[HN Gopher] Henry James and H.G. Wells (1958)
___________________________________________________________________
Henry James and H.G. Wells (1958)
Author : lermontov
Score : 44 points
Date : 2024-11-26 13:33 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bopsecrets.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bopsecrets.org)
| greentxt wrote:
| Interesting. Rexroth to his credit wasn't a terrible poet.
| devindotcom wrote:
| And it seems, a snob of some standing himself!
| drcwpl wrote:
| Wells was way above James in quality, prolific output and wide
| ranging genres, from sci-fi to history, fiction and social reform
| - his life story is worth studying carefully. His work even led
| towards the atomic bomb and statute of human rights.
|
| Dream boldly and build responsibly -
| https://onepercentrule.substack.com/p/hg-wells-dream-boldly-...
| WillAdams wrote:
| In particular, his _Outline of History_ is well worth reading
| for its examination of how the commons (in terms of common
| pastural areas and so forth shared by a community) were eroded
| away by the newfangled notion of individual property.
|
| It's on Project Gutenberge, and the Librivox recording may be
| workable depending on your tolerance for voices and background
| noise.
|
| Though it's worth noting that the authorship of that text is
| challenged/potentially problematic --- look up Florence Deeks'
| copyright challenge.
| mjklin wrote:
| He also wrote a fascinating biology textbook ("The Science of
| Life", with two co-authors) and a book about the economy
| entitled "The Work, Wealth, and Happiness of Mankind". His
| nonfiction work deserves as much attention as his fiction, it
| is excellent.
| drcwpl wrote:
| I have a copy of the Outline of History, now I will look for
| the Librivox recording. In his Autobiography he discusses
| Florence Deeks' copyright challenge. He was rather frustrated
| by the challenge. Apparently she made several claims against
| others too.
| devindotcom wrote:
| I don't know that I would agree he is above James in "quality."
| Wells was of course great, but he also put out a lot of trash.
| James may have been the more limited of the two in tone, topic,
| and social politics, but his work is of a different caliber in
| terms of prose, complexity, and coherence.
| GeoAtreides wrote:
| > Wells was way above James in quality
|
| In all of my twelve years on this godforsaken site, i had never
| had the displeasure of reading something more wrong; it
| actually transcends being wrong and, as Pauli would put it,
| it's not even wrong.
| serious_angel wrote:
| I may see it, but perhaps a more descriptive opinion of yours
| backed up with actual shades from your own viewpoint will
| provide a better trust with your comment. Sure, sometimes
| words cannot explain a thought, but effort may at least
| spread a few light rays on it supporting during discoveries.
| What do you think? Why do you, personally, disagree with
| someone's else opinion highlighting the whole 12 years of
| your experience of communication...
| nuz wrote:
| I get what you're doing but I don't find this a fair
| caricature of james' writing style
| polynomial wrote:
| Feels LLM generated. Clever either way.
| vundercind wrote:
| It's not even a pair of authors I'd have considered comparing
| in a "who's higher-quality" way. It's like comparing
| Spielberg and Aronofsky or something, as one being "way
| above" the other "in quality". I dunno, man... maybe? But I
| dunno. Pretty sure you can make it look like either one's way
| better than the other by picking your framing of "best", and
| in _several_ different ways.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| The general consensus of the literary establishment at least up
| to 20 years ago is that James was far greater than Wells, I
| believe that is still the accepted viewpoint, although some
| things I have heard and seen recently make me think that Wells
| may be getting re-evaluated, but still not above James I
| believe.
|
| That said I happen to have a great deal of literary contempt
| for James and think he should be completely thrown away as a
| worthless piece of junk - which reasons I will not expound on
| here. Whereas I only ever found Wells sort of boring.
|
| OK I found James boring too, but also a conceited punk of
| considerably lower quality than his own opinion and the
| critical establishment has given for an ability to write
| complicated sentences about inessential things (that was not
| expounding on my reasons, that was just a little snide aside)
| unstyledcontent wrote:
| James is a master, there is no doubt. But I'm convinced to now
| check out Wells who I somehow haven't read anything of!
| robin_reala wrote:
| If you just want to dip in then I can heartily recommend Wells'
| short stories, of which he wrote a bunch. Standard Ebooks has a
| nice edition for free: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/h-g-
| wells/short-fiction
| drcwpl wrote:
| Super, thank you
| pomian wrote:
| Absolutely everyone should read "The Time Machine." If you
| prefer, then an unabridged audiobook is great, I recommend
| putting in the effort to find a reading by Simon Vance. (It
| isn't a long book.) The first paragraph of The Time Machine, is
| one of the best introductory paragraphs ever written (in my
| opinion, obviously.) One relishes the imagery it reveals, as
| you read it, like a great main course of a fine meal - with
| delight, flavour and a promise of more.
| drcwpl wrote:
| "The first paragraph of The Time Machine, is one of the best
| introductory paragraphs ever written (in my opinion,
| obviously.) One relishes the imagery it reveals, as you read
| it, like a great main course of a fine meal - with delight,
| flavour and a promise of more."
|
| Beautifully put - I will look for Vance's reading
| devindotcom wrote:
| Definitely do Time Machine first, then his other "classics for
| a reason" the War of the Worlds, the Invisible Man, the Island
| of Dr Moreau, and IMO the Food of the Gods. His work tends to
| have a sort of bipartite structure where the second half
| diverges quite a bit from the first or there is a major
| thematic shift partway, usually as a consequence of "committing
| to the bit." Sometimes it seems like he has lost the plot,
| other times that he has found it. But the books are extremely
| readable.
| billfruit wrote:
| 'Kipps', is the novel H G Wells, reportedly considered the most
| favourite amongst his works.
| throw4847285 wrote:
| It's only fair to include James's response to Wells.
|
| 'It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance, for
| our consideration and application of those things, and I know of
| no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of the process.'
|
| I haven't read enough of either author to have an opinion on
| their relative literary merit, but James is right about that, at
| the very least.
| dhosek wrote:
| I've read a fair amount of both, and I think that James is
| definitely the superior prose stylist. Wells has an interest in
| social structures that informs a great deal of his plots
| (especially ( _The Time Machine_ ). They're in many ways
| incomparable if only because their literary projects have very
| different aims.
| vundercind wrote:
| I bet that appreciating what they're really talking about would
| require digging into a broader debate about the best approaches
| to, and attitude toward the writing of, good literature, which
| was a decades-long topic among a bunch of major figures in
| literature in the late 19th and early 20th century.
|
| I mean, there are probably always such debates going on to some
| degree, but this is a specific one that saw James and some
| fellows on a side opposed to a bunch of other authors. I only
| know about it because I happen to have read part of a book of
| criticism of EM Forster earlier this year, and I gather that
| debate was kinda _the_ major topic among that set for a long
| while (Forster was on the opposite side of it from James)
| wrp wrote:
| > His [Wells'] novels are not social novels at all.
|
| The science fiction novels for which Wells is best known form a
| small part of his fiction output, and are from early in his
| career. Most of his ca. 50 novels are "social", propagandistic
| and dull, and known mostly to literature professors.
|
| As for Wells' non-fiction work, all I can say is don't confuse
| "opinionated" with "knowledgeable". Wells was a prolific writer
| but not a careful scholar. He was at one point failed out of
| college.
| technothrasher wrote:
| > Everybody knows the famous remark by Wells ...
|
| Oh, yes, of course, of course. <slowly slides away and looks for
| a corner to stand in>
| devindotcom wrote:
| In a 1958 collected correspondence between two famous authors,
| "everyone" has a very specific connotation! "Everyone likely to
| have picked up this book"
| technothrasher wrote:
| I know, it just reminded me that I should know more about
| Henry James than I do.
| dylan604 wrote:
| So someone else besides Trump uses everyone to that extent?
| While technically not incorrect, every one vs everyone,
| changes the meaning drastically.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-11-26 23:00 UTC)