Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 07:07:53 -0700
From: Michael Andre-Driussi 
Subject: (urth) revelatory message/converting dislike

In writing once again (no doubt seen for the first time by many) about his
disappointment in TBOSS, William Ansley writes:

>Of course, someone on this list could post a revelatory message that
>makes me see the light, but I haven't been convinced by any attempts
>so far.

Ah!  I will steer clear of the more irritating aspects of this and focus on
the more intriguing root of it.  It applies to William, since he wrote it,
but it may very well apply to others.

My question to William and anyone else who cares to answer is this: Have
you ever received a revelatory message about a disliked Wolfe fiction that
made you "see the light" and revise your dislike of it?  More than once?
What were the fictions, what were the revelations, to what degree did it
change your dislike (how many levels did it rise up--did you actually come
to like it?), and how long ago was it?

I suspect it has never happened, like countless urban legends that have
"really happened" to a friend of a friend but never to the informant.  If
this is true, then pining after such a conversion through revelation is
like chasing after mirages; chasing after mirages is frustrating in itself
and causes its own negative energy feedback loop, perhaps.

But still, here we put it to the test.  If there is a mass of testamonial
evidence to show that such things have happened with relative frequency,
then I will have to adjust my reality-map accordingly.

=mantis=



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