The Packer family

Martha Bridegam <bridegam.RemoveThis@pacbell.net> writes:

> Dates matter once you've decided to pursue a subject, as you already
> had done in the Dalton Trumbo case. When you have a question to
> pursue and a reason to pursue it, then of course precise details
> matter, and of course you go looking for inconsistencies in detail
> that may indicate something bigger out of place. Yes, of course. But
> first, you have to become engaged in the pursuit. You have to feel
> the old hunter's impulse -- Sherlock Holmes' "the game is afoot."
> That you don't get from memorizing dates.

Well, it works both ways. If I hadn't known that certain things
happened in 1939 (that horrible year when, among other things, I
turned two), I wouldn't have made the inference that turned out to be
wrong. It is very valuable to have a memorized skeleton to hang
things on -- to have enough dates on hand to suggest looking up
further ones. I am mostly lacking in that, and perhaps Orwell was
better off in some ways for having had it beaten into him. Because of
the pleasing symmetry in the 17th century, e.g., I still remember the
chant James I, Charles I, Cromwell, Charles II, James II, William &
Mary, Anne, and the Georges. But in the 19th century I am lost.
Mostly Victoria, I suppose. Of course, at St Cyprian's, if Orwell is
to be believed, the bones in the skeleton weren't even connected.

The value of pain in learning seems to be a party question, and is a
vexed one for spoiled brats like me; it would be amusing to know if it
has ever been considered dispassionately. That scene in _Captains
Courageous_ where Harvey learns the ropes at a rope's end does have a
certain versimilitude.
--
--- Joe Fineman joe_f.RemoveThis@verizon.net

||: You find out what's really wrong with an idea when it |
||: succeeds. |

Joe Fineman wrote:
> Martha Bridegam <bridegam.DeleteThis@pacbell.net> writes:
>
>> Dates matter once you've decided to pursue a subject, as you already
>> had done in the Dalton Trumbo case. When you have a question to
>> pursue and a reason to pursue it, then of course precise details
>> matter, and of course you go looking for inconsistencies in detail
>> that may indicate something bigger out of place. Yes, of course. But
>> first, you have to become engaged in the pursuit. You have to feel
>> the old hunter's impulse -- Sherlock Holmes' "the game is afoot."
>> That you don't get from memorizing dates.
>
> Well, it works both ways. If I hadn't known that certain things
> happened in 1939 (that horrible year when, among other things, I
> turned two), I wouldn't have made the inference that turned out to be
> wrong. It is very valuable to have a memorized skeleton to hang
> things on -- to have enough dates on hand to suggest looking up
> further ones. I am mostly lacking in that, and perhaps Orwell was
> better off in some ways for having had it beaten into him. Because of
> the pleasing symmetry in the 17th century, e.g., I still remember the
> chant James I, Charles I, Cromwell, Charles II, James II, William &
> Mary, Anne, and the Georges. But in the 19th century I am lost.
> Mostly Victoria, I suppose. Of course, at St Cyprian's, if Orwell is
> to be believed, the bones in the skeleton weren't even connected.
>
> The value of pain in learning seems to be a party question, and is a
> vexed one for spoiled brats like me; it would be amusing to know if it
> has ever been considered dispassionately. That scene in _Captains
> Courageous_ where Harvey learns the ropes at a rope's end does have a
> certain versimilitude.

But do ends justify ropes' ends?

/M