The Reading Room

Alex

12:07 AM

@bobble Then it's obviously the long ears?

bobble

Please, not funny.

One of the surest ways to rile me up is to repeatedly declare "gotchas" that I had already explicitly covered

That commenter did it twice, even after a nudge towards where I had already said exactly their "gotcha" before

Alex

Sounds like we may be in for some excitement....

bobble

I'm staying out of the comments for now. I'm just saying, jokes about that are not funny to me.

Alex

It was worth it for me to follow the link to see Rand's comment.

Bookworm

2:12 AM

0

Q: What mental illness does Gatsby have?

I read The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald and it was a great book. I was thinking for a while about the characters and I knew that Gatsby had to have some sort of a mental disorder due to his behavior. Internet searches gave me mixed results from "Schizoid personality disorder" to OCD to "Histrionic ...

verbose

@Bookworm opinion-based?

Bookworm

3:27 AM

0

Q: What is a "three-part moon"?

This is from Book 2, Chapter 23 of Salamandastron. Samkin, Arula, and Spriggat are sneaking at night into a vermin camp, planning to steal back the sword of Martin the Warrior. Under a burgeoning three-part moon they set off through the woodland, slipping silently along amid the shadowed tree-tr...

meaning redwall-series brian-jacques

Alex

hae

bobble

?

bobble

5:01 AM

farewell, friends. I take my leave, ~~pursued by a bear~~

verbose

g'nite @bobble

Mithical

good luck with the bear

Alex

5:49 AM

@bobble I was trying to type something in a different tab. Didn't realize I was posting here.

Rand al'Thor

8:27 AM

@Alex I thought it was a funny way of writing "hi".

@verbose Let's make haste to get it down to 1066.

Soyuz42

8:41 AM

Are you sure that Warren-ts such a hasty response?

Wait, I think I'm talking about the wrong Hastings.

verbose

10:43 AM

@Soyuz42 What does the junior senator from Massachusetts have to do with the sidekick of Hercule Poirot?

Rand al'Thor

12:38 PM

@verbose Fun fact: the battle of 1066 didn't actually take place in Hastings but in the nearby town of Battle.

If that's not nominative determinism, what is? :-P

Soyuz42

1:37 PM

@verbose I thought Warren Hastings was too obscure.

bobble

2:02 PM

Hopefully my "three-part moon" question wasn't too devoid of literary context :) I was just honestly curious, and thought it would be an interesting question

Soyuz42

@bobble I'm curious too, though I'm disappointed it wasn't a super blue blood moon.

bobble

@Mithical the bear got bored pretty quick

bobble

2:40 PM

Is this answer, answer enough?

Eng Lit Learner

0

Q: Help with a snippet from a book - contradicting statements

I would like to ask for help with understanding of the folowing (a story by C.A. Smith): His huge ebon-black body, powerfully muscled though inclining toward corpulence, was nude except for a necklace of rubies, each the size of a plover's egg, that depended about his throat. His crimson sarong,...

meaning-in-context literature

Bookworm

0

Q: Dracula's decisions explainations

I've just finished the novel Dracula and while I enjoyed it, I feel that I'm completely unable to explain logically some of its decisions. Dracula lost Harker probably because he underestimated him. He didn't know Harker saw him crawling on the walls, which led him to discover his coffin and, mo...

plot-element bram-stoker dracula

verbose

2:58 PM

@Soyuz42 he’s not, I was just extending the joke

Soyuz42

3:39 PM

@verbose You see, this is why I don't get Shakespeare.

bobble

@Bookworm HNQ

verbose

4:10 PM

@bobble damn

@Soyuz42 Okay this time I'm really lost. What do Elizabeth Warren or Warren Hastings or the Battle of 1066 (which, as Randolph pointed out, wasn't at Hastings at all but at Battle) have to do with understanding Shakespeare?

Soyuz42

@verbose I am terribly inept at reading between the lines, hence why I didn't get that you were joking, and why Shakespeare's witticisms would go over my head.

verbose

@Randal'Thor On the one hand, whoa. On the other hand, it seems that the town didn't exist until well after 1066 and was, in fact, named Battle because the battle had taken place there?

Tsundoku

"The Battle of Battle" doesn't sound like something that people learning about the history of Britain would take seriously.

Soyuz42

@Tsundoku Have you heard of Boaty McBoatface?

Tsundoku

@Soyuz42 Appears to be more obscure than the Battle of Battle...

verbose

4:22 PM

@Soyuz42 oh, ah. I think you're being too hard on yourself. Nobody gets all Shakespeare's witticisms at first read; it takes some experience. Like, if you read three plays carefully, looking at all the annotations, etc., then from the fourth play onward you'll probably get upward of 80% of it ... but still need annotations for about 20%. Jokes, pronunciation, and references have all changed in the last 400 or so years.

@Tsundoku Tom Stoppard's After Magritte (which remains one of the funniest things I've read) has an inspector named Foot. One of the jokes is that everybody is on the verge of referring to him as "Foot of the Yard" but it never actually happens

Hey @Tsundoku what did you think of the first week of that U Basel course?

Tsundoku

@verbose I haven't completed it yet. I was doing other things.

Although I'm curious about what they'll say about close reading etc.

This arrived today: The Changeling by Middleton & Rowley (Revels series), The Duchess of Malfi (New Mermaids), Every Man in His Humour (New Mermaids), a Fontane bio (by H. Bemmann), a Jorge Amado novel and an Alberto Moravia novel, all for just €15, including postage and packaging.

verbose

@Tsundoku oh k. I did finish Week 1, but haven't begun on the Week 2 assignments yet. Yeah, this week (Week 2) is all about I A Richards and close reading, apparently.

@Tsundoku The Duchess of Malfi might have been the work that made me decide to specialize in the literature of the English Renaissance.

Well, that's overstating things a bit. But yeah, I love that play. Ask good questions about it when you're done reading it!

Tsundoku

@verbose Oh, really? I still haven't read anything by Jonson yet, except for what he wrote for the First Folio (i.e. Shakespeare's).

verbose

@Tsundoku The Duchess of Malfi is by Webster. Jonson's a lot of fun too.

Tsundoku

@verbose See? I haven't read anything by Jonson yet ;-) Nor by Webster.

verbose

4:33 PM

I can't remember whether I've read Every Man in his Humor. I have read Volpone, The Alchemist, and Sejanus. And I love Jonson's lyrics

> Drink to me only with thine eyes
And I will pledge with mine

Tsundoku

@verbose I'm glad that didn't put you out of your humour :-P

verbose

or the poem I used in that prosody answer

Or the absolute heartbreaker he wrote on the death of his seven year old son

There's something about Jonson that really appeals to me. His personality is very attractive to me

bobble

Would you have been friends?

verbose

@bobble I would hope so. He's intellectual, witty, hard-drinking, and big-hearted. Things I aspire to be.

Well, I have the "hard drinking" part down.

He was also a loyal and generous friend.

Rand al'Thor

@verbose You fell into my trap :-D

verbose

4:42 PM

@verbose Poetry Foundation's text shoves too many unnecessary commas in that poem. The text I remember had a lot fewer, and the poem was better off for that.

@Randal'Thor ah

Rand al'Thor

The sparkling gleam of nominative determinism was too appealing to notice that actually the town was named after the event, not the other way round.

verbose

@Randal'Thor right. As the resident champion and exemplar of nominative determinism here, I appreciate the thought

Perhaps I should say "one of the resident champions," etc

Rand al'Thor

@bobble I think yes. It gives a title, and at least a rough reference as to where the story might be found. The lack of an author name is disappointing, but if anyone has those schoolbooks, they could dig it out. I'd call it at least a partial answer.

@verbose "Flying Thomson's Gazelle of the Yard?!"

Tsundoku

@verbose Unlike you, though, he never attended university.

verbose

@Randal'Thor I don't get it

Rand al'Thor

4:52 PM

@verbose Not a fan of Monty Python?

Soyuz42

I found it!

verbose

@Randal'Thor I do like the bits and pieces I've seen but I haven't seen a whole lot. I found Life of Brian and Spamalot hilarious

@Soyuz42 thanks!

Rand al'Thor

@verbose It's towards the end (the less-good part, IMO) of the brilliant Argument Clinic sketch.

verbose

@Randal'Thor 'sfunny, I just realized I have a hard time remembering the author's names for most of the short stories I read in my school textbooks. Two have had questions asked about them here: "The Last Lesson" and "Let's Go Home. In neither case could I have told you who wrote the story off the top of my head.

bobble

My favorite textbook short story was one set in the world of Pern. (Actually my first Pern story!)

verbose

5:08 PM

Well, "The Cabuliwallah"(literature.stackexchange.com/q/15884/289)"; was in a school textbook too and I did remember whom it was by, But it doesn't count because the story and the writer are both huge in India and besides, I asked that question.

@bobble Oh which one?

@Randal'Thor Just watched. Funny sketch, but I agree, the first half is funnier

bobble

I don't remember what the title was. Perhaps I should post a story-ID question :P

verbose

@bobble yup

bobble

Wait, seriously? Huh.

I've concluded that my memories of the story aren't enough for an ID

'specially since they've been mixed up with general recollections of Pern novels

bobble

5:33 PM

whoops, counted wrong and bumped more than 3 posts at once

Bookworm

9:10 PM

0

Q: In what way can a utility coat be a mockery in a Ted Hughes' Crow poem?

In Ted Hughes' Examination at the Womb-door (of the Crow collection), Crow's organs are listed with certain kinds of descriptions (bold is mine): Examination at the Womb-door Who owns these scrawny little feet? Death. Who owns this bristly scorched-looking face? Death. Who owns these still-worki...