The Wisdom of Isaac Asimov

[jana-ch.livejournal.com]

The Wisdom of Isaac Asimov

A few days ago was Isaac Asimov’s 99th birthday. (Rather, his official birthday. He knew he was born between Oct 4, 1919 and Jan 2, 1920, and since he hated the idea of being old, he took the latest date possible as his birthday.) One of the comments on a blog I was reading that day about the Good Doctor was the following:

“Story that Isaac told: Isaac sat in on a class where the professor was teaching about one of his stories.  He approached the professor after the class and said, ‘That story doesn’t mean that at all. I should know. I wrote it.’  And the professor looked at him and said, ‘So?’

And at that moment, Isaac said, he realized that the professor was right.  No matter what the author intended, what the reader got out of it was what was really there.”

If only JKR had his wisdom. I suggest that the official motto of DTCL should be the following:

Saith Isaac Asimov: No matter what the author intends, what the reader gets out of the story is what is really there.

P.S. Don’t stop commenting on sunnyskywalker’s thread below just because I’ve started a new one. The intricacies of the Fidelius Charm are entirely worth a thorough thrashing out.

Comments

Re: Rowling’s politics

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Hey, Brad! You failed to respond to any of my actual points. For example:

In the 1950s, our president, Dwight Eisenhower, was a Republican and considered centrist to slightly right of center. Basically centrist.
1. He spoke strongly and clearly against the Military-Industrial complex.
2. His actual policy as to taxation included a marginal tax rate on the (then) extremely wealthy that went as high as 90 percent.

Proof of this: https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/nov/15/bernie-s/income-tax-rates-were-90-percent-under-eisenhower-/

Now, two young women in the Democratic party and the Socialist Democrats of America are suggesting:
1. That we limit the power of the Military-industrial complex and stop wars of regime change and wars of choice (Tulsi Gabbard)
2. That we re-institute a marginal tax of 70 percent on the extremely wealthy (Alexandra Ocasio Cortez).

And they are getting called far left. That is how far right the politicians (including the corporate Democrats like the Clintons and Obama and the neoliberals like Tony Blair) have drifted! It is, sadly, true that Obama WAS (when he started his presidency) to the left of most of congress. That does not make him left-wing. His policies were basically in line with Nixon's. (Nixon, you remember, signed the Environmental Protection Act). The modern-day Democrats are basically 1960's Republicans, and the Republicans are basically Fascists. It was Clinton, in particular, who drove the Democrats to the right, while Thatcher and Reagan, between them, drove the Republicans and the Tories toward Fascism. I'm not saying those two were actually Fascists in the mold of Trump. But they pushed rightward and wanted to destroy the social welfare state.

I think I'm a good bit older than you, and I can actually remember some of this. I saw it. I've seen my country drift rightward. It was more than fifteen years ago when I said, in a professional meeting "This country has no meaningful left wing." The president of the library association responded later, "who is that brilliant woman?" Well, we have a left wing now, thank heavens! But the corporate Dems and corporate labour are not part of it.

As to Rowling's politics AS SHOWN IN HER BOOKS, they are conservative. They are actually 19th-century--for reasons. I went on and on about that in my old essay, "J.K. Rowling and the Mores of the 19th Century"

I think we are going to have to agree to differ, as far as politics go. I WILL drop the subject now. Really!

I also agree with you that Rowling would consider herself left-wing. I just really, really, don't think she is. She's a Blairite.