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BarnerCobblewood
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What I find interesting is that people are still responding as if the problem is a few bad apples, rather than grokking that the popularity of the genre has led to institutional corruption, and that for governance to be legitimate something needs to…
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Hey! I lived in Brandon.
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Hi guys, Sorry I have been absent. I'm dealing with a drainage problem in my basement. Will rejoin you soon. BC
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> @Apocryphal said: > Also - more Mesopotamian roots are revealed in the sentiment that the city is good, and the countryside bad. Also in that the king will be the saviour. James C Scott argues that we should see this as a common respons…
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(Quote) This is interesting. I would like to play Ars Magicka someday. This idea of a sacral inside space is something I see being used in all kinds of scenarios (a church, a castle, a prison, a dungeon, a wardrobe, a train, a space-ship, etc.), but…
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@RichardAbbott I agree with you that the annotator seems to be stretching, not just about "poetic language," but also in using contemporary genre for analysis. I am not getting much out of the annotations, but I think that's likely because…
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(Quote) I'm feeling sleepy ... I've been wondering if they might always occur at the end / beginning of pages, regardless of the meaning of the words printed. That might explain it. (Quote) To me it speaks to the fact that this genre is a hybrid as…
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(Quote) * Of course not. I don't think we have any evidence that would show the composers of these works were consciously aware of jātaka. It's not impossible, but I think it is highly unlikely that we can establish any direct link. * I do not think…
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(Quote) I'm reading at my own pace, then making my comments according to the schedule. So however it works best for other people. I agree though that if we're interested in the meta-structure among the stories the discussion needs to be clumped in a…
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So like @RichardAbbott and @Apocryphal I find it a bit difficult to keep track of where we are in the stories, so I'm reading to what seems to me be a logical place to stop. Will try not to post any spoilers. Thinking about the structure of the tal…
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I have a few things to contribute, but will do so over a few posts. Have read enough now to say that the stories in this part of the book are developments of jātaka, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jataka_tales) a genre of Buddhist literature that d…
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@NeilNjae @Apocryphal I get it. Having plowed through all those pages of introduction, I'm just a little peeved that * IMO people who complain about Orientalists and Orientalist discourse more often than not reproduce it while thinking that they'r…
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(Quote) I agree with you, but Horta spends quite a bit of time in the Introduction arguing that there are inauthentic translations which have deformed the stories. As if a translator has a duty to a text that a story-teller does not, because their d…
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(Quote) Agree in entirety with the issues you raise in your post. But I want to clarify, I am not seeking the ur-text that Seale supposedly should have translated from, but the actual texts that were translated, together with their dates etc. I am s…
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(Quote) Will do. Is it an easy read? (Quote) Since this is coming up a few times, what do need to know about the relation of the Arab and Persian World? I am more familiar with the South Asian context, and I have to admit I found the Introductions …
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About the three merchants: When I read the tale about the three brothers and the loss of wealth reminded me of the the parables of the prodigal son, and of the talents; and I realised that in the parables the plot device is simply failing to partici…
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(Quote) Eco calls this technologisation the heavy industry of dreams. I'm interested in how this shadowy world feeds back into this world by presenting people as who they imagine themselves and others to be, with the possibility of concomitant loss …
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(Quote) I'm not sure what you mean here "invitations." Within the frame I don't think so far that the material Shahrazade presents is meant to invite Shahriyar to pay attention to the people of the kingdom. They are still moral tales, but …
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I suspect that Shahrazad's tales will not be of the animal fable variety. Her brusque dismissal of her father's fable threat with a realpolitik counter-threat suggests to me that her stories are going to be of moralities counter to tradition, in oth…
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(Quote) It's ghost touches all the way down.
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@NeilNjae Thank you for organising this, and asking such great questions. (Quote) I know relatively little of the Arabian Nights. My interest was piqued by the opportunity to look at an example of nesting what I think were likely pre-existing stori…
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(Quote) Of course you and @Apocryphal are right about this. Still, I am suggesting that when we read in stories like these words which make us think of what seem to be concrete things like an "island," a "country," or a "nat…
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@Apocryphal there's no denying that you are correct: During its reception Orientalism has been understood to mean any fantasizing about the East, often taken to be intentionally oppressive, but I hope that in this book this more sophisticated idea i…
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(Quote) Hi Chris, Etymology.com says of "island ": (Quote) "Land" in that context can mean "a definite portion of the earth's surface, home region of a person or a people, territory marked by political boundaries," A…
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(Quote) I think perhaps it is the social world that is similar. (Quote) But the urge or motive, the reason, to provide a frame story is similar. As I (no doubt poorly) understand it the Arthurian cycle is made of older materials re-purposed, and th…
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(Quote) I haven't read the book, but I think this is a little bit incorrect. As I understand it the Emperor performed rituals to demonstrate that he held and maintained the mandate of heaven, which granted him authority to rule. People opposed to th…
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Cool, never saw it before myself. Just wanted to make sure that there was one.
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Geez, you left out the important stuff: According to GoodReads (An Amazon Company): (Quote)
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Have no idea as I am not reading, but try: https://machineries-of-empire.fandom.com/wiki/Hexarchate https://machineries-of-empire.fandom.com/wiki/Machineries_of_Empire Seems to be an organisation of planets.
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(Quote) This is why I have pretty much given up on so-called genre books. It's not worth separating the wheat from the chaff. I would say that "proper" SF is simply a novel / novella / short story where a key "idea" of a possibl…