R.A.Lafferty

[j minnich]

>From Joe Varo:

 In fact, though I used to be
>an avid reader of SF/Fantasy in my teens and early twenties, I just
>haven't been able to get into it much since then.
>
>I still enjoy a good SF movie, but for the most part, I just find reading
>the stuff to be rather tedious...>Anybody else out there feel that they
kind of "outgrew" SF?
>
>Joe
>

Very much so.  I tried to read the (supposedly good) _Neuromancer_ a few
years back but could only get through about the first 75 pages.  Then, for
further punishment, I read Tad Williams' 4-volume "trilogy."  Your comments
about the good ideas and poor writing in SF echo Kurt Vonnegut's comments on
the writing of his own, fictional, Kilgore Trout. I often wondered if Trout
was supposed to resemble P.K.Dick.  The major exception to this blanket
condemnation of the SF/fantasy genres (of mine) continues to be Delany's
_Dhalgren_, which I just can't seem to stop plugging.  It's just about the
most depressing book I ever read, at the same time that it's absolutely
fascinating.  The incongruity of gang members in a burned-out city
discussing whether it's "must of" or "Must have" is kinda typical for
_Dhalgren_.  Imagine: _JR_, _Dhalgren_, and _Gravity's Rainbow_ as enduring
literary representatives of the early seventies. Interesting thought.
Someplace Delany commented that _Dhalgren_ described the kinds of places
white folks spent their whole lives trying to avoid.  I can't disagree.  
      -j minnich  


---------------------------------------------------------------
...The poet is dead.
Nor will ever again hear the sea lions 
Grunt in the kelp at Point Lobos.
Nor look to the south when the grunion 
Run the Pacific, and the plunging
Shearwaters, insatiable, 
Stun themselves in the sea.  
   -Wm. Everson