The Reading Room

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Feeds 5308

00:35

Q: Is it accurate to affirm that a literary work expresses a philosophy?

I am aware of the fact that several literary works from the end of XIX century and the beginning of the XX century, as Dostoevsky's, Proust's, Camus's, etc., propose thoughts on philosophical subjects as being, freedom, guilt, art, time. That's why it seemed natural to me that to some extent a li...

1 hour later…

Bookworm

01:39

Q: What was the first fan fiction?

I'm looking for the earliest example of fan fiction, which I'd define as an unauthorized sequel (or, I suppose, a creative rewrite) of a fictional work, set in the same "universe" or with the same characters. Specifically, it should be something published close to the date of the original, prefer...

history-of-literature

11 hours later…

Mithical

12:30

@Bookworm Not sure how this is gonna avoid religious debate... for instance, I could say "the New Testament", but that'd certainly spark debate...

Tsundoku

13:04

How much sense does it make to speak of unauthorised sequels (or prequels) in an era when copyright and the protection of intellectual property did not even exist?

In what way was Avellaneda's work "unauthorised" if it was published more than 250 years before the first Spanish law on copyright from 1879? — Tsundoku ♦ 3 mins ago

@Feeds5308 Apparently, this question has already been deleted.

James Joyce's Ulysses was first published in book form on 2 February 1922. That will be exactly 100 years ago in two weeks.

"Before the adoption of copyright in the modern sense, it was not unusual for authors to copy characters, if not entire plots. For example, Shakespeare's plays Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing, Othello, As You Like It and The Winter's Tale were all based on relatively recent fiction by other authors." (Wikipedia: Fan Fiction)

5 hours later…

b_jonas

18:35

Before the pandemic, I started to read Agatha Christie's Clocks, but couldn't get past the first few chapters. So a few days ago, when I visited the library, at a whim I borrowed one of the Agatha Christie books that I've already read. It's interesting to re-read it when I already remember at least part of the tricks.

Of course this is a typical Agatha Christie novel so there are like fifteen characters (plus staff, most of whom don't count as characters for some reason), almost all of whom have some dirty secrets, and multiple murders, so remembering like two tricks doesn't get too far, there'll be lots of surprises that I forgot.

1 hour later…

Rand al'Thor

19:52

I managed to post one question every day from 2 Jan to 17 Jan. Broke my streak this week.

Bookworm

20:31

Q: What was the Line Education Movement?

"Wink" is a Tibetan short story by Pema Bhum, translated to English by Tenzin Dickie and freely available to read online from Words Without Borders at the above link. It's set in (presumably) Tibet under Chinese rule, at the time of Chairman Mao's death, and the main theme of the story is about t...