The Reading Room

2:49 AM

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Q: In "The Accidental", was it really Amber who did this?

Warning: contains unmarked spoilers. Ali Smith's The Accidental is about the Smart family (Eve, Michael, Magnus, and Astrid) and a woman, Amber, who seemingly appears out of nowhere at their holiday home and has a dramatic effect on each of their lives. The book is split into twelve main parts: ...

Shokhet

3:11 AM

@Randal'Thor Yeah, that was me today. But just for those like 2-3 hours :p

I know you've already seen this comment, @Mithrandir, but...

Could you write up that meta post? I won't have a lot of time for the next week or so (I have four tests next week)

@Hamlet I haven't really been involved in that discussion, but I don't see that the top-voted answer says "no spoiler tags at all." Catija said "no spoilers in titles," and "don't overuse spoiler tags." ...I think there is still room for some use of spoiler tags in posts (if I'm skimming questions about a series that I'm in the middle of, for example), and that it is possible to use them without overusing them. Perhaps something for meta... — Shokhet 1 min ago

...1) I do think that it is possible to use spoiler tags without overusing them, and I don't think that there is meta-consensus to never use spoiler tags for the reasons enumerated in the above comment

2) I think that there is reason to use them even if "the title gives the names of the books and the games;" I could look at a question that I've wondered about that is answered based on information from later works in a series, for example.

Or I could be skimming questions about a book/series that I'm reading or about to read, and still not be interested in having all the juicy points ruined for me

3) I pinged (pung?) you, Mithrandir, because I suspect you agree with some of these points. You did, after all, place the spoiler tags that I was defending in the comments above

This wasn't meant to be public discussion, just a conversation with Mith about one thing...maybe I should have put that in a separate room. Oops.

I mean, I guess we could have a discussion about policy in here right now, but I really think this belongs on meta. I don't have time to write it up, but that's been covered already ^^^

BESW

3:50 AM

@Shokhet I've been reading Cold Comfort Farm, so it's obviously pingt.

> One of the disadvantages of almost universal education was the fact that all kinds of persons acquired a familiarity with one's favourite writers. It gave one a curious feeling; it was like seeing a drunken stranger wrapped in one's dressing-gown.

Mithrandir

6:28 AM

@Shokhet we were talking about the term Burninate, not considering doing one :P

@Shokhet I can try...

Mithrandir

6:45 AM

@Shokhet Pung. That's a good word...

Mithrandir

8:30 AM

@Shokhet and @Hamlet, I refer you to this question:

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Q: Is it acceptable to remove spoiler blockquotes from questions and answers?

We recently discussed spoilers on this site, and the consensus was that while spoilers in titles should be avoided, spoilers in the body of questions/answers were acceptable, and therefore that spoiler blockquotes should be avoided. If someone posts an answer that contains spoiler blockquotes, i...

discussion spoilers

> If they are of reasonable size compared to non-spoiler text, leave them alone - removing them is contrary to poster's intent.

Rand al'Thor

10:37 AM

@Mithrandir Ah, good find!

So Hamlet's edits were actually not in accordance with policy on spoilers?

Mithrandir

@Randal'Thor that's the way it seems to me.

Rand al'Thor

:-/

I guess we wait for @Hamlet to see and comment on this discussion before rolling back?

Mithrandir

I guess so.

b_jonas

12:01 PM

So basically, you're trying to push me in the direction that I generally dislike eastern block sci fi, and that I have read one Strugatsky novel and didn't much enjoy it, maybe I should give it another change?

Let me see if this even has a translation.

Yes, it does. Available in original russian, hungarian, and german. Must be a famous book. (see literature.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/650/… )

b_jonas

12:18 PM

I'll add it to my book todo list.

Mithrandir

12:51 PM

Hard to Be a God

Hard to Be a God (Russian: Трудно быть богом, Trudno byt' bogom) is a 1964 science fiction novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky set in the Noon Universe. == Premise and themes == The novel follows Anton, an undercover operative from the future planet Earth, in his mission on an alien planet that is populated by human beings whose society has not advanced beyond the Middle Ages. The novel's core idea is that human progress throughout the centuries is often cruel and bloody, and that religion and blind faith can be effective tools of oppression, working to destroy the emerging scientific disciplines...

Wow, that works.

Does it work for non-mods is the question...

Locutus of Borg

Hard to Be a God

Hard to Be a God (Russian: Трудно быть богом, Trudno byt' bogom) is a 1964 science fiction novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky set in the Noon Universe. == Premise and themes == The novel follows Anton, an undercover operative from the future planet Earth, in his mission on an alien planet that is populated by human beings whose society has not advanced beyond the Middle Ages. The novel's core idea is that human progress throughout the centuries is often cruel and bloody, and that religion and blind faith can be effective tools of oppression, working to destroy the emerging scientific disciplines...

Yes it does.

DForck42

1:03 PM

mornin

Mithrandir

@DForck42 afternoon

DForck42

@Mithrandir how's mod life?

Rand al'Thor

Afternoon.

@LocutusofBorg Flagged for sockpuppetry :-P

Mithrandir

@DForck42 nothing too exciting today

Locutus of Borg

@Randal'Thor But we knew that already ;)

Lews Therin Telamon

1:09 PM

@LocutusofBorg Hello fellow sock.

Locutus of Borg

Sockpuppet fest? Woohoo!

Rand al'Thor

sniff sniff

Does it smell like socks in here?

Mithrandir

Hmm....

Locutus of Borg

Resistance is futile. I am not a sock. Prepare for assimilation.

DForck42

@Randal'Thor sorry, need to do laundry

Shokhet

1:12 PM

9 messages and 10 rep. You guys are within your limits...but just barely :p ....reading those messages now, will respond as necessary (prepare yourselves for a lot of pingbacks!)

@Mithrandir Okay, I just saw an isolated message on the star board. Thought I'd clarify, just in case

@Mithrandir Thanks :)

DForck42

@Shokhet just wanted to ping you for lolz

Shokhet

@DForck42 Hi @DForck42

DForck42

@Shokhet :-D

Shokhet

@Mithrandir Nice.

I'm thinking about just editing back without waiting for @Hamlet, because (I have edit privilege now and) there is an awkward capitalization error in the middle of a sentence due to the spoiler-removing edit

Locutus of Borg

1:48 PM

@Shokhet I refuse to officially condone that, but my sock says go ahead :P

Rand al'Thor

@Riker Thanks for the edit. Trust a PPCGer to know these neat hacks!

Riker

np!

it's an html comment fwiw

so it just divides, doesn't actually makea space

Rand al'Thor

I tend not to use hidden html markdown these days, in case I make @Emrakul edgy :-P

@Riker ?

Riker

it's a "comment" aka invisible piece of text

so it just divides the two quotes, but doesn't insert a blank newline

Rand al'Thor

But it does insert some space in there?

Just a smaller gap than before.

Riker

2:02 PM

yes

Hamlet

@Mithrandir @Shokhet @Randal'Thor that meta post doesn't say what you think it says

it says

1. edit if the spoilers are unnecessary. I would argue that all of those spoilers are unnecessary.

2. don't edit if the spoilers aren't taking up that much space (which admittedly I did not do).

Rand al'Thor

@Hamlet But your comment doesn't say "this isn't a spoiler", it says "people should expect spoilers in a question like this".

Hamlet

And it doesn't say that those spoilers are good to have. That question just talks about editing spoilers

Rand al'Thor

And the meta answer says edit if the spoilertagged things are either a) not spoilers or b) take up most of the post, but not otherwise.

Hamlet

so I would recommend creating a new meta post instead of having this debate on chat

Rand al'Thor

2:07 PM

@Hamlet We don't need a new meta post when there's already an existing consensus.

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Hamlet

@Randal'Thor the consensus you are refering to is about editing

Rand al'Thor

@Hamlet Yes, but editing spoilers is exactly what you did in this case.

The discussion we're having here is whether you were right to edit out those spoilertags. (At least that's what I think the discussion is - are we talking at cross-purposes?)

Mithrandir

2:20 PM

@Randal'Thor yes, that's what we're talking about. At least, that's what I was talking about.

Bookworm

2:33 PM

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Q: What were the inspirations for the Forsaken's names?

I realized that some of the Forsaken names were familiar to me (Ishamael and Ishmael from Moby Dick, Asmodean and Asmodeus the demon). Did Jordan take inspiration for the names for all the Forsaken, and if so what were the other inspirations for the other Forsaken? Edit: Thanks to @Mithrandir ...

inspiration robert-jordan wheel-of-time

Riker

I'm fairly certain the Bible predates Moby Dick.. :P

DForck42

4:02 PM

returns

Gallifreyan

6:32 PM

@b_jonas Did you just say something about Hard to Be a God?

Also, yes, it's a pretty famous book as long as the eastern block and bordering countries are concerned; not so much in the English-speaking world, so, to my knowledge, up to very recently all English translations were made from German.

b_jonas

7:20 PM

@Gallifreyan I said I'll willing give it a try. I don't have good experience with eastern bloc sci fi in general, except for Stanisław Lem, but I only read two Strugatsky novels (I had said one, but I realized since I've read two), and maybe they weren't the best ones. At least this time you gave a specific recommendation for which book to start with.

I'm not sure when I'll go to the library, but I added this to my book TODO list so I'll borrow it. There seem to be enough copies that I'll be able to get it sooner or later.

Gallifreyan

@b_jonas I'll never get tired of recommending Sapkowski and The Witcher

What was the other novel you read?

DForck42

@b_jonas 2-3 books isn't a whole lto of data to make a judgement about an entire subsection of literature ;-)

b_jonas

@Gallifreyan I've read Fogadó a Halott Alpinistához and ... what was the other one

A moment, I'll try to look it up.

@DForck42 It wasn't just 2-3 books. I've tried more eastern bloc sci fi than just the two books by Strugatsky. It's just that maybe I didn't know the right ones to choose.

But yes, I probably tried too few, and there's also the problem that everyone keeps recommending Nemere István, since he's so famous, but he's just not my style.

DForck42

@b_jonas fair

I'm just giving you a hard time, I haven't really tried any

b_jonas

@Gallifreyan Fogadó a Halott Alpinistához has the original title Отель «У Погибшего Альпиниста».

Gallifreyan

7:28 PM

Fogadó a Halott Alpinistához (nee "Dead Mountaineer's Inn") is not reflective of Strugatsky's other works - they made it as a punt on detective stories, but it still has a charm

b_jonas

The other was The doomed city, original title Град обреченный

Gallifreyan

Didn't read that one, but they say it's a hard read

b_jonas

Apparently the Hungarian title is A kárhozott város, though I didn't remember the title in particular, which is why it took me some time to find it.

That book has a case when the artificial Sun turns off for several days because of a technical error, thus making all agriculture impossible. Causes a huge chaos of course.

But the whole thing was just a jumbled mess to me. There's not much coherence in the story, the writing style wasn't remarkable, and I don't get much of the social commentary or utopism or whatever it's supposed to be, even though that's what Strugatsky is often praised for.

DForck42

is this a good version?

amazon.com/Hard-be-God-S-F-Masterworks/dp/1473208297/…

b_jonas

On the plus side, I think we have at least three people here who enjoy Strugatsky.

Gallifreyan

7:36 PM

@DForck42 I don't know, but it has the most recent translation

(It's the version I ordered for my uni's library, so at least we'll be on the same page if you get it)

DForck42

@Gallifreyan k, ordered

b_jonas

Anyway, even if it does turn out that Strugatskys aren't the right writer for me, this topic challenge is a step forward from the Mythology SE myth of the month where they chose a work that sounds very much like I'd enjoy it, but it turns out that somehow nobody has translated it to Hungarian.

Gallifreyan

Yay!

DForck42

@b_jonas interesting

Gallifreyan

@b_jonas I imagine Russian -> Hungarian will be better than Greek (or whatever) -> Hungarian, but I'm no expert

b_jonas

7:42 PM

@Gallifreyan Not greek. Old norse.

DForck42

@b_jonas I didn't see it stickied on the site. got a linky?

b_jonas

@DForck42 mythology.meta.stackexchange.com/q/263/197 Myth of the Month #1: Gylfaginning (part of Prose Edda)

DForck42

@b_jonas ahh, looks like that died a while ago, sad

btw, I dunno if anyone here is from the OG lit site, but I won a competition on there and got the hunger games trilogy as a prize

b_jonas

To be fair, there's been three myths of the month after, the second was the epic of Gilgamesh, which definitely has a Hungarian translation,

but the Prose Edda totally sounds like something I'd be interested in reading.

@DForck42 What is "OG"?

Gallifreyan

Why not read in English?

b_jonas

7:48 PM

@Gallifreyan I'm usually resistant to that. English translations often suck. Maybe it's less so for old norse mythology, but still.

DForck42

@b_jonas original gangta

aka, the first site

b_jonas

Also, a large part of why these old mythology stuff is enjoyable is the poems, which would be totally lost if I tried to read in English.

DForck42

@Gallifreyan some language -> language translations are more difficult than others

b_jonas

We have great modern translations of the Illiad, Odyssey, Aeneid, the Beowulf epic, and the Kalevala to Hungarian from the Nyugat era, with really flowing poetry, and that makes those very enjoyable.

Gallifreyan

I see. I've often heard that poems are ruined when translated to English, but haven't seen evidence either way

b_jonas

7:51 PM

@Gallifreyan I'm not saying they're ruined when they're translated. I'm saying they're ruined if I try to read them in English. I don't appreciate the English poetry.

(I am also biased and believe that they are ruined, but that's not the point here. Even good original poetry in English is lost if I'm reading it, because I don't speak enough English to hear the poetry part.)

b_jonas

8:03 PM

Since we're giving book recommendations, have you guys read Erich Kästner's children books? They're really written for children, not just marketed as a children book by dumb publishers or book stores. My favourite is Der kleine Mann and its sequel, even though it's one of the less famous ones.

b_jonas

8:18 PM

Unlike most of Kästner's books, Der kleine Mann actually qualifies as fantasy I think, so it's on topic on the other site. The talking animal exception doesn't apply, because it's important for the story that he's so small.

Hamlet

10:24 PM

"the other site"

@Randal'Thor my edits may have been unnecessary and I doubt I'll make them again, but is it a good idea to role them back?

@Ash @BESW have you read The White Bone?

Rand al'Thor

@Hamlet shrug I guess that's up to @Mithrandir, as the OP. I don't even know enough about TombQuest to judge how spoilery that spoiler is.

@Hamlet Re your comments here (I just edited the question, by the way): does it strictly have to be an object symbolising something, or can an action sometimes count as symbolism too?

Shokhet

10:42 PM

Ooh, the power

@BESW That went right over my head.

Hamlet

@Randal'Thor actions can be a symbol, but they usually don't symbolize things (if that makes sense)

At least that's my understanding of what the current state of lit. studies is

Rand al'Thor

@Hamlet More importantly, I wish you wouldn't be such a spoilsport. If you don't feel a question is interesting to you personally, downvote it; but leaving comments on such questions to imply that they're worthless because "what do they tell you about the book" willl discourage people from asking questions and ultimately could kill the site. It's a literature site, not a literary analysis site, and this is a question about literature which at least five people find interesting/useful. What's your problem? — Rand al'Thor 3 mins ago

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I'm a bit worried by the negativity I'm seeing towards some of the questions here. I'd like to encourage people to take a "live and let live" approach towards questions which are undeniably about literature, and also to read this question and its answers, especially the one from DVK.

(It's not just Hamlet's one comment that I'm reacting to here, but a broader pattern I've observed on this site.)

Literature snobbery doesn't have to take the form of demeaning some works as not being "proper literature"; it can also take the form of demeaning some types of question as not being "proper literary questions", even while accepting that the book being asked about is "proper literature".

3

Hamlet

@Randal'Thor part of what's going on is that the word symbolism tends to be used only when the "symbolism" of an object is glaringly obvious, e.g. a white dress. For more complicated concepts different words are used instead.

BESW

@Hamlet Wouldn't that be ripe fodder for a frame-challenge answer, then?

Rand al'Thor

@Hamlet Is there a nice "term of art" for when there's a metaphorical correspondence between a specific action (rather than a specific object) and some other important element of the story?

2

Shokhet

10:54 PM

@Randal'Thor While you make good points, this question still might be too broad. I've never read the books, but there appear to be very many characters (see also the page with just your name on it). — Shokhet 20 secs ago

Hamlet

@BESW not really, it was just one incorrect use of the word that didn't really change the meaning of the question. I'm just bringing it up to be nitpicky and bc I thought Rand might find it interesting/useful.

Shokhet

...there's a Wikipedia page for pages about WoT characters. There are three pages in that list, one for major characters, one for minor characters, and one for @Randal'Thor :)

BESW

@Hamlet I have not. Don't have a lot of interest in depressing animal stories.

Rand al'Thor

@Shokhet WoT as a whole has over 2000 named characters, but this question is asking about just thirteen. Some of those thirteen have a couple of different names, but it's still a clearly scoped question. — Rand al'Thor 44 secs ago

If we're doing comment-replies in chat :-)

@Shokhet I believe there's a list of my Rand's titles somewhere near the bottom of the "about me" on my profile.

Hamlet

@Randal'Thor I prefer to just not use fancy words. For example, I try to write things like "how does [action x] contribute to [element y]"

Shokhet

10:57 PM

@Randal'Thor I don't think we need to, but I thought that my reply was germane to the general discussion here.

Hamlet

where [element y] could be something like "the sense of foreboding" etc.

Rand al'Thor

@Hamlet Yes, thanks. I was wondering while writing the question if "symbolism" was really the right word to use, but ended up going with it anyway. I've now changed that sentence to "[...] whatever the answer to this question is, it will tie in metaphorically to the relationships that form the core of the story."

Hamlet

@Randal'Thor cool. At the end of the day this is a really really minor thing. I just brought it up bc. I thought you might find it helpful, since you're writing so much content on the site :)

Rand al'Thor

@Hamlet Definitely. If you have the time, you might also want to provide a better tag wiki for the symbolism tag; the one it's got at the moment is ... not great.

Hamlet

@Randal'Thor I guess maybe the thing about these name origin questions is that you can ask them about really any character in any book (as some people have done with virtually every character in a certain book).

@Randal'Thor I suspect that 50% of those questions use the symbolism tag incorrectly.

Mithrandir

11:04 PM

It depends on whether there's a reason to assume that there's some meaning to the choice.

BESW

@Shokhet Cold Comfort Farm is a hilarious novel of satire, and one of its recurring elements is an extremely exaggerated literal rendition of rural Sussex dialect.

It's a combination of migrated vowels, swallowed consonants, and mangled King James vocabulary.

Hamlet

@Randal'Thor so I'm probably not going to touch the tag until I work up the courage to go through all of those questions and make sure they're using the tag correctly.

Mithrandir

If it's a work where it's logical to assume that there was a meaning behind the author's decision, such as a satirical work, then great. If you're asking it about some random story you read on the Internet... not great.

Hamlet

(Also, did anyone catch the joke I made in chat today?)

Mithrandir

...joke?

It's 2:00 AM. I won't be catching jokes :P

So my opinion on symbolism questions basically boils down to 'please include the reason you think this choice was significant'

Rand al'Thor

11:09 PM

@Hamlet There are many types of questions which are in a certain sense mass-producible (one could ask the same question about any X in any Y) but aren't necessarily bad questions in themselves. You even asked one of the first of those Animal Farm symbolism questions.

If someone starts spamming the site with a million "what was this random character in this random book named after" questions, you might want to take action against that user; but even those questions might still be valid in themselves. It's all a question of intent, and I think Matrim's intent here was simply to ask a question about something that interests him in a book series he enjoys. That's what we want to encourage!

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Mithrandir

Right - as long as the intent is good, I have no problem with it.

And now I am going to sleep before I make a fool out of myself...

Shokhet

11:47 PM

@BESW Ah, now I get it. Thanks for the explanation

I had looked up the book's Wikipedia page, but couldn't quite make the connection from the information there.

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