by bruce » Fri Dec 19, 2003 3:37 pm
Worm wrote:Okay, you don't like fantasy. You could of just typed that and stopped typing.
Well, but he claims to like the Oz books.
I can, of course, discuss, <i>at length</i> any of the Canonical Fourteen--the ones by Baum. Ruth Plumly Thompson's Oz books are not fit to wipe my ass on, and I hope that all of us can agree at least on that. I can also talk about some of the lesser-known Baum novels, like <i>Queen Zixi of Ix</i> or <i>Sky Island</i>.
And, as someone who has read not only Tolkien, but Baum, and, I'm willing to bet, more Lewis Carroll than anyone else in this goddamn place (yes, I have made it through both <i>Silvie and Bruno</i> and <i>S&B Concluded</i>, wretched (with the exception of the Other Professor and the Gardener's Song) though they are), all I can say is that, having read Baum, to say arrant shit like:
Jethro Wouldn't Know Writing If It Skullfucked Him wrote:Tolkien? His untalented self can suck my fat one.
seems to imply either severe mental retardation, or at the very least that he's stuck a hatpin through his literary taste centers. Baum's fun and all, and had a wonderfully vivid imagination--don't get me wrong--but he wrote crappy, sappy, faux-Victorian, saccharine prose. And his flights of imagination, goofy and lovable though they are, can't hold the merest stub of a candle to someone who <i>invents entire self-consistent languages</i> and then makes up stories to go around them. It's like comparing a Steak and Shake burger (which is, let there be no mistake, often very tasty and occasionally Exactly What You Want) to a Ruth's Chris steak. One which you do <i>not</i> order Medium Well.
Bruce
[quote="Worm"]Okay, you don't like fantasy. You could of just typed that and stopped typing.[/quote]
Well, but he claims to like the Oz books.
I can, of course, discuss, <i>at length</i> any of the Canonical Fourteen--the ones by Baum. Ruth Plumly Thompson's Oz books are not fit to wipe my ass on, and I hope that all of us can agree at least on that. I can also talk about some of the lesser-known Baum novels, like <i>Queen Zixi of Ix</i> or <i>Sky Island</i>.
And, as someone who has read not only Tolkien, but Baum, and, I'm willing to bet, more Lewis Carroll than anyone else in this goddamn place (yes, I have made it through both <i>Silvie and Bruno</i> and <i>S&B Concluded</i>, wretched (with the exception of the Other Professor and the Gardener's Song) though they are), all I can say is that, having read Baum, to say arrant shit like:
[quote="Jethro Wouldn't Know Writing If It Skullfucked Him"]Tolkien? His untalented self can suck my fat one.[/quote]
seems to imply either severe mental retardation, or at the very least that he's stuck a hatpin through his literary taste centers. Baum's fun and all, and had a wonderfully vivid imagination--don't get me wrong--but he wrote crappy, sappy, faux-Victorian, saccharine prose. And his flights of imagination, goofy and lovable though they are, can't hold the merest stub of a candle to someone who <i>invents entire self-consistent languages</i> and then makes up stories to go around them. It's like comparing a Steak and Shake burger (which is, let there be no mistake, often very tasty and occasionally Exactly What You Want) to a Ruth's Chris steak. One which you do <i>not</i> order Medium Well.
Bruce