This ended up being mostly quotes.
Sep. 19th, 2004 08:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
truepennyProving what I have long doubted, that AIM actually has its uses.
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matociquala, cpolk, and katallen had a fascinating conversation about choice and story, which Bear recorded for posterity.
And as I was digging through Bartleby for a half-remembered quote (which I have completely failed to find--I suspect it of being a song lyric, which means that in a day or two I'll find that song stuck in my head and have no idea why), I found this from Flannery O'Connor: The writer can choose what he writes about but he cannot choose what he is able to make live.
Which says much more tidily than I managed to the fundamental reason why I write fantasy--high, low, urban, whatever. Because she's right.
And Rainer Maria Rilke adds, Just as the creative artist is not allowed to choose, neither is he permitted to turn his back on anything: a single refusal, and he is cast out of the state of grace and becomes sinful all the way through.
Rebecca West says, and more to the original point: All good biography, as all good fiction, comes down to the study of original sin, of our inherent disposition to choose death when we ought to choose life.
Arthur Miller: Where choice begins, Paradise ends, innocence ends, for what is Paradise but the absence of any need to choose this action? This is also why Paradise is the absence of story.
And I could probably keep going indefinitely, but I believe I'll stop and have some breakfast.
matociquala, cpolk, and katallen had a fascinating conversation about choice and story, which Bear recorded for posterity.And as I was digging through Bartleby for a half-remembered quote (which I have completely failed to find--I suspect it of being a song lyric, which means that in a day or two I'll find that song stuck in my head and have no idea why), I found this from Flannery O'Connor: The writer can choose what he writes about but he cannot choose what he is able to make live.
Which says much more tidily than I managed to the fundamental reason why I write fantasy--high, low, urban, whatever. Because she's right.
And Rainer Maria Rilke adds, Just as the creative artist is not allowed to choose, neither is he permitted to turn his back on anything: a single refusal, and he is cast out of the state of grace and becomes sinful all the way through.
Rebecca West says, and more to the original point: All good biography, as all good fiction, comes down to the study of original sin, of our inherent disposition to choose death when we ought to choose life.
Arthur Miller: Where choice begins, Paradise ends, innocence ends, for what is Paradise but the absence of any need to choose this action? This is also why Paradise is the absence of story.
And I could probably keep going indefinitely, but I believe I'll stop and have some breakfast.
