Re: Screens

Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz <spamtrap@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

In <hcqah4$1hob$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, on 11/03/2009
at 10:23 PM, wollman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Garrett Wollman) said:

You still have failed to make the remotest connection between the novel
and the way language actually works in reality.

The connection is obvious. Language is a tool, and breaking the language
breaks our ability to communicate.

A delightful allegorical counterargument to this notion is in the
chapter "Loyal to the Group of Seventeen's Story -- The Just Man" in
Gene Wolfe's _The Citadel of the Autarch_. To quote the most incisive
part of Severian's summary:

I learned how difficult it is to eliminate the urge for expression.
The people of Ascia were reduced to speaking only with their masters'
voice, but they had made of it a new tongue, and I had no doubt,
after hearing the Ascian, that by it he could express whatever
thought he wished.

--
Steve VanDevender "I ride the big iron" http://hexadecimal.uoregon.edu/
stevev@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx PGP keyprint 4AD7AF61F0B9DE87 522902969C0A7EE8
Little things break, circuitry burns / Time flies while my little world turns
Every day comes, every day goes / 100 years and nobody shows -- Happy Rhodes
.

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