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From: oyster@uwmacc.UUCP (Vicious Oyster)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Criticism
Message-ID: <1458@uwmacc.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 10-Sep-85 12:36:42 EDT
Article-I.D.: uwmacc.1458
Posted: Tue Sep 10 12:36:42 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 11-Sep-85 16:27:29 EDT
References: <175@chinet.UUCP>
Reply-To: oyster@uwmacc.UUCP (Vicious Oyster)
Distribution: na
Organization: UWisconsin-Madison Academic Comp Center
Lines: 23

In article <175@chinet.UUCP> tomj@chinet.UUCP (Tom) writes:
> 
>	Other points:  from Mr. Ellison's review of _Dhalgren_, I would have
>to believe that it isn't a work of literature:  it'd be difficult to find
>something new in a work so turgid you cannot even finish!

   Two comments on the above line:

   1) "A good writer is not, per se, a good book critic.  No more than a
      good drunk is automatically a good bartender." - Jim Bishop [with
      thanks to Bob Webber]   And I personally don't have an extremely
      high opinion of Harlan Ellison's works.

   2) I found Proust's megalithic "Remembrances of Things Past" and Joyce's
      Ulysses both too "turgid" to finish, but I doubt that you'd have
      trouble finding one or two people who would agree that they are
      works of literature (however it is you define "literature"-- I see
      that word used on those prettily-colored envelopes I receive so 
      often in the mail (can you say "junk mail"?); i.e. read the enclosed
      literature).

 - joel "vo" plutchak
{allegra,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!oyster