Comments on: Fortean Essentials! http://www.ufomystic.com/the-redfern-files/fortean-essentials/ UFO News, Views, and More Tue, 06 Jan 2009 13:57:27 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: mouseonmoon http://www.ufomystic.com/the-redfern-files/fortean-essentials/#comment-6797 mouseonmoon Wed, 03 Sep 2008 04:53:28 +0000 http://www.ufomystic.com/?p=1496#comment-6797 "For every five people who read Charles Fort, four will go insane," Ben Hecht wrote (in the Chicago Daily News review) . “For every five people who read Charles Fort, four will go insane,” Ben Hecht wrote (in the Chicago Daily News review) .

]]> By: drew hempel http://www.ufomystic.com/the-redfern-files/fortean-essentials/#comment-6793 drew hempel Wed, 03 Sep 2008 03:09:43 +0000 http://www.ufomystic.com/?p=1496#comment-6793 Admittedly the last new release of the complete works in one edition bowled me over. I didn't reread LO! (since I had already read it 3 times). I did read Wild Talents and New Lands but not as with much scrutiny as I had hoped -- more like straggling along past the text. In that recent Tarcher edition, the editor (whose new biography of Fort I did read in detail) recommended NOT reading Book of the Damned first even though it was Fort's first book. He argued that the style was too jarring -- not enough prose and too philosophical. I disagree -- I still think Book of the Damned is the best because Fort lays down his foundation, a broadside against science as a whole and even inductive and deductive reasoning. Fort's method relies on induction (which most people latch onto so that it leads more to a listing of information) but Book of the Damned goes beyond that to logical inference of the source of reality. Anyway glad to see there's a large print edition since it's dangerous to pack too much Fort in such a small area: Spontaneous Human Combustion is the obvious Fortean result. I look forward to another run for my money (better than trying to get the new high score in Donkey Kong!) Admittedly the last new release of the complete works in one edition bowled me over. I didn’t reread LO! (since I had already read it 3 times). I did read Wild Talents and New Lands but not as with much scrutiny as I had hoped — more like straggling along past the text. In that recent Tarcher edition, the editor (whose new biography of Fort I did read in detail) recommended NOT reading Book of the Damned first even though it was Fort’s first book. He argued that the style was too jarring — not enough prose and too philosophical. I disagree — I still think Book of the Damned is the best because Fort lays down his foundation, a broadside against science as a whole and even inductive and deductive reasoning. Fort’s method relies on induction (which most people latch onto so that it leads more to a listing of information) but Book of the Damned goes beyond that to logical inference of the source of reality.

Anyway glad to see there’s a large print edition since it’s dangerous to pack too much Fort in such a small area: Spontaneous Human Combustion is the obvious Fortean result. I look forward to another run for my money (better than trying to get the new high score in Donkey Kong!)

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