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the trump tutelage posted:Reminder that for anyone who is actually interested in discussing the book specifically, as opposed to helping a sophomoric English student hijack an already low-population thread with their tedious opinions during release week, there is a fan forum available. I remember when there were mods who could serve as a bulwark against the threadshitting. But then pedantism came swirling down.
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Aug 2, 2017 03:35
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is just non-sensical. It's a kind of Rothfussian thing where it sounds very evocative and weighty except when you think about it for just a moment.BravestOfTheLamps posted:So you're just saying that it makes sense, but it's just genre idiocy. Your defence is a belaboured explanation of how the sci-fi alien works instead of, you know, something on aesthetic grounds. Also lol at how desperately Rothfussian your reading gets at the end (what does 'a blanket being stretched across this vast chasm of time' actually mean?). Your criticism was that it was "non-sensical" and that is sounded "evocative... except when you think about it for a moment" It sounds like you are abandoning your position that it is "non-sensical", which is a good start. I think i demonstrated that when you think about it.. there is additional meaning to be conveyed. They aren't just random words tacked on. Beyond that, until you take the time to respond to my previous posts, I think I'm done with you. Your arguments aren't particularly interesting, and when you do bring up the odd good point, you lack the ability ( or willingness ) to make it a real conversation. ps: I'm also pretty amused you brought up some 90 year old dude's comments about massmedia from the 70s. He was speaking about mass media ( television / movies ), and looking for a message in the media, from a sociology point of view. So if we want to apply his theory to this book, it would equate this book to all other books published in this manner. Which isn't what you are saying. And he might well be correct there - the fact that we read a book separately, come together to discuss it online, have access to the author via internet, etc - those are probably more significant issues than why the humans eating Sranc had black semen as well. But even within this, he wouldn't say the content had NO meaning. And as a reader of poetry he certainly would not have agreed to discard the content of his favorite poems. You are taking his work completely out of context, and I suspect you have no idea what he was talking about. I'm not saying I do, but even a casual reading of a few articles indicates you are full of poo poo. I mean, sure prove me wrong - but if you can't discuss Figure/Ground as part of that explanation, don't even bother. kcroy fucked around with this message at 03:56 on Aug 2, 2017 |
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Aug 2, 2017 03:53
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Memnaelar posted:I remember when there were mods who could serve as a bulwark against the threadshitting. I have hit the report button oh so many times. It does nothing. 
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Aug 2, 2017 06:03
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Memnaelar posted:I remember when there were mods who could serve as a bulwark against the threadshitting. Pedantry 
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Aug 2, 2017 06:36
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Safety Biscuits posted:Pedantry Fuuuuuu... Okay, that's funny. Sranc like me shouldn't be running around this McLuhan Dunyain talk anyhow.
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Aug 2, 2017 07:00
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Phanatic posted:No, this is a sleight-of-hand you're trying to pull. These two passages differ radically in *content* and in form, *not* just in form. The problem is now clear - you don't actually know what "form" and "content" mean in relation to other. Form (noun) - the visible shape or configuration of something; the particular way in which a thing exists or appears. (OED) Content (noun) - the material dealt with in a speech, literary work, etc. as distinct from its form or style. (OED) You are including things like metre as the "content" of a poem, it's part of its "form". The content of any medium, as McLuhan describes, is actually just another medium (movies are in content "just" theatre or literature, but their formal qualities make them utterly differet; writing is "just" speech in its content, but it's form means that it's effect is completely dissimilar). Your equation of form-and-content with form-and-function is misguided. kcroy posted:ps: I'm also pretty amused you brought up some 90 year old dude's comments about massmedia from the 70s. He was speaking about mass media ( television / movies ), and looking for a message in the media, from a sociology point of view. So if we want to apply his theory to this book, it would equate this book to all other books published in this manner. Which isn't what you are saying. I explained in very simple terms of why the principle of "the medium is the message" offers a basic truth that also applies to study of art: BravestOfTheLamps posted:McLuhan offers a very simple and useful principle for judging media - focus on what the form is doing and saying. But your counter-argument to this is that McLuhan was some 90 year old dude writing about massmedia from the 70s (he wrote Understanding Media in the 60s), and this is thus useless to making a general statement about art and literature. The fact that people reject such a useful principle is because they it would mean examining Bakker's prose and thus engaging with literature beyond the level of speculative "theories" about plot developments. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 08:04 on Aug 2, 2017 |
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Aug 2, 2017 07:57
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So what I'm getting out if all this is that Bakker's prose is really medicore (lol "her face flayed") and this bothers some people more than others. I'll just re-read Jaqueline Carey for my dark fantasy.
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Aug 2, 2017 09:32
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:Well like I've argued, the form of literature is what determines it's effect rather than its content. Yes, the second is clearly superior. But that merely shows that we have to consider the form of piece of art. It does not mean that we must consider only the form. Your samples are a decent example of that - sample A still has the core gimmick of the sonnet - that the poems subject is more lovely than stereotypical romantic imagery. Ask your average layman about "Shall I compare thee" and I doubt you'll have anyone who remembers the shaking buds of May, but people will remember the gimmick. You're working from the principle that we should look only at the prose, and that the characters/themes/philosophy are an irrelevance. And you have staggeringly failed to provide anything to back that up.
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Aug 2, 2017 12:58
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Well first, that's not the core gimmick of the sonnet, and two, you somehow think that the "gimmick" of the sonnet isn't part of its form. People remember the imagery because of how it's expressed. People like Bakker's characters, themes, etc only because of how they're written (the form of his novels). You forgot the whole crux of the argument. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 14:06 on Aug 2, 2017 |
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Aug 2, 2017 13:59
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:You are including things like metre as the "content" of a poem, it's part of its "form" No, I'm not. I'm not talking about metre, or the fact that one is a sonnet with a rhyme scheme and one is just a sentence. Here are two statements equivalent in content and different in form: Two added to two is equivalent to four. 2+2=4 The *semantic content* of those two statements is equal. The semantic contents of Sonnet 18 and the reductionist summary you have provided are not equal. You have not only provided a different form, you have provided different content and claimed that the difference in impact is solely due to the difference in form. This is a sleight-of-hand. quote:. The content of any medium, as McLuhan describes, is actually just another medium (movies are in content "just" theatre or literature, but their formal qualities make them utterly differet; writing is "just" speech in its content, but it's form means that it's effect is completely dissimilar). One of McLuhan's many obviously inaccurate statements.
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Aug 2, 2017 14:14
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Phanatic posted:The *semantic content* of those two statements is equal. The semantic contents of Sonnet 18 and the reductionist summary you have provided are not equal. How so? I hope you're not seriously quibbling about how I didn't accurately render all the metaphors into plain text. Ironically, you provided an even better proof of how "the medium is the message" by contrasting a written sentence with a mathematical equation. Notice how the equation is expressly scientific and, well, mathematical as opposed to the mundanity of the sentence. Phanatic posted:One of McLuhan's many obviously inaccurate statements. Actually it is very accurate. The content of any given work is reducible to being another medium. The content of a movie is really just script, for example, expressed in cinematic form.
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Aug 2, 2017 14:23
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:Well first, that's not the core gimmick of the sonnet, and two, you somehow think that the "gimmick" of the sonnet isn't part of its form. People remember the imagery because of how it's expressed. Well then I've completely lost the plot as to your distinction between form and content. Because "the material dealt with in speech" seems a pretty watertight description of how both sonnets say some variant of "you're really nice, nicer than these nice things"
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Aug 2, 2017 14:24
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:How so? I hope you're not seriously quibbling about how I didn't accurately render all the metaphors into plain text. Why, because that would be devastating to the point you were trying to make? If you wanted to preserve the content of the sonnet in a different form, you'd have written it out as a block paragraph, or presented an audio recording of you reading it aloud, or written it out longhand and taken a photograph of it. Those are changes in form. But you didn't do any of those things, you took a knife to the content and presented a much-reduced version of it and claimed that all you changed was the form. Which was false. quote:Actually it is very accurate. The content of any given work is reducible to being another medium. The content of a movie is really just script, for example, expressed in cinematic form. Again, this is trivially false, because the movie contains semantic content that is not in the script, not just the same semantic content expressed in a different form. But that aside, okay, let's stipulate that the content of any given work is reducible to being another medium. The movie is reducible to a script, which is reducible to speech, which is reducible to...what? Phonemes? Mechanical vibrations? And those are reducible to? Endless recursion is not possible here, and so the content of *any given work* is not reducible to being another medium.
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Aug 2, 2017 14:41
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Phanatic posted:Why, because that would be devastating to the point you were trying to make? If you wanted to preserve the content of the sonnet in a different form, you'd have written it out as a block paragraph, or presented an audio recording of you reading it aloud, or written it out longhand and taken a photograph of it. Those are changes in form. But you didn't do any of those things, you took a knife to the content and presented a much-reduced version of it and claimed that all you changed was the form. Which was false. Again, you are confused over basic terms like "form". You equate form with physical medium here, when I'm specifically talking about form as "the visible shape or configuration of something; the particular way in which a thing exists or appears," as I helpfully defined earlier. Your avatar makes these very serious posts about assumed errors in vocabulary quite funny. Phanatic posted:Again, this is trivially false, because the movie contains semantic content that is not in the script, not just the same semantic content expressed in a different form. But that aside, okay, let's stipulate that the content of any given work is reducible to being another medium. The movie is reducible to a script, which is reducible to speech, which is reducible to...what? Phonemes? Mechanical vibrations? And those are reducible to? Endless recursion is not possible here, and so the content of *any given work* is not reducible to being another medium. Here your mistake is this concept of semantic concept you've introduced out of nowhere, while I've been talking about content as subject material, as I graciously defined it earlier. The subject material of a movie is its script. Would the semantic content not be the message of the movie as a whole? And maybe you should have read further than the introduction because McLuhan does offer an answer to the quandary of speech and recursion: McLuhan posted:The content of writing is speech, just as the written word is the content of print, and print is the content of the telegraph. If it is asked, "What is the content of speech?," it is necessary to say, "It is an actual process of thought, which is in itself nonverbal." (of course it is endless recursion: thought influences speech, speech leads to writing, man can think as if imitating speech and writing - one might say that the consequences of any extension of ourselves result from what is introduced by the extension of ourselves.) BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 10:59 on Aug 3, 2017 |
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Aug 2, 2017 15:16
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urrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggghhhhh
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Aug 2, 2017 17:05
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Me two minutes ago: "Wow like 25 posts talking about this book I liked." Me now: "Huh."
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Aug 2, 2017 17:09
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Book chat: I disliked Proyas' smug certainty in the original trilogy, I definitely liked how his arc ended in this series. I felt a little bit the opposite about Saubon, I enjoyed his mercenary adoption of Kellhus in The Prince of Nothing, and wish his ultimate betrayal for the cause had been a bit later in The Aspect Emperor.
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Aug 2, 2017 17:55
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I read this book, primarily because I read all the prior ones and I wanted to see how they handled the interaction of fantasy magic world and a high tech alien vessel. I was pleased when Schoolmen got fried by lasers. I would also like to know more about the Outside / Hells in general, as they appear to be different dimensions.
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Aug 2, 2017 18:14
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Something I noticed in TUC which is maybe meaningless but whatever, apparently babies receive their souls at birth, which I guess is why you can still conceive while the No-God is swirling around but the babies will be still-born. "Life", then, requires both a soul and a body, so I'm still holding a candle for Kellhus being "alive" despite Bakker saying he's "no baby" (presumably, his soul did not inhabit Akka's kid), and that he's "dead". His soul is still out there and may be able to affect things. Somewhat related, were sranc ever identified as tekne? unlimited shrimp fucked around with this message at 19:13 on Aug 2, 2017 |
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Aug 2, 2017 18:27
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the trump tutelage posted:Something I noticed in TUC which is maybe meaningless but whatever, apparently babies receive their souls at birth, which I guess is why you can still conceive while the No-God is swirling around but the babies will be still-born. You left out the name of who you are holding a candle for.
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Aug 2, 2017 18:56
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Woops. Kellhus, since apparently Bakker said Ajokli cant find him/his soul..
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Aug 2, 2017 19:13
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I've read through all this discussion of form, content, prose and all that and while it's kind of interesting I don't really understand the point of it all. I mean, what did you hope to achieve by coming in here and stating the prose is bad and therefore the books are bad? I'm assuming you hoped to have some kind of discussion in good faith about what is good or bad about the prose, but all that's really happened is a talk about what you even meant by your criticism and whether it's a valid one. I think my main problem with this whole thing is the idea that anybody can objectively say "the prose is bad". I'm fine with you or anybody saying you don't like it or that you do like it, but instead of laying out some rules and guidelines for objectively judging the prose you typically just post a bit of text and say "this is absurd" or "this is nonsensical". Are those part of a spreadsheet you keep to score the prose? What else is on the sheet? How does something earn an "absurd" rating instead of some other score? And even then, the best you can say is "by this measure, the prose is bad." Even in your example with the sonnet, a person could simply dislike poetry and prefer your pared down, sanitized version. And I'd say that as long as they are able to comprehend what idea is attempting to be conveyed, then that's 100% as valid as any criticism. Finally, I disagree with the idea that a book is bad merely because you dislike the prose. You can still appreciate the plot, the pacing, the characterization, and any number of other things even if you find the prose grating. Sure, good writing can elevate those things, but that doesn't mean they can't exist even with bad writing. I haven't started TUC yet, but I hope it's an improvement over the last book which I thought was a pretty big step back from the rest. I hope at least that we get a break from the 50 page battles with sranc several times per book. I mean maybe the whole point was to fatigue the reader and desensitize us to the whole thing, but after a while I just didn't feel like reading another chapter of sranc fights.
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Aug 2, 2017 20:05
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Inspector 34 posted:Even in your example with the sonnet, a person could simply dislike poetry and prefer your pared down, sanitized version. And I'd say that as long as they are able to comprehend what idea is attempting to be conveyed, then that's 100% as valid as any criticism. Well they'd be a philistine.
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Aug 2, 2017 20:07
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The prose is bad. Okay now how long do y'all think until Bakker will release another book?
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Aug 2, 2017 20:11
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He said maybe 2-3 years, but it's not clear what form the next book might take. I think he said he was toying with the idea of a book of short stories set during the Second Apocalypse.
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Aug 2, 2017 20:15
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Just write an elliptical book-length encyclopedia and let the internet try to theorycraft what the gently caress happened.
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Aug 2, 2017 20:38
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General Battuta posted:Just write an elliptical book-length encyclopedia and let the internet try to theorycraft what the gently caress happened. What do you think tuc is
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Aug 2, 2017 21:52
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Yeah, if you read the TUC appendices there is a fuckton of stuff which is never mentioned in the narrative and only drops tantalizing breadcrumbs about the true nature of the Ark and such. Do recommend.
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Aug 2, 2017 22:19
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Rime posted:Yeah, if you read the TUC appendices there is a fuckton of stuff which is never mentioned in the narrative and only drops tantalizing breadcrumbs about the true nature of the Ark and such. Is there? I saw two totally trivial insertions about systems, and nothing else new except a rash of 'mysterious' deaths that were probably Kellhus covering his tracks.
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Aug 2, 2017 22:49
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General Battuta posted:Is there? I saw two totally trivial insertions about systems, and nothing else new except a rash of 'mysterious' deaths that were probably Kellhus covering his tracks. Read the entry on the Decapitants.
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Aug 2, 2017 22:51
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the trump tutelage posted:He said maybe 2-3 years, but it's not clear what form the next book might take. I think he said he was toying with the idea of a book of short stories set during the Second Apocalypse. Wow, the GRRM-ing of Bakker is going apace, isn't it? Please tell me he's signed up to do Wild Cards. Ehh, I'm kidding. Say what you will about Bakker, he's kept a mostly good flow of publishing. I'm still a bit miffed at the general tendency fo ALL fantasy to expand into whole-shelf length territory instead of giving you a good, solid, done story in three. But that's another thing entirely.
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Aug 2, 2017 23:19
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Number Ten Cocks posted:Book chat: I disliked Proyas' smug certainty in the original trilogy, I definitely liked how his arc ended in this series. I felt a little bit the opposite about Saubon, I enjoyed his mercenary adoption of Kellhus in The Prince of Nothing, and wish his ultimate betrayal for the cause had been a bit later in The Aspect Emperor. What is the etiquete on spoiler tagging? Like, do we keep it up for a month or two? Yeah I liked how that played out as well. One of the better twists. So.. was he alive at the end? I think I read something about it right before the Sylvendi sac the camp. I thought Saubons betrayal was about as awesome as it could get - it is actually pretty far along though isn't it? Like second to last major battle. wrt Ajokli - he is there fighting in the first apocalypse isn't he? I seem to recall one of the kings or something talking about him. Maybe seeing 4 horns, or lighting flashing like 4 horns around him or something?
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Aug 3, 2017 02:50
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kcroy posted:What is the etiquete on spoiler tagging? Like, do we keep it up for a month or two? There's a fairly long segment where Moengus strangles Proyas to death so that he isn't burned alive, harangues his father about it, and is rebuked for it.
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Aug 3, 2017 02:58
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kcroy posted:
I think that was in some version of Achamian remembering the Celmomian prophecy. I feel like it wasn't called out in the original trilogy, though, since Bakker probably hadn't thought this stuff up yet.
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Aug 3, 2017 05:07
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Rime posted:There's a fairly long segment where Moengus strangles Proyas to death so that he isn't burned alive, harangues his father about it, and is rebuked for it. dammit you are right! I remember that now. Number Ten Cocks posted:I think that was in some version of Achamian remembering the Celmomian prophecy. I feel like it wasn't called out in the original trilogy, though, since Bakker probably hadn't thought this stuff up yet. I skimmed through the first trilogy last night + judging eye. I'll do WLW tonight - I can't find my copy of TGO.. I think it is in that one though. I should grab a PDF rip of these books, just for searching for stuff. I feel like Bakker really should have thought of this stuff, since he must have known for a while now the no-god would be back, and what that would mean for kelljus / gods / etc. Phanatic posted:Read the entry on the Decapitants. The section on Ajokli had a bit about how he was always trying to sneak into the world, or something. I don't remember that from earlier docs, but I could be mistaken.
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Aug 3, 2017 05:58
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So I've only skimmed the final Kellhus parts, but I have questions. Kellhus talking to Proyas while he's hanging seems to tell the truth about a lot of things, and given that (I don't think) Proyas communicates anything meaningful to anyone else, I don't think there was much reason to lie. One thing he said was that the No God was eventually doomed to succeed. If true, I think this is based on the same idea as Kelmomas' invisibility to the gods - he's going to be the No God, the No God is invisible to the gods, and so he's always been invisible to the gods. Golgotterath/the Ark itself is apparently invisible to the gods as well, so maybe this means they will eventually succeed in closing off the world, and as the agent of that closing, Golgotterath is invisible. If I have this right (I might not), certain conclusions follow. 1. If Kellhus has a plan for immortality he then necessarily needs to give up on defeating the Consult/No God. He needs to become or coopt it over some time horizon. (If he doesn't have a plan for immortality he may just want to defeat them now and set up some legacy that continues any search for the Absolute goals he might still retain.) 2. If Kellhus is aware of the timeless invisibility of things invisible to the gods, he might have noticed divine actors being thrown off by Kelmomas' presence, and he almost certainly would have realized what that meant. In which case he knew Kelmomas would become the No God, knew Ajokli wouldn't be able to see it happen, and might have incorporated that into some plan to cheat Ajokli (and the Consult). (Ajokli can't find Kellhus in the Outside.) But I'm not sure he actually knew there were divine influenced actors being thrown off by Kelmomas' presence. So what did Kellhus do if he did do something to avoid death in his actual body?
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Aug 3, 2017 14:53
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I think we can all agree on one thing: It's all Likaro's fault Strom Cuzewon fucked around with this message at 18:30 on Aug 3, 2017 |
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Aug 3, 2017 15:38
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Number Ten Cocks posted:So I've only skimmed the final Kellhus parts, but I have questions. While Kellhus is inhumanly competent, he's not infallible. Bakker's AMA confirmed a few things about Kellhus' deficiencies/blind spots and depicting a hyper-competent being that seemingly overcomes all obstacles, only to get unexpectedly shanked (like father, like son), feels thematically appropriate.
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Aug 3, 2017 19:26
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Strom Cuzewon posted:I think we can all agree on one thing: 
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Aug 4, 2017 04:43
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Corvinus posted:While Kellhus is inhumanly competent, he's not infallible. Bakker's AMA confirmed a few things about Kellhus' deficiencies/blind spots and depicting a hyper-competent being that seemingly overcomes all obstacles, only to get unexpectedly shanked (like father, like son), feels thematically appropriate. hey can you link the AMA?
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Aug 4, 2017 04:44
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