Comments on: Love Letters

By: Muneraven

Muneraven — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 17:21:21 +0000

I absolutely do this too. And I find great joy in it.

By: Sherwood Smith

Sherwood Smith — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 14:04:17 +0000

Oh, I see! No, not only–not a broad, splendid work like that! One of my favorite sections is the delightful one when the women are discussing what makes a man attractive…oh, it’s a masterwork in so many ways. Elsewhere it might be fun to do a group reading of the Swan cycle. But it seemed to me that aspect was a vein informing the entire marble block, and a love letter vein. Because of that one revealing sentence. (But then a great work is going to seem many things to many people, that is part of its greatness.)

By: Katharine Kerr

Katharine Kerr — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 09:55:39 +0000

Sherwood, it occurs to me that I was responding to something in your Proust comment that you most likely never meant — I got the impression you were saying that the whole thing was only a love letter to the gay man, which is the kind of generalization you don’t make.

I am really rattled these days — post-book muddle, mostly.

By: Katharine Kerr

Katharine Kerr — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 09:33:53 +0000

Come to think of it, apropos de Mad’s comment on Stone Wars, FREEZE FRAMES is my love letter to San Francisco and to some extent, to the UK as well.

By: Katharine Kerr

Katharine Kerr — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 09:30:46 +0000

Sherwood, I didn’t say I thought you were -wrong-. I said “I wouldn’t say that.” I don’t know enough to go around saying ‘you are wrong’ to someone like you. I simply don’t agree, but then, I too have been known to come out of left field often enough, and at times, I’m out in left field when there isn’t even a game being played.

Alis, what, me use sports metaphors?
I think you’re right, btw. It’s not so much the affection for football but my affection for a certain kind of man, though god knows I’d never marry one! Needless to say, to find that kind of warrior one has to stick to sports or fantasy . . .

By: kateelliott

kateelliott — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 04:12:17 +0000

Mad, yes, exactly (re: Stone Wars)

By: kateelliott

kateelliott — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 04:11:46 +0000

I also think that writers who scrupulously cut this aspect out of their writing lose readers who want to engage on more levels than just the intellect.

I think this is an important insight, Sherwood. Think you can expand it into a post?

By: kateelliott

kateelliott — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 04:10:33 +0000

Kit, I think of how your love for football (American football) has informed the battle scenes in Deverry. I know it’s just research, but there is something about your real affection for football that comes - although that might be very well be me reading in because I know how it has influenced you.

So I am thinking about it not just with reference to characters but in the larger sense. Maybe in the sense that MarieB mentions with dancing.

By: Madeleine Robins

Madeleine Robins — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 00:41:17 +0000

Without thinking very hard: The Stone War was my love letter to the city of my birth.

By: Sherwood Smith

Sherwood Smith — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 23:34:13 +0000

Kit: I came to that conclusion after reading, with care, that long sentence buried in the center of the book….it was a beautiful apologia, surrounded by all the rest of the story as you say. Because of the way I read that sentence, it affected my perception of the rest–as directed toward the straight world. But I realize I could well be wrong. Not like I’m not totally misguided fifty times a day and twice on Sundays.