From: Duncan Kinder [duncan@neoclassicists.net] Sent: Thursday, October 18, 2001 7:34 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu <3BCC3E15.B35E3474@drew.edu> Subject: Re: Does Stanley Fish Play Chess? Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2001 09:57:31 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu I have been thinking of examples of the "rational" foe. The best I can think of is the Evil Cardinal in the Three Musketeers. And Moriarity seems to track bin Laden. Duncan C. Kinder dckinder@neoclassicists.net "Corruption results from a variety of economic, institutional, political, social and historical factors. It flourishes when democratic institutions are weak, laws are not enforced, political will is lacking, and when citizens and the media are not allowed to be partners in democracy....Success [in fighting corruption] depends on impartial democratic institutions, open elections, and an unfettered access to information. Success also requires leadership by the private sector and active participation by citizens." Colin L. Powell ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim Rovira" To: Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2001 7:03 AM Subject: Re: Does Stanley Fish Play Chess? > I don't think we insist that all our enemies are irrational -- I don't > recall seeing that in anti-German rhetoric around WW II (that I've seen), > and certainly not in WW I. "Evil," perhaps, but not irrational. > > "Irrational" is a pretty common stereotype that we westerners apply to the > peoples of the Middle East, however. It's not surprising that we'd grab > that one first when talking about enemies in the Middle East. > > This time, I agree with Fish, though I haven't read the entire article... > > Jim > > Duncan Kinder wrote: > > > > In today's New York Times, Stanley Fish writes an article about moral > > relativism which includes the following: > > > > "The same reduction occurs when we imagine the enemy as "irrational." > > Irrational actors are by definition without rhyme or reason, and there's no > > point in reasoning about them on the way to fighting them. The better course > > is to think of these men as bearers of a rationality we reject because its > > goal is our destruction. If we take the trouble to understand that > > rationality, we might have a better chance of figuring out what its > > adherents will do next and preventing it. > > > > http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/15/opinion/15FISH.html > > > > This suggests a certain chess-playing mentality on Fish's part. > > > > His article reminds me of a quote by my old professor Marion Levy, at > > Princeton, who liked to say "Always pray that your enemies be evil." The > > reason, Levy explained, was that evil contains an element of rationality, > > which admits the possibility of out-thinking. Against a well intentioned, > > irrational opponent, one is utterly lost, Levy stated. > > > > It also reminds me of the episode in Dante's Inferno in which the devil > > drags the shyster off to hell. (Roughly) the devil states "Dost thou think > > that I, too, am not a logician?" > > > > What is it about contemporary American rhetoric that we must insist that our > > enemies are "irrational"? > > > > Duncan C. Kinder > > dckinder@neoclassicists.net > > > > "Corruption results from a variety of economic, institutional, political, > > social and historical factors. It flourishes when democratic institutions > > are weak, laws are not enforced, political will is lacking, and when > > citizens and the media are not allowed to be partners in > > democracy....Success [in fighting corruption] depends on impartial > > democratic institutions, open elections, and an unfettered access to > > information. Success also requires leadership by the private sector and > > active participation by citizens." > > > > Colin L. Powell > > > From: Jim Rovira [jrovira@drew.edu] Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2001 10:03 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Does Stanley Fish Play Chess? I don't think we insist that all our enemies are irrational -- I don't recall seeing that in anti-German rhetoric around WW II (that I've seen), and certainly not in WW I. "Evil," perhaps, but not irrational. "Irrational" is a pretty common stereotype that we westerners apply to the peoples of the Middle East, however. It's not surprising that we'd grab that one first when talking about enemies in the Middle East. This time, I agree with Fish, though I haven't read the entire article... Jim Duncan Kinder wrote: > > In today's New York Times, Stanley Fish writes an article about moral > relativism which includes the following: > > "The same reduction occurs when we imagine the enemy as "irrational." > Irrational actors are by definition without rhyme or reason, and there's no > point in reasoning about them on the way to fighting them. The better course > is to think of these men as bearers of a rationality we reject because its > goal is our destruction. If we take the trouble to understand that > rationality, we might have a better chance of figuring out what its > adherents will do next and preventing it. > > http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/15/opinion/15FISH.html > > This suggests a certain chess-playing mentality on Fish's part. > > His article reminds me of a quote by my old professor Marion Levy, at > Princeton, who liked to say "Always pray that your enemies be evil." The > reason, Levy explained, was that evil contains an element of rationality, > which admits the possibility of out-thinking. Against a well intentioned, > irrational opponent, one is utterly lost, Levy stated. > > It also reminds me of the episode in Dante's Inferno in which the devil > drags the shyster off to hell. (Roughly) the devil states "Dost thou think > that I, too, am not a logician?" > > What is it about contemporary American rhetoric that we must insist that our > enemies are "irrational"? > > Duncan C. Kinder > dckinder@neoclassicists.net > > "Corruption results from a variety of economic, institutional, political, > social and historical factors. It flourishes when democratic institutions > are weak, laws are not enforced, political will is lacking, and when > citizens and the media are not allowed to be partners in > democracy....Success [in fighting corruption] depends on impartial > democratic institutions, open elections, and an unfettered access to > information. Success also requires leadership by the private sector and > active participation by citizens." > > Colin L. Powell From: Conrad Bladey ***Peasant**** [cbladey@mail.bcpl.net] Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2001 10:16 AM To: Milton-L@richmond.edu Subject: Guy Fawkes/Bonfire Celebration Baltimore Md. 11/3 Greetings Milton Folk: I thought I would pass on an open invitation to one and all in the Baltimore Washington Area. We invite you to attend our annual Gunpowder Plot (1605) / Guy Fawkes Day / Bonfire Night Celebration. It will be held in Linthicum outside of Baltimore Saturday November 3 starting at 4:30 PM. The celebrations are very traditional right down to the chants, foods, and music of the period. It is a general open house and we always encourage as many as possible to come so that the chants ring out into the fall night air. We may also get a chance to read Milton's short writings related to the topic! The only general rule is to come hungry! We are easy to find via the internet map services- 402 Nancy Avenue, Linthicum, Md. 21090 We are three blocks from the North Linthicum Light rail stop, ten minutes from the baltimore beltway and parkway. We are right next to BWI Airport. Here is the web page invitation address- http://www.geocities.com/Paris/LeftBank/9314/Publish/auxinvite.html Please extend the invitation to one and all as this is a public event. Donations of food etc. are welcome- see invitation... For more on Guy Fawkes/Bonfire consult our world famous web pages via the invitation link above. Remember, Remember the Fifth of November Gunpowder Treason and Plot... But remember to come on the 3rd Saturday...and come hungry! Conrad From: Duncan Kinder [duncan@neoclassicists.net] Sent: Monday, October 15, 2001 1:56 PM To: Milton List Subject: Does Stanley Fish Play Chess? In today's New York Times, Stanley Fish writes an article about moral relativism which includes the following: "The same reduction occurs when we imagine the enemy as "irrational." Irrational actors are by definition without rhyme or reason, and there's no point in reasoning about them on the way to fighting them. The better course is to think of these men as bearers of a rationality we reject because its goal is our destruction. If we take the trouble to understand that rationality, we might have a better chance of figuring out what its adherents will do next and preventing it. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/15/opinion/15FISH.html This suggests a certain chess-playing mentality on Fish's part. His article reminds me of a quote by my old professor Marion Levy, at Princeton, who liked to say "Always pray that your enemies be evil." The reason, Levy explained, was that evil contains an element of rationality, which admits the possibility of out-thinking. Against a well intentioned, irrational opponent, one is utterly lost, Levy stated. It also reminds me of the episode in Dante's Inferno in which the devil drags the shyster off to hell. (Roughly) the devil states "Dost thou think that I, too, am not a logician?" What is it about contemporary American rhetoric that we must insist that our enemies are "irrational"? Duncan C. Kinder dckinder@neoclassicists.net "Corruption results from a variety of economic, institutional, political, social and historical factors. It flourishes when democratic institutions are weak, laws are not enforced, political will is lacking, and when citizens and the media are not allowed to be partners in democracy....Success [in fighting corruption] depends on impartial democratic institutions, open elections, and an unfettered access to information. Success also requires leadership by the private sector and active participation by citizens." Colin L. Powell From: Creamer, Kevin [kcreamer@richmond.edu] Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2001 8:06 AM To: 'Milton-L@Richmond.edu' Subject: FW: Public Paradise Lost Reading @ Eastern Kentucky University, November 15, 7:30--5 Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 08:00:01 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19) Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu -----Original Message----- From: Dean, Margaret [mailto:Margaret.Dean@eku.edu] Sent: Friday, October 12, 2001 2:07 PM To: kcreamer@richmond.edu; Margaret.Dean@acs.eku.edu Subject: Public Paradise Lost Reading @ Eastern Kentucky University, November 15, 7:30--5 All in the area are invited to attend Eastern Kentucky University's biennial reading of the entirety of Paradise Lost on Thursday, November 15th, from 7:30 am until 5 pm in the EKU Chapel of Meditation in the Fountain Court on campus in Richmond, Kentucky. Reading texts and summaries will be provided. Upon completion of the reading, Margaret Dean's English 476 class will host a reception in the Kennamer Room in the nearby Powell Building. Please drop in to listen and read! Parking is available as directed by Campus Security in the Brewer Building. Margaret J. Dean, Ph.D. Associate Professor of English From: Jim Rovira [jrovira@drew.edu] Sent: Monday, October 15, 2001 10:28 AM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Terrorism and Postmodernism (Milton mention) I'd have to take issue with a couple points here: 1. I don't think anyone was saying that the actual people who hijacked and flew the planes into the Twin Towers and Pentagon were cowardly. The cowards are the persons who sent them. They remain unidentified (in that they haven't openly accepted responsibility for the planning of the terrorist acts of Sept. 11), and as such, are attempting to shield themselves from retaliation. They want to be able to attack innocent civilians without fear of retribution or reprisal, sending others to die in their stead while remaining faceless themselves. This is cowardly. While it is true that we could see Bush as sending US troops and planes "in his stead" to counterattack terrorists hiding in Afghanistan, everyone knows Bush has sent them. He is not nameless, faceless, or unaccountable for his actions. 2. The closing of Fish's essay is a fine example of the sad doublespeak I've come to expect from him -- doublespeak in the guise of intelligent thought. <> "Putting yourself in your adversary's shoes" is only sensible and possible from within the framework of moral universals. Fish doesn't understand moral universals at all if he doesn't understand this. Moral universalism isn't based upon an abstract set of commands applicable across time, space, and history -- the same act may be moral (or immoral, or less immoral) given the circumstances. For example, killing may be moral in self defense or to defend a weaker person being attacked. Killing as an act of personal vengeance without regard for the rule of law or need for investigation is probably not moral. The same act, killing, is deemed immoral in some cases and moral in others on the basis of the circumstances surrounding the act. Moral univesalism is not a specific command applied without regard for circumstances; it is a set of principles guiding our interpretation of circumstances. It is **these principles** are are moral universals, and make taking into account differing circumstances possible. The point of "putting oneself in another's shoes" is to try to take into account the circumstances surrounding the killing (in my example) as fully as possible. It is only from that vantage point that a moral judgment about the killing can be made. Did the killer act to defend the weak, and was it necessary to kill the assailant to stop him/her? Then the act was probably moral. Did the killer act to vent his or her rage, without considering anything else other than the rage? Then the killing was probably immoral. Because of moral universals I can imagine myself as a Palestinian suffering harsh governance by Israelis and understand rage at the situation. Moral principles applicable to both myself, Palestinians, and Israelis tell me that oppression is wrong, that rage is an understandable response to oppression. This moral paradigm is what I take with me into my evaluation of circumstances once I place myself "in another person's shoes," without a moral paradigm equally applicable to both myself and my opponents, I cannot make such judgments. Fish, as I've come to expect from him, relies upon moral universals while denying morality; relies upon reason while denying the overarching validity of reason; argues not from any principle that even he himself hold valid, but argues to support only his own position, then imagines everyone else argues for that reason as well. It sounds like doublespeak to me, and in past ages I believe he would have be called a "shister." Jim Rovira PS I realize this is far off topic for a Milton list, even though we're discussing a Milton scholar. If you're interested in further discussion of this specific topic off list, contact me at jrovira@drew.edu to be subscribed to a listserve entitled "Academics About Current Events." I'll be cross posting this article by Fish on the listserve. From: John Leonard [jleonard@uwo.ca] Sent: Monday, October 15, 2001 10:38 AM Ontario} (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: Re: Terrorism and Postmodernism (Milton mention) References: <001d01c15564$f686e250$9059fb18@cb246742c> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-milton-l@richmond.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: milton-l@richmond.edu Tim, Thanks for posting that Fish piece. It was very interesting, but it does contain some slippery rhetoric and at least one inaccuracy. Fish writes: > But of course it's not really postmodernism that people are bothered by. = > It's the idea that our > adversaries have emerged not from some primordial darkness, but from a = > history that has equipped them with reasons and motives and even with a = > perverted version of some virtues. Bill Maher, Dinesh D'Souza and Susan = > Sontag have gotten into trouble by pointing out that 'cowardly' is not = > the word to describe men who sacrifice themselves for a cause they = > believe in. > > Ms. Sontag grants them courage, which she is careful to say is a = > 'morally neutral' term, a quality > someone can display in the performance of a bad act. (Milton's Satan is = > the best literary example.) I have not read the comments by Maher and D'Souza that Fish is here referring to, but I have read the piece by Susan Sontag. Sontag did not say quite what Fish says she says. She did not say that the word "coward" was the wrong word "to describe men who sacrifice themselves for a cause they believe in." She said that the word "coward" was the wrong word to describe "the perpetrators of last tuesday's act." There is an important difference. The perpetrators of the act include the men who organized it. These men can be called cowards, even by their own standards and principles. They are cowards because they have not claimed responsibility for what they did. Osama Bin Laden specifically denied responsibility. If he was lying, his denial is cowardly. If the true perpetrator is someone else, he too is a coward, skulking in the shadows while retribution falls on Bin Laden and the people of Afghanistan. Fish concedes too much when he denies the possibility of calling things by their true names. Fish's point about Milton's Satan is disingenuous because Fish himself has repeatedly denied Satan the virtue of courage. Fish underestimates Satan throughout Surprised by Sin, and he still underestimates him in How Milton Works. One of the silliest moments in Fish's new book occurs when he imports a ridiculous pun into the following lines: but he his wonted pride Soon recollecting, with high words, that bore Semblance of worth, not substance, gently raised Their fainting courage (I 527-30) Fish thinks that "raised" is a pun on "razed" and that Milton's real point (for those in the know) is that Satan expunges the courage of his troops (even though the devils at once raise a shout that tore hell's concave and beyond frighted the reign of Chaos and old Night). Fish confesses that his reading can make nothing of "gently." If this is not underestimating your enemy I don't know what is. John Leonard From: Tim Strzechowski [dedalus204@home.com] Sent: Monday, October 15, 2001 6:34 AM To: Milton-L Subject: Terrorism and Postmodernism (Milton mention) >From Stanley Fish, "Condemnation Without Absolutes," New York Times, = Monday, October 15th, 2001 During the interval between the terrorist attacks and the United States = response, a reporter called to ask me if the events of Sept. 11 meant = the end of postmodernist relativism. It seemed bizarre that events so = serious would be linked causally with a rarefied form of academic talk. = But in the days that followed, a growing number of commentators played = serious variations on the same theme: that the ideas foisted upon us by = postmodern intellectuals have weakened the country's resolve. The = problem, according to the critics, is that since postmodernists deny the = possibility of describing matters of fact objectively, they leave us = with no firm basis for either condemning the terrorist attacks or = fighting back. Not so. Postmodernism maintains only that there can be no independent = standard for determining which of many rival interpretations of an event = is the true one. The only thing postmodern thought argues against is the = hope of justifying our response to the attacks in universal terms that = would be persuasive to everyone, including our enemies. Invoking the = abstract notions of justice and truth to support our cause wouldn't be = effective anyway because our adversaries lay claim to the same language. = (No one declares himself to be an apostle of injustice.) Instead, we can and should invoke the particular lived values that unite = us and inform the institutions we cherish and wish to defend. At times like these, the nation rightly falls back on the record of = aspiration and accomplishment that makes up our collective understanding = of what we live for. That understanding is sufficient, and far from = undermining its sufficiency, postmodern thought tells us that we have = grounds enough for action and justified condemnation in the democratic = ideals we embrace, without grasping for the empty rhetoric of universal = absolutes to which all subscribe but which all define differently. But of course it's not really postmodernism that people are bothered by. = It's the idea that our adversaries have emerged not from some primordial darkness, but from a = history that has equipped them with reasons and motives and even with a = perverted version of some virtues. Bill Maher, Dinesh D'Souza and Susan = Sontag have gotten into trouble by pointing out that 'cowardly' is not = the word to describe men who sacrifice themselves for a cause they = believe in. Ms. Sontag grants them courage, which she is careful to say is a = 'morally neutral' term, a quality someone can display in the performance of a bad act. (Milton's Satan is = the best literary example.) You don't condone that act because you = describe it accurately. In fact, you put yourself in a better position = to respond to it by taking its true measure. Making the enemy smaller = than he is blinds us to the danger he presents and gives him the = advantage that comes along with having been underestimated. That is why what Edward Said has called 'false universals' should be = rejected: they stand in the way of useful thinking. How many times have = we heard these new mantras: 'We have seen the face of evil'; 'these are = irrational madmen'; 'we are at war against international terrorism.' = Each is at once inaccurate and unhelpful. We have not seen the face of = evil; we have seen the face of an enemy who comes at us with a full = roster of grievances, goals and strategies. If we reduce that enemy to = 'evil,' we conjure up a shape-shifting demon, a wild-card moral = anarchist beyond our comprehension and therefore beyond the reach of any counterstrategies.=20 The same reduction occurs when we imagine the enemy as 'irrational.' = Irrational actors are by definition without rhyme or reason, and there's no point in reasoning = about them on the way to fighting them. The better course is to think of = these men as bearers of a rationality we reject because its goal is our = destruction. If we take the trouble to understand that rationality, we = might have a better chance of figuring out what its adherents will do = next and preventing it. And 'international terrorism' does not adequately describe what we are = up against. Terrorism is the name of a style of warfare in service of a = cause. It is the cause, and the passions informing it, that confront us. = Focusing on something called international terrorism - detached from any = specific purposeful agenda - only confuses matters . . . When Reuters decided to be careful about using the word 'terrorism' = because, according to its news director, one man's terrorist is another = man's freedom fighter ... Reuters is simply recognizing how unhelpful = the word is, because it prevents us from making distinctions that would = allow us to get a better picture of where we are and what we might do. = If you think of yourself as the target of terrorism with a capital T, = your opponent is everywhere and nowhere. But if you think of yourself as = the target of a terrorist who comes from somewhere, even if he operates = internationally, you can at least try to anticipate his future assaults. Is this the end of relativism? If by relativism one means a cast of mind = that renders you unable to prefer your own convictions to those of your adversary, then relativism = could hardly end because it never began. Our convictions are by definition preferred; that's what = makes them our convictions. Relativizing them is neither an option nor a danger. But if by relativism one means the practice of putting yourself in your = adversary's shoes, not in order to wear them as your own but in order to have some understanding = (far short of approval) of why someone else might want to wear them, = then relativism will not and should not end, because it is simply = another name for serious thought." http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/15/opinion/15FISH.html?todaysheadlines -------------------------------------------------------------------------= ------------ "Unquiet meals make ill digestions." -- Shakespeare From: Creamer, Kevin [kcreamer@richmond.edu] Sent: Friday, October 12, 2001 1:20 PM To: 'Milton-L@richmond.edu' Subject: FW: Latest issue of EMLS -----Original Message----- From: Sean Lawrence [mailto:seanlawrence@writeme.com] Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2001 10:21 PM To: Owners of Margaret Cavendish List; Gerhard Gonter; List for announcements dealing with Early Modern Literary Studies; Professor William Bowen; Kevin LaGrandeur and Jodi DeRitter; Willard McCarty; Owners of Emilia Lanyer list; Kevin J.T. Creamer; Dr. Abigail Young; James A. Cocks; Professor Hardy Cook Subject: Latest issue of EMLS Early Modern Literary Studies is pleased to announce the launch of its September issue, available free online at http://www.shu.ac.uk/emls/emlshome.html The table of contents is below. Articles: Greenaway's Books. [1] Steven Marx, Cal Poly University Time for the Plebs in Julius Caesar. [2] Christopher Holmes, McGill University Othello, the Baroque, and Religious Mentalities. [3] Anthony Gilbert, Lancaster University Performance, Subjectivity and Slander in Hamlet and Much Ado About Nothing. [4] Adam Piette, University of Glasgow Note: Ovid's Rivers and the Naming of Milton's Lycidas. [5] Eric C. Brown, Harvard University. Idealist and Materialist Interpretations of BL Harley 7368, the Sir Thomas More Manuscript. [6] Gabriel Egan, Globe Education (Shakespeare's Globe) and King's College, London. Reviews Paul Budra. A Mirror for Magistrates and the de casibus Tradition. Toronto, Buffalo, London: U of Toronto P, 2000. [7] Dermot Cavanagh, Northumbria University. John Lee. Shakespeare's 'Hamlet' and the Controversies of Self. Oxford: Clarendon P, 2000. [8] Roger Starling, University of Warwick. Kenneth Borris. Allegory and Epic in English Renaissance Literature: Heroic Form in Sidney, Spenser, and Milton. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000. [9] Mary R. Bowman, University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point. Deborah Aldrich Larson. The Verse Miscellany of Constance Aston Fowler: A Diplomatic Edition. Tempe: Renaissance English Text Society, 2000. [10] Marie-Louise Coolahan, National University of Ireland, Galway. Alan Rudrum, Joseph Black, and Holly Faith Nelson, eds. The Broadview Anthology of Seventeenth-Century Verse and Prose. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview, 2000. [11] Robert Appelbaum, University of San Diego. Lady Mary Wroth. The Second Part of the Countess of Montgomery's Urania. Ed. Josephine A. Roberts; completed by Suzanne Gossett and Janel Mueller. Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1999. [12]. Bernadette Andrea, University of Texas at San Antonio. Alison Adams, Stephen Rawles, and Alison Saunders. A Bibliography of French Emblem Books of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Travaux d'Humanisme et Renaissance. Vol. CCCXXXI. Geneva: Droz, 1999. [13] David Graham, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's. Marc Berley. After the Heavenly Song: English Poetry and the Aspiration to Song. Pittsburgh: Duquesne UP, 2000. [14] Hannibal Hamlin, The Ohio State University, Mansfield. Jean E. Howard and Scott Cutler Shershow, eds. Marxist Shakespeares. Accents on Shakespeare.  Terry Hawkes, gen. ed. London: Routledge, 2001. [15] Gabriel Egan, Globe Education (Shakespeare's Globe) and King's College, London. Theatre Reviews Love's Labour's Lost. [16] Lisa Hopkins, Sheffield Hallam University. AngliaShax Summer 2001. [17] Michael Grosvenor Myer. The Tragedy of Hamlet. [18] Joseph Tate, University of Washington. Dr Lisa Hopkins Reader in English, Sheffield Hallam University School of Cultural Studies, Sheffield Hallam University, Collegiate Crescent Campus, Sheffield, S10 2BP, U.K. Editor, Early Modern Literary Studies: http://purl.oclc.org/emls/emlshome.html Teaching and research pages: http://www.shu.ac.uk/schools/cs/teaching/lh/index.htm From: Carrol Cox [cbcox@ilstu.edu] Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2001 9:44 PM To: milton-l@richmond.edu Subject: [Fwd: Apologies in advance] Cursor down to the bottom to find Paradise Lost in Space, right after Planet of the Grapes of Wrath. Carrol -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Apologies in advance Date: Tue, 09 Oct 2001 16:42:42 -0700 (PDT) From: shniad@SFU.CA Reply-To: Discussions on the Socialist Register and its articles To: SOCIALIST-REGISTER@YORKU.CA Merge-matic books >From the Washington Post Invitational contest, which calls them Merge-Matic Books. (Readers were asked to combine the works of two authors, and to provide a suitable blurb.) Second Runner-Up: Machiavelli's The Little Prince. Antoine de Saint-Exupery's classic children's tale as presented by Machiavelli. The whimsy of human nature is embodied in many delightful and intriguing characters, all of whom are executed. First Runner-Up: Green Eggs and Hamlet. Would you kill him in his bed? Thrust a dagger through his head? I would not, could not, kill the King. I could not do that evil thing. I would not wed this girl, you see. Now get her to a nunnery. And the Winner: Fahrenheit 451 of the Vanities. An '80s yuppie is denied books. He does not object, or even notice. Honorable Mentions: Where's Walden? Alas, the challenge of locating Henry David Thoreau in each richly detailed drawing loses its appeal when it quickly becomes clear that he is always in the woods. Catch-22 in the Rye Holden learns that if you're insane, you'll probably flunk out of prep school, but if you're flunking out of prep school, you're probably not insane. 2001: A Space Iliad. The Hal 9000 computer wages an insane 10-year war against the Greeks after falling victim to the Y2K bug. Rikki-Kon-Tiki-Tavi. Thor Heyerdahl recounts his attempt to prove Rudyard Kipling's theory that the mongoose first came to India on a raft from Polynesia. The Maltese Faulkner. Is the black bird a tortured symbol of Sam's struggles with race and family? Does it signify his decay of soul along with the soul of the Old South? Is it merely a crow, mocking his attempts to understand? Or is it worth a cool mil? Jane Eyre Jordan. Plucky English orphan girl survives hardships to lead the Chicago Bulls to the NBA championship. Looking for Mr. Godot. A young woman waits for Mr. Right to enter her life. She has a loooong wait. The Scarlet Pimpernel Letter. An 18th-century English nobleman leads a double life, freeing comely young adulteresses from the prisons of post-Revolution France. Lorna Dune An English farmer, Paul Atreides, falls for the daughter of a notorious rival clan, the Harkonnens, and pursues a career as a giant worm jockey in order to impress her. The Remains of the Day of the Jackal. A formal English butler puts his loyalty to his employer above all else, until he is persuaded to join a plot to assassinate Charles de Gaulle. The Invisible Man of La Mancha. Don Quixote discovers a mysterious elixir which renders him invisible. He proceeds to go on a mad rampage of corruption and terror, attacking innocent people in the streets and all the while singing "To fight the Invisible Man!" until he is finally stopped by a windmill. Singing in the Black Rain. A gang of vicious Japanese drug lords beat the stuffings out of Gene Kelly. Of Three Blind Mice and Men. Burgess Meredith has his limbs hacked off by a psychopathic farmer's wife. Did you ever see such a sight in your life? Planet of the Grapes of Wrath. Astronaut lands on mysterious planet, only to discover that it is his very own home planet of Earth, which has been taken over by the Joads, a race of dirt-poor corn farmers who miraculously developed rudimentary technology and evolved the ability to speak after exposure to nuclear radiation. Paradise Lost in Space. Satan, Moloch, and Belial are sentenced to spend eternity in a flying saucer with a goofy robot, an evil scientist and two annoying children. The Exorstentialist. Camus psychological thriller about a priest who casts out a demon by convincing it that there's really no purpose to what it's doing.