The SF Masterworks Request Thread

[The Wanderer]

Excuse me fellows, I am assuming that the SF Masterpiece Series is a reprint of the best books of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

If this is so then maybe they should include The Devil is Dead by R.A. Lafferty.
Or maybe Lafferty in Orbit or anything by Lafferty as he is, rather, was, the best writer, of the Twentieth Century.

Don't you think?

'The Reefs of Earth' 1968, sounds like a stunning Idea, Pringle said he was the Grand eccentric of science Fiction

 

[j d worthington]

in the Top 50 writers of the Century, you're competing with Faulkner, Proust, Conrad, Mauriac, Greene

My point, precisely. I'd probably put him in the top 50 SF writers, all right. Though I'd have to give some serious thought to a list like that... there have been some stupendous talents in the field in the last century! It'd be a dickens of a task picking, wouldn't it?

 

[The Wanderer]

My point, precisely. I'd probably put him in the top 50 SF writers, all right. Though I'd have to give some serious thought to a list like that... there have been some stupendous talents in the field in the last century! It'd be a dickens of a task picking, wouldn't it?

But Probably a lot of fun

 

[Homer Hoose]

Now fellows, remember that selecting the best writer of the 20th Century is a subjective task, and I too think that Dickens and Faukner wrote well as well, but sadly they wrote ( and oft times overwrote) only of specific cultures and the foibles of mankind; sorta like a combination of writing high quality romance novels and newpaper reporting.

Lafferty was different.

 

[The Wanderer]

Dickens and Faukner wrote well as well, but sadly they wrote ( and oft times overwrote) only of specific cultures and the foibles of mankind

That's an Opinion..

I think though they wrote about the Human Heart, and it's the duty of writers of that cailbre to understand it as they did, better than 99% of writers from their respective centuries

I dig what you mean though that Writing as well as films as being subjective

not to draw a comparison with lafferty though but in terms of the validity of complete subjectivity it would very difficult to argue that Michael Bay is a better filmmaker than say Stanley Kubrick or that L Ron Hubbard is better than Robert A Heinlein - extreme examples perhaps - but you are right essentially it's largely subjective, though not entirely...

 

[The Wanderer]

Lafferty was different.

Although nit having read any of his wrok yet, you've aroused my interest, he sounds like a one of kind, my to read list which is already ridiculous, got 4/5 books bigger just now

 

[Homer Hoose]

Although not having read any of his work yet, you've aroused my interest, he sounds like a one of kind, my to read list which is already ridiculous, got 4/5 books bigger just now

I envy you Wanderer. For thirty years you have read pablum and now you get to read ice cream. Dump your 4/5 books bigger. Read Lafferty's stories once; and then read them again. It takes two reads for Lafferty to re-circuit your brain.

And no. No Director is better than Stanley Kubrick.

 

[Pyan]

No Director is better than Stanley Kubrick.

How do you mean that,HH - for him or against??

 

[Homer Hoose]

How do you mean that,HH - for him or against??

Why, both ways, of course, pyanfaruk!
No human filmmaker can approach the genius of Stanley Kubrick's films.
And, no filmmaker at all would have been better in Eyes Wide Shut.

 

[Pyan]

Nice one!

Pyan, or Py, please, btw

 

[The Wanderer]

I envy you Wanderer. For thirty years you have read pablum and now you get to read ice cream. Dump your 4/5 books bigger. Read Lafferty's stories once; and then read them again. It takes two reads for Lafferty to re-circuit your brain.

And no. No Director is better than Stanley Kubrick.

Interesting Point, he was a great director, perhaps the best ever in the English Language (Bar Orson Welles who is still the best by far in my book), although there are strong cases for Orson Welles, Jean-Luc Godard, Jean Renoir, Michelangelo Antonioni (The most similar filmmaker to Kubrick of great film-makers), Carl Dreyer, Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa, Yashijiro Ozu etc

 

[The Wanderer]

Although nit having read any of his wrok yet, you've aroused my interest, he sounds like a one of kind, my to read list which is already ridiculous, got 4/5 books bigger just now

Wow did I write that, I really ought to check posts before I post them

 

[iansales]

Interesting Point, he was a great director, perhaps the best ever in the English Language (Bar Orson Welles who is still the best by far in my book), although there are strong cases for Orson Welles, Jean-Luc Godard, Jean Renoir, Michelangelo Antonioni (The most similar filmmaker to Kubrick of great film-makers), Carl Dreyer, Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa, Yashijiro Ozu etc

Not a chance. Best ever English-language director is Alfred Hitchcock

Also worthy of consideration are David Lean, and Emeric Pressburger & Michael Powell.

 

[The Wanderer]

Not a chance. Best ever English-language director is Alfred Hitchcock

it was certainly a sin not to mention Hitchcock, I love Powell & Lean too, though they are not on the level of Welles & Kubrick IMO, Vertigo is defo one of the 6 best films in history though

 

[j d worthington]

My one quibble with putting Hitchcock in there is that he too often relied on a "gimmick", and not enough on "genuineness" in his art. I have a high regard for Hitch, but I'm not sure I'd put him quite as highly as the others mentioned... it'd be a very close thing, though....

 

[iansales]

You mean a "maguffin"? Besides, how you can have "genuineness" is anything as patently artificial as cinema?

Hitchcock certainly had a more profound effect on cinema than Kubrick. Mind you, so did George Lucas, and he's certainly not a great director...

On the non-English front: Kieslowski, Tarkovsky, Tykwer, Wenders, Herzog...

 

[j d worthington]

You mean a "maguffin"? Besides, how you can have "genuineness" is anything as patently artificial as cinema?

Hitchcock certainly had a more profound effect on cinema than Kubrick. Mind you, so did George Lucas, and he's certainly not a great director...

On the non-English front: Kieslowski, Tarkovsky, Tykwer, Wenders, Herzog...

No, I meant "gimmick" as in contrived. Which is where the "genuineness" comes in. All art is somewhat artificial... it is structured, after all; but the better art is, the more it strives to strike a genuine emotional chord, to achieve an insight into the human condition. Hitch was much more interested in entertaining than in doing so. That's what I meant by that. This does not, however, mean that he did not achieve that more genuine aspect at times... he did. But it was by no means his main concern, and he would have happily said so ... did, in fact, on numerous occasions.

 

[Homer Hoose]

You mean a "maguffin"? Besides, how you can have "genuineness" is anything as patently artificial as cinema?

Now, Mister iansales. You know that cinema creates culture. Don't you?

Hitchcock certainly had a more profound effect on cinema than Kubrick. Mind you, so did George Lucas, and he's certainly not a great director...

Interesting, iansales, do you think that profound effects create reality?

On the non-English front: Kieslowski, Tarkovsky, Tykwer, Wenders, Herzog...

How quaint. And maybe true.

Post their English translation.

 

[j d worthington]

You know, guys, we have strayed somewhat from the original purpose of the thread....

 

[The Wanderer]

My one quibble with putting Hitchcock in there is that he too often relied on a "gimmick", and not enough on "genuineness" in his art

The 'Maguffin' existed on a narrative level though, a great visual artist he was

You know, guys, we have strayed somewhat from the original purpose of the thread....

True ...

Venus Plus X - Theodore Sturgeon