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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   1789 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 4, 2025

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?

Still on the Iliad and Lovecraft. Picking up Horkheimer and Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment.

I read Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde last week. Very entertaining and remarkably well-structured, even when you know the twist. Having read lots of Lovecraft, I can now properly contextualise him within the Gothic horror lineage (although my understanding is that he wrote his stories in a self-consciously retro style, almost like a genre throwback).

Currently halfway through Spoilt Rotten: The Toxic Cult of Sentimentality by Theodore Dalrymple, a writer I first encountered via Scott's controversial post "Radicalizing the Romanceless". As the title might suggest, he's a grumpy old man without apology, and his polemical ranting about how much modern Britain (and the Western world more generally) sucks is tremendous fun.

I needed something to read, and this might be it. Only a few pages in, and he's thrashing phonics, so he's on to something.

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