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Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
6:53 AM
@CowperKettle What's "the childfree movement"? Does that mean anything more than simply the choice of some people/couples to not have children?
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
7:04 AM
@Randal'Thor It's just a general idea. Many Russian laws start out with a vaguest idea, in order to allow for wildest interpretations by authorities.
 
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
7:18 AM
Weird. And scary.
 
 
1 hour later…
Bookworm
Bookworm
8:19 AM
0
Q: I feel unsatisfied with Kimya's ending in Elif Shafak"s The Forty Rules of Love; why doesn't Shams give her any closure?

ErisI finished Elif Shafak's The Forty Rules of Love recently, and I just can't stop thinking about Kimya's ending. Shams just rejects her and she dies?? Why doesn't he at least comfort her or explain why he doesn't want to make love to her? The poor girl is in love with him and he doesn't seem to ac...

meaning elif-shafak the-forty-rules-of-love
 
 
2 hours later…
Bookworm
Bookworm
10:21 AM
0
Q: Does the Fall of Troy in The Aeneid offer a counternarrative to Homer's The Iliad and The Odyssey?

hopeI have not fully read Homer's The Iliad and The Odyssey and I'm only in the Book 3 of The Aeneid. All I know is that in the Iliad, there is the fighting of the Trojan War. In the Odyssey, there is a return from the Trojan War. Finally, in the Aeneid, there is an escape from the ruins of the Troja...

greek-literature latin-literature the-odyssey the-iliad aeneid
 
 
1 hour later…
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
11:29 AM
@Bookworm If you left out the question title and the first sentence from the question body, you wouldn't know this was a comment about a work of literature.
 
 
2 hours later…
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
1:32 PM
So I left the following comment, which seems pertinent to many "why does x do that" questions on this site:
Finding fault with how literary characters behave is understandable but in the context of literature the more pertinent question is what the character's behaviour says about the novel's theme, message, world view or view on humanity. The author may have the same objections to the character's behaviour that you have but still decided to shape it that way for literary reasons (for lack of a better term). Have you thought about that? — Tsundoku ♦ 1 min ago
 
Bookworm
Bookworm
0
Q: Why can't Harry Potter see the threstrals in the books before the 5th?

CrazyCodingIn the Harry Potter books, you can only see a threstral if you've seen someone die, right? In the 4rd book, Harry sees 'horseless carriages', but after seeing Cedric's death, in the 5th book he can see the threstrals. I was wondering why couldn't he see them in the first place, as he saw his pare...

j-k-rowling harry-potter
 
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
@Tsundoku The underlying question there is a very valid one, IMO (well, it's essentially identical to one I asked years ago which still hasn't received a good answer).
But of course it comes off better when phrased like "why did Shams behave like this, it seems inconsistent with his character, etc." rather than like "aww I feel bad for Kimya, why is Shams so mean :-("
 
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
Well, you can't go and ask Sham why he behaved the way he did? (And even if you could, would he give an honest answer?) There may be clues elsewhere in the novel, but the question doesn't really ask about those.
 
Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor
@Bookworm That's been asked on Science Fiction & Fantasy before.
 
Tsundoku
Tsundoku
1:50 PM
SFF October 2021 Topic Challenge: Gene Wolfe. At first, I thought, "Wolfe didn't write any science fiction and fantasy!" but I got the wrong Wolfe.
"In the 4rd book ..."
 

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