by Hnuff » April 12th, 2006, 5:04 pm
I wonder if we're not getting into the logical fallacy of False Dilemma in this discussion--maybe it's not either Lindskoog or Hooper that is wrong, but that both may be, in their own individual ways, nut-jobs.
I have for some reason never trusted or warmed to Walter Hooper--can't say why, just never liked the man (though I've never met him personally--I'm talking vibes). I have no difficulty in supposing that Hooper has been less than rigorously accurate in some of his statements. But I have to say also that the few times I've tried reading Lindskoog's arguments in the case, I get the distinct impression of things fizzing and popping in her head, which makes me want to back slowly away.
I have read The Dark Tower, and have zero difficulty in believing that Lewis wrote it--it's just that it's really not very good. People who say "Jack wouldn't write something like that" don't seem to have a first-hand understanding of how things get created. Some years back, I was visiting a friend in Dallas (Texas), who was a professional photographer. I was looking at an album of slides he had taken, leafing from page to page in wonder. The photographs were beautiful, perfect. I turned to him and asked, "How did you manage to get a book full of such incredible shots?"
"By throwing these away," he said, pointing to a wastepaper basket full to the brim of rejected (and not so good) shots. "The secret to any great art," he said, "is, you just don't let anybody see the crap."
I think that with TDT, we just got a rare glimpse of the crap. Admittedly, it's Lewisian crap and much better than I could do on the best day I had, but not up to his regular standard. That's likely the reason he left it unfinished.
I have next to no trust in computer-based analyses of writing styles; these would only work in analysing the literary styles of hacks, who slavishly write formula prose and stories (any random sampling of best-seller writers will give you examples of what I mean); this is harder to manage with real writers, whose minds are alive and still responding creatively (as opposed to by rote) to the world around them.
Selah!