The Reading Room

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Tsundoku

10:27 AM

@Bookworm This question now has a nice HNQ tan.

2 hours later…

Rand al'Thor

12:18 PM

@Tsundoku That's better than my planned "A Lit question on an otherwise tan HNQ list".

2 hours later…

Bookworm

1:56 PM

Q: In what way is Jorge Amado's The Violent Land a modernist novel?

The Wikipedia article about Jorge Amado's The Violent Land / Terras do Sem Fim describes this work as "a Brazilian Modernist novel". The corresponding Portuguese, French and Italian Wikipedia articles make no mention of modernism. The novel was published in 1943, so it can be argued that it is an...

2 hours later…

Spagirl

4:04 PM

@Randal'Thor I know it's all just imaginary internet points, but colour me curious... is there something you regard as still wanting from that Hungarian Vampire Lady ID question, since you seem to have concluded that the ID is right? I often return to answers to your questions trying to feed in that little more info that will tip the scales and convince you that I'm right dammit! But sometimes it seems I never can....

Bookworm

4:29 PM

Q: Rumi poetry meaning

What is the meaning of the following quote from Rumi? I was reading his The Book of Love: Poems of Ecstasy and Longing and came across this quote: “Love is an open secret, the most obvious thing in the world and the most hidden, with no why to how it keeps its mystery.” I read the first part an...

meaning persian-literature rumi

2 hours later…

Rand al'Thor

6:30 PM

@Spagirl Oh, sorry! No, your answer is correct and I'll definitely accept it when I get round to accepting an answer for that question. If you look at my questions ordered by age, you'll see I've got a bit of a backlog of answers to accept, but I do go through and accept sooner or later if I think the answer is good enough. Sorry to waste your time in thinking how to polish an answer that was already fine.

Rand al'Thor

6:50 PM

Q: Did Lord Acton ever say "freedom faces four major challenges"?

I read a Chinese article that quoted a passage purported to be from Lord Acton, describing how "freedom faces four major challenges". The original Chinese states: 每个时代，自由都会面临着四大挑战：强人对权力集中的渴望，穷人对财富不均的怨恨，无知者对乌托邦的向往，无信仰者将自由和放纵混为一谈。而它们共同的思想源头，是激进主义。 Using google translation (from Chinese back to ...

19th-century political-history quotes

^ another quote-source question on another site

Tsundoku

7:13 PM

People don't seem to like questions about modernism or that require reading an entire novel ...

Napoleon Wilson

Don't most questions?

Also, the thing is just 5 hours old. I see you worried about question upvotes quite a lot lately. Have there been more in the past?

Bookworm

7:53 PM

Q: Identification request - Children's book - Child who captures tadpoles with his uncle

I'm looking for the name/author of a children's book, I read it in the early 1990s. The book was about a child whose uncle comes to stay with him. They go to a creek to capture tadpoles with some of the child's friends (or possibly family). The other children capture a lot of tadpoles in their ja...