Is it Wednesday again
Jan. 30th, 2013 22:02![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
starladyWhat I'm reading
Still The Lives of Christopher Chant. Somewhere about the halfway point I started to like Christopher, however, so that's something. Also, Throgmorten is the best. I'm also plugging away at Joan Wallach Scott's The Fantasy of Feminist History, which is interesting and good but not the book I was hoping it would be--she is way too Freudian for my tastes. Sigh. Why are all the interesting people Freudian.
What I just read
Vannevar Bush's "As We May Think." It was written in The Atlantic in July 1945, and Bush as the head of the Office of Scientific Research and Development knew that the bomb was about to be tested, about to be dropped, and about (as he thought) to end the war, and in this article he basically says, "That was great! Let's do it again! In fact, let's invent the internet." I've also been reading a lot of the X-Men Big Bang fics, and I wanted to give a particular plug to The Legend of Raven: Prince of Dreams by pangea. It's one of the best fanfics I've read in years, and I am in awe of the way she managed to convey the experience of being the player character in a game--and particularly in a Zelda game, circa N64 or Twilight Princess--and also the way she managed to convey the actuality of the PC/NPC interaction (i.e., NPCs and sprites talk to the PC, but the PC never talks back, just has to choose from a menu of actions) without making it feel one-sided. My hat is off to her. Go read it.
What I'll read next
Still A Natural History of Dragons. Also I should read If He Hollers Let Him Go. And Still Forms on Foxfield is staring at me from the bookshelf--I have an extra copy of it, so if anyone wants it, let's talk.
Still The Lives of Christopher Chant. Somewhere about the halfway point I started to like Christopher, however, so that's something. Also, Throgmorten is the best. I'm also plugging away at Joan Wallach Scott's The Fantasy of Feminist History, which is interesting and good but not the book I was hoping it would be--she is way too Freudian for my tastes. Sigh. Why are all the interesting people Freudian.
What I just read
Vannevar Bush's "As We May Think." It was written in The Atlantic in July 1945, and Bush as the head of the Office of Scientific Research and Development knew that the bomb was about to be tested, about to be dropped, and about (as he thought) to end the war, and in this article he basically says, "That was great! Let's do it again! In fact, let's invent the internet." I've also been reading a lot of the X-Men Big Bang fics, and I wanted to give a particular plug to The Legend of Raven: Prince of Dreams by pangea. It's one of the best fanfics I've read in years, and I am in awe of the way she managed to convey the experience of being the player character in a game--and particularly in a Zelda game, circa N64 or Twilight Princess--and also the way she managed to convey the actuality of the PC/NPC interaction (i.e., NPCs and sprites talk to the PC, but the PC never talks back, just has to choose from a menu of actions) without making it feel one-sided. My hat is off to her. Go read it.
What I'll read next
Still A Natural History of Dragons. Also I should read If He Hollers Let Him Go. And Still Forms on Foxfield is staring at me from the bookshelf--I have an extra copy of it, so if anyone wants it, let's talk.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-01-31 12:08 (UTC)I misread the title and initially had the impression that it was a feminist history of fantasy. That is a book I would like to read!
(no subject)
Date: 2013-02-05 08:03 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-01-31 14:46 (UTC)Because, like The White Goddess, Freudian theory is useful for generating interesting and entertaining artworks (that just happen to be All Wrong). Only unlike Graves's novels, the genre of Freudian art happens to mostly be that of intellectual ideas.
---L.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-02-05 08:05 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-02-06 00:28 (UTC)---L.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-02-06 07:56 (UTC)Scott wants to claim that you can be Freudian without denying that people have agency, which is a key thing that the post-structuralists said in objection to the structuralists. I'm not convinced.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-02-07 00:02 (UTC)I'm not convinced either. I could be, but the burden is upon the claimant here.
---L.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-01-31 16:44 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-01-31 21:17 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-02-05 07:48 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-02-05 08:01 (UTC)