Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Historical Fiction: Making a story from history
 
  • Post
  • Reply
anilEhilated
Feb 17, 2014

But I say fuck the rain.

Grimey Drawer

Samovar posted:

Has anyone read Quo Vadis by Sienkiewicz? I remember hearing good things about it, but am unsure if it was something that actually happened or if my brain is just giving up the ghost.
It's a good read as long as you remember that his main goal was to make a story of pure virtuous Christians and their morally corrupt oppressors to prop up Polish national pride. That makes his treatment of the historic aspects is a bit selective - don't get me wrong, he clearly did a lot of research, but there was a conscious decision to not show stuff like, say, violence between different Christian sects.

It's all very bombastic and tragic and has good character work (apart from a couple of absolute caricatures) that's still easy to relate to. If you're looking for a fun read you'll get that out of it.

anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 00:14 on Mar 12, 2024

* # ¿ Mar 12, 2024 00:09
  • Quote
Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 8, 2024 15:13
  • Quote
anilEhilated
Feb 17, 2014

But I say fuck the rain.

Grimey Drawer

Samovar posted:

Yeah, I'm seeing that, what with (I think) are supposed to be references to the Alexemenos graffiti, and the like. But would you say me picking up on an anti-Semitic reading of Chilon Chilonedes is accurate, or just me being very cynical?
Chilon has some character development (although it is an extremely predictable change) but the anti-Semitic interpretation is quite possible even if probably accidental on the author's part since there are actual Jewish characters in the book and I honestly don't recall any of them being displayed in a positive light and Jews in general being depicted as hating the Christians.

anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 15:20 on Mar 16, 2024

* # ¿ Mar 16, 2024 15:04
  • Quote
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply
The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Historical Fiction: Making a story from history