From: Ben Goertzel (ben@goertzel.org)
Date: Tue May 03 2005 - 11:51:01 MDT
> it. I could stand for some ironic detachment or mental flex for a
> change. Hip and avante-garde is good, when surrounded by zealots. Not
> caring is refreshing.
Well, our lit-crit is getting confused here, IMO.
Avant-garde is certainly not contradictory to
passionate/romantic/overemotional.
Read some Kathy Acker, for example ;-)
My own in-progress Singularity "novel" (about 60% done, to be finished in
the distant future before the Singularity but after the Novamente books) is
perhaps excessively avante-garde (as much a lunatic prose-poem as a novel)
yet definitely not devoid of human emotions...
I agree that adding melodramatic love story themes to Diaspora would not
have improved it. I think Diaspora made the points it was trying to make,
and depicted the images it was trying to depict, just about perfectly.
However, I also think one could write a posthuman novel with a great deal
more emotional resonance than (e.g.) Diaspora or Transcension, WITHOUT
adding a bunch of melodramatic cliches. It would be difficult, sure -- but
writing great literature is ALWAYS difficult, isn't it?
-- Ben G
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