Gerardo writes...

Don,

As I review recent posts and messages, I realize I probably haven’t given you an explicit go for the BWS inclusion of my comments on Tom’s review, and our little exchange.

Please consider it done. Include anything you want, in whatever form you consider convenient. Quote, slash, burn, run it through the grinder. I’m only too glad to contribute, even in such an indirect way. I wish I had more time to devote to real writing, but these days I don’t. My apologies.

Let me add one little condition. However you format it, I don’t want anyone to gather the impression that I’m opposed to Tom’s review, or that I find it unsatisfactory or lacking in depth. I most emphatically do not. His review is the kind that works for people who haven’t read the book, and might be encouraged to do so. And that’s how it should be. My comments bear on interpretation and ideas, focusing on the novel but going beyond it, and I guess anyone who hasn’t read either the book or Tom’s review would find them utterly incomprehensible, or at least disjointed, unconnected.

BTW, that’s the story of my life. Times I’ve worked best, in whatever task I faced, was when I teamed up with a Tom, someone who never lost sight of our object of analysis and our goal. Someone who constantly badgered me with stupid irrelevant questions like ’where does it say that?’, or ’who did it?’

Me, I just float around the eight dimension (peaceful, now that Buckaroo Banzai has come and gone), watching the scenery and waiting for things to happen. It takes both kinds, to be sure, but don’t trust me to remember to do the laundry.

Thanks, all of you.

Gerardo

For readers who may not be familiar with the name “Gerardo,” he’s the one whose postings you click on first in the Analog and Asimov’s magazine forums. Postings from the editors of the respective magazines — Stanley Schmidt and Gardner Dozois — just have to wait their turn!

I hasten to point out to Gerardo that he does have time for “real” writing, because everything he writes is real in the best meaning of the word. In that sense, we have a literary brotherhood represented in this issue in Gerardo and Hervé Collin. They’re dressed very differently and live on opposite sides of the globe, but the spirit is the same.

Please note that Gerardo emphasizes strongly the roles in which I saw him and Thomas R. interacting on the Asimov’s forum: as complementary voices. Everyone will see immediately, of course, that the reference to “stupid, irrelevant questions” is to be taken as completely ironic; Gerardo is reminding us that we must answer the four basic questions of literary criticism in order: we must first ask “What does the text say?” and “How does it say it?” before we can ask “What did it mean in its time?” and “What might it mean in ours?” I haven’t “slashed, burned” or chopped anything. And with Thomas R.’s help, we’ve been able to bring you even more.

Don