhatever, abot to galumph back): loved the post, don't hate NH buuuuut rather, like anything else, substandard lazy tedious railing thought-executing NH-ers, people who DON't actually like reading literature (witness the decline of poetry, more difficult to historicize than novels and less interesting when it is; I once got the comment on an eval that I loved the Literary and Literature and that this might make me seem old fashioned; hmm)--this I a no likey. NH has provided very useful tools, some beautiful books, buuuuut--I like it when A.) there's some balance, id est the primary work doesn't get completely clusterfucked by history, and B.) there's real solid expertise, real historical knowledge, and a sense of a theory of history, a sense that history isn't this unconstructed unmediated gooey magamatic blob of What Happens (like say for instance shit, which, OK OK, does tend to just happen and often), oh and C.) when it doesn't boil down smug obvious statements about politics, things like And this is why Suchandsuch culture was really awful, and we know better, Ho ho ho. History isn't the best framework; it's ONE framework, and a good one, obviously, but there are others and the academies should remain open to them. And it should also learn to play a subordinate role to its subject matter, ie what writers actually write, what artists actually say, do, show, etc. I know that lit isn't made in a vacuum. But I DO have a problem with the rather facile way in which the alleged politics of an author are sometimes "found" in the works (have I said this already?--I'm writing fast fast no time to revise). And I think NH runs into problems when the contexts start to multiply - there's always another context, always another cookie cutter - because then the aporias do too: that is, the arguments can often miss or ignore how different contexts can give each other some serious problems. But other than that.....Mithridateshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09071591560485370221noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5375681131276548542.post-5433851935731834882007-08-29T18:34:00.000+00:002007-08-29T18:34:00.000+00:00There are very good, perhaps compelling reasons to...There are very good, perhaps compelling reasons to do so; I do spend a lot of time thinking about other ways to make a living. It might be better to teach English in Taiwan, for instance, or learn to train dogs, or do a degree in computer science -- there are all kinds of things that might be a better bet. The arguments against walking away are, first, that the world is a more interesting place if books like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas get published, second that if such works are published and do well it opens the way for other writers with similar gifts to make money from their talent.Helen DeWitthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07619602559096610012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5375681131276548542.post-22125393525636786342007-08-29T16:28:00.000+00:002007-08-29T16:28:00.000+00:00The why not step out of the box altogether?The why not step out of the box altogether?Leehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13770069472552779217noreply@blogger.com