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

[Guard Dog]

Now reading. About half way in. This is a strange one

[uuuhhii]

the never hero

not as interesting as the synopsis

author seems to be trying too hard on a lot of things

[Raithe]

On the related to reading.. especially for those folks who like their David Weber / Honor Harrington sci-fi.

Essence of Wonder - Show notes for episode 1: Warfighting in space with David Weber and Friends

 

[Skazz]

I've been brought up in a non-Roald Dahl household. Today, I have read "The Witches" for the first time ever.

I think I'm traumatized now.

[Raithe]

2 hours ago, Skazz said:

I've been brought up in a non-Roald Dahl household. Today, I have read "The Witches" for the first time ever.

I think I'm traumatized now.

These are the classics of an English childhood.

Every UK child reads Roald Dahl books in primary school. And we pretty much all watch Watership Down before we turn 8.

 

 

[Skazz]

13 hours ago, Raithe said:

These are the classics of an English childhood.

Every UK child reads Roald Dahl books in primary school. And we pretty much all watch Watership Down before we turn 8.

I haven't seen Watership Down either, but then again I grew up in rural Poland where my diet consisted mostly of Donald Duck comic books. As such, these classics are pretty much a brave new world to me.

In Dahl's case, I most certainly did not expect to be treated to lovely dialogue about gutting and disemboweling kids. Neat.

Edited April 20, 2020 by Skazz

[Guard Dog]

Interesting article on how Sci-Fi reflects the fears of the time: https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-rise-of-dismal-science-fiction?utm_source=pocket-newtab

[Guard Dog]

This is another book that has been on my "to do list". I started reading it today:

[Gromnir]

On 4/19/2020 at 10:34 AM, Skazz said:

I've been brought up in a non-Roald Dahl household. Today, I have read "The Witches" for the first time ever.

I think I'm traumatized now.

is worth noting how 'bout a half-dozen o' the alfred hitch**** presents episodes were roald dahl tales. neil gaiman also uses horror elements in most o' his children's books. might be a curiously english affectation to wanna scare children.

converse, all too many american authors who wrote children stories, including steinbeck, e.b. white and lloyd alexander, were preoccupied with killing beloved pets and animal companions. am only half joking when we suggest if the hobbit were written by an american, smaug woulda' been bilbo's dearest companion and the hairy-footed hero woulda' been forced to put the dragon down as the tear-jerking climax o' the story.

HA! Good Fun!

 

[Guard Dog]

This is a very interesting read on how modern fiction and modern interpretation of old stories have been re-cast as a conflict between good & evil: The Good Guy / Bad Guy Myth

I have never been a fan of fantasy fiction. Usually I would describe it as unoriginal or just dismiss it by saying "it just sucks". There are some exceptions of course. But I could never put my finger on why I disliked it. This article cleared some of that up. The lone hero vs the evil king/dark lord etc. trope.  How often does fantasy give us a conflict between to equally flawed but equally sympathetic and equally worthy protagonists and antagonists? Not often. Mostly the antagonist is evil for evil's sake. GRRM said something I really liked once. The villain of your story should be the hero if the story were about them. Things used to be that way. Neither Achillies nor Hector were good or bad. Nor were Agamemnnon and Priam. 

Literary fiction still gets it. Somewhat. Humphrey van Weyden, the protagonist of the Sea Wolf was in conflict with the antagonist Wolf Larson BECASE Hump was moral and Larson immoral. But at the same time neither were good or evil and both were very sympathetic. 

[majestic]

Eh, does that link in all honesty compare monomyth based stories like Star Wars to epic poems and works of literature featuring a classical tragic hero (point in case, Hamlet) to make a point that classical literature never was about good versus evil before the rise of nationalism? Not only is that painting a varied and long subject with immense history in extremely broad strokes it is also flawed, I think, because that central conflict was always there, just not externalized as much, and the differences especially when compared to traditional folklore can also be attributed to the duality of good and evil as separate entities as taught by Abrahamic religion (instead of being an internal conflict beholden to divine will, i.e. fate as it was for classical Greek drama and epic poetry).

Of course Hector would never stop being Trojan as much as Achilles would always be Greek. As playthings of the gods they simply had no choice. How would Darth Vader be possible in such a framework? That concept would be ridiculous to the people of the time as much as the concept of the gods controlling and playing with humanity is (well should be) to us if applied to the real world. Homer would scoff at Darth Vader changing sides? Yes, probably. Because were Star Wars a classical Greek epic, the force would be a capital "Force" and thus (a) "God" and the conlcusion of the conflict fated. Or if it were a Greek drama Luke would probably vanquish Vader, be utterly destroyed by Palpatine and then Zeus would lower himself down from the heavens to set right the wrongs.

Deus ex machina was a staple of Greek drama. Today it's considered bad form (this has also something do to with how pervasive the concept of fate is in culture, no?).

Back to your point I'd also argue that the term literary ficiton is somewhat arbitrary. Literary fiction is, essentially, what the literary academia decides that it is (not that academic consensus is a bad thing, it just takes a while to be formed). Go back a century and you'll have people arguing that Jane Austen wrote romance pulp and will never be considered literary fiction in much in the same way that students of the liberal arts these days argue that fantasy fiction or video games will never be true art and worthy of study. The concept alone seems ridiculous, a tenured professor at Oxford teaching Classical games of the 90ies?

Bad literature is bad, but fantasy fiction isn't the only genre that has a lot of terrible books. I'll never get tired of bringing it up but the absolutely worst novels of the past few years were firmly in the housewife porn and romance genre and born of ascended fan fiction. Please, go and read Anna Todd's After series and then come back and argue that R.A. Salvatore writes bad Forgotten Realm novels.

I mean he does, but it's by far not the worst you could come across.

Edited April 27, 2020 by majestic

[ShadySands]

Hmm, I never really thought about it that way or at all really. Thanks for that!

[Guard Dog]

Now reading:

 

Some of the conclusions are surprising. Some are on par with what I've already been thinking. It's kind of cool reading your own reasoning in a book written by an expert of the subject.

[Raithe]

The latest audio drama adaption of.. The Sandman

[Guard Dog]

Now reading:

[Maedhros]

Re-reading the Dune series. Probably 15 years since I last read them. I enjoyed them just as much as I did the first time around. Most people seem to have only read the first one in the series, but I really enjoyed #4, God Emperor of Dune this time around. A guy turns himself into a giant worm, and rules the galaxy as a peace-enforcing tyrant for 3500 years to save humanity. What's not to like?

“For what do you hunger, Lord?” Moneo ventured. “For a humankind which can make truly long-term decisions. Do you know the key to that ability, Moneo?” “You have said it many times, Lord. It is the ability to change your mind.”

 

 

[Amentep]

I tried four times to read Dune - never could finish it.

[Sarex]

3 hours ago, Maedhros said:

Re-reading the Dune series. Probably 15 years since I last read them. I enjoyed them just as much as I did the first time around. Most people seem to have only read the first one in the series, but I really enjoyed #4, God Emperor of Dune this time around. A guy turns himself into a giant worm, and rules the galaxy as a peace-enforcing tyrant for 3500 years to save humanity. What's not to like?

“For what do you hunger, Lord?” Moneo ventured. “For a humankind which can make truly long-term decisions. Do you know the key to that ability, Moneo?” “You have said it many times, Lord. It is the ability to change your mind.”

I never could get past book 4. I read it so long ago I don't even remember what I thought about it. I just remember being so bored in book 5.

[Raithe]

I've been reading a bunch of translated Chinese Wuxia / Xanxia novels the past couple of years, and they can be interesting. However, one thing that flags up an awful lot in any set in the "modern" day world is a slew of casual racism against other nations, some very off-putting stereotypes of other countries, and this sense that China is actually an innocent, naive, very bullied underdog that is picked on by everybody else in the world.  It's hard to figure out if it's all a cultural thing by the authors, or just stuff they put in to make sure they don't get censored (or even censured) by The Party...

[the_dog_days]

The wuxia resurgence of the 50's was centered around Hong Kong. Which can explain where the earlier examples of that mentality came from. As far as I know, wuxia is still very much a Hong Kong genre but Chinese entertainment in general does seem to follow the same formula you describe.

[Malcador]

On 6/12/2020 at 7:27 PM, Amentep said:

I tried four times to read Dune - never could finish it.

You used to be cool, man.

Reading "Show Stopper!: The Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT and the Next Generation at Microsoft", nothing too technical but is an interesting history book, so to speak.  Shame there's not more of these about game development, Masters of Doom and Blood Sweat and Pixels were enjoyable reads.

[Sarex]

On 6/13/2020 at 11:17 AM, Raithe said:

I've been reading a bunch of translated Chinese Wuxia / Xanxia novels the past couple of years, and they can be interesting. However, one thing that flags up an awful lot in any set in the "modern" day world is a slew of casual racism against other nations, some very off-putting stereotypes of other countries, and this sense that China is actually an innocent, naive, very bullied underdog that is picked on by everybody else in the world.  It's hard to figure out if it's all a cultural thing by the authors, or just stuff they put in to make sure they don't get censored (or even censured) by The Party...

Most people will defend their own country. This is nothing new. Also they were never really that PC, that is a thing of the west in my experience.

As for Wuxia, I kind of got feed up with it after a couple of years (5 years I think). They all end up being the same and even if they are not, the business model under which they operate makes reading them tedious. When you make money by word count you tend to get a lot of repetition and filler crap.

[Gromnir]

On 6/12/2020 at 4:27 PM, Amentep said:

I tried four times to read Dune - never could finish it.

our favorite author is james joyce and we didn't honest finish ulysses until we were compelled to read complete as part o' a class at university. even today am willing to admit we dislike ulysses to a point which approaches loathing. have read ulysses a total o' three times and each were more excruciating than the last.

dune were not so punishing for us as joyce's magnum opus, but by midway through the third dune book, mr. herbert had exhausted all the good will he built up with us as a reader o' earlier works.

am not certain why we eventual read white plague after the complete and total nightmare which were children. kinda glad we did soldier on with herbert 'cause while the prose and characters were utter pedestrian in herbert's book 'bout terrorists unleashing a bioweapon targeting human fertility, it were conceptual intriguing enough to be worth the slog.

HA! Good Fun!

[Skazz]

On 6/18/2020 at 10:06 AM, Gromnir said:

our favorite author is james joyce and we didn't honest finish ulysses until we were compelled to read complete as part o' a class at university. even today am willing to admit we dislike ulysses to a point which approaches loathing. have read ulysses a total o' three times and each were more excruciating than the last.

How do you feel about Finnegans Wake, I wonder?

Edited June 19, 2020 by Skazz
fixed typo

[Skazz]

I'm reviewing some of my old university study material about the history of the UK (for reasons). I was surprised to discover that the entire time period and phenomenon of British colonialism has been reduced to a measly paragraph. Even when combined with stuff about the East India Company, it's literally less than one page long, which I feel to be super disappointing given how much spotlight is given i.e. to the Tudors. No Newfoundland, no India, no Gandhi, nothing. Just vagueness.

That said, I've recently developed a serious itch to scratch when it comes to the general topic of colonialism and its echoes, British or otherwise. I'm in the mood to do some comprehensive reading, but I don't know where to start. I feel like it's one of those issues that may easily turn into a politically-charged minefield, and I, well, I just want to be less ignorant on the matter. To better understand things.

If possible, could anyone recommend me a good book or two on the subject?

Edited July 2, 2020 by Skazz