(no subject)

If I didn't know, I'd have thought Moore was talking about speculative fiction when she wrote

I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond
all this fiddle.
Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one
discovers in
it after all, a place for the genuine.Hands that can grasp, eyes
that can dilate, hair that can rise
if it must, these things are important not because a

high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because
they are
useful. When they become so derivative as to become
unintelligible,
the same thing may be said for all of us, that we
do not admire what
we cannot understand:

I just finished Robin McKinley's Dragonhaven, which opens with a very, very long section of pure exposition--which almost made me quit reading. Fortunately I remembered a post by someone on the slow start but worthwhile middle of this novel, so I persevered--and was glad I had. This is one book where the slow start works. ( cut for spoilers )

And of course, Marianne Moore wanted to be a dragon.

( Whole poem, for those who might want it )