From: autographedcat	Date: July 11th, 2008 12:28 pm (UTC)		(Link to babble)

I never read that much of Disch's fiction, but I have to say that the text adventure game he authored, Amnesia, was brilliant and engrossing. I think it kept me locked down for an entire summer.

	From: smallship1	Date: July 11th, 2008 03:03 pm (UTC)		(Link to babble)

Oh, I'm sure he isn't as bad as Clute makes out.

	From: keristor	Date: July 11th, 2008 03:56 pm (UTC)		(Link to babble)

I'm afraid that Clute is one of the people whose recommendations I can use in determining whether I am likely to like a book. In reverse, that is -- if he pans it, I'll read it, if he praises it I'll run away...

	From: trektone	Date: July 11th, 2008 04:59 pm (UTC)		(Link to babble)

I started reading Disch's fiction before I knew who Clute was. While I've since read a lot more of Disch's work (fiction, non-fiction, poetry, reviews, etc.), I've read far less of Clute's criticisms and other writings.

Regarding the "least trusted" part, I didn't understand that, either, but hadn't gone to the trouble of locating the entire write-up for, perhaps, greater context.

Btw, in your parsing, "intellectual audacity" equals "incomprehensible?" Is that Clute-speak?

	From: howeird	Date: July 11th, 2008 05:02 pm (UTC)		(Link to babble)

though I can't see any reason I wouldn't have trusted him
Well maybe not you, but he left his publishers with three unfinished book contracts, according to one obit I read.

	From: patoadam	Date: July 11th, 2008 05:26 pm (UTC)		(Link to babble)

I've only read a few of his poems, but I think this one is priceless:

'Poems'
for Joyce Kilmer

I think that I shall never read
A tree of any shape or breed -
For all its xylem and its phloem -
As fascinating as a poem.
Trees must make themselves and so
They tend to seem a little slow
To those accustomed to the pace
Of poems that speed through time and space
As fast as thought. We shouldn't blame
The trees, of course: we'd be the same
If we had roots instead of brains.
While trees just grow, a poem explains,
By precept and example, how
Leaves develop on the bough
And new ideas in the mind.
A sensibility refined
By reading many poems will be
More able to admire a tree
Than lumberjacks and nesting birds
Who lack a poet's way with words
And tend to look at any tree
In terms of its utility.
And so before we give our praise
To pines and oaks and laurels and bays,
We ought to celebrate the poems
That made our human hearts their homes.

-- Tom Disch

	From: pocketnaomi	Date: July 11th, 2008 10:21 pm (UTC)		(Link to babble)

I've read a scattering of Disch and found him at worst exactly as you described, and at best quite comprehensible, not particularly unpleasant or nasty, a little uncomfortable in that he made me think in ways I hadn't generally done before, and fascinating in his use of language. I love his poetry; his fiction interests me less.