GR Review--Still Boo, but less so

[MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu]

Murthy and I have been talking about this old SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN rev. of GR:

I too think we mostly agree, Murthy, though I still think you are torturing the 
phrase--pay in spiritual coin--to escape what seems to me the inescapable 
implication that one does indeed have less of whatever it was oner paid after one 
pays.  I don't think reading--pay--as--pay attention is justified here.  But I do concur 
w/ your analysis of the balance bet. warmth and chill; you are right, I'm a--warmth 
seeker, and capable of denying the undeniable chill factor.

john m


>In a previous message MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu writes:
>> (1) I think you have to distort the meaning of the phrase--pay in
>> spiritual coin--to see it as a compliment.  Since when
>> does--paying--mean--investing?  You are saying that the book enriches
>> us spiritually.  I agree.  However, it seems that Morrison is saying
>> the book actually entails a spiritual impovershment.  Not the same
>> thing at all, is it now?
>
>I don't think 'pay in spiritual coin' means you have fewer 'spiritual
>coins' as a result. I think of it as something like 'pay attention' - to
>pay is not necessarily the same thing as to give away something you
>own. So I read it as saying that unless you 'pay in spiritual coin'
>(that is, pay attention to the spiritual qualities), you're not getting
>the essence of the book. This could be a hint to the 'hard science'
>fans who might read it only for the cool science metaphors to pay
>attention to the other qualities of the book.
>
>> (2)  Coldness and brilliance have nothing to do w/ comedy.  The
>> reviewer, again, clearly sees this--chill--as a deficiency ("But be
>> warned," he intones).  I don't see that meta-chill.  Yes there are
>> chilling things a-plenty in the novel (in all of his novels), but the
>> overall movement, to me, is to establish a genuine, we might even say
>> warm, human community w/in this chilled world.  After all, it ends w/
>> the word--everybody!!
>
>"But be warned" is unfortunate :-) - I'm all for not warning people
>about the great qualities of the book. Despite the "genuine, warm, human
>community", I do sense the meta-chill (and like it all the more for it).
>I think one of the reasons why GR is great is that fine balance between
>warmth and chill. So yeah, too bad that Morrison stressed only the
>coldness and not the warmth. But you know, when they are so finely
>balanced, there are always going to be people who are more affected by
>the warmth as there are people who are more affected by the chill. May
>be Morrison falls in the second camp (as I do?). But I don't think his
>mention of the "cold brilliance" implies his seeing it as a deficiency.
>
>> I go on about this because it does seem that TRP still has this rep.
>> for a detached, cold, intellectually brilliant but spritually
>> questionable vision; Murthy's comments reinforce that conclusion.
>
>"Spritually questionable?" Who thinks this? None of the people I know
>who've read his books do (but I haven't read any academic criticism of
>his work). May be some confuse the coolness of the writing with
>spiritual/emotional detachment - if they do, I wouldn't pay too much
>attention to their criticism of TP - clearly they don't know what they
>are talking about.
>
>> I am
>> just wondering how anybody can take these judgments away from a really
>> engaged reading of his work.
>
>Looks like we mostly agree, except maybe in our estimation of how
>cold/warm his writing is.
>
>Murthy
>
>-- 
>Murthy Yenamandra, Dept of CompSci, U of Minnesota. Email: 
>yenamand at cs.umn.edu
>   "I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the
>    swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the
>    wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour  
>    to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all ..."
>