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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   4247 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 10, 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?

Still on Hurewitz' The Struggle for Palestine. Slow progress. The topic of education has stuck in my mind. Jews educated young Zionists in schools on the Continent, while Arab Palestinians couldn't help but be influenced by their local peers.

Zurayk made an interesting comment in his book The Meaning of the Disaster that Jews spent their youths being influenced by all kinds of "isms." If we pare down his evident outgroup prejudice (he includes Naziism), there was a point being made there. From an Arab point of view, the Jews were importing a great deal of the rest of the world's thought. But taken literally, it seems that the Arabs lacked the desire to empathize because they were busy berating their own people in a nationalist educational program.

Meanwhile, the "national home" of the Jews became a done deal, and because of the pressure for emigration from Europe and its underlying reasons, Arab maximalist goals, rightly or wrongly, moved further and further away from their grasp.

I'm about to start Pride and Prejudice, but my partner has told me that Austen was more of a pioneer than a great writer. After Little Women I'm hoping for something of similar quality, which absolutely blew me away. It was perhaps the best book I've ever read.

Anyway, curious if folks here have good classical novel recommendations they love?

Austen is actually pretty enjoyable, I feel. I had a great time reading Mansfield Park, it never felt like a slog to me.

I could talk about 19th-century fiction all day. One book that I think maybe doesn't get enough love these days would be The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins.

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