Cora Lyin’
Cora, Cora, Cora, why you gotta play like dat?
I was goggling about searching for Tomas Diaz’s excellent analysis of the Hugo Novelette-ettes, which is excellent. My own review of Touring with the Alien will be published tomorrow, so check back to compare.
It’s a little old, but Cora Buhlert posted a nice long summary of the reactions to the Hugo Awards in which she dwells mainly on those who lament the provinciality and insularity and non-inclusiveness of the award. It turns out my observation that the wooden anus lickers spent more time talking about authors nominated than the works nominated. My point was that they didn’t really have conversations about the works. She proved me wrong by concluding:
Comments are still off and passive aggressive e-mails will be deleted unread. Grumble elsewhere.
Heh. You got yourself a deal. Welcome to elsewhere, toots.
Cora does make a few predictable objections about past conversations (without providing evidence) and a promise that conversations will be forthcoming once voters receive their packets (a fair point, but I remain skeptical that they will talk about the work rather than the author). The real impetus for my post is a throw-away line tacked on to the end of hers:
*Does anybody else find the idea of a rabid puppy taking inspiration from Jonathan Livingston Seagull of all things as funny as I do?
Of course she thinks it’s funny. She doesn’t know what you’re talking about. Jonathan Livingston Seagull is the story of a seagull whose unwillingness to conform to the demands of the crowd results in his expulsion from the flock. It was adopted by the hippy-dippy movement in the 1970s as they struggled to escape the conformity provided by hard work, the Christian faith, and showers. Cora still operates under that out-dated mindset, clinging to the notion that true rebels write works that conform to the demands of the university system, major publishing houses, Hollywood, every major media outlet, and most major businesses like Target, Google, and Starbucks. Jonathan Livingston Seagull is the story of a seagull whose unwillingness to conform to the demands of the crowd results in his expulsion from the flock. Her mirth makes it clear that she either has not read the work in question – which is largely agnostic on matters of politics, hewing closer to a ‘you be you even if it means going against the majority’ message than to her assumed ‘stick it to the man, and once you are the man, stick it to those who want to stick it to the man’ message. Proving once again…
These people don’t read.
My comments are open. I like talking about books. My place is a place for conversations about books, even difficult ones. It’s neither echo chamber nor bully pulpit. But then, as a member of the distinct minority pushed out by the powers that be, my pulpit is small, my reach short, and my faith in their weakness and lack of desire to discuss books secure.