399 replies to this topic

[Sci-2]

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It was surprisingly how inept and clumsy he was dealing with ACM. Granted ACM is pretty shit and lowered the level of debate but still.

I'll be honest, I don't think the argument Bakker presented, starting with Misanthropology 101, was very convincing so "lowered" reads like hyperbole to me.

ETA: I'll also add how odd I find Linda's anger. I feel like I have less anger toward the kids who mugged me than people do toward ACM.

Edited by sciborg2, 14 April 2012 - 09:58 PM.

[kalbear]

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I get the sense that some people will label just about any insult as racist or misogynist if the target of said insult happens to be anything other than white or male, and especially if the target is a non-white woman. Then its a free double whammy; anything you say is suddenly not one but two isms.

Given what Valente's written both as a published author and on her blog, do you really believe that of her?

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It was surprisingly how inept and clumsy he was dealing with ACM. Granted ACM is pretty shit and lowered the level of debate but still.

Eh. It's not that surprising. Bakker's persona online is inept and clumsy. His online fight with Vandermeer, his appearing on these boards where he started the conversation sockpuppeting, his interview where he basically blamed people who saw misogyny in his books as poisoning the well for other readers so they could not possibly see anything else, this with ROH, the stuff with Theo, his more flaming blog posts on his boards, his response to other bloggers elsewhere...it's all  not good.

Seriously - this is a guy who decided that he'd win an argument with his wife by writing a book about the argument to prove to her that he was right. (that would be Neuropath, and The Argument). It's not that surprising. Just sad.

Edited by Kalbear, 14 April 2012 - 10:07 PM.

[Grack21]

He had an argument with Vandemeer? That ought to have been good. Not a Vandemeer fan per se, but the man knows how to argue.


Who's Theo?

[Sci-2]

@Grack - did you read the entire 100,000 Kingdom Trilogy? How was it, and did you like the depiction of women?

[kalbear]

Here's the Vandermeer reference - at least the part where it gets good.

Theo was this staunchly right wing guy that Bakker decided he was going to make fun of. It wasn't entirely as lulzworthy as the rest of the stuff, but it was pretty clumsy. It's not so bad relative to the other stuff, though him randomly going off to troll a reviewer was pretty bad.

[Grack21]

sciborg2, on 14 April 2012 - 10:24 PM, said:

@Grack - did you read the entire 100,000 Kingdom Trilogy? How was it, and did you like the depiction of women?

Only read the first one so far, but I liked it a lot. Apparently some people didn't like the "chapters and chapters full of god sex", even though It's one chapter and it's pretty short at that. As for depiction of women, I have no clue what the fuck is acceptable/not acceptable bad/good anymore. I didn't think it was problamatic but I didn't think it presented anything out of the blue that made me go WOW WOOO FEMINISM.

I need to read Firethorn.

[Sci-2]

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Only read the first one so far, but I liked it a lot.

[edit: Was thinking Orphan's Tales but] I have a lot of Valente, so I may go with 100,000 or Range of Ghosts. Thanks.

Kalbear, on 14 April 2012 - 10:24 PM, said:

Here's the Vandermeer reference - at least the part where it gets good.

Hahaha, god I remember that being one of the most fucking pointless hashing of semantics.

A good lesson for Bakker is shit is not serious on the 'net. I think the problem Bakker has is that ACM wrote a comedic piece and most people smirked at it. It's like a bad date story, "I met this guy/girl and then blah blah blah...". Some people may think the girl is being mean about the rejection but it isn't something they dwell on.

In fact, for most people, it reads like a bad date story. But Bakker is the guy who won't accept "We didn't click aka I found you kinda creepy." After a couple months, suddenly he texts/IMs the girl over and over, asking why she thought he was creepy, and thus comes off even creepier.

Then he might ask their mutual classmates/acquaintances to way weigh in on it, and his immediate friends are like "Yeah give my boy a second chance" while everyone else in the class cannot believe how insane he is being.

ETA: Er, I'm exhausted from illness right now so that might be more delirious than intended...

Edited by sciborg2, 14 April 2012 - 10:49 PM.

[Grack21]

Gah, watching Vandameer/Bakker fight is like.........

Aliens Vs Predator.

Whoever wins.....we lose.

[Grack21]

sciborg2, on 14 April 2012 - 10:36 PM, said:

[edit: Was thinking Orphan's Tales but] I have a lot of Valente, so I may go with 100,000 or Range of Ghosts. Thanks

You lost me again. I was thinking of Jenismin's books. (Yeah I probably spelled that wrong).

[Sci-2]

Grack21, on 14 April 2012 - 10:54 PM, said:

You lost me again. I was thinking of Jenismin's books. (Yeah I probably spelled that wrong).

Just meant I was going to by Orphan's Tales by Valente, but thinking about it I have a lot of Valente so giving Jeminsin or Bear a try might be for the best.

[TheValyrianDragonlord]

Hmm my other post disappeared for some reason.

Kalbear, on 14 April 2012 - 10:04 PM, said:

Seriously - this is a guy who decided that he'd win an argument with his wife by writing a book about the argument to prove to her that he was right. (that would be Neuropath, and The Argument). It's not that surprising. Just sad.

Hahah oh Kalbear you're so disillusioned with Bakker. Are you really going to be able to hold off when the Unholy Consult comes out?  

I find Bakker's online antics to be mostly hilarious and endearing. Although they've been pretty depressing these past few months. Seriously though as clumsy as it seems, there's so a lot good stuff to be found. Even his Pierce Inverarirty sockpuppet gave some revealing and interesting stuff on his series. Just gotta separate the wheat from the chaff.

I guess because I've actually met Bakker and his wife at a reading some time ago, nothing he's really done has diminished my good feeling towards him. He's actually a really nice guy in person.

But Bakker has definitely convinced me that writing fiction, the act of artistic creation is profoundly irrational. I firmly believe art cannot be contained within psychology or sociology, neuroscience or anything. Ironic of course given his interests in neurosci.

How he can go from writing unintentionally hilarious tone deaf arguments online to this amazes me:

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You drink of the River and it is clear. You drink of the River and it is foul. You breath of the Sky and it never empties. You weep, and the Sea stings your lips. Rejoice, and mourn, for you belong to this World.
Heaven does not know you  –Nin’hilarjal, Psalms to Oblivion

The above is just so lovely. In just a few short sentences he almost fully captures the essence of the nonmen. Their materialist ethos. Their alienation from god. How they are firmly, firmly grounded in the world with its fragile joys and much much stronger cruelties.

And he's got a precious few blog posts where he isn't arguing with anyone and just fucking around and it's great

http://rsbakker.word...comes-and-goes/
http://rsbakker.word...ing-thaumazein/

I believe fully in what Plato and Shelley have to say about art more than any materialist or scientific explanation.

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The third kind is the madness of those who are possessed by the Muses; which taking hold of a delicate and virgin soul, and there inspiring frenzy, awakens lyrical and all other numbers; with these adorning the myriad actions of ancient heroes for the instruction of posterity. But he who, having no touch of the Muses’ madness in his soul, comes to the door and thinks that he will get into the temple by the help of art-he, I say, and his poetry are not admitted; the sane man disappears and is nowhere when he enters into rivalry with the madman.

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Poetry is not like reasoning, a power to be exerted according to the determination of the will. A man cannot say, “I will compose poetry.” The greatest poet even cannot say it; for the mind in creation is as a fading coal, which some invisible influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness; this power arises from within, like the color of a flower which fades and changes as it is developed, and the conscious portions of our natures are unprophetic either of its approach or its departure. Could this influence be durable in its original purity and force, it is impossible to predict the greatness of the results; but when composition begins, inspiration is already on the decline, and the most glorious poetry that has ever been communicated to the world is probably a feeble shadow of the original conceptions of the poet.

Edited by TheValyrianDragonlord, 14 April 2012 - 10:59 PM.

[kalbear]

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Hahah oh Kalbear you're so disillusioned with Bakker. Are you really going to be able to hold off with the Unholy Consult comes out?

Yeah, I don't know. I don't think I can reasonably justify supporting this financially; there's simply too much I disagree with politically at this point, and he's gotten similar to OSC now. I'll probably check it out at the library just to have a decent ending point after donating the rest of my books to goodwill.

[Grack21]

sciborg2, on 14 April 2012 - 10:55 PM, said:

Just meant I was going to by Orphan's Tales by Valente, but thinking about it I have a lot of Valente so giving Jeminsin or Bear a try might be for the best.

Is Bear the one who cowrote A Companion to Wolves? If so I would recommend avoiding that at all costs. You want to talk about how to handle homosexuality badly in a novel....there you go.

I think I'm going to order The Orphan's Tales in my next Amazon order.

[Grack21]

Kalbear, on 14 April 2012 - 11:03 PM, said:

Yeah, I don't know. I don't think I can reasonably justify supporting this financially; there's simply too much I disagree with politically at this point, and he's gotten similar to OSC now. I'll probably check it out at the library just to have a decent ending point after donating the rest of my books to goodwill.

Oh come now, he may be off his rocker but I don't think he's approached OSC level yet. Hell I don;t think the Yeard has approached that level yet. To be as nutty as OSC takes work.

Still baffles OSC has a positive blurb on Swordspoint.

[Sci-2]

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Yeah, I don't know. I don't think I can reasonably justify supporting this financially; there's simply too much I disagree with politically at this point, and he's gotten similar to OSC now.

Really? As ridiculous as find some his latest antics, and as infuriating as I find his methods of argument, they aren't motivated by the same bigotry as OSC. (This reminds me, I almost went out with a good friend of John C. Wright's but the stars misaligned. Ha, imagine how weird that'd be!)

My biggest fear is that the ultimate feminist message of The Unholy Consult leads to the most railroaded plot arcs.

I think, as problematic as the books are, HE was right -> Bakker - excepting Neuorpath which IMO is trash - gave us characters that act as people who are brutalized and live in awful circumstances. Esmi, Serwe, these are windows into mindsets we usually don't get in fantasy which cater to heroic and rebel PoVs.

@TheValyrianDragonlord: Love those quotes. I do think it takes a certain amount of madness to create good art as well. Balano's 2666, IMO, could not be written by a sane man!

@Grack: I've heard terrible terrible things about Companion to Wolves, but something about Range of Ghosts calls to me. To bring this back on topic, I've there are strong female PoVs.

[kalbear]

Sorry, I'll clarify. Bakker is, to me, politically reprehensible enough that I do not wish to support him despite my enjoyment of his works and views that he is a very talented author. In that respect in my mind he is similar to OSC. I recognize they do not share values or are particularly similar in any other way.

Edited by Kalbear, 15 April 2012 - 12:00 AM.

[Grack21]

Can someone point me towards this Serwe, Esmi, Kellhus threesome? I don't have any recollection of such a scene at all and its bothering me.

[Hodor for King]

Grack21, on 14 April 2012 - 11:56 PM, said:

Can someone point me towards this Serwe, Esmi, Kellhus threesome? I don't have any recollection of such a scene at all and its bothering me.

It's somewhere in the middle of The Warrior-Prophet, shortly after Kellhus seduces Esmenet.  It's not really treated as all that big a deal in the book.

[Grack21]

Hodor for King, on 15 April 2012 - 12:07 AM, said:

It's somewhere in the middle of The Warrior-Prophet, shortly after Kellhus seduces Esmenet.  It's not really treated as all that big a deal in the book.

That's probably why I missed it then. The second book feels is like a bad ambien trip.

Edited by Grack21, 15 April 2012 - 12:11 AM.

[Sci-2]

Grack21, on 15 April 2012 - 12:10 AM, said:

That's probably why I missed it then. The second book feels is like a bad ambien trip.

I don't actually agree with this, but it makes me laugh.