The Reading Room

12:37 AM

Little Red Riding Hood, but Simplified
Story: A child is told by a parental figure to go through a treacherous area to give sustenance to another, older, parental figure. A fearsome beast tricks the said child into disclosing the location of the older parental figure's residence at the other side of the treacherous area. The fearsome beast distracts the said child and arrives at the residence of the older parental figure and devours them. The fearsome beast puts on the clothing of the older parental figure. The said child arrives, somehow oblivious to the fact that the fearsome beast looks …

SoooooooooOooooo

Someone want to tell me a humours variation within these constraints?

Rand al'Thor

6:10 AM

@NorthLæraðr How do you mean? Like writing a story with that structure, or recommending one?

Also, congrats on 400 rep here.

Another hundred and you can help with closing/reopening :-)

Rand al'Thor

6:32 AM

I've now read half of Malgudi Days, 16 of the 32 short stories.

No new questions have come to mind for the latest ones. These stories are mostly short and simple and easy to understand.

Rand al'Thor

8:06 AM

@Tsundoku Methinks we may have another Wikipedia improvement mission on our hands, regarding Narayan and Malgudi Days :-)

Bookworm

1

Q: When were the short stories of Malgudi Days published?

Malgudi Days is a short story collection by R. K. Narayan. According to Wikipedia: Malgudi Days is a collection of short stories by R. K. Narayan published in 1943 by Indian Thought Publications. The book was republished outside India in 1982 by Penguin Classics. The book includes 32 stories,...

steelersquirrel

12:06 PM

@Randal'Thor Just cast my vote for you and @Skooba! Love you guys! Good luck :)

Rand al'Thor

@Fabjaja @GarethRees Fair warning: after the end of the Narayan month, I'm planning to ask a question about Thomas Hardy's The Poor Man and the Lady, how much information is known about it and from what original sources. Might take a lot of digging and researching. (I almost found a book chapter about it, but it's hidden behind a paywall and I can only see the first page.)

@steelersquirrel Oh, thanks :-)

steelersquirrel

@Randal'Thor RAND!!! How are you?

Rand al'Thor

@steelersquirrel Not bad. Staying indoors, coming to term with the new hopefully-all-too-temporary lifestyle.

How are you? How's work?

steelersquirrel

I’m good. Super busy at work. Staying healthy!

Rand al'Thor

12:23 PM

@steelersquirrel Everyone in the world is sending good wishes to health workers at the moment. Stay healthy and good luck :-)

Gareth Rees

@Randal'Thor Millgate's chapter is visible here on Google Books

steelersquirrel

@Randal'Thor Thanks, buddy :)

Rand al'Thor

Not to me. Maybe I've used up a page-viewing allowance or my IP is different or something.

Gareth Rees

@Randal'Thor You can also borrow the book from the Internet Archive

North Læraðr

4:15 PM

@Randal'Thor Just write a story with that structure lol

Like a grossly overexagerated one

@Randal'Thor Thank you, thank you. I don't recall close/reopening was in 500 rep....

Oh, do beta have different privilege milestones?

I only need 4000 to reach trusted user?!

Rand al'Thor

@NorthLæraðr Writing SE has (had?) a regular writing challenge thing on meta. Over here we're readers, not writers :-P

@NorthLæraðr Only on beta sites. On graduated sites it's 3000.

North Læraðr

@Randal'Thor Haha, it's not a challenge, per se, just an entertaining prompt

@Randal'Thor Yeah, I had to double check on PSE

I suddenly feel like I'm part of something so much bigger

Rand al'Thor

@NorthLæraðr Yeah. It seems like "only" if you're used to sites where it's easy to repcap every day, but then you realise only 18 people on Literature have even as much as 4k rep.

North Læraðr

ohhh

true, true

I forget about activity

Rand al'Thor

And half of them are rather dormant users, not really active on this site any more.

North Læraðr

4:22 PM

wow

I just need to edit.. 50 more wiki tags :P

Rand al'Thor

To get more Trusted Users we need more votes, but of course we can't just ask people to "vote more" without caveats about voting responsibly. There's quite a lot of poor answers as well as good/great ones, especially from the early days of the site (when unfortunately they got a lot of upvotes because activity was so high then).

I noticed Gareth and Tsundoku recently passed 1000 votes cast.

North Læraðr

If you answer your own question, do you get rep for upvotes on the answer and the question?

Rand al'Thor

Yes.

Bookworm

0

Q: Why the difference in title between English title and American title of The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

In British releases, the mystery novel written by Stuart Turton was released as Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. However, the novel in America is released as The Seven and a half Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. Why is that? Was there a significant plot change between the two versions? Or is there ...

title stuart-turton seven-deaths-of-evelyn-hardcastle

North Læraðr

Btw, that's a really good book, if I already haven't said so (wait I did before :P)

welp, I actually found the answer myself, so I guess I'm a hypocrite

Should I wait to post the answer?

Tsundoku

4:42 PM

Don't wait until somebody beats you to it. You never know on this site ;-)

North Læraðr

5:10 PM

Oh lol, I can only accept my answer in 2 days

I can't get rep from accepting my own answer, right? Because that would be kind of cheap

Rand al'Thor

Self-acceptances don't give you any rep, btw.

Because that's essentially voting for yourself.

North Læraðr

Yeah, that's what I thought

apparently the title got changed because some book in the U.S. was titled similarly and wanted to avoid confusion which actually created more cvonfusion

Rand al'Thor

> cvonfusion

covfefe?

North Læraðr

lol okay buddy

If I really liked A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, what's another good book to read by him?

Great Expectations?

Gareth Rees

Bleak House is a good choice

North Læraðr

5:22 PM

Last semester my English teacher was like we're starting A Tale of Two Cities and all the upper classmen told me it was super boring

and I was like

Wait hold on, there's literal execution scenes, and you're telling me it's boring?

I lovveeee his writing, it's so sophisticated and like honestly pretty funny

Gareth Rees

A Tale of Two Cities is great — tumbrils to the guillotine; Madame Defarge knitting while the heads roll; ludicrous coincidence; "It is a far, far, better thing I do"

North Læraðr

No, the best character by far was Stryver

HE'S HILARIOUS OH MY GOSH

When he tells Mr. Lowry that he's planning on marrying Lucie, and then when Lowry talk shim out of it, he acts like it was his idea

I was dying

@GarethRees ... than I have ever done; it is far, far better rest that I go, than I have ever known.

sniffles

Rand al'Thor

"It was the best of times; it was the worst of times"

About all I know from A Tale of Two Cities is those two quotes.

North Læraðr

Honestly, that's kind of like the only things you need to know XD

The book is hard to digest at first (at least for me), because Dicken's writing is very flourished, but it's really good

Gareth Rees

They are the first and last lines

North Læraðr

5:32 PM

"I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul."

Rand al'Thor

Not sure if I ever read a full original Dickens story. I read retellings of various stories as a kid, but the original versions were very hard to struggle through for me, at least at that time.

North Læraðr

dickens is definitely very difficult to read as a child

Rand al'Thor

I got more experience with 19th-century literature as a teenager, like Thomas Hardy and Jane Eyre and so on, but never went back to Dickens.

(pardon the mix of author and title in the same list, but I never remember which Bronte is which)

North Læraðr

I tried reading oliver twist when I was in second grade (why was there a copy of Oliver Twist in my second grade library, I don't know) and I fell asleep. And I NEVER fall asleep on books

@Randal'Thor Jane Eyre is the Bronte

Tsundoku

It was Currer Bell.

Gareth Rees

5:34 PM

Dude watchin' with the Brontës

2

North Læraðr

@GarethRees Ahahahaha

Jane literally tells Rochester that she thins he's ugly

Rand al'Thor

I never did manage to get through Pride and Prejudice, but that was less because of the 19th-century writing style and more because the plot didn't really interest me.

North Læraðr

Falls in love with him anyways

Rand al'Thor

I once summarised the entire works of Jane Austen as "middle-class young women trying to find husbands".

North Læraðr

I mean, I've never read her works, but that sounds accurate

Rand al'Thor

5:36 PM

@NorthLæraðr It's not all about looks :-)

North Læraðr

@Randal'Thor True, but Rochester is also a drunkard and kept his mentally unstable wife locked up in an attic and then proposed to Jane while Jane was oblivious to the fact that he was already married

Soooooooooooooooooo

Rand al'Thor

@NorthLæraðr Ah, but none of that relates to him being ugly :-)

North Læraðr

truee... but like

Rand al'Thor

As I recall, he's always described as ugly and she as plain. While StJohn Rivers and Whatsername-that-he-was-going-out-with-at-first are described as handsome/beautiful.

North Læraðr

Ingram Blanche

I thought St. John Rivers was also described to be stone-faced and ugly

Meanwhile Emily Bronte really be out there with a full-fledged Gothic novel of Wuthering Heights

Fun fact, after the Bible, A Tale of Two Cities is the most published work of all times, I believe.

And the best selling novel of all times

Rand al'Thor

5:42 PM

Ha! That very much depends on who's counting.

North Læraðr

True, true

Rand al'Thor

It seems every country claims one of their great pieces of literature as the best-selling / most translated / most reprinted after the Bible.

North Læraðr

I love how they need to admit that the Bible is the most sold book, and then their greatest work of literature

Okay, real talk for a moment

Why is the Jikji, a Korean work of literature and "first book" using movable type located in France?

Rand al'Thor

Why are the Elgin Marbles in England?

Europeans see other countries' history and pinch it for their museums.

3

North Læraðr

And deprive other countries of their own history?

Tsundoku

5:51 PM

@Randal'Thor I have never heard such a thing about anything written in Dutch.

Rand al'Thor

@NorthLæraðr The assumption being, at least in some cases, that "foreigners" can't be trusted to look after their stuff properly.

"White Man's Burden" and all that.

Gareth Rees

Reading Wikipedia, it seems that the book was acquired by a French diplomat and book collector, Victor Collin de Plancy, c. 1887. Presumably he bought it

North Læraðr

Ew

Rand al'Thor

Awful lot of racism in history (and in the modern day too).

North Læraðr

Yup. Social Darwinism. Learning that in my AP World History class right now

Gareth Rees

5:54 PM

The Bibliothèque nationale de France has a digitized copy

Rand al'Thor

@NorthLæraðr Next you can learn about Municipal Darwinism ;-)

North Læraðr

@Randal'Thor Say a what now

Mithical

A what now.

Rand al'Thor

> For too long, London has been hiding in the hills, safe from bigger, faster, HUNGRIER cities. Now London must feed.

Mortal Engines

Mortal Engines is a young-adult science fantasy novel by Philip Reeve, published by Scholastic UK in 2001. The book focuses on a futuristic, steampunk version of London, now a giant machine striving to survive on a world running out of resources. Mortal Engines is the first book of a series, Mortal Engines Quartet, published from 2001 to 2006. It has been adapted as a 2018 feature film by Peter Jackson and Hollywood, though its movie universe is different than that of the book.The book has won a Nestlé Smarties Book Prize and was shortlisted for the 2002 Whitbread Award, as well as the ALA's Notable...

Gareth Rees

A reference to Othello there — is it thematic?

Rand al'Thor

6:22 PM

I never knew that was from Othello.

> The title is a quotation from Act III, Scene iii of William Shakespeare's play Othello ("Othello: And O you mortal engines whose rude throats/Th'immortal Jove's dread clamors counterfeit..." – Line 352). In the novel, it refers to the fact that the society of Municipal Darwinism is not sustainable living and that the cities' engines are indeed mortal.

So saith Wikipedia, without source. That might be worth a question on the site actually.

North Læraðr

Thus Spokes Wikipedia: "Information without citation!"

Rand al'Thor

Several of my Gilgamesh questions were based on information gleaned from Wikipedia which turned out to be confusing or mistaken. Tsundoku boldly ventured forth and improved various Wikipedia articles as well as answering those questions here.

Ditto for my latest Narayan question.

Tsundoku

6:54 PM

I haven't checked the Malgudi Days article against @muru's answer yet. By the way, anybody can make edits on Wikipedia, even without an account. But, of course, you need to understand a bit of wiki markup, which is somewhat different from markdown.

Tsundoku

7:08 PM

Congratulations to @Skooba for becoming our 29th 3000+ rep user!

North Læraðr

8:38 PM

Nice

Fabjaja

10:42 PM

@Randal'Thor Thanks for the TH pings! I love a new question. That's one I've not come across and my uni library doesn't have any sort of copy so it seems pretty scarce, but I do have access to some papers on it.

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