Re: Phonemes

António Marques <m.ap@xxxxxxx> wrote in
news:42c041ef$0$9996$a729d347@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:

> David Wright Sr. wrote:
>
>> Peter T. Daniels: He discovered sex.
>>
>> David Wright Sr: I made no comment with respect to this. I have
>> heard this many times and have never received any answer to as to
>> what it even means. PTD could do us all a favor by giving his
>> interpretation.
>
> I can only assume it means something I have alluded to earlier on -
> some author comes across some idea they consider good and unthought
> of, and then splatters it all around every subsequent work.
> The annoying part is the splattering, not that it appears from a
> certain poitn in time (hence it's irrelevant whether the author had
> the idea all along but only used it after getting a permissive
> publisher).

Heinlein would have included sex in all of his works, had the times and
mores permitted it, (not just the publishers). Have you read _For Us, The
Living_, It was his very first effort in writing a novel and remained
unpublished until recently. In it, you can find some of the same attitudes
towards sex that he wrote about in his later works, (after it became
permissible), and this was written in 1937-38. The story really isn't very
good as a story, but it is very instructive to find precursors of many of
the things that people criticized him for when he 'only started writing
about them in his late years'. And don't forget that a great deal of his
work was written for a young audience in which it would have been
impossible to talk about sex other than obliquely. However, even in the
young audience market, he managed to slip in an item just to get even with
his editor for complaining about the 'disgusting pulsing sex habits of the
Martian Flat Cat' in _Red Planet_. This was a direct sexual reference, in
_The Star Beast_, taken from Lady Chatterly's lover, as I understand it,
in which he referred to his main character as 'John Thomas' and to the
hobby of the long-lived alien who 'raised John Thomases'.

>
>> Peter T. Daniels: He failed to handle the paradox of the 'letter
>> never written' in "By His Bootstraps". Asimov would never have made
>> that mistake.
>>
>> David Wright Sr: I pointed out the fallacy in this, PTD made no
>> further comments on the subject.
>>----------------------------
>
> I musta missed that. What was the fallacy?

The fallacy was in trying to claim that 'no one wrote' the list of items
given to Bob(1) in the opening scenes. Diktor, who is of course a later
Bob, wrote the list. unlike the dictionary, which was copied from the
earlier one, it is not clear whether this list was done from memory or
from copying the earlier list. Each 'writing' cycles through the loop and
becomes the 'cause' of the new 'writing' to be made. No paradox.

Unlike the watch in the movie 'Somewhere in Time', with Reeves and
Seymour. In that one, there is a fallacy in that the 'same' watch itself
supposedly goes through the loop. In that case, it would age on each
iteration until it disintegrated.

BTW, I consider Bob Wilson to probably be Heinlein's least likeable
protagonist. He displays none of the good qualities of most of his main
characters.

> Cf. Stargate's '1969'.
>
>> I have no objection to someone who doesn't like Heinlein. There are
>> a lot of authors whom I don't like. What I do object to is making
>> up or repeating in public false claims as the basis for that dislike.
>
> What of false claims for liking it?

I object to anyone making false claims publicly about it whether they like
it or not. As I said, everyone is entitled to like or dislike whatever
they want, but I don't think that they should make public claims, true or
false, without some proof or at least some attempt to demonstrate why they
claim what they do. If they simply say, I don't like it, I will not argue,
or if they give me reasons for why they don't like which are valid, I won't
argue. As for perceptions, which are invalid and not supported by the text,
I will argue.

But, neither I nor anyone else can prevent it. All I can do is try to get
people who make such claims to support them or retract them. I probably
won't succeed in that either, but I am going to keep trying.

I again apologize to the regular inhabitants of sci.lang. I didn't intend
to prolong this off-topic subject, but after a while, I could no longer
ignore PTD's claims without attempting to set the record straight.

I appreciate the responses of all those who have responded cordially,
whether they agreed or disagreed.

--
David Wright Sr.
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