Bonaventure posted:

what immediately came to mind reading this claim was Petronius' Satyricon, LXII, bad translation mine:

Intellexi illum versipellem* esse, nec postea cum illo panem gustare potui, non si me occidisses.
Then I understood him to be a [werewolf],* nor after that could I sit down to dinner with him, not even if you killed me.

*literally, "skin-turner" with the sense of "skin-changer," which I should think is close enough to "shape-shifter"

i'm sure that most cultures actually have a word or phrase that translates to something equally banal with regard to their own 'shape-shifters.'
The English 'werewolf' itself has a disputed etymology but my understanding is that it likely means literally "big/dangerous wolf." No proper nouns needed.

Sampatrick posted:

Werewolf comes from man-wolf. Skin changer is absolutely not the same thing as shapeshifter in the same way that skin-walkers are not the same thing as shapeshifters. They mean different things.

Sampatrick posted:

Well, the reason why they're not called shapeshifters, you see, is because calling them shapeshifters would be boring. Note that no culture in history calls something a shapeshifter, they have names for the things that do the act of shapeshifting. D'ivers is absolutely a stupid name but calling them shapeshifters would have been just as stupid.

Sampatrick posted:

Bonaventure posted:

there is no material difference between using the English word 'shapeshifter' to refer to something that changes its shape and Latin-speakers calling something with the same concept a "skin-changer." They are equally "boring" and hell even the English usage of the word 'shapeshifter' disproves your assertion that no culture in history uses boring literal terms for these figures!

Sarern posted:

You are going to have a hard time when we start talking about the prose and characters in these books.

Sampatrick posted:

The word werewolf absolutely comes from the conjunction of man and wolf. There are other germanic myths that came earlier and do not come from that etymology but they're not really relevant.

Antivehicular posted:

Seamless as oil, silent as maggots

Sham bam bamina! posted:

Plausible as kitchens.

TheGreatEvilKing posted:

Soletaken is very much a culture neutral word like shapeshifter. The dark elf king from the moon and the human necromancers are both called Soletaken despite turning into a dragon and crows respectively. This isn't the Navajo skinwalkers where the skinwalkers are associated with cannibalism but the Japanese toads Ninjad are not.

Sampatrick posted:

This is true and one of the worst elements of Malazan

Strategic Tea posted:

The worst element of Malazan is the name Malazan. It is the essence of artless fantasy gobbledygook naming. It's so flat, it sounds like an American D&D player who has read lots of fanfic and zero history had five seconds to think something up the spot.

I have never actually touched the books purely based on my irrational hatred of that name.

Strategic Tea posted:

The worst element of Malazan is the name Malazan. It is the essence of artless fantasy gobbledygook naming. It's so flat, it sounds like an American D&D player who has read lots of fanfic and zero history had five seconds to think something up the spot.

I have never actually touched the books purely based on my irrational hatred of that name.

The DPRK posted:

Is there any difference between a human that can turn into a dragon and a dragon that can turn into a man?

Llamadeus posted:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BwKuuTAH9UY/

The DPRK posted:

Is there any difference between a human that can turn into a dragon and a dragon that can turn into a man?

The DPRK posted:

Is there any difference between a human that can turn into a dragon and a dragon that can turn into a man?

chernobyl kinsman posted:

gene wolfe has died and is now ablaze, in hell

chernobyl kinsman posted:

gene wolfe has died and is now ablaze, in hell

Mel Mudkiper posted:

I am not sure what his last words were, but they were probably overlong and tedious

Mel Mudkiper posted:

I am not sure what his last words were, but they were probably overlong and tedious

A human heart posted:

writing your own epitaph in advance i see

quote:

When someone recommends his The Book of the New Sun or The Fifth Head of Cerberus to you, they’re imparting a curse.

C.M. Kruger posted:

Before the Labyrinthine Lore of 'Dark Souls,' There Was Gene Wolfe

Take the plunge! Okay! posted:

I clicked on this link and it served me an ad for men’s underwear with separate compartments for wang and balls. It is a cursed link

Mel Mudkiper posted:

I am not sure what his last words were, but they were probably overlong and tedious

C.M. Kruger posted:

Before the Labyrinthine Lore of 'Dark Souls,' There Was Gene Wolfe

Strom Cuzewon posted:

Are there any good essays on the state of modern criticism? Or at least, the criticism that the general public experiences.

J_RBG posted:

Somewhat related, I enjoyed this article about the state of american literary criticism

quote:

In December, Columbia Journalism Review published an item by Sam Eichner under the headline “What’s Behind a Recent Rise in Books Coverage?” The answer was a quest for web traffic. The editors Eichner quoted celebrated the bright new modes. There would be more recommendations. There would be more rankings. There would be more online book clubs. Instagram would be harnessed. There would still be criticism but fewer “traditional” reviews. Readers want to be served in the way fans are served. Books should be treated in the manner of movies or television shows, as occasions for collective chatter, as storehouses of shareable trivia, and once in a while as containers of detachable ideas. The overall vision was that of literary journalism as a form of higher publicity. In keeping with that spirit (the spirit of the flack), Eichner channeled his interviewees—editors from the New York Times, New York magazine, BuzzFeed, and The Atlantic, touting their own publications, trying to justify their editorial decisions and keep their jobs—and explained the recent rise in books coverage:

quote:

In some ways, mainstream book coverage is coming down from its historically lofty perch to join the rest of arts coverage, catering less to the intelligentsia and more to the casual reader, who may not be interested in literary fiction or nonfiction. With so much to watch and read and listen to—and so many people chiming in on what to watch and read and listen to—it’s no surprise readers are hungering for a trusted source who can point them in the direction of books tailored to their interests. And those same readers may be looking for the kind of full-court, blogosphere press typically reserved for watercooler shows like Sharp Objects and meme machines like A Star Is Born.

Here a consumerist vision of reading is presented as a form of anti-­elitism. The quaint use of “intelligentsia” suggests a suspect class of self-regarding intellectuals with an echo of Cold War red-baiting. And then a fantastic fictional character: the casual reader who disdains literary books but is eager for, say, the New York Times to tell her which nonliterary books to read when she isn’t busy watching HBO or listening to podcasts. And what does “full-court, blogosphere press” describe but hastily written, barely edited, cheap, and utterly disposable online jetsam? Such is the nature of the new “books coverage.” I was aware of the trend. Two months before Eichner’s story ran, my contract to review books at New York magazine was dropped. I had been told that although its books coverage would be expanding, what I did—book reviews—had “little value.”