Book Fucking Talk

[The Heretic]

Translation of The Lord of the Rings into Swedish - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The original Swedish translation was so bad it's got its own wikipedia page and though Tolkien didn't know Swedish he could pick out a lot of stupid translation decisions of the names. Worse yet it added a ton of purple prose making the meticulous but precise descriptions of landscapes ponderous, unclear and twice as long.

Twice...twice as long you say? OHMYGAWDTHATISHORRIBLE!

 

[The Heretic]

The Kalevala: The finnish epic that no one has ever heard of (except Ed Greenwood).

He certainly didn't attain his interest from the source. *ahem* I think it's obvious that his interest was piqued by the tits^H^H^H^H, I mean, entry for Loviatar in Deities and Demigods.

 

[Beoric]

Ok, THAT went in a direction I had hoped it wouldn't. This isn't a question of politics, it is a question of psychology.

I don't think @Beoric 's comment was to be understood as a comment on the direct causality between the media we consume and the deeds we do.

Not causality between media and deeds, necessarily, but there is a relationship between media and attitudes. This is why there are such things as marketing, including advertising, and propaganda. I'm not suggesting that a single portrayal of a thing influences your thinking, but I am suggesting that the repetition of that portrayal can subconsciously influence our thinking. Our brains are designed to recognize patterns in interpreting how the world functions, and advertising and propaganda seek to coopt that psychology by creating an artificial pattern that your brain now thinks is how the world works.

It is so powerful that it can work on you even if you are conscious of what has been done. If you use the word "headhunter" with your average caucasian North American of a certain age, including myself, you don't think of images of Celts or Scythians taking heads, let alone of American WW2 soldiers multilating Japanese war dead. You think of some sort of evil, subhuman or at least ignorant Polynesian or African tribesman, who probably looks a lot like the guys in blackface that played headhunters on GIlligan's Island. That image does not come from your experience with headhunters, it comes from what you saw in the media; not stories of your own people but stories of "others".

If that's not you, great. But I bet pretty much everyone carries some sort of stereotype - positive or negative - about some other type of person, which if you are ever able to recognize it has absolutely nothing to do with your lived experience.

 

[PrinceofNothing]

He certainly didn't attain his interest from the source. *ahem* I think it's obvious that his interest was piqued by the tits^H^H^H^H, I mean, entry for Loviatar in Deities and Demigods.

Yeah no kidding. Does anyone know anything about the appendix N for Forgotten Realms actually?

Ok, THAT went in a direction I had hoped it wouldn't. This isn't a question of politics, it is a question of psychology.

Yeah I figured, you were just sharing your activities with your kid vis a vis Lotr.

It is so powerful that it can work on you even if you are conscious of what has been done. If you use the word "headhunter" with your average caucasian North American of a certain age, including myself, you don't think of images of Celts or Scythians taking heads, let alone of American WW2 soldiers mutilating Japanese war dead. You think of some sort of evil, subhuman or at least ignorant Polynesian or African tribesman, who probably looks a lot like the guys in blackface that played headhunters on GIlligan's Island. That image does not come from your experience with headhunters, it comes from what you saw in the media; not stories of your own people but stories of "others".

So the reason I ribbed you oh so gently is that I perceived that effect to be very minor in comparison to all of the other effects that factor into actions and attitudes. Your mind uses so-called heuristics, a sub-set of which are stereotypes, in its daily operation because it is incredibly inefficient to have to evaluate each scenario every time it takes place. What happens is that your mind will build a template of that interaction or object and use that as a blueprint for directing your action. It's the reason you can do your groceries completely absent-mindedly. So having something like a goblin with asian characteristics have a significant effect on behavior requires a lot of caveats and is competing with a monstrous amount of other behavioral influencers, let alone the deluge of pop culture that its bombarded with on a daily basis which is completely unprecedented; culture, economic status, clusters of behavioral genes, in-group/out-group preference, competition with said group, proximity, exposure at birth yadda yadda. There's also several mechanisms hindering this type of indoctrination. One is Ironic Process Theory which means that in order to not inadvertently perform any sort of racist (or any in/out-group judgement it doesn't matter) action necessitates hyper-awareness of everyone's in-group/out-group status, so your behavior will probably alter, even if its only be overcompensation. The second one is the more muddy link between propaganda and actual behavior. If mere intensity would be sufficient in and of itself, say, the Soviet Union would not have collapsed so suddenly. I recall vaguely a study from my college days that stated that you catch more flies with honey then with a baton when it comes to fostering a welcoming environment but I don't recall its title so you are welcome to disbelieve. It is often stated that even subconscious stereotypes can cause great harm but there is a great indignant hissing when someone has to actually produce an effect size for said harm.

 

[The Heretic]

Yeah no kidding. Does anyone know anything about the appendix N for Forgotten Realms actually?

Playboy, Hustler, Penthouse. Plenty of others that are NSFW (there's a REASON why I'm responding now).

Mielikki also appeared in the Forgotten Realms, IIRC. Hmm, not topless in the D&DG illustration but that dress seems awfully form fitting.

One is Ironic Process Theory which means that in order to not inadvertently perform any sort of racist (or any in/out-group judgement it doesn't matter) action necessitates hyper-awareness of everyone's in-group/out-group status, so your behavior will probably alter, even if its only be overcompensation. The second one is the more muddy link between propaganda and actual behavior. If mere intensity would be sufficient in and of itself, say, the Soviet Union would not have collapsed so suddenly. I recall vaguely a study from my college days that stated that you catch more flies with honey then with a baton when it comes to fostering a welcoming environment but I don't recall its title so you are welcome to disbelieve. It is often stated that even subconscious stereotypes can cause great harm but there is a great indignant hissing when someone has to actually produce an effect size for said harm.

Interesting. I can see the merits of this. The passage that Beoric mentioned is probably more reflective of prejudices on Tolkien's part than any overt sort of anti-white propaganda.

 

[The Heretic]

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury: A quintessentially american horror novel that served as the cradle from which entire careers were sprung that also ruined DnD.

It's true, even for people who don't read Ray Bradbury. There was a live action movie adaptation of this story made by Disney in the early 80's, with that kid that co-starred as the friend of Ricky Schroeder in Silver Spoons as the protoganist.

Oh who am I kidding? Everybody knows him as that kid from the Christmas Story.

Jason Robards played the father.

Prince, I'm curious, do you know where the phrase "Something Wicked This Way Comes" originated from?

 

[PrinceofNothing]

Mielikki also appeared in the Forgotten Realms, IIRC. Hmm, not topless in the D&DG illustration but that dress seems awfully form fitting.

Hahaha Greenwood listing the entire catalogue of Brazzers.com as mandatory reading for a Forgotten Realms campaign.

Interesting. I can see the merits of this. The passage that Beoric mentioned is probably more reflective of prejudices on Tolkien's part than any overt sort of anti-white propaganda.

I think discussing the exact nature of those sentences and their origin would mean I violate my own ban (but Tolkien's positions on Nazism, the stool pidgeon of the anti-racism movement, are fairly well documentend). Tricky. Perhaps I should make a topic on this new policy I have enacted and ask for imput. The purpose of this forum is to A) shoot the shit and B) do adventure design shit. I suspect a shitload of overt political discussion about what is or is not racist doesn't really contribute to any of that but will absolutely cause division. There will be no mandatory fun and I think you should be able to talk about the reasons for finding something personally off-putting, but it is still probably best if we draw a line in the sand for anything that approaches culture war stuff.

Prince, I'm curious, do you know where the phrase "Something Wicked This Way Comes" originated from?

I googled it like a dirty millenial. I've shamefully never read MacBeth, or anything by Shakespeare. I bought an omnibus to correct that mistake but damn.

 

[bryce0lynch]

My latest Paris Review is a bear to get through. It reminded me why I dropped my subscription ... if only I could remember BEFORE I reupped again.

Anyway, it seems like you have to be a tortured person to write things. Everything is depressing.

But, The Juggler's Wife is interesting, from an abstraction standpoint. I often point to abstraction in my reviews as a sin, but in the case of this story it's used to good effect as a comment on the staid life of suburbia and modern life. You can't really get the full sense of it from the teaser, except maybe a little:

The Juggler’s Wife

The situation in itself is not unique. There was a man who hated his job and wanted a new one. There was a man who was sick of his boring job and wanted an exciting job instead. This man was depressed, but he saw a way out. He thought this way out was a distantly Rilkean change of life. Not...

www.theparisreview.org

 

[squeen]

If I understand your point about abstract (and this passage's style), it strikes my as a very similiar style to Douglas Adams (Hitchhikcer's Guide to the Galaxy). Everything is kept at a safe emotional distance in that book.

 

[Beoric]

Did he want to be a lion tamer?

 

[TerribleSorcery]

The latest book I've read.

Tales from the Thousand and One Nights
N.J. Dawood translation, Penguin Classics edition

To get more ideas for my current city game, which is a bit more 'scimitars & sandals' than I usually do, I picked this up. First of all, Dawood's translation is really good: preserves a bit of that strange and different feeling, but the words step lively off the page and into your brain with little friction. I compared it to a bit of the Burton translation and it's no contest.

All the stories are fun and have that classic mythical feel. Capricious Jinns, enchanted fish, cursed kingdoms and all kinds of other magic stuff. Sindbad's stories are like the Odyssey: he faces off against cannibals, rides a roc, gets pranked by a crazy-ass hermit and escapes from barbarous cultures who throw him in a pit, etc. Aladdin's story in the book is pretty good, although he does transition from shiftless layabout urchin to pro operator in remarkably short order. I was able to read it without hearing Robin Williams' voice in my mind every time he rubs the lamp. Oh yeah, and he is described as living in CHINA???

Although these are basically secular stories, Allah gets invoked a lot and has all these crazy titles ("the Destroyer of all earthly pleasures, the Annihilator of men"). As soon as anyone experiences a setback, they immediately start crying and bemoaning their fate, begging Allah to help them, etc.

A few of the shorter stories are a bit more like goofy folk-tales. One is called "The Historic Fart" (exactly what you think) and in another, a woman tricks the 5 most powerful men in the city (sultan, vizier, etc) into a bunch of closets in her house, and they all get stuck there and end up pissing themselves. But most of the stories are longer tales, or series of small but interconnected stories.

The William Harvey wood-engraving artwork is top tier, I wish there were pictures on every page.

All in all, another foundational classic of world literature. Open it up and have a gas. Prince should do a big blog post about it!

 

[Beoric]

Aladdin's story in the book is pretty good, although he does transition from shiftless layabout urchin to pro operator in remarkably short order.

That's what happens when you handwaive experience and don't use training rules.

 

[PrinceofNothing]

All in all, another foundational classic of world literature. Open it up and have a gas. Prince should do a big blog post about it!

Color me intrigued at least. After Vathek I wanted to check it out. I gotta do Shahnameh first though.

 

[The Heretic]

I googled it like a dirty millenial. I've shamefully never read MacBeth, or anything by Shakespeare. I bought an omnibus to correct that mistake but damn.

Don't worry, I didn't make the connection until about ten years ago, and I *had* to read this shit in high school.

<side note: nothing ruins an author for you more than having to read them in school.>

I'll be curious to hear what you think of Shakespeare. His English is so archaic that most modern readers have a tough time with it.

 

[Beoric]

<side note: nothing ruins an author for you more than having to read them in school.>

I'll be curious to hear what you think of Shakespeare. His English is so archaic that most modern readers have a tough time with it. [Emphasis added]

And therein lies the problem. Your first exposure to Shakespeare should never be by reading it. Plays are meant to be watched. Unfortunately, @PrinceofNothing, Macbeth isn't one of my favourites, so I am not sure which video to recommend. I only ever saw the 1971 Roman Polanski version, which I did not like (although modern critics seem to like it just fine). I have the Orson Wells version on my list, because I think it is the kind of thing he would do very well - but you would have to listen to Elizabethan English spoken by American actors faking a Scottish brogue, so you might want to put the subtitles on.

I had a great teacher for Shakespeare in high school. She did a good ob of giving us enough background to understand the scenes when we read them, and she would generally take one of the characters herself and really ham it up, which got us into it. She was also not above explaining the various off-colour jokes to us, or at least pointing them out and encouraging us to look them up on our own, and of course we watched the movie whenever she could find a copy (which would be much easier to do now).

I find that if you watch and read Shakespeare enough the dialect becomes second nature. Structurally it's just modern English, with a slightly different vocabulary and (somewhat) different slang.

Also, Branagh's Henry V always makes me want to play D&D.

 

[PrinceofNothing]

I'll be curious to hear what you think of Shakespeare. His English is so archaic that most modern readers have a tough time with it.

My most archaic english experience was Dante's Inferno and the 16th century english translation of the Illiad, followed by the Well at the Worlds End by William Morris. And there's a few translations of Faust, Sir Gawain and The Green Knight and Paradise Lost that are still very readable. It will be challenging but I think I can do it at this point.

[Other stuff] Also, Branagh's Henry V always makes me want to play D&D.

I've seen a Lion in Winter and found it very compelling, witty also. I kept expecting Brian Blessed and Rowan Atkinson to appear when I watched it though...I'll let you know what the result is.

 

[The Heretic]

My most archaic english experience was Dante's Inferno and the 16th century english translation of the Illiad, followed by the Well at the Worlds End by William Morris. And there's a few translations of Faust, Sir Gawain and The Green Knight and Paradise Lost that are still very readable. It will be challenging but I think I can do it at this point.

<Roseanne Roseannadanna> Nevermind! </Roseanne Roseannadana> I think you'll do just fine then. And I agree with Beoric, it is probably best to experience it first as intended.

 

[Beoric]

I kept expecting Brian Blessed and Rowan Atkinson to appear when I watched it though...I'll let you know what the result is.

Ahem, it is always spelled BRIAN BLESSED!

 

[DangerousPuhson]

Ahem, it is always spelled BRIAN BLESSED!

Chiswick, fresh horses!

 

[PrinceofNothing]

Monthly Batch.

The Tale of the Heike: Beauty in Autumn. Do you believe in miracles? I'm chewing my way the body of epic literature, trying to find that fix I got from the Illiad or the Worm Ouroboros, never daring to dream that something could surpass it. The tale of the Heike is an epic tale of tragic beauty set in 12th century Japan. For decades the Heike have reigned supreme, filling the ranks of the imperial bureaucracy with their sons and daughters after they have dealt a humiliating defeat to their rivals, the Genji, in a battle for supremacy. Witness now the evil days of their reign, as the Lord Kiomori grows ever more bold and tyrannical amidst the growing unrest. Where the Illiad focuses on male puissance (and lion metaphors) to an almost obsessive degree, the Heike presents a rich tapestry of tragedy, loyalty, honor and hubris. Even the basest villains have families, things to lose, ruminate, mourn. Great men die in their beds, renounce the world or take their own lives in despair. Shrines are set alight in the conflagration, and singular beauty is destroyed. Never do we lose track of the fact that the war that is fought is a civil one, and the destruction falls upon the deserving and the innocent alike. Richly bedecked with tangents into bodies of myth reaching all the way across the Pacific into China and India, to experience it is to let go and to immerse oneself in folklore. All of this mixed with an esoteric, completely impenetrable wash of higher powers in the form of countless regional deities and the Eight? Buddhas that make up the inscrutable hand of the divine in this completely absorbing drama. The Penguin edition has images of the original 12th century artwork, 4 geneology charts, 5 maps, a glossary, a cast of characters and just about everything else a boy could dream of to help you experience this masterpiece.

Orphans of Chaos by J.C. Wright; Surprisingly readable take on the whole magic-kids-in-a-boarding-school trope that comes across as a more action-packed, more well read Neil Gaiman impression. Amelia Underwood and her four siblings soon discover that they are not ordinary children and before you blink people are moving through the fourth dimension and fighting the pernicious enchantments of the evil Mrs. Wren or the lewd designs of the groundskeeper Mr. Grendel. Wright does not hesitate to vomit an entire library's worth of classical mythology onto the pages in between the juvenile buffoonery and dubious sex jokes but the whole feels surprisingly wholesome and has a real emotional core and sense of adventure to it that is really quite breathtaking. Comes complete with its own wacky powers system (I don't know when making your own magic system became a trend in fantasy), several metric tonnes of Greek Mythology and a surprising amount of sexually risque content, making it almost feel like I am reading an animu. Fugitives of Chaos, its sequel, is even better, ramping up the tension and the stakes while never losing its spirit of adventure.

The Night Circus: Gaaaah. A vain foray into urban fantasy dug up this bit of flotsam. Endless chapters of fluff and blithering with circuses and tarot cards do not compensate for an aenemic plot and stilted dialogue. At around page 150 with the train nary having left the station I decided I have too much to live for and am too beautiful. A magic circus happens. I loathe light-hearted fluff pieces and my heart is a lump of coal. Avoid.