The Reading Room

Bookworm

06:21

0

Q: Why is a climax necessary in a novel? Can there be any good story without a climax?

Is a “climax” necessary for a novel to be successful? If so, does the reason of this abide more in the appreciating needs of readers or the expression needs of the author? If it is not necessary, in what way can a novel be successful without it?

plot-element

Tsundoku

08:20

@NorthLæraðr Burninate it. As a Belgian, I prefer pommes-frites.

@NorthLæraðr I'm not sure we have been entirely consistent with tags for poem collections. pomes-penyeach is a recent example; older ones include songs-of-innocence, songs-of-experience (both from the same topic challenge). We don't have leaves-of-grass or four-quartets.

We may have an implicit "policy" of tagging poetry collections only if the question is about the collection as a whole, not about individual poems from it. See A proposal for poetry and short-stories.

Tsundoku

10:35

10 Offbeat Literary Works of Non-English Writers (Listverse, 2012). Some interesting ideas for topic challenges there, e.g. the work of Daniil Kharms.

From the above article on ListVerse: "Still, more interesting are the small stories or ‘scenes’ he [Kharms] wrote in secret. Most of them have no real plot and are just absurd, but his use of language makes it very interesting to read."

Rand al'Thor

12:46

@Tsundoku That's not the way songs-of-innocence/songs-of-experience have been used; those tags have appeared on every question about individual poems. Should we merge them into poetry, or do we think poem-collection tags are OK just like book series tags?

Rand al'Thor

12:56

And if we're talking about promoting international writers, time for a repost ...

Jun 2 '18 at 14:12, by Rand al'Thor

Words Without Borders: "promot[ing] cultural understanding through the translation, publication, and promotion of the finest contemporary international literature."

Bookworm

0

Q: In Pride and Prejudice, How did Lady Catharine find out about Darcy's Proposal?

In Pride and Prejudice, Do you remeber the part where Lady Catherine visited the Bennets? She wished to ward off Elizabeth and wanted her to refuse Darcy's proposal and was stumped. How did Lady Catharine find out about Darcy's Proposal?

jane-austen pride-and-prejudice

Tsundoku

13:17

@Randal'Thor To be honest, I am not opposed to tags for poem collections if they refer to volumes in which a poem appeared for the first time. However, I would not want to tag every anthology (The Norton Anthology of Poetry etc.). Could that work?

@Randal'Thor From the About page: "Founded in 2003, Words Without Borders expands cultural understanding through the translation, publication, and promotion of the finest contemporary international literature." Curiously, it seems I have never bookmarked this.

Tsundoku

13:29

Tagging poetry collections would allow tags such as lyrical-ballads, les-fleurs-du-mal, sonnets-from-the-portuguese, la-vita-nuova, il-canzoniere and hesperides.

Tsundoku

13:50

Manzana in corpore sano. #MultilingualPuns (Spanish and Latin)

Napoleon Wilson

Is that related to the pommes-peach tag?

Tsundoku

Multilingual puns are no laughing matter ;-)

Rand al'Thor

14:31

@Tsundoku Many short stories have been anthologised multiple times, and aren't strongly associated with any particular one, so it wouldn't make much sense to tag the anthology there. Maybe we can have a common-sense criterion instead of a strict rule, since Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience are well known as single items, collections of works specifically written as parts of those collections, whereas many anthologies are more eclectic selections.

@Tsundoku When I first found it, I was surprised that it hadn't been posted here before. It deserves more attention/promotion.

Tsundoku

14:42

@Randal'Thor I was only thinking of poetry collections at the exclusion of anthologies of any kind (poetry or short stories), more specifically poetry collections in which poems by a single author (or occasionally two authors who collaborated, see e.g. Lyrical Ballads) appeared in book form. We may want to apply the same rule to short-story collections (e.g. Joyce's Dubliners, Rushdie's East West), as opposed to anthologies edited by someone else.

Bookworm

15:26

0

Q: Original Fairy Tales, not politically correct

The problem with Fairy Tales is that with the passage of time they were changed in order to become more politically correct. Which source has the most original Fairy Tales? https://www.csmonitor.com/Technology/Tech-Culture/2012/1220/Brothers-Grimm-saved-classic-fairy-tales-by-changing-them-forever

folk-tales

Tsundoku

@Bookworm I have left a comment asking whether this is just about Grimm's collection (OK) or fairy tales generally (way too broad, in my opinion).

Gareth Rees

15:37

It would be a much better question if it picked a single story and asked for a more neutral account of how the story evolved, e.g. "how did the story of Cinderella change over time?"

Asking the question in a neutral way would avoid the pointless question of whether someone cutting their toes off (or whatever) is "politically correct" (whose politics? what period? etc.)

Eddie Kal

@Tsundoku Good ol' Marx himself was also Jewish. Btw, I can't seem to open that "Radical Antisemitism" link. I found a link to the German text of "Zur Judenfrage", and that page eludes me too. The English translation ofc is widely available.

Knight

Why the preface/forewords of "Three Plays for Puritans" by Bernhard Shaw is too long?

Is there a specific reason for that? Or is it just a normal thing in some books?

Eddie Kal

@Knight Interesting question. I haven't read it

North Læraðr

@Tsundoku Haha

Knight

As you have found it interesting I'm relieved that I shall get a profound answer :)

Tsundoku

15:47

@EddieKal Hmm, that link was working yesterday. Can you try this link and then click on the link to the article?

Eddie Kal

@Knight Lol Don't hold your breath. I don't think I will be able to read it any time soon and I am not familiar with Bernard Shaw's work as much as his life

North Læraðr

@Tsundoku My personal favorite is pommes-de-terre

Tsundoku

@Knight Too long according to whom?

Eddie Kal

@Tsundoku I think he meant "Why is it so long"

Knight

For me it is comparingly too long

Gareth Rees

15:51

@Knight The long prologue/epilogue thing is idiosyncratic to Shaw — I don't know of another playwright who does it, or at least not to the same extent

Feel free to skip them and start at Act I Scene I — that's how the audience will experience it anyway

Knight

@GarethRees Okay. Although, he says "Why for the Puritans" but he tells many stories first.

About London theaters and Jewish influences

Tsundoku

16:11

@GarethRees The only one who immediately comes to mind is Victor Hugo, with his preface to Cromwell.

@NorthLæraðr Uncooked?

North Læraðr

@Tsundoku BET

No I like mine baked, but frites work too

when my French becomes useful

Napoleon Wilson

But they're nice raw, too.

North Læraðr

Sure they are

Right

Napoleon Wilson

Though, there's hardly a form in which they aren't nice.

Maybe with buttermilk, but then again, in turn nothing is nice with buttermilk.

North Læraðr

@NapoleonWilson You've eaten pommes-de-terre RAW?

Napoleon Wilson

16:17

Sure, why not?

North Læraðr

That's... ew

Tsundoku

Segue: The Raw and the Cooked, a classic of structuralism.

Napoleon Wilson

@NorthLæraðr They're quite delicious really (well, of course taste is subjective, but it's worth trying).

You never tasted one as a child when your mother was preparing lunch? ;-)

North Læraðr

@NapoleonWilson All my pommes de terre have been cooked

Napoleon Wilson

A lot of vegetables taste really good in their raw form. Green beans are even more delicious raw than in any cooked form.

@NorthLæraðr Yeah, but they haven't been all the time. Someone needs to cook them at some point.

Tsundoku

16:28

@NapoleonWilson The downside of eating beans raw, I think, is that you just don't get as many nutrients from them.

North Læraðr

@NapoleonWilson I like almost all my veggies uncooked

Napoleon Wilson

@Tsundoku I think in the case of green beans it's also supposedly bad for you to eat too many. But I'm still not sure if that isn't a legend.

Faded Giant

as long as you don't eat potato peels

Napoleon Wilson

Well, it depends how thick the peel is. If it's super thin and properly cleaned, I don't see a reason to bother peeling the thing.

Faded Giant

I am thinking of the solanine.

Napoleon Wilson

16:37

Oh. Are you telling me potato peel is bad, too? Hmpf!

Is it like, actually bad or...alcohol/tobacco bad? ;-)

North Læraðr

Wait what

Faded Giant

@NapoleonWilson If you are not pregnant, it's just acute toxic. So you should be fine. ;-)

North Læraðr

@FadedGiant What if they are

Tsundoku

Peels? -> "Peeling Onions" by Adrienne Rich.

Potatoes? -> "Potato" by Jane Kenyon.

Washing up afterwards? -> "Soap Suds" by Louis MacNeice

Eddie Kal

16:56

@Tsundoku Our friend Levi Strauss has sold more jeans than books

Tsundoku

@EddieKal There's this funny story about when Lévi-Strauss got an office at a US university and they advised him to put either Lévi or Strauss on the name plate instead of his full name, otherwise no one would take him seriously.

Eddie Kal

@Tsundoku Lol I am sure he would be treated better today. I know several people with hyphenated last names

@Tsundoku I am just starting to reply to some interesting things from yesterday and earlier. But the thing with labeling is it happens to everybody. I have no doubt that Hegel would deny he was a Hegelian, Kant a Kantian

@Tsundoku Right and exactly because of that they inevitably get packaged, labeled and shipped after they die, sometimes even before they die. It is a trend now to publish "readers" on living thinkers.

Every thinker thinks they have looked at all the important things that came before them and come up with something that culminates all worthy human thought but also unique enough to set them apart. But other people don't think that's the singular solution or continuation to prior human thought, so they label it with a name

Bookworm

17:29

0

Q: A book by an American ex-spy who took part in coup to allow for construction of Panama canal

I once read a book about an American ex-spy, but can't remember neither it's title, nor author. I remember that author was an American ex-spy who took part in covert ops in several countries including Panama. The book starts from author's young years, when he worked for Peace Corps. I think ther...

story-identification

Eddie Kal

17:45

@Tsundoku Okay archive.org to the rescue. One line at the bottom of that article solicited my attention:

> A Marxist website has provided a list of articles written by Karl Marx between 1852 and 1861 for the New York Daily Tribune. It does not surprise me that “The Russian Loan” does not appear on this list. When apologists for Marx’s antisemitism run out of explanations, they simply ignore his words.

reddit.com/r/CapitalismVSocialism/comments/7dwc4n/…

Marx's writing?

Eddie Kal

18:18

@Tsundoku Okay I am having a hard time placing the author of that opinion piece, Michael Ezra. If he is not the African billionaire sports lover, he must be the author of Muhammad Ali: The Making of an Icon (2009)

> One of the most interesting things about Ali’s standing within the black
community during this period was the conscious effort by race leaders and
the press to frame him as a unifying force rather than as someone whose
ideas about black nationalism and integration were indicative of a larger rift
within the civil rights movement.

Muhammad Ali: The Making of an Icon (2009) P. 126

I find that reasonably characterized, but not exactly balanced or "neutral" missing the other side of the story.

> Prominent integrationists like Lewis and King supported Ali, but he was also strongly admired by black nationalists.

How is that a "but"? Shouldn't it be "and"?

Tsundoku

19:18

@EddieKal Even if it was published under Marx's name, it may actually have been written by Engels. I don't know about "The Russian Loan". There is a Marx-Engels edition in German at the library; I might check there (if it is actually complete).

@EddieKal Probably not, but is seems consistent with "were indicative of a larger rift" from the earlier quote, i.e. from the author's point of view.

@Bookworm That Lord of the Rings question is now HNQ.

@Bookworm That question reminds me of the palindrome "A man, a plan, a canal, Panama."

Bookworm

0

Q: What does "rime of alien dreams" mean in Maya Angelou's "The Mothering Blackness"?

In Maya Angelou's poem "The Mothering Blackness", there's a verse that goes like this: She came down creeping here to the black arms waiting now to the warm heart waiting rime of alien dreams befrosts her rich brown face She came down creeping I'm not entirely sure what the...

poetry maya-angelou

Eddie Kal

19:35

0

Q: What does "economy of discipline" mean?

What does "economy of discipline" mean in the following context? Michel Foucault has argued that the political power generated by sovereignty is, through the processes of bureaucratization, being transformed into a general economy of discipline that now pervades society. (source)

meaning meaning-in-context

This question has been rejected migration on Philosophy. Do we want it here?

Tsundoku

20:00

@EddieKal If the question had been about an actual Foucault quote, I'd have said, "Bring it on". I'm less enthusiastic after seeing that it's from a different source. However, if we accept questions about the meaning of quotes about chess, I assume we can also accept that one.

Consider that a lukewarm "yes".

Mithical

Meh.

If it were asked here that'd be one thing.

Migrating? Maybe not worth it.

Tsundoku

It's a Foucault question. Don't we want more theory here? ;-)

See Foucault's Discipline and Punish.

Eddie Kal

20:13

@Tsundoku My issue with it is that it is asking about a book review/summary blog post (quaternary) that is more of a commentary on a book by a legal scholar (tertiary) about Foucauldian theory through secondary sources. The question appears to be asking about Foucauldian work but ignores all the secondary, tertiary, and quaternary sources.

Not giving credit to the secondary sources is especially problematic, because everybody reads Foucault through secondary sources (at least in this chain of ideas)

Tsundoku

@EddieKal I thought that specific quote came from page 96 of Loughlin's The Idea of Public Law. That should be easy to fix -> "Source: Martin Loughlin: The Idea of Public Law (2004), quoted on Asem Khalil's review".

So a secondary source quoted in a tertiary source. Of course, quoting the secondary source directly would be better.

Eddie Kal

@Tsundoku That's exactly how I found out about the secondary sources. I found the book but that page draws on various secondary sources, instead of Foucault

That page is not even about Foucault but about the political philosophy of some contemporary thinkers

Tsundoku

Ah, Loughlin draws on secondary sources instead of Foucault's work. I had not noticed that.

Eddie Kal

Actually

IIRC (I will review that page again later) he first summarizes Foucauldian ideas but then uses secondary sources to explain Foucault

I thought--this might be just me--the blog post summarizes both and relies more heavily on secondary sources that Loughlin uses on that page

Tsundoku

If we have so much trouble identifying actual sources - in addition to being unable to read the Arabic text (is that the same content in Arabic?) - that question may not be worth the trouble.

To continue my series from earlier today: cheese? -> Cheese by Willem Elsschot.

When I saw the book title Philosophy for Girls, I thought, "Why would girls need a different introduction to philosophy than boys? Philosophy is philosophy." but it turns out the book is based almost exclusively on contributions to philosophy by women.

Eddie Kal

20:46

@Tsundoku I Am the Cheese

Tsundoku

@EddieKal Ah, yes, I have seen that Wikipedia page before, but I can't remember how I landed there.

Who Moved My Cheese? I think I read this over a decade ago.

Eddie Kal

@Tsundoku Lol I thought that one's too cheesy to be on the table.

Tsundoku

Topic challenge: books with "cheese" in their title.

Eddie Kal

Could be interesting

Tsundoku

21:00

Every Page of This Book Is a Slice of Cheese, literally.

Processed Cheese, a novel by Stephen Wright. I am beginning to believe that that cheese challenge might actually work.

The Great American Cheese War, a comedy thriller by Paul Flower.

To Brie or Not To Brie, a "cheese shop mystery" by Avery Aames.

Voting on the topic challenge suggestions has increased recently: both Ko Un and Literary Theory are now at six votes. A week ago, Literary Theory was still at two votes but it has suddenly shot up in the ranking.

Bookworm

21:37

0

Q: What's meant here by "on the top of"?

In "Stolen Ingots" in Dr. Thorndyke's Case-Book by R. Austin Freeman, Mr. Badger was standing on a bridge watching a barge and brawley “Yes. There’s a little ramshackle bawley from Leigh—but her crew of two ragamuffins are not Leigh men. And they’ve made a mess of their visit—got their craft on ...

short-stories r-austin-freeman

Bookworm

22:52

0

Q: Notebook epigram referring to 'only death in the universe'

Camus says somewhere that there is only death in the universe. By 'death' he simply means physics (energy, matter). He is rejecting the metaphysics of a universal dualism: Life and Death. I believe this is an epigram from one of his notebooks, but in any case I would appreciate being reminded of ...

albert-camus

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