The Reading Room - 2017-02-27

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12:23 AM

0

Q: Did Harper Lee intend Go set a Watchman to be published?

Despite sharing many of the same characters, the books Go set a Watchman and To Kill a mockingbird portray the same characters in very different ways. I am also made suspicious of how old Harper Lee was when the book came out, as it seems very odd to me. Did Harper Lee intend to publish Go Set a...

harper-lee to-kill-a-mockingbird go-set-a-watchman

1:19 AM

-1

Q: Why did so many authors of the 20th century publish under first and middle initials?

Many well-known authors published works using first and middle initials---for instance on one on my small shelves, I spy: JRR Tolkien, EM Forster, TS Eliot and TH White. Based on such initialed pen names which come to mind, I might guess this became at trend in the early 20th century. Is there ...

publication pseudonym

1 hour later…

2:23 AM

the quote in this answer is a very interesting quote for spanish

also @Gilles, just wondering, how did you learn spanish? ik you're pretty darn fluent in french and obviously english, just wondering how you picked up spanish

and did you translate the quote yourself?

2:46 AM

I can't read, apparently you didn't >_> how did you translate it then?

3:04 AM

@Bookworm what are people's thoughts on this question. Personally, I'm inclined to close it as some combination of too broad/unclear what you're asking

Definitely too broad.

As if KA Applegate, JM Barrie, and E. E. Cummings would have the same motive for their naming convention? Are we going to account for F. Scott Fitzgerald and Patricia C. Wrede in this too, or are they completely different because they only initialised one name instead of two?

Oh, and don't forget that Franklin W. Dixon and Carolyn Keene are both pen names for the same pool of ghost writers. Is there some significance behind which of the Stratemeyer Syndicate authors got to be initialised?

3:59 AM

@BESW I agree, I'll cast a close vote once we get to four votes on the question.

This answer has renewed my faith in this site:

1

A: What suggests Edmund might be gay?

As someone who rather likes the totally non-canonical idea of gay Edmund, there is really no textual evidence to support this idea and you are right to point out that it is extremely unlikely that Lewis intended the character to be gay. There's not even much of what most people would consider obv...

I was in the process of writing an answer to that question, but I think I'll repurpose my answer into a question and answer about The Lord of the Rings, which I'm more familiar with.

I am still disappointed with the votes on that question, but hopefully seeing the correct answer will change people's opinion.

2 hours later…

5:59 AM

@Hamlet Actually, now I'm tempted to ask how the Stratemeyer Syndicate chose its fake author names.

@Hamlet [leaves comment with relephant analytical vocabulary]

Ugh, Scifi has another question about Orcs. I'm really tempted to ask a question about why the Orcs are described the way they're described

6:15 AM

@Hamlet What setting/franchise?

@BESW Lord of the Rings

Ah.

I... suspect SFF.SE is not the place to challenge the Thermian argument.

There are so many questions along the lines of "do Orcs drink water" or "how do Orcs reproduce" (their words, not mine)

And then everyone leaves comments on those questions saying things like "gross" or "ew"

@BESW I don't watch videos; any chance of a summery

Yeah, well, SFF.SE is also notorious for pushing back hard on any attempt to curate its comments.

@Hamlet Basically, that a criticism of an author's choice in how to write a text is not defensible with diegetic coherency.

In other words "I don't like how Tolkien depicts Orcs in ways that have been used to justify real-life genocide" is not defensible with "It makes sense in the story."

Tolkien chose for it to make sense in the story too.

The "Thermian argument," thus, is treating a work of fiction as its own justification and dismissing any criticism of its elements so long as they're all internally consistent.

It takes its name from the aliens in Galaxy Quest, who have no concept of fiction and think that Earth's fiction is documentary.

Of course, the story wouldn't make sense unless the Orcs were depicted the way they are. (How political can I get?)

@BESW I'm tempted to ask a question about the Thermian argument now

6:24 AM

It could just as easily be the Irregular argument. [grin]

There's a really interesting book about Tolkien that traces how authors have used Orcs in their own stories since Tolkien

Basically, all the meaning remains the same, they've just made it more subtle (e.g. black skin to green skin, etc. )

It's a big problem with D&D, and one I've toyed with subverting but eventually just left the setting entirely.

amazon.com/Race-Popular-Fantasy-Literature-Interdisciplinary/dp/…

@BESW what do your players think about that/who do you play D&D with?

D&D explicitly (but, I suspect, largely unintentionally) creates acceptable sophont humanoid targets for its heroes to slaughter by making entire groups of people literally embody the language of real-life oppression and genocide.

My RPG friends are very much on board with abandoning the entire D&D narrative. Shuddering racism aside, it's a paradigm in which lethal violence is the default problem-solving tool.

That's... frankly boring compared to the stories we've come up with using Fate, Bubblegumshoe, Lady Blackbird, etc.

I did once try to run a political conspiracy thriller campaign in a D&D-like setting except instead of humans, orcs, elves, dwarves, etc, the only humanoid sophonts in the world were elves.

There's also some interesting symbolism in Star Wars. The moment of Darth Vader's (a character demarcated as a racial other) redemption corresponds to when he takes off his mask, revealing his white face. Of course, his white skin is also the sign of his death; his skin is pasty white and covered in sores.

6:35 AM

Yeah, Star Wars is... weird. Most of its symbolism is not its own, but it amalgamated existing imagery so successfully that much of the symbolism in media after Star Wars is filtered through the Star Wars lens.

2

It's rather like LotR that way, actually.

user image

They both took a broad set of unrelated cultural concepts and concentrated them into a single lens, so that everything which comes afterward is distorted by that lens even if it's drawing on the original material.

I've been re-visiting Star Wars lately; I'm showing a friend the series (Machete order) who hasn't seen it before, and before each Star Wars film we're watching a different film that's somehow related to the Star Wars film we're about to watch.

@BESW what films?

Also, you've seen my answer here right?

14

Q: Why are Orcs associated with the colors red, yellow, and black in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings?

In Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings series, Sauron, and characters allied with Sauron, are frequently associated with the colors red, yellow, and black. For example, here is a description of the Haradim -- a group of men allied with Sauron -- from The Two Towers. They the are fierce. They have...

j-r-r-tolkien the-lord-of-the-rings symbolism

So far we've watched Forbidden Planet before Episode IV; Legend (1985) before Episode V; and Flash Gordon before Episode II.

(I don't watch very many movies)

6:41 AM

I think we'll watch Doctor Strangelove before Episode III, and Star Trek VI before Episode VI. Then Spaceballs afterward, of course.

Oh, and we watched Hardware Wars after Episode IV.

I'm going to have to look up all of those

It's part of a larger project where we get together every weekend for a double feature of two somehow-related films. Like the Rocky Horror Picture Show and The Phantom of the Paradise, or Death Becomes Her and The Hunger.

We're focusing on classics and cult classics, often things most folks haven't seen but are worth watching for their quality, notability, or how fun it is to laugh at them.

I switched the order of Flash Gordon and Doctor Strangelove at the last minute because we needed something a bit less grim that night.

Any thoughts on why George Lucas's films haven't been as good as they used to

@Hamlet He divorced his editor is one theory.

So many reasons, but primarily that he's not working as an equal with a bunch of other people who are just as brilliant but in other areas.

Lucas has some great strengths, but his best films are when he's got other people who aren't too in awe of him to tell him when their strengths should be used to shore up his weaknesses.

You know, like anybody doing a job with a team.

6:46 AM

Cool. I need to head out, but this has been interesting and fun. Best!

It's a common parabola: somebody works well with a team of experts but gets singled out as the genius behind the work, and elevated over (or away from) the rest of the team.

ttfn

@Hamlet There's behind-the-scenes footage of Lucas explaining why Jar-Jar Binks is an excellent and engaging character who will be a universal fan favourite. You can see the underlings clutching their coffee cups and reminding themselves what an honor it is to be working with Lucas and that they shouldn't do anything to get fired.

In earlier days he'd've had folks who would tell him "No, your marketing scheme is going to be bad for the movie, we need to tone it down." (You can see the beginnings of Lucas's obsession with franchise marketing very clearly in Episode VI, and you can also see where other team members put the breaks on it.)

1 hour later…

8:01 AM

@BESW are you volunteering? :P

I volunteered on day one.

Jan 18 at 22:17, by BESW

I volunteer as tribute; I've got experience managing feeds to keep a room informed but not overwhelmed.

There seemed to be a tacit vote of no confidence that I'd be able to curate the room according to the gestalt chatmind's desires rather than my own.

Mithrandir has added BESW to the list of this room's owners.

3

I trust you :P

8:24 AM

Thank you.

room topic changed to The Reading Room: Welcome to chat for literature.stackexchange.com! -- Read any good books lately? [authors] [books] [intentions] [my-god-its-full-of-stars]

At the end of the day a room owner is only as powerful as the support he gets from the chat's citizens, and I'll try to keep an eye on the pulse of this one so that I understand what the chat wants and needs. Chat should be a comfy place, where disagreements and sometimes debates can happen constructively without becoming arguments.

To that end, everyone should please feel free to ping me if any of the Be Nice guidelines are being violated.

1 hour later…

9:49 AM

0

Q: Short story about a man condemned to death because he cannot remember the details about a country

Years ago I read a story about a man (a journalist?) visiting a prison inmate. He was incarcerated for a crime he did not commit, and it was a case of mistaken identity or insufficient alibi. The conviction hinged on the fact that he could not prove that he was really himself because he could not...

story-identification

10:32 AM

@BESW That's normal, and sometimes it can even be beneficial if someone gets singled as a figurehead because he's the one who communicates a lot with the community. If everyone thinks Mark Rosewater makes all of M:tG and asks him questions, and he usually actually answers the better ones of those questions with relevant answers, then his being a figurehead is a generally useful service, and might help the other people who make M:tG so they aren't bothered with as many pointless questions.

They just need good PR skills.

10:54 AM

Are questions about the ethics of reading on topic?

@Benjamin clarify?

@Mithrandir A question such as: Is it ethically sound to read a book that the author didn't want published?

@Benjamin sounds POB.

@Mithrandir POB?

Primarily opinion based.

11:01 AM

> To read, or not to read, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The facts and typos of outrageous syntax,
Or to take Arms against Literacy,
And by opposing end it...

@Mithrandir Yes, but it seems to me as good subjective. Academia has a lot of these questions and ethics is at least as objective and formalized a field as Literature.

What about more specifically: Is it ethically sound to read Go Set A Watchman if Harper Lee did not want the book to be published?

@Benjamin so try asking and see what people think :)

@Mithrandir Do you think the more specific one would be better or would it be seen as opening up a reputation pit?

The more specific and practicable the better.

I suggest you also choose an ethical frame in which to ask the question.

I mean, publication ethics IS a field of applied ethics. Is that the lens you're using?

Or are we dealing more abstractly with normative ethics like deontology or utilitarianism?

@BESW Well, I think this question would be trivially answerable. In a lot of what I do, I think about normative ethics and the applications and how they can be applied to the formation of nation-states, so that is probably the question I'll ask.

11:12 AM

I'm always cautious of thinking a question is trivial. It usually means I'm missing something.

@BESW Could you take a look at my tags? literature.stackexchange.com/questions/1856/…

@BESW I think I agree with this, now that I think about it.

@Benjamin What for, particularly?

@BESW I am not sure what tags would be best.

Well, intent would be a meta-tag, so... sure, looks okay.

@BESW Okay, great!

11:17 AM

I'm not really up on lit.se tagging protocols yet, though, so don't take my word alone.

@BESW It is many meta decisions and chaos, so no one really understands it.

Mmm. My attitude toward tagging protocols is well established.

@BESW Yeah, and after seeing what happened here, I think I agree with you.

3 close votes in 9 minutes.

Let the voting play out, then make a reasoned, considered appeal for re-opening in meta on the basis of the question's own merits (and not in comparison to others').

About 80% of the time I see a meta saying "Re-open my question because [other question] is open too," the response is "Gosh, you're right, [other question] should also be closed! Thanks for pointing that out."

3

@BESW Yeah, but my argument is a comparison between my question and questions that we have already determined are good-subjective. Is that fine?

11:25 AM

It invites a re-examination of the previous decision, rather than an examination of your question on its own merits.

First appeal based on your own question. Then, if necessary, draw comparisons. A good question should be able to stand on its own.

If your best argument for keeping a question open is that other questions like it are open too, that implies your question probably suffers some flaw the others--however superficially similar--lack.

It's a weak opening hand to play.

If it's really your best shot, revise the question first so you've got a better hand to play.

Find a different angle on the subject, like the difference between "what order should I read these in?" and "does it matter if I read these in a random order?"

("Ethical" may be too abstract a concept for lit.se to handle; you might want to reflect on what it means to you and drill into that.)

3

2

Q: Is it ethically sound to read Go Set A Watchman if Harper Lee wanted the book to not be published?

In this answer, it is concluded that Harper Lee probably did not want Go Set A Watchman to be published. This raised a question for me: Is it ethically sound to read Go Set A Watchman if Harper Lee wanted the book to not be published? I am interested in questions approaching this from many angles...

harper-lee publication go-set-a-watchman ethics

(Oh, dear. I seem to have gotten that song stuck in my head again. >.<)

@Hamlet It was a fantastic connection to draw. I appreciated that answer very much :D

And, I'm super happy you enjoyed the story! There's just so much short fiction being published now. I know I'm missing gems left and right. Every week I put up a story for the short story club, and I feel like we're panning for gold :)

11:44 AM

@BESW I think on this question I will push the point and then if it doesn't work try to find a different way to approach it because I want Lit.SE to like ethics.

NO!! ETHICS ARE BAD!

@Standback the gables one? I read that one when @Shokhet asked their question. It's... Slightly strange, but not a bad read.

:P

@Standback Where do you find modern short fiction to read. I read some regional journals and journals of nearby universities, but I wonder if there are better places to be.

@Mithrandir Yup. Short fiction on the internet is good at "strange" :)

2

11:45 AM

@Standback Now, this opens the Machiavellian argument of therefore to enforce ethics it is fine to do ethically unsound things as it will have a better outcome.

I find short fiction through my social media feeds. For example, Ursula Vernon re-tweets some good stuff (and writes good stuff herself), which is a good way to find out where that kind of thing is published.

(I tried to write some short stories once. I failed, most likely because I don't read short stories often...)

@Benjamin There are approximately several million short-fiction webzines active -- particularly in science-fiction and fantasy. It's kind of a niche field -- and every individual zine is super niche -- but there's so much of it.

And a lot of my multicultural feeds like to link short stories that are relephant to their interests.

@BESW Vernon is fantastic! :) (And her Twitter feed is awesome :) )

There's a bunch of places to get recs for short fiction. The hard bit is finding time to read more than a thing smattering...

11:47 AM

@Standback Is there a huge list where I can go and read a little of everyone and then pick some I like? Are we in a short fiction renaissance or is most of it crummy?

2

@Mithrandir I enjoy short stories, but novels are really more my cup of tea for writing.

@Benjamin That is one of the big questions of the modern era. Maybe even two big questions :P

It kind of depends on what you like, and what recommendations you find helpful.

@Standback Well, the first is more clearly answerable.

@Benjamin There's a ton of awesome short fiction out there, but collections tend to be focused on a particular theme instead of offering a broad spectrum.

[rummages]

There are lots of collections of recommendations.

@Standback I like Poe, Faulkner, and Asimov for starters.

11:49 AM

Okorafor's "Spider the Artist" is often held up as representative of modern African sci-fi. I'm not sure I agree, but it's great anyway.

There are reviewers I really like; there are magazines I really like; there are awards which... are worth discussing whether I like them or not.

There's my short story club, which is my own solution to the issue :P

Jan 28 at 0:54, by BESW

FIRE!!, a 1920s Harlem magazine "devoted to younger negro artists," is reborn as FIYAH, "a magazine of black speculative fiction."

There's also Rocket Stack Rank, which is a data-geek/fiction-lover's dream. It cross-indexes by pretty much any conceivable measure...

@Standback This is my sort of thing and what I was looking for.

:D

11:53 AM

(Okorafor has been very vocal about disliking the trend of treating her as representative of any demographic, because it leads to publications using her as a token black or African author at the expense of actually working to publish a more diverse representation of authors.)

@BESW : You may also enjoy Omenana. "Screamers" was a terrific piece.

Ursula Vernon catalogs her short stories here.

The Hugo Nominations Wiki has a good selection, and not overwhelming.

Of course the recent film Arrival is based on (or rather, a somewhat misguided rebuttal to) Ted Chiang's paradigm-shifting Story of Your Life.

Ted Chiang is glorious.

(I got to meet him! He came to Israel! He signed my book!)

11:56 AM

Cool!

I listed some of my own favorite pieces for 2016 and 2017. I've become something of a Hugo wonk :P

...We had some excellent authors visit Guam when I was a kid, but Gordon Korman visited before I'd read any of his books.

I stayed next door to the PMers residence once... But I never meet anyone famous :/

And, well, I still love F&SF above and beyond anything else. And, just subscribed to Asimovs, so we'll see how that goes...

@Mithrandir Alas. The famous folks don't visit enough up north :P

@Standback well, I said hello to Yonatan Razel once :P

@Standback I got 112 issues of F&SF for free...

11:59 AM

In Israel we get about one a year, at our big convention ICon. We've had some pretty big names! --but now just mentioning an author on Twitter usually gets you a "thanks" from them, which can be a little creepy...

@Mithrandir ...who's Yonatan Razel?

@Mithrandir Cool! How? And did you like 'em? :)

@Standback a music artist

@Standback ...The library didn't want them. Most are good, some are better than others - haven't read them all yet.

"some are better than others" is an excellent description of short genre fiction :D

I can understand the library not wanting 'em (cool that they got them, in the first place!).

Most of the authors who visit Guam are sponsored by the National Reading Association, so I got to meet Lawrence Yep and Keith Baker and Joanna Cole.

I've got... probably that many issues, and I can't bear to part with them, but I'm also probably never going to open one again :P

Heh.

12:55 PM

→ 51 messages moved to Trash

Where'd they all go? - I removed them because it felt unnecessary to leave the discussion on how to find people on the Internet around. If you feel like reading it, that's not a private room I moved them to.

→ 1 message moved to Trash

1:19 PM

There are a lot of trash rooms o_o

1:49 PM

Mmm. They get locked from disuse, and then room owners who aren't mods make new ones as needed... which in turn freeze from disuse.

The odd thing is that that's the only one I saw that wasn't mod only.

Huh.

1 hour later…

2:57 PM

mornin

@DForck42 afternoon

@Mithrandir how goes the new mod status?

@DForck42 MY REIGN OF TERROR HAS BEG- *cough* *hack*

inspired from here

@Mithrandir lol

3 hours later…

6:07 PM

@Mithrandir *he/him/his :)

@Shokhet right, I knew that... I think...

@Mithrandir It doesn't matter. JUST DON'T DO IT AGA *cough* *hack* :p

7:05 PM

0

Q: Proposal: Require explicit support for conjecture questions

Conjecture Questions In Lit.SE's activity so far, I've noticed a type of posts I think of as Conjecture Questions -- posts that define a thesis or a proposition, and their question to the site is, "can you confirm or disprove this?". Some common forms as examples: Is [Character] gay? Was [Aut...

discussion close-reasons

1 hour later…

8:26 PM

Heh heh heh.

11

Q: whats the diffrence

Whits teh difference btween arur hAman and Baruch mosses? -- This question is Purim Torah and is not intended to be taken completely seriously. See the Purim Torah policy

purim-torah-in-jest

One of my favorites :P

9:02 PM

@Mithrandir LOL

9:49 PM

@Hamlet Heya! It's late here, but I've got a little while I can discuss, if you're up for that :)

1 hour later…

11:08 PM

0

Q: How is 'flash fiction' a distinctive genre?

"Flash Fiction" is an umbrella term used to describe any fictional work of extreme brevity, including the Six-Word Story, 140-character stories (also known as 'twitterature'), the dribble (50 words), the drabble (100 words), and sudden fiction (750 words). Is the genre significantly different fr...

poetry short-stories terminology

11:24 PM

@Bookworm (a) Poetry isn't definitionally short. (b) Short stories are a form, not just a length. (c) Genre is a meta-tag for connecting audiences with works they might like, at least as much as it's describing the work itself. (d) Would you like to see my flash fiction Wally West/Flash Gordon slash fanfiction?

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Feb '1727

The Reading Room

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