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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   3601 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 14, 2024

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 Master and his Emissary. Not much progress.

I finished up Beloved, which I thought was an astonishing work of literature. The main theme is about how slavery obliterates everything it comes into contact with, and specifically, the identity of the enslaved.

It’s a strange, metaphorical book. There is so much that is open to interpretation that a reader could spend hours thinking about the books true meaning. I see now why it was so popular in high school English classes; it’s an endless ocean for critique and analysis.

I’m onto King Rat by James Clavell. I tried reading Shogun a couple years ago, got about 50% of the way through it, and gave up. I found the plot very slow and the tendency of the Japanese to commit sepuku at the drop of a hat off-putting. King Rat seems much tighter and more interesting so far.

Did you ever finish Monte Cristo?

The main theme is about how slavery obliterates everything it comes into contact with, and specifically, the identity of the enslaved.

C. V. Gheorghiu's The 25th Hour, a whirlwind tour of European labor camps and concentration camps during World War II, also does a lot with this theme. It's fairly didactic though. His other book La Seconde Chance is a work of genius, and much better written; unfortunately it has not been translated to English.

Did you ever finish Monte Cristo?

Inching through, may take a while at this rate. Not much to add at this point. The prison part is just about over and it seems a lot smaller this time, perhaps because I'm older. Hoping to figure out what makes the Count tick when he resurfaces.

King Rat is fantastic. Btw, flight lieutenant = captain in the UK, which clarifies some of the dynamics in the story.

I re-read Shogun last year for the first time in 20 years. Is the plot slow? Well, I also read Crime & Punishment and Brothers Karamazov last year, and compared to those the plot is a rocketship.

I found the plot moved faster the second time because I was familiarised with all those aspects of foreign culture and language that are used. More importantly, on reflection the feudal Japanese culture is a critical plot mechanism; the extreme honour based social structure is exactly what the main character has to adapt to in order to understand and participate in the power struggle he finds himself caught in. And the more his understanding improves the more his agency develops giving the result that the plot is pushed along faster.

I won't say that it's a "great" book but it was good enough to make me think I should get around to reading the next book in Clavell's Asian Saga. On the other hand I won't be looking for any more Dostoevsky.

Perhaps slow is not the correct description. Bloated is probably more accurate. I thought it had a very Game of Thrones-esque style, that is, lots of characters, lots of side quests and plot tangents, while not clearly delineating the main plot.

The other issue I had, was the unrelenting machismo of the main character and the overdone honor-culture of the Japanese. I’m not saying it’s a bad book, it just didn’t suit my tastes.

I had a similar response to Shogun. I got halfway through (I have a two-volume set) and just didn't feel motivated to pick up the next volume. It wasn't boring per se, but there wasn't anything about it that particularly interested me.

Shogun is one of my all time favorite novels. My mother and I are extremely excited for the new miniseries. I think it is a layered novel, with a lot going on. I keep meaning to read King Rat, but I've also read Whirlwind (About the Iranian revolution) and Tai-Pan...honestly they both left me very flat, by comparison to Shogun.

A lot of Shogun's plot is autobiographical, Clavell was a POW in Singapore under the Japanese occupation. His experiences inform Blackthorn's narrative.

Oh nice, I didn't know about the new miniseries. I'll add it to the download queue.

I'm content to take a punt on Tai-Pan next seeing as it's the next chronological installment, hopefully it's okay even if it doesn't measure up to Shogun.

Tai-Pan wasn't terrible. Just meandered a lot more, compared to Shogun nothing really happens.

Tai-Pan is also imo quite inferior compared to its "sequel", Noble House

Having read all but Whirlwind - it’s all pretty good at least, though the posthumously published Gaijin suffers from awful proofreading.

Finished the War Nerd Iliad. It was interesting as an adaptation, in quality somewhere between The Trojan Women and Song of Achilles, but not really a translation. What I think has lead to it having a high reputation among its fans is that it wasn't afraid to make choices, and I think that's what made it so compulsively readable. Where by comparison a lot of modern translations try to be academic, to capture as much of the original meaning (or vagueness) as possible. There were parts of his interpretation I found kinda lame (like his conceit that Achilles was like 12 feet tall or something) or that I disagree with (his ironic but definite approach to prophecy), but those represent legitimate interpretations of the Iliad that one could argue the Greeks hearing the original would have understood. By making decisions like that give the interpretation power, where an effort to express exact word-for-word meaning can end up flat. It's a short and super easy read, I'd recommend it to anyone, as a point of interest if you have read the Iliad, as an introduction if you are about to.

Started the Good Soldier Svejk. It's really a fun work of satire. About a hundred pages in.

Wrapped up Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Looking for audiobook recommendations to use up some Audible credits I'm accumulating if anyone has good picks.

I also just finished The War Nerd Iliad. I found it amazing, accessible to modern readers yet I think it also captures the tone of the original well. The fine line between gruesome and sad descriptions of death and 'glorious' muscular war.

I also loved that it's faithful to the original structure (omitting the Catalogue of Ships, thankfully).

Really stayed with me, and I found it better than War Music by Christopher Louge .

After @RandomRanger gave such a glowing recommendation last week, I read Theft of Fire. I will also join him in recommending that people read it. I can't say much that he didn't already say, except that it is one of the very few instances where I was primarily interested in the characters, not the plot. The plot is fine, I'm not saying it's bad. But as a man who firmly believes that plot matters more than characters, it says something that the characters in this book are so interesting that they wound up being the most gripping part for me

The only downside is that I'm looking forward to the next book now, and I have a long time to wait (since the book was just released in November). I hope that the author sticks with it, because I definitely want to read more.

Well there's no doubt that he'll write a sequel, he managed to go viral and get his book out of the '99% that no one reads', probably made decent money.

Don't know how I missed that the characters were interesting. I too am in the plot-first camp. On reflection I agree, the plot primarily serves as a vehicle for the human interactions. It's well-integrated which is probably why I just said it was 'gripping' vaguely, without further specifying why.

Yeah, I guess I'm just wary because I've been burned by situations like this before. Also, I might be feeling a bit frustrated because they never did fuck, and I want to see that resolved lol. But it was a good read!

Well they held hands and slept together, that's close enough.

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