Posted by Anders Monsen on October 01, 1996 at 07:32:31:
In Reply to: Vance, Vapid ,and Education posted by Benjamin Ecthelion Aillec Tomas Seldon on October 01, 1996 at 00:36:56:
Okay, I don't want to start a flame war here, but I feel you are wronging many of Vance's female characters. You are giving only signular dimension to such wonderful personalities as ZAP 210, Wayness Tamm, Madouc, Betty from THE DARK OCEAN, to name only a few. I read first Vance when I was a teenager, and appreciated his writing immediately. If you're having problems convincing students of Vance's ability, I think it comes down to the way this is done, and the environment in which it is done. Few high school students enjoy being force-fed "great literature." The surest way to prevent someone from reading Shakespeare, Keats, or Vance, is to teach them these writers in high school. Teenagers want to discover their own writers, or have them affirmed by people they respect. They do not want Howard Alan Treesong declaiming Vance's brilliance and machismo.