mme_hardy: White rose (Default)
mme_hardy ([personal profile] mme_hardy) wrote2022-03-14 09:42 am
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Well, that about wraps it up for Poughkeepsie

I am rereading The Worm Ouroboros and savoring it. I had forgotten the long mountain-climbing section entirely; I fear teen me must have skipped it.

In any case, Ursula Le Guin once wrote an essay, "From Elfland to Poughkeepsie", essentially arguing that all fantasy protagonists should speak in an elevated, heroic style. She was particularly mean to a very recognizable Katherine Kurtz, with some side shots at Roger Zelazny. She quotes and praises Eddison as an example of what should be done.

At one point she quotes from Zelazny, "I could have told you that at Carcosa", and lays down the law that great heroes don't say "I told you so".

"Well," said Juss, "thy counsel hath been right once and saved us, for nine times that it hath been wrong, and my counsel saved thee from an evil end. If ill behap us, it shall be set down that it had from thy peevish will original."
redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)

[personal profile] redbird 2022-03-14 05:14 pm (UTC)(link)
I may be your only reader whose immediate thought from the subject line was to worry about the actual place, and whether people there were OK. (I don't think I know anyone who lives there now, but my partner [personal profile] cattitude was born there.)