|
Looking for Jake does have some good stuff. I was going to say it's worth it for the Christmas story alone, but heyo, look what's up on the man's blog? That Pun. You know the one.
|
#
?
Mar 27, 2017 23:45
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 13, 2024 23:31 |
|
|
Did a ctrl+f for 'marxist'. Found > 0 matches. Closed.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2017 00:17
|
|
|
The Red and White Bloc 
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2017 00:33
|
|
|
Benson Cunningham posted:
Don't believe his lies.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2017 01:00
|
|
|
Of those 4 Railsea is definitely the best. King Rat is like mediocre Gaiman, and UnLunDun is pretty meh. Looking For Jake has some pretty good stories so it's also good 
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2017 01:04
|
|
|
is there such a thing as non-mediocre gaiman outside of a comics context, anyways
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2017 05:58
|
|
|
i guess there's Coraline
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2017 05:59
|
|
|
Hedrigall posted:Of those 4 Railsea is definitely the best. King Rat is like mediocre Gaiman, and UnLunDun is pretty meh. Looking For Jake has some pretty good stories so it's also good I have always considered King Rat as a typical author's first book as it has some neat ideas, but is rather rough around the edges. The jump in quality from King Rat to PSS is amazing in perspective.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2017 07:14
|
|
|
Tuxedo Catfish posted:is there such a thing as non-mediocre gaiman I've like a few of his short stories.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2017 07:29
|
|
|
Tuxedo Catfish posted:is there such a thing as non-mediocre gaiman
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2017 09:15
|
|
|
Lunchmeat Larry posted:absolutely, there's also terrible Gaiman The myth interludes in American Gods are great (speaking of mediocre, the new show is out soon). He's just better at shorter, contained ideas.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2017 19:16
|
|
|
His Norse Mythology book is in turn interesting, shallow, Marvel like, impressive, and boring. I think what I mean to say is- it was inconsistent in quality.
|
|
#
?
Mar 28, 2017 19:36
|
|
|
Dirty Frank posted:Can you go into more details on this? Harry Potter was of noble blood and born into obscene wealth. He very pointedly doesn't share this wealth with anyone outside of a loan or marriage. That's pretty hosed up. He talks about disliking Harry Potter in several places but he specifically addresses the politics here: http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/nonfiction/intchina.htm It's just sort of there. As opposed to the hermetically sealed world of HP, Kraken is integrated with London and a love letter to the real world as much as it is to his crazy fictional one. Plus, the people hate capitalists and concepts like old blood and old money.
|
|
#
?
Mar 29, 2017 03:57
|
|
|
Shbobdb posted:Harry Potter was of noble blood and born into obscene wealth. He very pointedly doesn't share this wealth with anyone outside of a loan or marriage. That's pretty hosed up. Reading author interviews is never a good thing, one just ends up disappointed. Mievilles idea that everything is politics is just plain boring. On the other hand, I guess it takes a out-of-touch socialist with theoretical view of the world to write really good books.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2017 08:59
|
|
|
Cardiac posted:Mievilles idea that everything is politics is just plain boring. Sam Kriss wrote a good article on why HP is inherently fascist Lunchmeat Larry fucked around with this message at 15:02 on Mar 30, 2017 |
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2017 09:09
|
|
|
Lunchmeat Larry posted:Politics is your worldview. An author cannot write non-politically unless they're writing, like, an algebra textbook. Harry Potter has a literal slave race that love to serve the superior class and the one person who wants to emancipate them is made fun of for it and narratively depicted as goofy and silly for it. I don't know what conclusion you're trying to draw from that, but Hermione's character is basically never wrong. She's frequently defined by being the moral compass of the group. She often drags the others kicking and screaming to the correct view point. J.K. Rowling's political viewpoint in that instance is that slavery is bad but most people are lazy assholes who don't want to make any personal sacrifices to better other's lives. And maybe a little of, if you're going to protest, maybe do it in a smarter way.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2017 14:56
|
|
|
It's very difficult to write a story where there are people who are quite literally better in clear, measurable, significant world-affecting ways than the others without it heading quickly down a fascist slide.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2017 16:01
|
|
|
It's worth noting that Epic Pooh is also a huge influence on Mieville. To the point where Bas Lag is the anti-Epic Pooh. Harry Potter presents a fantasy of England created by someone who buys into the "end of history" neoliberal order (likely unconsciously) in the same way LoTR presents a fantasy created by someone who bought into Toryism.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2017 16:45
|
|
|
It's hard to credit Sam Kriss for the substantive portions of his article (he does make several good points) when his head is so deep in his own rear end writing it.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2017 17:05
|
|
|
Cardiac posted:Reading author interviews is never a good thing, one just ends up disappointed. Conversely, I don't understand how someone can think something this wrong and still enjoy Mieville's writing so much, when a huge part of their appeal is that they interrogate their own politics more thoroughly and just straight-up have better politics than most genre fiction.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2017 18:38
|
|
|
Benson Cunningham posted:I don't know what conclusion you're trying to draw from that, but Hermione's character is basically never wrong. She's frequently defined by being the moral compass of the group. She often drags the others kicking and screaming to the correct view point. The house elf stuff is really hosed and is addressed really weirdly. The narrative ridicules Hermione's activism and the conclusion is that house elves are suited to magical enslavement. The language Ron and the twins uses is super colonial about them. Rowling's intent seems to be that people with white privilege shouldn't criticise cultures they're not part of which is fine in itself but when the culture to be preserved is magical enslavement the metaphor breaks down.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2017 20:19
|
|
|
I understand what you're saying, but I think we see the framing of the story differently. I do want to take a step back and just state that slavery is unilateral wrong and shouldn't be supported in any capacity. So, to it: The Weasley's are basically idiots (with a few exceptions). Ron's role in the story is to act as a foil- he provides the negative side of almost every moral argument, Hermione provides the positive, and HP works his way to her side (usually) through a series of trials. Hermione IS ridiculed, exactly like someone in colonial America would have been if they'd taken a similar stance. The Weasley's are very much a traditional southern family who can't or won't understand what is wrong with their actions. They hide in the silent majority and get agitated when asked to do more (save to act on behalf ofHarry Potter, their literal Jesus figure). If anything, Hermione is a civil right's activist who has arrived before her time, and as a teenage girl, is giving her best effort at trying to fix a terrible wrong. I know this might come off as a contrived, circuitous path to rationalize what we see in the books. But I think it holds, if you accept that Hermione represents what your moral compass is supposed to look like. I don't think Rowling is producing a text in support of slavery; rather, she is is giving us a window into a hosed up world of wizards who have a bunch of their own poo poo they still need to work through. The argument hinges on Hermione being the character you're supposed to listen to above all others, while still understanding that she is a child. We see evidence for that continuously. She's the only one who isn't a dick to people for no reason. She's the only good student. Her knowledge and revelations are what solve almost every problem across all seven books. She's the first one to play nice with the fire dudes from the other school in book four. Her instincts are almost always right, even when at first they don't appear to be (The half-blood prince book, etc etc). If we just disagree, that's fine too. But I hate the idea that you have to be overly blatant about ideology to convince people you aren't immoral. She absolutely wrote an immoral wizard society- that doesn't mean she's in support of it.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2017 21:27
|
|
|
She's not in support of it explicitly but she absolutely holds it up as a good thing worth preserving in the face of anything else, which is all a bit banality of evil, is a bit weird whrn its a wealthy English woman explaining why a society built on slavery is noble at heart and worth defending, and leads very quickly to her recent ramblings that Jeremy Corbyn is as bad as the Nazis and Scottish independence supporters are Dementors
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2017 22:24
|
|
|
Benson Cunningham posted:It's hard to credit Sam Kriss for the substantive portions of his article (he does make several good points) when his head is so deep in his own rear end writing it.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2017 01:16
|
|
|
spite house posted:Sam Kriss is no-poo poo about 25 years old and absolutely brilliant, so I don't have too much trouble forgiving him his excesses, in an "aw, you" kinda way. Also he's a scream. You can definitely tell he's smart. It's just that no one wants to be lectured by an rear end in a top hat. If he's 25 like you said, I imagine he develops a bit more chill in a few years.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2017 01:30
|
|
|
Benson Cunningham posted:It's hard to credit Sam Kriss for the substantive portions of his article (he does make several good points) when his head is so deep in his own rear end writing it. Sam Kriss is the archetypal holier-than-thou bourgeois "fun is evil" English Marxist who has never been poor or marginalised. spite house posted:Sam Kriss is no-poo poo about 25 years old and absolutely brilliant, so I don't have too much trouble forgiving him his excesses, in an "aw, you" kinda way. Also he's a scream. Lol everything good that he has to say is either obvious satire or poo poo recycled from a critical theory MA class. Dude is the kind of guy to attack elitists and the classism of contemporary scientism while doing so in a prose style that only someone with a continental philosophy MA would recognise as vague and/or wrong. The Vosgian Beast fucked around with this message at 14:54 on Mar 31, 2017 |
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2017 14:50
|
|
|
Did you just Sam Kriss my criticism of Sam Kriss?
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2017 15:33
|
|
|
Benson Cunningham posted:Did you just Sam Kriss my criticism of Sam Kriss? Sam Kriss sits in front of a document. He looks, almost unblinking, at the screen before him. The words "Lysenkoism was good, actually" are written on it. He gives a deep sigh, and deletes them once again, to begin writing his new piece. Today is still not the day.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2017 15:38
|
|
|
Thankfully I was born without the crippling disability that renders a person incapable of reading books without obsessing over their hidden political messages like some schizotypal English lit student. You can be as open or as closed as you want to the socialist undercurrent in Mieville's books and still enjoy them, because they are good stories, well-written, set in engaging worlds. If the stories were purely vehicles for his political views, they would be garbage. It would be funny if it wasn't utterly depressing that people can even consider Harry Potter as fascistic, pro-slavery or colonialism as anything up that street, other than as an ironic/satirical consideration. Might as well go whole-hog and start talking about how the dwarves are Jews in LotR, and Orcs are the negro hordes. It's the same level, just the other side of the coin.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2017 16:11
|
|
|
the negro hordes in LotR are the literal negro hordes, I think not sure about dwarves being Jews but Harry Potter does have its treacherous, untrustworthy, extremely clever big-nosed gold-lovers who control the banking system
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2017 16:21
|
|
|
quote:There’s no shortage of theories connecting Judaism and Harry Potter. Entire books have been written on Potter philosophy and Torah wisdom (see Moment’s interview with Dov Krulwich), and some commentators have posited that its magicians—chosen people misunderstood by others—are essentially Jewish. jewish wizards, dumbledore is the king paedophile
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2017 16:37
|
|
|
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. But sometimes your protag is a Hitler apologist who genocides an alien species in a manner so convoluted he is presented as being guilt free.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2017 16:39
|
|
|
30 new posts in the Mieville thread, hot drat maybe there's a new book! Nope just people talking about class subjugation in Harry Potter
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2017 16:43
|
|
|
Lunchmeat Larry posted:the negro hordes in LotR are the literal negro hordes, I think iirc Tolkien realized later in life that presenting an entire race as evil was pretty shady, and said he would have not done so if he'd written them later. I mean that unfortunate subtext is still there, but at least he became aware of it.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2017 16:46
|
|
|
Jeza posted:30 new posts in the Mieville thread, hot drat maybe there's a new book! Nope just people talking about class subjugation in Harry Potter That's not our fault. If Mieville published something new we'd be all over that poo poo. I loved Last Days of New Paris. He literally made the Shiva motorcycle from final fantasy a character in an alt history WWII fantasy where the nazis team up with actual devils from hell. I could not recommend it more highly.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2017 16:53
|
|
|
Benson Cunningham posted:That's not our fault. If Mieville published something new we'd be all over that poo poo. I liked this one too. I thought it was a good an interesting story, it reminded me of Sean Stewart, and it provided a lot of surrealist stuff to wiki after the fact for a post read entertainment.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2017 17:31
|
|
|
that article was good and so was Benson's response to it
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2017 22:30
|
|
|
Jeza posted:30 new posts in the Mieville thread, hot drat maybe there's a new book! Nope just people talking about class subjugation in Harry Potter to be fair it's what China would want. Benson Cunningham posted:If we just disagree, that's fine too. But I hate the idea that you have to be overly blatant about ideology to convince people you aren't immoral. She absolutely wrote an immoral wizard society- that doesn't mean she's in support of it. I appreciate that response. I'm sure Rowling isn't intending to advocate for slavery I just think in this instance she handles whatever she's trying to tell with house elves and slavery really badly. The same is true with the weird goblin - oh we're justified backstabbing them because they were planning to backstab us anyway - side plot. As silly as it sounds I don't think Rowling really put a huge amount of thought into non-human races. With how well Rowling puts forwards ideas of malicious bureaucracy through Umbridge and the tyranny of middle class suburbia with the Dursleys its disappointing that the house elves and goblins kind of go nowhere.
|
|
#
?
Apr 1, 2017 23:12
|
|
|
Jeza posted:Might as well go whole-hog and start talking about how the dwarves are Jews in LotR, and Orcs are the negro hordes. It's the same level, just the other side of the coin. Even Tolkien admitted that the dwarfs were jews in his books: Tolkien posted:"The dwarves of course are quite obviously - wouldn't you say that in many ways they remind you of the Jews? Their words are Semitic obviously, constructed to be Semitic."
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2017 11:00
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 13, 2024 23:31 |
|
|
Alhazred posted:Even Tolkien admitted that the dwarfs were jews in his books: It's a stretch. Here's the full context of the quotation, because I think that's always relevant. quote:D. Gueroult: Did you intend in Lord of the Rings that certain races should embody certain principles: the elves wisdom, the dwarves craftsmanship, men husbandry and battle and so forth? He drew parallels between Dwarves and Jews, not that he wrote them to represent Jews. It's an important difference. He went on record many times saying that the work is not allegorical. The times he makes the connection, he mentions their language and how they are displaced from their homeland - that is the connection he sees. It takes a nice healthy dose of anti-semitism before you start seeing squat, greedy and bearded as the "Jewish" characteristics of the Dwarves. Especially as those characteristics far pre-date Tolkien's dwarves. My point was glib, but it was just drawing the parallel between the ways extremists of all stripes seek to twist source material to suit their agenda. As the quotation above shows, he borrowed heavily from humanity all over as source material, but it was never meant to be seen as a mirror to our own world. Incredibly for an author of his generation, he was on record publicly and privately as remarkably not racist or anti-semitic. There are no obvious slip-ups in his entire recorded body of written work. But it doesn't stop people claiming that LotR is some kind of race manual. I'm resisting the disingenuous notion that Dwarves are just an allegory for Jews, therefore we should extrapolate that all Dwarfish characteristics represent some stereotypical characteristic that Tolkien associated with Jews. We know that he didn't. But that doesn't mean that the Dwarves are free of parallels to Jews. Obviously there are some. But honestly, the way he phrases that rhetorical question makes it seem even more like that the parallels were relatively accidental, and it was a view he grew into rather than intended from the start. Especially since he doesn't draw the comparison (that we know of) until many years after the books were written. Finally, it is a mistake to join the dots between him describing their language as "Semitic" and extrapolating that therefore they must be Jewish. The Dwarfish language is not the only one in the books that Tolkien describes as Semitic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semitic_languages It is linguistic, not racial, terminology.
|
|
#
?
Apr 2, 2017 12:04
|
|