I'm too stupid to read horror.

Re: I'm too stupid to read horror.

feeds@yuku.com (Laymon fan) — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 04:27:33 GMT

Randy, thanks for not trying to deny Joshi's prejudice against popular horror fiction. At least there's one thing we can agree on.

Jason

Re: I'm too stupid to read horror.

feeds@yuku.com (nkalanta) — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 03:28:48 GMT

aaron2010 wrote:
This thread made my head hurt. I think that's good ... in my opinion, of course.

You know what I'll take with me from this thread ? After the flexing of intellectualism on all sides of this discussion ? Not a damn thing. Except a recipe for potato salad !

...

Re: I'm too stupid to read horror.

feeds@yuku.com (aaron2010) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 21:25:40 GMT

This thread made my head hurt. I think that's good ... in my opinion, of course.

You know what I'll take with me from this thread ? After the flexing of intellectualism on all sides of this discussion ? Not a damn thing. Except a recipe for potato salad !

Re: I'm too stupid to read horror.

feeds@yuku.com (LeatherZebra) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 19:55:20 GMT

Cave Inimicum

Inertis pedem conferre pugno. Tua veneficii ipsam nullam consecutionit!

Re: I'm too stupid to read horror.

feeds@yuku.com (lokilokust) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 15:52:03 GMT

again, well said randy.

Re: I'm too stupid to read horror.

feeds@yuku.com (njhorror) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:02:26 GMT

damn!

mustard in potato salad?

why didn't I think of that?

Re: I'm too stupid to read horror.

feeds@yuku.com (marksamuels) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 13:08:06 GMT

Again, one of my original premises from the Joshi / Koontz post was the idea that how would anyone know or even care about literary merit if it first were not popular enough to even get exposure.

Phil, that's certainly an excellent point. I suppose one has to hope that it'll creep through a narrow channel (perhaps even a single influential reader) leading to a wider stream in the long term. But I agree, the chances are very much against literary survival...

Re: I'm too stupid to read horror.

feeds@yuku.com (rbmoney) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 12:59:56 GMT

Laymon fan wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[...]

I say you mis-labelled me because, despite your quoting of my post in the Joshi on Koontz thread, I was not saying I have anything against literary criticism in general. The opinion I was attempting to express, in that specific post, was that *to me* it seems like a pointless exercise which takes the fun (and I use that word deliberately) out of reading. If other...

Re: I'm too stupid to read horror.

feeds@yuku.com (scottstandridge) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 12:59:28 GMT

More on authors not knowing what they're writing...

The most famous example of this in classic lit is John Milton writing Paradise Lost. William Blake famously said that Milton "was of the Devil's party without knowing it." Paradise Lost is an epic poem, and most scholars agree that despite all Milton's protestations of "justifying God's ways to Man," Lucifer is actually the tragic hero of the piece--his famous lines about...

Re: I'm too stupid to read horror.

feeds@yuku.com (scottstandridge) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 12:41:51 GMT

>>Let's amend that a bit: "Is that true, that you aren't always aware of what you're writing?"

The writer knows what he or she is writing, and in most cases is fully aware of what he or she WANTS to say.

However, I think it's absolutely true that some themes can become apparent in a writer's work--either prevailing social beliefs (HPL's racism, for instance) or reactions against them, or osmosis from the culture at large that were...

Re: I'm too stupid to read horror.

feeds@yuku.com (nkalanta) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 12:40:45 GMT

process X equals..

OMFG - he's quoting algebra

ALGEBRA!

STONE HIM!!!!

Re: I'm too stupid to read horror.

feeds@yuku.com (Allyson Bird) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 12:24:19 GMT

Sure. Sometimes a phrase or a single word or a whole sentence or two pops into my head from...wherever, and I run with it, see where it's going to take me.
I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of writers do the same thing.

T.M.

So very, very true.

Re: I'm too stupid to read horror.

feeds@yuku.com (One More Justin Case) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 12:19:24 GMT

marksamuels wrote:

But we're talking about an analysis of a whole swathe of horror novels published in the 1980s. It's simply not the case that the publishers were slipping vast numbers of works of intrinsic literary merit into print under the umbrella of "horror". What they were...

Re: I'm too stupid to read horror.

feeds@yuku.com (ADaRkFascination) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 12:06:50 GMT

"I'm not "anti-intellectual," but I am "anti-pedantic."

Coolness!

Re: I'm too stupid to read horror.

feeds@yuku.com (Ellen Datlow) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 11:44:17 GMT

marksamuels wrote:
Ellen was pointing out my mistake, Matt.

Mark S.

Yup!

Re: I'm too stupid to read horror.

feeds@yuku.com (BryonMorrigan) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 11:24:45 GMT

LeatherZebra wrote:

You're dead to me, Michele...

:::::::wink:::::::::

So then I can move into the manor asap and start doing ghostly things like making the walls bleed and pushing you down the stairs? :P

Ghosts, schmosts! Your feeble attempts to haunt Morrigan Manor will end in failure! You have been forewarned! Good day,...

Re: I'm too stupid to read horror.

feeds@yuku.com (TMWright) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 11:22:29 GMT

Is that true, that you aren't aware of what you're saying?

Let's amend that a bit: "Is that true, that you aren't always aware of what you're writing?"

Sure. Sometimes a phrase or a single word or a whole sentence or two pops into my head from...wherever, and I run with it, see where it's going to take me.
I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of writers do the same thing.

T.M.

Re: I'm too stupid to read horror.

feeds@yuku.com (pegleg666) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 10:57:46 GMT

I consider myself a reader who enjoys a "well-told tale." Sometimes it counts as "literature" and sometimes as crap. Sometimes I read for various internal justifications that are aliterate. But I buy lots of books, and hope, in some small way, I'm contributing to the growth of horror.

I know about lit crit, having been an English major at an Ivy league school. One day I suggested asking WH Auden about what he meant by something-or-other (he lived in the...

Re: I'm too stupid to read horror.

feeds@yuku.com (LeatherZebra) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 10:42:16 GMT

You're dead to me, Michele...

:::::::wink:::::::::

So then I can move into the manor asap and start doing ghostly things like making the walls bleed and pushing you down the stairs? :P

Re: I'm too stupid to read horror.

feeds@yuku.com (Shocklines) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 10:06:12 GMT

Shocklines wrote:
I know Tryon was in the 70s. I was more or less using him as an example that even the most brilliant fiction goes out of print.

Sorry. I was thinking I should have been clearer myself when I referenced him in the first place.

I'm too stupid to read horror.

feeds@yuku.com (Laymon fan) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 04:23:40 GMT

In the Joshi on Koontz thread, I expressed the opinion that it was okay to read purely for escapist entertainment and nothing more. The thread ran for many pages and anyone could have responded directly to me with the reasonable expectation that I would see it. Instead, Jackula chose to single me out for ridicule over at TODP without any reason to suspect that I would read his post. What a guy!...