Author: corwin

Site administrative account, so probably Corwin, Felix or DD-B.

On Jim Butcher's Dresden Files

I’ve been reading the Dresden Files, and I want to get my thoughts down, because it’s always worthwhile to me try to turn vague moods about writing into precise expressions that I can generalize and learn from.

I was told by several people that the books “hit their stride” with number 4, Summer Knight.  I respectfully disagree.  The problems in the early books remain, in my opinion, all the way until #9, White Night.  The problems?  Dresden’s sexism is not cute, not endearing, not charming.  It’s annoying, and at various points I simply disbelieved in Murphy’s character because of how she reacted to it.  By #9, he’s toned this down enough to be tolerable.  More significantly, in the early books I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was watching the author push the pieces around.  I could hear him saying, “No, I have to find a way to ramp up the tension, even if it makes no sense.”  Two people hear a phone call, but in order to increase the tension, they both conveniently forget about it.  Pfui.

So, why did I keep reading?  There is a moment toward the end of #2, Fool Moon, where, right at the high point of the action, Butcher is required to bring everything to a dead stop and spend a paragraph describing another character’s interior landscape.  While the battle hangs in the balance.  He not only gets away with it, but he makes me like it.  That is some serious chops.  That’s the shit.  Someone who can do that is worth reading.

The other thing he has going all the way is that he does exactly what I’ve tried to do (and not always succeeded at): Each book is a fully self-contained story, and each one significantly advances the overall arc.  There’s no filler.  There’s no treading water.  He leaves it all out on the field every time.  That’s how you do that.

By the time we get to #9, things are smooth.  I’m not thinking about what the author is doing any more, I’m just reading and enjoying and really, really pulling for Harry Dresden.  And moreover, we’re starting to get serious: we’re in territory where there are no easy answers, where there are no good choices, so you have to pick the least bad and live with it.  This means the books are gripping on more than just one level, and that when the book is over, you have something to chew on.  I like that.

I’m currently reading #11.

On Winning Arguments

There’s been some recent discussion–most of it, I believe, ironic–about winning arguments.  It got me to thinking.  Those of us who pride ourselves on logic and rationality hate losing an argument; it damages our self-respect.  But that aside, none of us expect to actually win an argument of the sort we’re having here.  In fact, I can only remember winning an argument once in my life, when a better man than I said, “You haven’t convinced me, but I can’t answer you.”  I didn’t gloat about winning; rather my jaw dropped at his honesty.

But, you see, convincing someone isn’t the point of arguing.  At least, for me.  For me, the point is to sharpen and clarify my own ideas by testing them against others.  Sometimes, in fact, I only learn what I think about something when I hear myself making an argument.  When someone is so far from my position that arguing would be absurd; or says something so preposterous that nothing can be gained or clarified from the discussion, I will usually opt out.  Case in point: the discussion of Capital that was going on until I lost my copy: I was reading it to help me understand what are to me difficult concepts; and people who hold positions far, far from mine sometimes said things that were helpful in clarifying things.  There was no point in arguing with them.  If someone believes that the exchange of commodities is determined by pure ideas, I’m not going to change his mind, and he isn’t going to change mine.  Why argue?  But nevertheless, some of the “value is all the in the head” people said very, very useful things that helped me piece together concept I was having trouble with.

Another use of a good argument is to make subtle distinctions sharper and clearer.  If someone starts out saying, “We should do more to prevent voter fraud,” and, through the course of an argument, it becomes clear that his attitude is, “the poor should be disenfranchised,” then that argument was useful in showing anyone listening the basis of his original position.

To summarize: I will engage in argument to help me clarify my positions; to expose the logical conclusions of another’s positions, and that’s about it.

Well, no.  I’ll also do it because I’m pissed off, or because I thought of a clever way to trash someone who annoys me.  But I shouldn’t do that, and I try not to.

Domestic terrorists

It seems to me that it is in the interest of the public to have a list of all known domestic terrorists and terrorist groups–that is, individuals or minorities who attempt to use fear and terror to accomplish their political goals.  Since the other lists I’ve seen are unreliable (I’m told Occupy Wall Street has been added to one such list), I thought I’d step up and offer to make the list right here.

For starters, obviously, we have:

The Department of Homeland Security.

After that, some obvious choices are:

Michael Bloomberg

The NYPD

Rudy Guilianni

The Oakland PD

Okay, that’s a good start.  Who else should we add?  Speak up.