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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   3633 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 26, 2023

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 picking up Zurayk's The Meaning of the Disaster, which established the term Nakba (ie. the disaster) related to the Palestinians. I've seen it mentioned several times in articles by pro-Israel writers, typically to point out that the "disaster" was that Arab countries failed in their war against Israel, and not just the unprovoked displacement of the Palestinians. I wondered how the source text itself would read.

It is refreshing to read a foreign opinion on the topic, however dated. One does wonder if his take on international Jewry, which reads a lot like conspiracy theories of the West, was an indigenous one born from dealing with the West from the outside, or an imported one.

Also picking up Herzl's The Jewish State.

Started listening to Little Women on audiobook. It's quite nice so far, it's a very sweet and cute depiction of somewhat old timely family dynamics.

I haven't really had enough downtime to read something long, so I've been listening to audiobooks recently on my commute. I finished The Martian a few weeks ago, then picked up the Rob Inglis narration of The Fellowship of the Ring, which I'm getting close to finishing (left off today just as the party left Lothlorien). I'd never read The Martian before and the last time I read LOTR was around 2008.

The Martian was great, solid recommend. No book review or anything, I'm just happy to be fitting fiction I haven't been algorithm'd into back into my life.

Has anyone read any of Yahtzee Croshaw's books? I have Differently Morphous on audiobook but haven't really prioritized it yet. Just wondering if anyone has any favorites (or dis-favorites I guess).

Reminder to anyone reading this: If any of these books sound vaguely interesting, you could be reading one of them in approximately 90 seconds! Go to https://annas-archive.org, type in the name (and author if the name isn't specific), click the right one, click one of the links to pdfs or epubs under 'slow external downloads', and then get to reading! Don't feel bad about piracy, you weren't going to read it otherwise, and some of the authors are already dead. You can always buy a real copy later.

Actually, you may need an epub reader application on windows, I don't think it has one built in.

Picked up Wine and War by Don and Petie Kladstrup after a hiatus. It's a light, informal history of the French wine industry during the Nazi occupation.

I'm reading Camille DeAngelis's Bones and All, having enjoyed Luca Guadagnino's film adaptation far more than I expected to, to the point that it's my favourite film released in 2022 aside from Tár. (The film of Bones and All incidentally represents a massive step-up in quality from Guadagnino's previous collaboration with Timothée Chalamet Call Me by Your Name, about which I still cannot understand the hype.)

I'm about 80 pages in and it is a gut-wrenching read. DeAngelis is doing an incredible job of creating a character who is both completely fantastical and truly monstrous (a sixteen-year-old girl with an uncontrollable urge to kill and eat young boys her age) and making her surprisingly plausible and achingly sympathetic. The descriptions of Maren's murders are nightmarish and nauseating, and yet in spite of that, all I want to do is give her a hug and tell her everything's going to be okay. I thought this might be a case in which a director takes a silly pulp novel and adapts it into something which transcends its roots (e.g. Hitchcock), but so far it seems like the film producers had some very strong source material to work with.

Started on the second book of the Aubrey Maturin series (the books the Master and Commander movie was based on). I've heard it described as Jane Austen at sea but since peace broke out and Jack doesn't have a ship it's been more like Jane Austen on land so far. I'm liking this one more than the first one so far, maybe because it has less of a wall of nautical terminology to get through.

You'll pick up on the terminology as you read the series. Very fun read, I hope you enjoy it!

I've been working my way through the series for the past couple years and also struggled with all the naval jargon at first. Something that really helped me out was a pair of reader's companions by Dean King: "A Sea of Words" and "Harbors and High Seas." I've got both on my kindle and constantly switch over to them to check out sail plans, maps, vocabulary, etc. Both cover the entire 21-book series.

A deep dive into the feasibility of Drexlerian nanotechnology. I haven't had the time to read much fiction, or even work on my novel, if anyone noticed heh.

God knows this blog post is long enough to be a novella at the very least

the unprovoked displacement

What "unprovoked" displacement? Local Arabs had been fighting Jews for several decades by then, and had several successful mass murders under their belts. What does the word "unprovoked" mean in your dictionary?

Of course, the "disaster" was that the goal that they - local Arab population and outside Arab countries - set out to achieve, which is, in modern terms, genocide of the Jews and ethnic cleansing of Israel's territory - not only has not been achieved, but led to significant worsening of the situation for many Arabs. It is a completely accurate description of the result of their decisions to reject a peaceful coexistence and go for the war of elimination instead. That ended in a disaster for them.

You misread me. The articles were by pro-Israel writers who were arguing that the Nakba was related to Arab aggression and didn't just happen by Israel's choice (ie. wasn't just unprovoked).

OK in this case I am sorry for getting it wrong.

No worries.

Does listening count? Currently listening to Fear and Loathing in the New Jerusalem, Darryl Cooper's ~25 hour long podcast on the origins of the Israel-Palestine conflict. About 5 hours to go. It's really good. It does sometimes feel like it gets bogged down in detail but if you like detail then that might be a bonus. And it certainly answers the "what is these people's deal anyway" question for both sides of the conflict. Probably biggest highlight for this space is at one point he mentions Scott's essay Meditations on Moloch.

Does listening count?

It always counts.

Goldsworthy's 'Rome and Persia'. Key takeaways:

  1. Armenia was ungovernable and a source of endless pain
  2. We know very little about Persia (especially in the Parthian period). Most of what we do know comes from Roman sources.
  3. Rome and Persia eventually converged to the same archetype - smallish field armies dominated by heavy cavalry, professional siege corps, long fortified borders covering a wealthy near-defenceless core territory, endless difficulties with invading nomads.
  4. Succession was really difficult for iron age empires.
  5. Nearly all Rome-Persia wars were limited wars, waged for loot, to gain prestige and avenge previous losses. Both Rome and Persia claimed to be paramount rulers of the civilized world, so they had to keep one-upping eachother. Complete destruction or subjugation of the enemy was too hard and too risky nearly all of the time.
  6. Sometimes relations were quite warm, with Roman emperors hosting Persian heirs and being pleasant to eachother. Trade flowed freely except in wartime, neither state really had an economic policy.

An interesting read, though it feels a bit like getting on a treadmill with all these names flying at you, only for them to disappear in a few pages.

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