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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   Edited 1yr ago   4976 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 13, 2022

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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So, what are you reading?

I'm still on Flowers for Algernon. Haven't been able to make much progress.

Still on Moby Dick.

I also picked up some Mishima, but I'm not making much progress. I think I'm not well-calibrated for manly authors who write manly books for manly men writing about nothing but emotions and introspection from page one.

Also the Kekulé Problem, which is short, but for some reason I stopped halfway through and haven't gone back for a while.

Which Mishima are you reading? I read The Temple of the Golden Pavilion a few months ago and thought it was great. I couldn't get into it when I tried reading it a few years ago but this time around I found it enjoyable and relatively light but with an interesting perspective. Cool, stylish imagery and a funny takedown of Buddhism that uncannily mirrors a lot of criticism of academia today.

I started with Spring Snow. Bad pick?

I'm not familiar with that one, but scanning the wikipedia article on it it looks a bit more dense than The Temple. I'd recommend The Temple if you want something that's not too hard to get into.

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