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Please stop jamming an apostrophe into Finnegans Wake.
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Jun 12, 2018 23:15
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| # ? May 29, 2024 06:56 |
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You put the apostrophe into Finn'egans Wake to make it seem alien and Lovecraftian.
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Jun 13, 2018 00:01
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TheIncredulousHulk posted:Hotter take - the specifics of magic only matter to the extent they undermine or reinforce the dramatic mechanics of the rest of the story The only valid use of magic in fiction is to contribute to the worldbuilding 
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Jun 13, 2018 00:34
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"But it has such a comprehensive magic system!" = fastest way to make me run far in the opposite direction.
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Jun 13, 2018 02:03
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:Why not simply read East Asian literature instead of genre garbage? If you want to discuss it in good faith, there are two main reasons why. The first is that unless you speak an East Asian Language at an incredibly proficient level, you're relying on a translator and how good the translation is, and is to you personally, depends on the skill of the translator and the decisions they make. Do they keep idioms as literal as possible and explain them with footnotes? Do they look for an appropriate English idiom that gets the right idea across while sacrificing the flavor that you're actually reading the book for? Do they tone down the content to match the "sensibilities" of a western audience? The second reason is an extension of the first. Books written in English for a western audience take for granted that the audience will be familiar with references and allusions to the western canon. Likewise, books written in an East Asian language for a specific culture take that for granted as well. Translators have to consider how to approach these and there's no one best way to do it. It usually means that there are going to be a lot of footnotes and outside research put on the reader to get the most out of the story. So in short, people tend not to read those books just because it turns reading into quite a lot of work. Doing work isn't a justification not to read them, it's just not something a lot of people are going to be interested in doing as a leisurely pastime or while killing time on an airplane. For another perspective, I'm an English teacher in Asia. I've taught tons of novels to my students and several of these students speak English at near fluent levels. They have zero problem reading the words on the page and getting the gist of what is happening. But they don't understand any of the references to the Bible, TV shows referenced in the text, historical events, or general pop culture. And often times they don't know that they're missing a reference. If a reference is part of an innuendo or double-meaning, the student isn't confused about the literal meaning of the passage and doesn't realize that there's more depth to the story and that they need to look something up. They really need an ambassador of the culture to take them through the novel. If you're reading in your free time and you don't have access to that, even with the internet at your disposal, I can't begrudge you not wanting to read books where you're not the intended audience. It's certainly more enriching to dig deep into a novel from another culture, but you're basically doing an undergraduate degree to actually enjoy it. There's a reason why books like "Shogun" are so popular. They give exposure to a foreign culture while being from the perspective of an outsider that the audience can relate to.
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Jun 13, 2018 05:23
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finnegans wank
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Jun 13, 2018 05:26
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There are books written by east Asian authors which use Asian-inspired settings but which are written and intended to be read in English. A lot of silkpunk, for example.
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Jun 13, 2018 05:51
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Stuporstar posted:"But it has such a comprehensive magic system!" = fastest way to make me run far in the opposite direction. As much as I like rules and order, the more magic is explained the worse it is as a plot device. It's better to just present magic as is, and try not to contradict yourself. Even Harry Potter, which once you start trying to define and quantify it everything falls apart, manages to make it work because the magic is just introduced to drive things along and nothing is inherently contradictory or something you can just ignore for the sake of the story and characters.
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Jun 13, 2018 05:54
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Reene posted:There are books written by east Asian authors which use Asian-inspired settings but which are written and intended to be read in English. A lot of silkpunk, for example. "An Artist of the Floating World" and the works of Kazuo Ishiguro come to mind as well. He's ethnically Japanese, but is a British author who frequently writes in a Japanese setting, but they're intended for an English speaking audience. But there are far fewer books written by multicultural authors specifically for a western audience than western authors who borrow flavor.
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Jun 13, 2018 05:58
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^^ I was thinking of JY Yang specifically myself. But yeah there are tons of examples. I also think you guys are confusing over-explaining magic within the narrative like you see in books like, well, TNotW and everything Sanderson writes, with the magic in-setting being something that is codeified and relatively well-understood by the people using it. The former is bad because over-explaining that kind of poo poo in general is bad. The latter is fine if that's the role magic is serving in your story; it hasn't stopped being magic just because the people using it know what they're doing.
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Jun 13, 2018 06:10
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Atlas Hugged posted:If you want to discuss it in good faith, there are two main reasons why. The first is that unless you speak an East Asian Language at an incredibly proficient level, you're relying on a translator and how good the translation is, and is to you personally, depends on the skill of the translator and the decisions they make. Do they keep idioms as literal as possible and explain them with footnotes? Do they look for an appropriate English idiom that gets the right idea across while sacrificing the flavor that you're actually reading the book for? Do they tone down the content to match the "sensibilities" of a western audience? its not 'basically doing an undergraduate degree' to pick up the penguin classic ed of a book from china or wherever and read the notes and the introduction
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Jun 13, 2018 06:36
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A human heart posted:its not 'basically doing an undergraduate degree' to pick up the penguin classic ed of a book from china or wherever and read the notes and the introduction You can pick up any book off the shelf and enjoy it on a surface level, sure. No one is going to dispute that. But that's not what I said. You can read the introduction, which in my experience more often than not just say what the translator was thinking as they translated and don't go into a load of specifics, and still miss out on all of the cultural references that you couldn't possibly be familiar with. It's not like there are a handful of these things sprinkled throughout the book and the notes will say, "Please be aware that references to Taoism occur on pages 2, 92, and 206." The footnotes also don't go into much detail. They can't possibly due to space constraints. And if they are incredibly thorough notes, then your book is bloated and it's going to be an effort to get through it. Think how often allusions to the Bible crop up in books, from names of characters, to idioms, to character traits, to plot points, and so on. You're not going to have any deeper understanding of these things and what they mean to the intended audience and author just by reading a couple of notes. You're going to be aware that they exist, but you're going to need to track down those texts and cultural items as well and then read and study them independent of the text that references them to get the full picture. This is not necessary to just enjoy the book, but you're not going to get as much from it on a single pass as you would from a book that's written from your cultural perspective. Again, let me emphasize that having to do work to read a book is not a bad thing. But it doesn't always mesh with the reasons why people read books in the first place.
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Jun 13, 2018 06:50
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Max Gladstone’s Craft sequence is the example I would use of a magic system that stays pretty mystical and obtuse whike still being integral to the story and the setting. The whole thing stems from the core concept that people pay debts with fractions of their soul and thugs start to get mystical when your soul bank account starts getting big. It still has a lot of structure without going into Sanderson level described mechanics.
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Jun 13, 2018 06:57
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Atlas Hugged posted:So in short, people tend not to read those books just because it turns reading into quite a lot of work. Oh my loving god 
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Jun 13, 2018 10:09
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:Oh my loving god People read for different reasons. This is something you've consistently acted in bad faith on. You can selectively quote that part, but you also have to ignore all of the parts where I said that wasn't a bad thing and will ultimately be a more enriching experience.
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Jun 13, 2018 11:16
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it's very hard work to read some basic notes and an essay establishing context for this great book from a culture i'm not intimate with, so instead i'm going to sleep in my big racecar bed and read a james clavell book about the inscrutable oriental.
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Jun 13, 2018 11:18
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A human heart posted:it's very hard work to read some basic notes and an essay establishing context for this great book from a culture i'm not intimate with, so instead i'm going to sleep in my big racecar bed and read a james clavell book about the inscrutable oriental. 
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Jun 13, 2018 11:22
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People repeating the same nonsense about "bad faith" to me will never stop being funny
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Jun 13, 2018 11:28
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Atlas Hugged posted:There's a reason why books like "Shogun" are so popular. They give exposure to a foreign culture while being from the perspective of an outsider that the audience can relate to. Sham bam bamina! fucked around with this message at 12:02 on Jun 13, 2018 |
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Jun 13, 2018 11:58
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Whatever attitude gets people to read more is the correct attitude. If people are reading books it's a win for society.A human heart posted:its not 'basically doing an undergraduate degree' to pick up the penguin classic ed of a book from china or wherever and read the notes and the introduction I find that to be a tremendous amount of (very rewarding) work.
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Jun 13, 2018 12:36
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Read books and don't be so concerned that you won't wring every last drop of meaning from it on a single read, imo.
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Jun 13, 2018 13:24
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mad carl posted:Whatever attitude gets people to read more is the correct attitude. If people are reading books it's a win for society. Relax Or DIE posted:Read books and don't be so concerned that you won't wring every last drop of meaning from it on a single read, imo. These are both fine opinions that I agree with.
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Jun 13, 2018 13:30
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No one book or any essay can help understand the nuance of a culture. Read like twenty books and maybe you start to get a foothold.
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Jun 13, 2018 13:32
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I never bought into the cliche that "any reading is good as long as its reading". Books are not magical and inherently better than any form of media. A book only has as much value as a person's willingness to critically engage with it. A person who reads 100 tom Clancy novels without ever engaging with the text critically is made no better by the reading.
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Jun 13, 2018 13:34
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A human heart posted:it's very hard work to read some basic notes and an essay establishing context for this great book from a culture i'm not intimate with, so instead i'm going to sleep in my big racecar bed and read a james clavell book about the inscrutable oriental. Nahh he's right there is a ton of more subtle stuff in the book that may have nothing to do with why the book is an important book but still makes it distinct from western works. Mel Mudkiper posted:No one book or any essay can help understand the nuance of a culture. Read like twenty books and maybe you start to get a foothold. This is correct. Mel Mudkiper posted:I never bought into the cliche that "any reading is good as long as its reading". I always find it weird when people treat it like the trashy books I'm reading is somehow more intellectual than watching a trashy TV show, or playing video games Sham bam bamina! posted:The question was why read about made-up "Asians" in a fantasy book instead of actual Asians when reading about Asians is apparently important to the poster. Yeah instead join us in the ADTRW thread and roll in the abyss that is Xianxia and Isekai with us. .
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Jun 13, 2018 14:57
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I never bought into the cliche that "any reading is good as long as its reading". Sure they are you can learn new words from the Tom Clancy book, and also new variants of tacticool realism
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Jun 13, 2018 15:39
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Atlas Hugged is 100% correct and we see the layman resist getting into non-Western literature all the time because bridging cultural divides is so difficult and time consuming, this is widely known and understood to be true, why the hell are people trying to dispute this? Eff's sake
HIJK fucked around with this message at 17:05 on Jun 13, 2018 |
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Jun 13, 2018 16:31
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Goons are super genius cosmopolitan aesthetes with a million hitpoints and maximum charisma.
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Jun 13, 2018 18:40
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porfiria posted:Goons are super genius cosmopolitan aesthetes with a million hitpoints and maximum charisma. It's true we are all Kvothe.
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Jun 13, 2018 18:54
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porfiria posted:Goons are super genius cosmopolitan aesthetes with a million hitpoints and maximum charisma. Who clutch their backpacks when a tall black dude walks too close.
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Jun 13, 2018 20:20
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HIJK posted:Atlas Hugged is 100% correct and we see the layman resist getting into non-Western literature all the time because bridging cultural divides is so difficult and time consuming, this is widely known and understood to be true, why the hell are people trying to dispute this? Eff's sake We're not disputing that americans are dumb and lazy, just that reading lovely books isn't the solution to it
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Jun 13, 2018 21:39
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Kvothe is dead. Kvothe remains dead.
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Jun 13, 2018 21:40
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Mel Mudkiper posted:We're not disputing that americans are dumb and lazy, just that reading lovely books isn't the solution to it Reading is good. Even reading crappy books is good because of how it develops the temporal and frontal lobes as well as the angular and supramarginal gyrus, which are responsible for stringing together letters into words. So yes even reading crappy books is a net good because it lets you practice the act of reading and it keeps you literate. Literacy is essential for modern 21st century society. Maybe it sucks for someone's personal taste if they all want to read is Rothfart but good god who cares you silly goose? sheesh
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Jun 13, 2018 21:56
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HIJK posted:So yes even reading crappy books is a net good because it lets you practice the act of reading and it keeps you literate. Literacy is essential for modern 21st century society. Maybe it sucks for someone's personal taste if they all want to read is Rothfart but good god who cares you silly goose? sheesh Because the uncritical consumption of media is the pathway to totalitarianism
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Jun 13, 2018 22:17
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Because the uncritical consumption of media is the pathway to totalitarianism at least the books will run on time
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Jun 13, 2018 22:38
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Because the uncritical consumption of media is the pathway to totalitarianism I'm not sure this has ever happened
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Jun 13, 2018 22:45
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CestMoi posted:I'm not sure this has ever happened You are right, there has never been a time when the widespread and uncritical consumption of domestically produced media about foreign cultures has been used to justify government action
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Jun 13, 2018 22:48
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YEah if everyone had just thought a bit harder about Rudyard Kipling they would have realised that murdering Indians was in fact bad
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Jun 13, 2018 22:50
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King Leopold II's shallow reading of Heart of Darkness
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Jun 13, 2018 22:51
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So you are denying that media influences perceptions of the world?
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Jun 13, 2018 22:52
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