The Athenaeum - Reading updates and Literary Review from the Obsidian Elite (this means you)

[Sarex]

Yep, that's where I got it from too.

[Guard Dog]

Now reading

[Agiel]

Re-visiting Hemingway and some might call me crazy but I think his anti-semitism is even grosser than Louis-Ferdinand Céline's. As despicable as <<Bagatelles pour un massacre>> is you actually get the sense that these are the ravings of someone who's had life beat him down far too many times, whereas the way Hemingway goes out of his way to make Cohn so unlikable in <<The Sun Also Rises>> suggests something far more dyed in the wool.

[Gromnir]

many decades past, we taught hemingway. am recalling we made a n00b teacher mistake o' assigning the sun also rises as the first book covered when we were doing a class in spain. many decades past, but even so we were were kinda surprised by how few considered hemingway antisemitism to be at all relevant, but those who did became complete fixated on such to exclusion o' all else. weren't intentional, but we managed to divide individual students and the class as a whole; had some difficulty producing constructive dialog from that point. after our firstest blunder, sun also rises always became the last book we covered.

lucky for us, from a teaching pov, while hemingway's private writings ooze with antisemitism, such is not a common theme in his published works. were never our intention to teach Hemingway is a Bigot as a class, but we believed it were dishonest to not mention. 

am thinking the fact we were so visible obvious an ethnic minority made it difficult for a few students to discuss bigotry so early in a class. perhaps didn't wanna offend Gromnir and students didn't know just how honest they could be discussing such an emotional charged topic.

the sun also rises is a fantastic piece o' literature. we got no guilt admitting we like the sun also rises, but we sure as hell never defend hemingway's antisemitism.  am recognizing the ethical questions o' teaching such overt bigotry. full stop. 

HA! Good Fun!

[Guard Dog]

Kingkiller Chronicle' Editor Believes Author Hasn't Written Anything for Years

I think this might be right. He's made enough money to do what he pleases and now is blowing off the third book. 

I know I've given up on this one

[ShadySands]

I've just assumed that he either hasn't been able to come up with a satisfactory conclusion to the story or no idea how to get it there or both.

But I've also given up on waiting for it

[majestic]

Probably sitting somewhere with GRRM, living the good life and not giving a damn. 

 

[Amentep]

17 years between The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, wasn't it?

I can't help but wonder if the fact that Fantasy and Science Fictions pulp origins makes people believe they should get things done fast.  Pulp authors were fast (at one point Charles Gibson wrote 1,680,000 words a year), and a lot of that tradition carried over in the paperback market.  So in the 70s and 80s you get things like Stephen R. Donaldson doing 6 books in 7 years and that was seen as the norm.

However if you look outside of Fantasy and Science Fiction you get a lot of acclaimed novelists taking years to complete their novels.  Thomas Harris too 8 years (on average) to complete the Hannibal Lecter novels.  Mind you I don't know if these new trilogies like Rothfuss are stand alone books that link together (like the Lecter novels) or cliffhanger seriels left unsatisfying by their lack of continuation to completion either.

[majestic]

1 hour ago, Amentep said:

I can't help but wonder if the fact that Fantasy and Science Fictions pulp origins makes people believe they should get things done fast.

For me that certainly isn't true, and on a rational level I can understand writers not owing their readers anything (or their publishers, as talked about in the Rothfuss article). But on a somewhat more subjective one I'm not sure that's correct. The writers owe us their livelyhood, and in exchange it's not too unreasonable to ask for some effort, yes?

I just would like to have a somewhat timely continuation of series left not just with a cliffhanger but the most unsatisfying ones you can possibly imagine. In the past 15 years we've gotten two books by GRRM, and both were preludes, setups, some more preludes and some more set up and then the last one ends before two pivotal events that were actually already written but moved into the next novel due to space and pacing constraints.

A novel that looks more and more like it will never be finished, let alone the entire series which has one more novel. Planned, at least. It already overran from a planned trilogy into having 4, then 5, then 6 and now potentially 7 books. 

Not that I ever expect 6 and 7 to come out unless George dies and either Sanderson or Brian Herbert finish them (yeah... I went there. :p). There's a bright side, not even these two could come up with something worse than the ending of the HBO adaptation.

But who knows, strangers things certainly happened. Stephen King finished The Dark Tower eventually. Although with that ending, I'm not sure people enjoyed it having an end all too much. Heh.

[Sarex]

Rothfuss got on my nerves years ago when he started getting hissy fits whenever anyone would ask him about the third book. When people started pointing out, on his blog, that he was doing everything but writing, he started playing the victim and rallying people to defend him. That's when I stopped following him altogether. At this point I am unsure if I would even read the third book, purely out of spite.

[the_dog_days]

I don't care one way or another about Rothfuss but even a decade ago I couldn't stand the people commenting in his blog. He couldn't put up a single blog without someone in the comments internet tattling on another author for something completely unrelated to the blog itself. People act like cancel culture is new when it's been around for at least a decade as far as I know. It's just that up until 2012 everyone (rightfully) ignored internet tattletales.

[Guard Dog]

Rothfuss & Martin are both a victim of their own success. When they were lean and hungry, the books as good as they were still undiscovered they were writing their story for themselves. Once they became wildly successful the pressure to produce and continue to produce at a high level is intense. Martin especially is his own biggest critic. Only now they have earned enough money they don't NEED to sit down at their laptops and face that kind of pressure. GRRM has involved himself in more projects than any one man can accomplish in a lifetime. Procrastination by hard work if such a thing is real. It would have been better for all involved if they had not been "discovered" until the last book was finished.

The ideal job would be a guy like Terry Goodkind. Rapidly churning out bucketfuls of warm vanilla mush. Just good enough to be enjoyable to the unsophisticated reader. No one is every buying move rights (except maybe SyFy) so there is never any pressure. No one work will ever make you rich but in the aggregate those buckets of warm vanilla mush sell enough you have some money

Edited July 29, 2020 by Guard Dog

[Raithe]

I remember John Ringo doing a blog about how the past few years he has been engaging with his fans, enjoying the interaction, having a steady income..and as such, he hasn't been retreating to his basement to write.  He made the point of "I'm in a happier place now then I've ever been, so I'm not escaping from the world..and my writing is suffering."

He half joked that he'd have to stop talking to fans, and figure out what makes him unhappy so he could go back to actually working.

[Zoraptor]

As I've said before Martin's chances of finishing writing can be summed up by him stating that if he hadn't finished WoW by the time he visited New Zealand this year we could imprison him on White Island until it was done. 6 months later that island exploded killing 20 odd people, and the whole country is shut down to foreigners thanks to covid. Someone really doesn't want him finishing, and it isn't just him.

I think it would be interesting to see how long the typical (single author) SF series takes to write and how much the time taken changes between books as the series progresses. 10 odd years ago Robert Jordan was kind of the stereotype 'slow author that would never be finished' that Martin is today; but Jordan still regularly produced books, they just were subject to a lot of bloat and glacial plot progression. IIRC the average time between those books was not that much over a year with the longest gap (excepting when Jordan died) being about 2, and they were hefty books too.

[Guest]

On 7/19/2020 at 5:42 AM, Guard Dog said:

Now reading

I love Carlin. This is next on the list of books that my girlfriend and I read together (we're currently wrapping up Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari)

I recently finished The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World by Simon Winchester. Great book

Edited July 30, 2020 by Achilles
typo

[the_dog_days]

3 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

10 odd years ago Robert Jordan was kind of the stereotype 'slow author that would never be finished' that Martin is today; but Jordan still regularly produced books, they just were subject to a lot of bloat and glacial plot progression.

The only epic fantasy series author who produced books within one series faster is Steven Erikson who admitted that he didn't do much of any editing just to get the books out.

Edited July 30, 2020 by the_dog_days

[Zoraptor]

Hah yes. I got the first few Malazan books on a recommendation but stopped reading after there was some sort of massive continuity error/ retcon. Though to be honest I can't even remember what that continuity error was, so I obviously wasn't that invested.

[Raithe]

4 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

As I've said before Martin's chances of finishing writing can be summed up by him stating that if he hadn't finished WoW by the time he visited New Zealand this year we could imprison him on White Island until it was done. 6 months later that island exploded killing 20 odd people, and the whole country is shut down to foreigners thanks to covid. Someone really doesn't want him finishing, and it isn't just him.

I think it would be interesting to see how long the typical (single author) SF series takes to write and how much the time taken changes between books as the series progresses. 10 odd years ago Robert Jordan was kind of the stereotype 'slow author that would never be finished' that Martin is today; but Jordan still regularly produced books, they just were subject to a lot of bloat and glacial plot progression. IIRC the average time between those books was not that much over a year with the longest gap (excepting when Jordan died) being about 2, and they were hefty books too.

 

To be absolutely fair, one of the key reasons for Jordan's increasing time between books , was that he was suffering a slow terminal disease for the last 4 or 5 he actually wrote himself.

[majestic]

2 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

Hah yes. I got the first few Malazan books on a recommendation but stopped reading after there was some sort of massive continuity error/ retcon. Though to be honest I can't even remember what that continuity error was, so I obviously wasn't that invested.

I still have the second book in the series on my to read list. I began reading it a while ago after finishing the first book in the series and then just stopped. It's one thing to have the books have as little exposition as possible or only where it makes sense to make them more immersive but Malazan takes that to a level where it's bordering on hard work to keep track of everything. Unlike with A Song of Ice and Fire where at least the kids have things explained to them once in a while and you have somewhat interesting allusions to the past (e.g. the tragedy of Summerhall) Malazan feels like you're on the outside of one long ass in-joke.

[Sarex]

4 hours ago, Raithe said:

To be absolutely fair, one of the key reasons for Jordan's increasing time between books , was that he was suffering a slow terminal disease for the last 4 or 5 he actually wrote himself.

He was really dedicated to his story/fans. In the beginning he was against anyone else finishing his series, but as he realized that the chances were good that he would be unable to finish it he made other arrangements.

[Gromnir]

What Happened When a Harvard Scholar Decided the Story Was More Important Than the Truth

confirmation bias, insidious and ubiquitous, is a genuine danger in an internet age where twitter drops and cable media stories is rushed to release. 

am curious to see the ugly details behind what were a headline grabbing story.

HA! Good Fun!

[Malcador]

Not sure what to start next

or

 

or

[Guard Dog]

The first one. The next is too ponderous. Third one looks just ok. 

[Guard Dog]

Now reading Ben Hur, the original novel. I got it from the library last night. I didn't know this was written by Lew Wallace! THE Lew Wallace!

OK, many of you haven't heard of him but as a student of the American Civil War he was was a pretty important figure. He commanded the reserve force that executed a reinforcing flank attack at Shiloh.  He also commanded a near hopeless Union defense of the north bank of the Monocacy River in the battle that bears its name.

Jubal Early led a Confederate force of 14k men towards the Potomac and Fort Stevens. The idea was to draw grant away from Petersburg and allow Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia to escape. Grant did not take the bait. Instead he sent Wallace and two understrength regiments of Indiana Volunteer Infantry, 2800 men ore or less to reinforce Ft. Stevens. It was clear to Wallace his 2800 men could not save the Fort, or Washington DC for that matter (just a bit further up the Potomac) so he set up a defense on Georgetown Pike on the north side of the Monocacy river. He received some reinforcements the night before the battle. Wallace and his now 6000 men faced off against Early and two Corps of CSA infantry and three cavalry brigades. Wallace's men were outnumbered more than 2-1. They repelled 5 infantry assaults and numerous cavalry flanking attacks in a fight that lasted all day. By evening the Union troops had lost 20% of their strength and could no longer maintain the defense. Wallace ordered a retreat to Baltimore. 

Although Wallace lost the battle his actions allowed time for the VI US Army Corps to reach Washington and Fort Stevens. Two days later Early attacked a fully manned and well defended position at Fort Stevens and was defeated. Had he attacked the previous day he would have found just 900 inexperienced men facing him. He would have overrun the position and been able to attack Baltimore and DC (although the former was much more strategically important). That would have forced Grant to abandon Petersburg and the surrender at Appotomax would not have happened. The war would have gone on longer and more people would have died but for Lew Wallace and 2800 Indiana volunteer infantry in a battle they technically lost. 

But... that is not the end of the story. After the war he led volunteer troops (including a 2nd in command who was a captain under Johnston in the Army of the Mississippi at Shiloh) and brought guns to Mexican Federalists fighting Maximilian and the French. 

But.... even THAT is not the end of the story. After that he was appointed the governor of the New Mexico Territory by President Rutherford Hayes. While he was there he met with and pardoned Billy the Kid!

But.... even THAT is not the end of the story. In his 60's & 70's he wrote novels including Ben Hur! It only became on of the biggest movies ever made starring Charlton Heston. When I say his name on the book I just it was someone with the same name. Imagine my surprise when I googled it. 

But... even THAT is not the end of the story. in 1898 at the age of 71 he tried to return to the army and fight in the war against Spain. They turned him down.

That was one amazing dude!

 

[Zoraptor]

7 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

Third one looks just ok. 

First Man in Rome is pretty good, so long as one likes (somewhat) fictionalised history. 'I, Claudius' would be the most obvious comparison, though FMiR is both considerably longer page wise and considerably shorter time span wise. Part of a longer series, and the timespans get progressively more condensed the further in. Late but not terminal decline Roman Republic is also an often neglected subject for the more popular triumvirates epoch. It's well written and very well researched, and less dry than reading proper history.

(I'd personally go for the first book too though. Interesting subject, and less of a commitment)

Edited August 8, 2020 by Zoraptor