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

[Guard Dog]

4 minutes ago, ShadySands said:

Probably socialism

Nah, wasn’t that when it was being done for religious objections. It’s just the sick and twisted  desire that exists in 33% of the population to control the actions and minds of the other 66%. That the 33% today is different than the 33% of years past is irrelevant. The methods and outcome are the same

[Amentep]

1 hour ago, KaineParker said:

Eh, can't find any sources that aren't blatantly biased.

Disrupt Texts has a website, you can read what they advocate for there.

The WSJ article indicates some teachers talking of having gotten administrations to remov classics entirely from curriculum (specifically, the Odyssey), which generally speaking isn't what the Disrupt texts group is advocating for.

[Guest]

6 hours ago, Amentep said:

Can we still read Fahrenheit 451?

That's fairly "present-day". I fear my beloved Walden wouldn't make the cut though

[Guard Dog]

6 hours ago, Achilles said:

That's fairly "present-day". I fear my beloved Walden wouldn't make the cut though

THAT would be a shame. Walden is on the Guard Dog U required reading list for all life students! Of course I can see how the thought police would want that one banned. Thoreau discusses the importance of reading the very works the want banned. And a simple life, unencumbered by things and obligations is a non-starter to the people who fancy they run the world today. Consumption and debt are as essential to keeping people docile as are bread and  circuses (internet, TV, and other distractions). 

[Guest]

4 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

And a simple life, unencumbered by things and obligations is a non-starter to the people who fancy they run the world today.

People who confuse their worth with their things feel threatened by arguments which imply that things don't matter. Gotta get in front of a lifetime of marketing if you want to slay the beast. Step one: kill your TV

Quote

Consumption and debt are as essential to keeping people docile as are bread and  circuses (internet, TV, and other distractions). 

Yeah, "chicken or the egg" problems are definitely frustrating. I got Juvenal's best known catch phrase ("panem et circenses") tattooed on as a constant reminder that human nature can be difficult to change.

[melkathi]

I just (9AM so 9 hours ago) finished Rythm of War (Book IV of the Stormlight Archives).

Like all Sanderson books it is very well planned out. This alone makes it a joy to read: knowing that information is there for a reason and not simply to fill pages. Especially as there are nearly 1300 of those once more.

I like that the story is constructed and build up through logical building blocks. While new information may be introduced, it never is the result of the author simply having a new idea and throwing it in there, disregarding what they had written up 'till then. True, I may just be happy that close to 2000 pages ago some information was introduced which had me go "Oh, that in one of the future books this will happen" and it now happened. I like being right. I also like feeling clever.

On the other hand, I find every Stormlight Archives book manages to take a character and make their chapters tedious for at least half the book. While Kaladin was a great underdog hero in the first book, he became less enjoyable to read in book two. Now, his continued fight with depression has become easier to read - he no longer appears selfish, just in need of serious need of psychotherapy. And that works. Perhaps Sanderson has done some more research into depression and has a better understanding on the subject now. Still, the depression was always there, just not always communicated as well.

Shallan on the other hand is now the character who really needs to truly evolve. Sanderson seems to be unable to properly write female characters. Or more than his signature female character. And as Shallan gets so much more page time than nay of the others ever got, the problems with this archetype show more. Women don't grow by pretending to not be themselves. They don't grow by making up fake personalities. It worked in Mistborn for Vin/Valette because she had to infiltrate high society and suddenly a whole new world opened to the starving street urchin. But it can't be copied onto every other female protagonist. Vin, Vivenna, Firefight, Shai, Shallan, they all merge into one character, with Shallan becoming the one who makes the reader (i.e. me) say "Enough already. Yes, young women try to find their place in the world. They don't do it by playing dress up as if they were a Barbie doll." What seemingly has been presented as character growth is an awkwardly written multiple personality disorder. And woosh, in book four of the Stormlight Archives, after torturing the reader for over 5000 pages, Sanderson acknowledges this. Shallan isn't growing, she is at best regressing, but mostly a nutjob. But the length it took to reach this realization makes me wonder if perhaps this is the one part that wasn't planned. That perhaps readers did write in all these misgivings I didn't air.

The biggest hurdle to enjoying the book is, as in the whole series, the flashbacks. While the information may be important and give insights, it breaks up the flow of the story the reader is actually invested in. Worse, in this book the "one year ago" actually is the "now of two books ago. We have seen Venli being Venli at the time. We didn't like her. Nobody liked her. Yes, now Venli also doesn't like herself, but the rest of us don't truly need a reminder of who she is.

What is interesting about the book is that the Cosmere meta-plot that bound most of Sanderson's stories together (Mistborn, Elantris, Warbreaker, Stormlight Archives, Emperor's Soul etc) is now merging into the main plot. Hoit is no longer a cameo sprinkled through the story in a Where is Waldo for the fans. It remains to be seen if this meta-plot, that has been building over so many years, will live up to the build up. At least Vasher says the truth in this book: "Hoit is an ****". Takes one to know one, Vasher.

[melkathi]

19 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

The words "banned" and "books" should NEVER be used in the same sentence. But, here we we are again. 

Even Homer Gets Mobbed A Massachusetts school has banned ‘The Odyssey.’ It's paywalled but I have a subscription so here is the text:

Political correctness is a disease. One we are like to die from. It's practitioners are every bit as insidious as the "moral police" who wanted books banned because they were "sinful". It's a short step from banning them to burning them. 

 

I identify as a politically homeless leftist - meaning, my family left "the party" as those masquerading as "left" and representing the party are immoral charlatans with only their self interest at heart. Political correctness by itself is not something I have an issue with. That is, I have no issue with teaching people what should be common decency.

Bringing up Homer in this context though is extremely intriguing. Because truly reading those classics, not for the "Achilles was a max level fighter wit epic gear" but for the sociopolitical context they give us for the time, is fascinating. The Iliad especially (though later tragedies such as Aeschylus's Oresteia even more so) judges very harshly actions that we now explain away as "those were different times; you cannot judge them by today's values". It turns out, yes, you can. There is no denying that Cassandra is the most tragic character in the Iliad. She spurns Apollo and is cursed by him to see the future but have nobody believe her. She is locked away as a raving lunatic by the people she loves and tries to save. She sits helpless as she watches events that will lead to countless deaths, including her own. And the audience knows this. The audience back then knew that what Apollo did was wrong.

Troy falls and Cassandra seeks protection in the temple of Athena. Ajax the Lesser rapes her regardless. The audience is on her side. It understands that rape is wrong. Perhaps wrong because she was a princess seeking protection of the goddess, where raping a slave girl would have been acceptable, but it is obvious rape wasn't just "just rape". As he isn't punished, Athena kills a lot more people than just him in retribution. Of course, that didn't stop the Locrians of venerating him as their national hero.

Cassandra will later be murdered in Aeschylus' Agamemnon, first of the Oresteia trilogy of tragedies. Which incidentally has a lot to say about violence against women.

Cassandra as the most tragic character shows that there was understanding for subjects we see as new now. Otherwise the audience could not have recognized the tragedy.

But, as my pasta is getting cold, what I am getting at is: the classics have a lot to say about the matters we of the left are interested in highlighting. And they are not just a showcase of a more unenlightened time - these are matters that interested poets thousands of years ago as well. And they had something to say about the matter as well.

[Guard Dog]

This is a big reason why I am so anti-government. Too many times the government is used as a cudgel to hammer one point of view over another. “I” don’t like this so “you“ can’t do it. I don’t like this kind of language, these books have this language therefore you can’t read it. I don’t like guns therefore you can’t have guns. I don’t like cigarettes therefore you can’t smoke. Now it is perfectly reasonable for people to enjoy these vices in such a manner that it does not impose on the comfort or freedom of other people. It’s perfectly reasonable that tell people they can’t smoke in restaurants. It’s perfectly reasonable to tell me not to walk around with a 45 on my hip. But that’s not what we’re talking about in this instance. We are talking about literally removing access to these works for all future generations. This is nothing short of an attempt to mold future minds by limiting their experience. And it stinks.

there is another point here. One that has not been hit so far. Classics are called that for a reason. They are a cultural touchstone that all of us share because even if we haven’t read them we know about it. If I were to say Ahab is hunting his whale you know I’m talking about a man seeking revenge. When the expression comes up “a face that launched 1000 ships” everyone knows you’re talking about Helen of troy. These expressions and themes show up in movies, songs, other books. Hell just listen to a two hour Dennis Miller routine and you’ll get at least two dozen references to classical literature that you would never laugh at the joke if you weren’t familiar with the reference. And now the present day moral busybodies imagine it is their place to deprive future generations of those experiences. 
 

sometimes I wish I had had kids. Sometimes I wish that very much. And sometimes I’m glad I didn’t. I’m genuinely worried future generations are going to be left a joyless and grimly materialistic world where the truth is only what other people tell them it is. I can tell you one thing for sure if I did have a child they would be homeschooled.

Edited December 29, 2020 by Guard Dog

[Guard Dog]

By the way this subject has piqued my interest a great deal as I’m sure you’ve noticed. After some subsequent web searches I found out Orwell is also on the banned list. Small surprise there. After all how can you mold the minds of the poor little dear is if they happen to read a book that teaches them how you are molding their minds. I bet Machiavelli is going to be a no go also. For highschoolers I mean

Edited December 29, 2020 by Guard Dog

[Hurlshort]

42 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

 I can tell you one thing for sure if I did have a child they would be homeschooled.

That is a terrible idea. You want your child to be exposed to a wide range of ideas, but you want them to be completely sheltered? How does that work, exactly?

I teach Machiavelli in depth in 7th grade. It is a part of the curriculum, and it plays well with the transition from feudal kingdoms to city-states in Italy during the Renaissance. When I discuss the concept of the end justifying the means, only about 5 percent of students really get it. I can talk until I am blue in the face about it, but it is a complex concept. Some aren't interested, but most just lack the context about how society works. Homeschooling your kid isn't going to help them develop that context. 

I have no idea where and why Orwell would be banned. I doubt it is in my school district, but it isn't tied closely to my curriculum. Machiavelli, Dante, Cervantes, and Chaucer are all part of my classroom library. 

Edit: Now that I think on it, I taught Animal Farm years ago when I still had ELA classes.

Edited December 29, 2020 by Hurlshot

[Guard Dog]

All this is in Massachusetts. If it’s going on anywhere else I haven’t heard about it. But it seems like the kind of thing that can spread. 
 

you are right of course. I think I am highly qualified to teach some subjects but certainly not others and homeschool kids miss out on a lot of socialization. But on the other hand the way they teach math these days I could probably save them a life time of calculator dependency By showing them the old fashion way. You know, actually memorizing multiplication tables and what not

[Hurlshort]

They still make them memorize the times tables.

I remember when my first kid was born, I had these grand ideals about teaching them all of the world religions and helping them becomes a spiritually flexible and transcendent individual. Needless to say, imparting my vast wisdom was easier said than done. Early on it's just about keeping the self destructive buggers alive, and now I'm just trying to keep my daughter from getting regretful tattoos behind my back.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Guard Dog said:

By the way this subject has piqued my interest a great deal as I’m sure you’ve noticed. After some subsequent web searches I found out Orwell is also on the banned list. Small surprise there. After all how can you mold the minds of the poor little dear is if they happen to read a book that teaches them how you are molding their minds. I bet Machiavelli is going to be a no go also. For highschoolers I mean

Pretty sure I've said this before, but just in case...

You should probably read this

[Gromnir]

1 hour ago, Guard Dog said:

All this is in Massachusetts. If it’s going on anywhere else I haven’t heard about it. But it seems like the kind of thing that can spread.

 

source. as usual, gd doesn't check sources. the school district in Massachusetts referenced in the recent wsj opinion piece (poorly sourced itself) did not ban orwell or homer. what happened were that books by homer and orwell were removed from the curriculum-- no longer part of required reading lists. weren't some kinda trigger nonsense which prompted the removal neither. arguable worse reasoning were actual at fault for removal: poor student performance. 

closest thing we heard which matches gd description is a district in california allowing for review o' a handful o' books. bipoc is asking for numerous books to be removed from required reading lists. again, the school district will not ban such books, but pending a public hearing, the books has been temporary sequestered from required reading lists. again, the school district is not banning or removing books, but they are making clear they is willing to listen to concerns from groups offended by... whatever.

personal, the idea o' removing of mice and men, adventures of huckleberry finn, and to kill a mockingbird annoys us as shortsighted if the reason for such removal is sensitivity to depictions of race or handicap. am equal annoyed if a massachusetts school district removes homer and orwell from reading required curriculum 'cause o' poor student performance. regardless, gd needs do better at accurate presenting facts, 'cause at this point we need assume he is talking out his kiester whenever he makes a claim.

gd beats stuffing out of straw men he builds from odds and ends half-heard on alt-right radio or taken from op-eds? 

*shrug*

gd gots weird and self contradictory notions 'bout democracy and liberty while refusing to make any effort to check sources before posting as fact anything he mighta' heard which aligns with opinions he already believes. 

serious, check sources. be more suspicious o' a source with which you agree.

HA! Good Fun!

Edited December 30, 2020 by Gromnir

[Hurlshort]

Such is the beauty and the tragedy of the school system. Every school site, district, county, and state has their own way of doing things. Standardization is impractical and unwieldy, and at the end of the day, you have to have a decent teacher to drive any of the content anyways.

I taught The Giver and Animal Farm when I taught ELA. Those were my main novels. Honestly that was all I had time for, too, and it helped that I was able to tie both into my Social Science curriculum. 

It is probably good I only teach SS now.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

33 minutes ago, Hurlshot said:

It is probably good I only teach SS now

Well if you listen to that lady who the WSJ strawmanned, SS (unless that means something completely different from Social Studies) is the perfect opportunity to make kids read such things as the books in question. Maybe you'd even get a write up for "de-cancelling" the classics or be accused of poisoning young children's minds, depending on how you talk about them in class. 

[Gromnir]

am suspecting in many neighborhoods with loads o' college educated parents, having a social studies teacher who introduces machiavelli and orwell to his/her middle school students will be applauded... just so long as the kids continue to get good grades. 

alternatively,

the problem with letting people make choices for themselves is they will all too often make choices you do not like. people are stoopid, bigoted and petty. people are generous, courageous and wise. when The People decide...

HA! Good Fun!

[rjshae]

NPR's Favorite Books Of 2020: The Book Concierge Is Back With 380+ Great Reads

Planning to read The City We Became: A Novel by N. K. Jemisin, Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, and Agency by William Gibson. I also need to read this year's Hugo and Nebula award winners.

[uuuhhii]

16 hours ago, melkathi said:

I just (9AM so 9 hours ago) finished Rythm of War (Book IV of the Stormlight Archives).

Like all Sanderson books it is very well planned out. This alone makes it a joy to read: knowing that information is there for a reason and not simply to fill pages. Especially as there are nearly 1300 of those once more.

I like that the story is constructed and build up through logical building blocks. While new information may be introduced, it never is the result of the author simply having a new idea and throwing it in there, disregarding what they had written up 'till then. True, I may just be happy that close to 2000 pages ago some information was introduced which had me go "Oh, that in one of the future books this will happen" and it now happened. I like being right. I also like feeling clever.

On the other hand, I find every Stormlight Archives book manages to take a character and make their chapters tedious for at least half the book. While Kaladin was a great underdog hero in the first book, he became less enjoyable to read in book two. Now, his continued fight with depression has become easier to read - he no longer appears selfish, just in need of serious need of psychotherapy. And that works. Perhaps Sanderson has done some more research into depression and has a better understanding on the subject now. Still, the depression was always there, just not always communicated as well.

Shallan on the other hand is now the character who really needs to truly evolve. Sanderson seems to be unable to properly write female characters. Or more than his signature female character. And as Shallan gets so much more page time than nay of the others ever got, the problems with this archetype show more. Women don't grow by pretending to not be themselves. They don't grow by making up fake personalities. It worked in Mistborn for Vin/Valette because she had to infiltrate high society and suddenly a whole new world opened to the starving street urchin. But it can't be copied onto every other female protagonist. Vin, Vivenna, Firefight, Shai, Shallan, they all merge into one character, with Shallan becoming the one who makes the reader (i.e. me) say "Enough already. Yes, young women try to find their place in the world. They don't do it by playing dress up as if they were a Barbie doll." What seemingly has been presented as character growth is an awkwardly written multiple personality disorder. And woosh, in book four of the Stormlight Archives, after torturing the reader for over 5000 pages, Sanderson acknowledges this. Shallan isn't growing, she is at best regressing, but mostly a nutjob. But the length it took to reach this realization makes me wonder if perhaps this is the one part that wasn't planned. That perhaps readers did write in all these misgivings I didn't air.

The biggest hurdle to enjoying the book is, as in the whole series, the flashbacks. While the information may be important and give insights, it breaks up the flow of the story the reader is actually invested in. Worse, in this book the "one year ago" actually is the "now of two books ago. We have seen Venli being Venli at the time. We didn't like her. Nobody liked her. Yes, now Venli also doesn't like herself, but the rest of us don't truly need a reminder of who she is.

What is interesting about the book is that the Cosmere meta-plot that bound most of Sanderson's stories together (Mistborn, Elantris, Warbreaker, Stormlight Archives, Emperor's Soul etc) is now merging into the main plot. Hoit is no longer a cameo sprinkled through the story in a Where is Waldo for the fans. It remains to be seen if this meta-plot, that has been building over so many years, will live up to the build up. At least Vasher says the truth in this book: "Hoit is an ****". Takes one to know one, Vasher.

stormlight are just so pointlessly long

rather reread any mistborn era2 than read another massive waste of text that goes nowhere and have a lot of spren in it

[melkathi]

13 hours ago, uuuhhii said:

stormlight are just so pointlessly long

rather reread any mistborn era2 than read another massive waste of text that goes nowhere and have a lot of spren in it

The spren are... problematic in the way Sanderson has written them. The simple spren are just world building. The intelligent Spren he tries to show as alien to the material plane. So he writes the curious ones, like Sylphrena or Pattern, similar to children in their demeanor. That makes them quickly turn into comic relief that can feel out of place and distracting. The other honorspren, like Notum, haughty and stern feel more appropriate. Until the trial, but that could be seen as Adolin's human influence on Notum.

Timbre, who doesn't talk but communicates with Venli through humming, works better.

Blended is the best written spren. Her speech is sufficiently different from humans. (She would stop talking at this point) She has this thing about is and are. So instead of saying that people will accept and cling to easy explanations instead of checking if they are true, she states: Easy explanations are. It isn't overdone, so it works. Just enough of it to make you halt and think "shouldn't there be more to this sentence?"

It works because being a creature of the cognitive realm, where abstract ideas have form and are people, it makes sense that she refers to them as such. So she doesn't say "I am stupid" but "My stupidity is". You aren't honorable, your honor is - and with all those honorspren walking around, she might even be able to point it out to you.

Edited December 30, 2020 by melkathi

[majestic]

I'm currently taking a break from the Dune series and reading Lord of the Rings. This is a sort-of re-read, I've read the books two times before. Once in a newer German translation, once in the original language and now in the original German translation from the 60ies by Margaret Carroux (who worked on the books together with Tolkien, actually).

As weird as that may sound (if nothing else, Tolkien was a master of English, obviously), that might just be my favorite version of the books so far, although I just started with Return of the King, so I can't be completely certain yet.

There's just something about the language that makes German feel better suited to the sort of medieval fantasy setting and mythology that Tolkien wrote the Lord of the Rings to be. This of course is purely subjective, but it also extends to the movies and the German dubs. I usually don't watch dubs any more unless there's no other way (i.e. no subtitles if the movie isn't in a language I understand) except for the Lord of the Rings films. It just feels that much better.

Okay, no, I also think that certain other films benefitted from rewritten dialogues. The German version of Dungeons and Dragons is still a terrible film, but the dialogue isn't nearly as bad as the original one is, and the dub of Mel Brook's Men in Tights is a good deal funnier than the original. At least I think so. I found it somewhat strange when I first got online and started talking about films to see that Men in Tights wasn't universally considered to be the funniest Mel Brooks film. Well... until I saw the original. Yikes.

[Guard Dog]

On 12/29/2020 at 6:58 PM, Gromnir said:

 

gd gots weird and self contradictory notions 'bout democracy and liberty

HA! Good Fun!

This has nothing to do with that. It's just commenting on a stupid policy implemented for a stupid reason. We don't ONLY talk about politics and not every single thing is life needs to be framed in a political discussion. Yeah there is a anti-western culture bent behind this and that is stupid but it has exactly nothing to do with democracy, liberty, the constitution of any of that. 

But I DO think tasking kids to read books like Call of the Wild, A Tale of Two Cities, Huck Finn, etc despite some aspect of them offending modern sensibilities does them a real service. When I was a kid, if left to my own devices I'd likely have read only comic books and pulp sci-fi. Those three books I just listed awakened a love of reading and literature I have to this very day. If I hadn't been required to read them I likely never would have and I'd be worse off for it.  

[Guard Dog]

Now reading:

&

[Malcador]

Taking a break from non fiction for something suitably pulpy

At least it's not bolter porn.  Yet.

[melkathi]

On 1/2/2021 at 3:16 AM, majestic said:

I'm currently taking a break from the Dune series and reading Lord of the Rings. This is a sort-of re-read, I've read the books two times before. Once in a newer German translation, once in the original language and now in the original German translation from the 60ies by Margaret Carroux (who worked on the books together with Tolkien, actually).

As weird as that may sound (if nothing else, Tolkien was a master of English, obviously), that might just be my favorite version of the books so far, although I just started with Return of the King, so I can't be completely certain yet.

 

 

 

Is it this version?

Margaret Carroux's translation was fantastic.

 

What Dune books are you reading?