The Reading Room

Rand al'Thor

12:01 AM

@Hamlet I haven't upvoted or downvoted your answer yet (upvoted the question), but left a couple of comments.

In short, I don't think it's a genre tag, so whether or not we should keep the tag, your answer doesn't really apply.

(We already decided not to have genre tags.)

Bookworm

12:19 AM

0

Q: How many of the Swallows & Amazons stories are metafictional?

When reading the classical children's book series Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome, I started with the eponymous first book Swallows and Amazons, but read Peter Duck before Swallowdale. Thus, I first read Peter Duck in the same spirit as the other stories - the children going on boats and h...

Hamlet

@Randal'Thor thanks, I completely missed that.

Hamlet

2:39 AM

@Randal'Thor not really sure why you wouldn't think children's literature is a genre.

Bookworm

2:50 AM

0

Q: Story about a man (teacher) having an affair

I have forgotten the title of a book I read around 10 years ago. The book was fairly old then. The setting was in times of horses, carriages and telegrams. It consisted of a gentleman who went to stay as a live-in teacher for 2 children and fell for their mother. The father had traveled a lot and...

story-identification

BESW

3:10 AM

My Edgar Allen Poe Dameron cosplay #cvg2017 https://t.co/aqPQocdMzM

Tweeted by victrolavixen on July 10, 2017 at 8:04 AM

Rand al'Thor

11:14 AM

@BESW *Allan, dammit.

BESW

I can't complain, I made a similar mistake with Ginsberg.

Rand al'Thor

@Hamlet To be fair, I don't really have a clear definition of what a "genre" is. But it seems odd to me to have a genre defined purely in terms of the target audience, rather than in terms of what the stories are actually about.

BESW

Genre isn't just what the story's about, it's also how the story's told.

Children's lit arguably contains elements of both: there are themes and modes which ping people as making something "for kids."

BESW

11:30 AM

NO BAD IDEA NO HAVE THESE PEOPLE NEVER SEEN A SINGLE HORROR MOVIE http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/chicago-library-seeks-help-transcribing-magical-manuscripts-180963911/

Tweeted by premeesaurus on July 10, 2017 at 11:27 PM

Rand al'Thor

2:00 PM

@Hamlet Have you changed your opinion on our relationship with Mythology SE?

A couple of weeks ago you were saying that maybe Mythology should be merged into Literature, but now you keep talking about mythology questions which are on-topic here being better suited for Mythology SE.

Hamlet

@Randal'Thor yeah, I know, I can be very inconsistent.

Let me take a break from this, think about it, and write an answer on meta.

Or let me take a break, think about it, and decide I'm being very irrational.

Rand al'Thor

:-D

Sure.

Hamlet

2:59 PM

OK. Mythology has a huge problem with people asking questions but not actually reading any of the myths.

I enjoy Literature 100% more than Mythology because people actually read the things they ask questions about.

People ask questions about "The Myth of Hercules" on Mythology without specifying which Myth of Hercules they are interested in. So answers need to, among other things, break down the different versions of the myth.

When it comes to oral literature, things are a little bit different. You can ask about "motifs" which are essentially "tale types": a way of categorizing all of the different versions of a story floating around in oral tradition.

Myth is a horrible tag because it really is a genre. When it comes to something like Norse mythology, the term "Norse mythology" is horribly unclear. Are you talking about the Christianized version of Norse mythology recorded in the prose and poetic eddas? Are you talking about the oral tradition that we have no real record of? Or are you talking about modern adaptations of Norse mythology?

I'm fine with people confusing all of these concepts over at Mythology. But I would prefer if this way of thinking about mythology stayed over on Mythology.

(I no longer believe that Mythology and Literature should be merged BTW. The use of the myth over here indicates that people really want to ask questions that confuse different versions of myth. So there should be a site that let's people do this, and a site where people have experience writing answers that untangle all these different adaptations of the same myths.)

Rand al'Thor

4:09 PM

@Hamlet Why not all of them? I could imagine a good question asking for comparisons of, say, the portrayal of some god or hero between the original oral tradition and the earliest written transcriptions.

Hamlet

4:20 PM

@Randal'Thor I can too.

But before you ask a question like that, you should have to think about the fact that there's a difference between the three, and that you're asking a comparison question.

Not having a myths tag is a really good way to do that. Because then you have to think about what to tag the question. And then you have to think: am I asking a question about the Prose Edda? Or Gaiman's Norse Mythology

Literally just copy and pasted these chat posts into an answer.

0

A: What is the purpose of the myths tag?

The Mythology Stack Exchange has a huge problem with people asking questions but not actually reading any of the myths. I enjoy Literature 100% more than Mythology because people actually read the things they ask questions about. People ask questions about "The Myth of Hercules" on Mythology wi...

Rand al'Thor

@Hamlet But what if you do know your stuff about mythology, and you're asking a question about (e.g.) the evolution of a character over many different incarnations of a traditional legend, and there's no tag to cover mythology (or even Norse mythology) as a whole?

I suppose maybe the history-of-literature tag?

Hamlet

@Randal'Thor something like that, yes.

I agree with the purpose of a history-of-literature tag, but not necessarily the name.

Rand al'Thor

I can get behind the idea of abolishing the myths tag as too broad and general, but I'm still in favour of tags like norse-mythology and greek-mythology and so on.

OK, so someone asks a question about Odin without realising how many different versions of the character there are. Let's educate them with a good answer that picks apart the evolution of Norse mythology and the portrayal of Odin in different versions and stories.

Gallifreyan

@Randal'Thor Nope, that's the novel tag.

Rand al'Thor

Or do you think such a question would be too broad?

Hamlet

4:32 PM

@Randal'Thor I would rather send that question over to Mythology.

Rand al'Thor

@Hamlet What name would you prefer?

Hamlet

@Randal'Thor not sure yet. It's fine for now.

@Randal'Thor it depends on how it's asked.

Rand al'Thor

@Hamlet Btw, in your Lem question, there's a couple of things which look like typos in the quoted passage, e.g. a sing e"unit". Can you confirm that these are [sic] and not your own transcription errors?

Gallifreyan

@Randal'Thor scope Are questions about pitting different versions of Odin against each other on-topic?

And interesting spin on Gorilla vs. Shark.

Hamlet

@Randal'Thor probably typos

Rand al'Thor

4:38 PM

@Gallifreyan Take that to SFF :-P

Gallifreyan

@Randal'Thor Oh, so it's on-topic there? Right away!

Also, I was reading The Norse Myths by Kevin Crossley-Holland (good book, I like it), and he claims that Thor might actually have been at the same "level" as Odin and Freyja.

Shokhet

@Hamlet Fun fact: on this site, norse-mythology is for Gaiman's recent book :D

Hamlet

@Shokhet yeah, it should stay that way.

Shokhet

@Hamlet Just making sure you weren't accidentally talking about that tag in the context of a discussion of a different tag :)

Hamlet

@Shokhet no worries.

Rand al'Thor

4:45 PM

@Gallifreyan Which "vs" questions are on-topic at SFF

@Hamlet ...

Feeds

Owl Eyes in The Great Gatsby: https://literature.stackexchange.com/q/2843/481

Tweeted by StackLiterature on July 11, 2017 at 4:02 PM

Shokhet

5:05 PM

Shakespeare in the Park -- free public performances of Shakespeare's plays in Central Park, NYC.

(A Midsummer Night's Dream starts today, runs through August 13)

Gallifreyan

6:03 PM

@Hamlet New query that also displays days with no questions with a tag, again courtesy of @DaaaahWhoosh

Gallifreyan

7:31 PM

Ffs, who did that?!

Rand al'Thor

@Gallifreyan Someone who doesn't like reading-order questions?

Gallifreyan

Yeah, but it's not opinion-based.

Otherwise we shouldn't have allowed those in the first place.

Rand al'Thor

shrug To some people, every reading-order question is opinion-based.

Gallifreyan

7:56 PM

@Shokhet I'm progressing through Understanding Comics. Very interesting chapter about the 6 types of panel sequences.

Gallifreyan

8:14 PM

I knew this question would get me a Tumbleweed! The hardest badge of all.

Rand al'Thor

Asked 7 days ago, viewed 7 times.

Wow.

Gallifreyan

Yep. Pick a work obscure enough and voila.

Feeds

9:22 PM

Come and check out our #SherlockHolmes questions, or ask your own! #ArthurConanDoyle https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/sherlock-holmes

Tweeted by StackLiterature on July 11, 2017 at 9:05 PM

doppelgreener

10:00 PM

@Gallifreyan individual close votes are not something worth worrying about really. like single downvotes, treat them like white noise from the universe.

Shokhet

10:41 PM

@Gallifreyan Yep. I finished it, but I think I may have to reread that part. There were a lot of pieces, and I read it somewhat quickly.

@doppelgreener Right. Also, they won't have much impact if the thing clears review, which I think takes three "Leave open" reviews, or one "Leave open" from a mod.

doppelgreener

@Shokhet IIRC it's something like, you gotta have at least 2 more leave open reviews than close votes before it vanishes from the queue.

Shokhet

Someone should probably answer that question, anyway. There are answers on SFF; I haven't read the books, so I don't feel comfortable in my ability to port the material to Lit in a useful manner. But someone who has read the books should probably write something up and collect repz! (and probably should have done that while the bounty was up, but that ship has sailed.)

doppelgreener

(or, yeah, just one diamond "leave open" vote)

Shokhet

@doppelgreener Oh, that makes sense. That would explain some review items I saw that had four "leave open" votes, and one "close" from review

But what happens when it's a flag that sends it to review, and not a CV? Does the item clear review on 2 (0+2) "leave open" votes?

Or maybe it's "at least two more, minimum three" or "at least two more where there are CVs."

Hrm. This MSE faq doesn't provide numbers. :/

Shokhet

11:00 PM

As per the usage guidance, timeline is misused on this question. Should we use history-of-literature instead? I'm honestly not sure how to tag that.

Pinging @Randal'Thor because he participated in the tagging of that question, and also seems to have a clue about tagging in general.

Rand al'Thor

@Shokhet Many of our tag wiki excerpts are crap, because Benjamin wrote zillions of them in private beta when we didn't know what most of our tags were going to be used for, labouring under the misperception that a bad tag wiki is better than no tag wiki.

In particular, the timeline tag is only used on 2 questions, so I'd say its usage isn't really clear enough yet even to have a tag wiki excerpt.

BESW

11:25 PM

My novel WHO FEARS DEATH has been optioned by @HBO & is now in early development as a TV series with George RR Mart… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/884454933554237441

Tweeted by Nnedi on July 10, 2017 at 4:51 PM

Sidney Padua: writing an 'imaginary' comic on Lovelace & Babbage was like a 'sandbox of elements'; playful and some… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/884824954604310529

Tweeted by CambridgeMaths on July 11, 2017 at 5:21 PM

user15026

@BESW This reminds me, I really really need to read her stuff.

BESW

I haven't been able to read Who Fears Death yet; it's a bit more like work for me because of the style she's chosen. But Lagoon was brilliant.

Shokhet

@Randal'Thor I see.

Rand al'Thor

I agree that question is a tricky one to tag.

I guess the question we need to ask is: what category does that question fall into which could also apply to other questions in the future?

BESW

Sam and Fuzzy turned 15 this year and was nominated for a Shuster award! So here, have a free ebook of Vol 1… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/884858136070205440

Tweeted by samandfuzzy on July 11, 2017 at 7:33 PM

user15026

11:38 PM

@BESW I have her first Binti book in my TBR pile currently.

user15026

@BESW Is it really that old already? Wow.

BESW

....Vice's article on Who Fears Death and HBO cut her name off the book's cover graphic. [face/palm]

(I'm not going to link it, because they shouldn't get clicks for that.)

Miniature Moomin house diorama built by Tove Jansson herself in the 1970s, now located at the Moomin Museum, Finlan… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/884401079622017024

Tweeted by fiona_lang on July 10, 2017 at 1:17 PM

user15026

@BESW argh, that's unfortunate

user15026

...what's a Moomin?

Catija

It's a cartoon character.... looks like a hippo.

Rand al'Thor

11:52 PM

You never read the Moomintroll stories?

Catija

moomin.com/en/characters

2

Rand al'Thor

You must have had a deprived childhood ;-)

Catija

I don't think we get them in the US/Canada.

Shokhet

@Randal'Thor I haven't either.

BESW

I only learnt of the Moomins because I read an unusual amount of British lit as a kid.

Rand al'Thor

11:53 PM

@BESW But the Moomins aren't British lit.

Catija

Apparently I am "Snufkin".

user15026

@Randal'Thor I have not, should I fix this?

BESW

No, but British kid lit has more international references than US kid lit.

Shokhet

@Catija Lol! I just took that quiz too. I'm also a Snufkin! :p

user15026

I am Snorkmaiden.

Rand al'Thor

11:54 PM

@Ash I dunno how much you'd enjoy them now. They're kids' books.

Hmm ... investigates character test

BESW

@Ash She's taking it well. ("mschew" is African onomatopoeia roughly equivalent to judgemental teeth-sucking).

user15026

@Randal'Thor I love kids' books, though

Catija

> Snufkin is a philosophical vagabond who wanders the world fishing and playing the harmonica. He carries everything he needs in his backpack, as he believes that having too much stuff makes life overly complicated.

Rand al'Thor

Snufkin is an adventurous soul.

yeah, that ^^

Catija

moomin.com/en/characters/snufkin

BESW

11:56 PM

@Ash I am also Snorkmaiden.

user15026

@BESW high fives

BESW

hugh high fives, even.

user15026

giggles Yes!

Rand al'Thor

Oh dear God.

Apparently I'm Groke.

Shokhet

@Randal'Thor Aaaaw.

> Little is known about the Groke’s life, as she likes no one and no one really likes her. Usually, she simply stares threateningly with her round eyes and disappears as soon as she gets what she came for. Although the Moomins fear the Groke, they also pity her desperate loneliness.

moomin.com/en/characters/the-groke

That can't be accurate.

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