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Did I, Claudius spoil itself by revealing that Claudius becomes Emperor after Caligula gets shanked? I forget but I mean, that's kinda been known for 2000 years. The sequel is pretty good too. Re: Nabakov - read Pale Fire first imo, it's only "hard to get" in that what happens is open to interpretation but it's mostly just a ton of fun. Spoilers: Augustus becomes Emperor too 
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Oct 12, 2018 22:03
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if you think about it The Divine Comedy is genre fiction
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Nov 7, 2018 08:55
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Franchescanado posted:There's a lot of angles to explore this debate, enough to warrant it's own thread, but this New Yorker article does a decent job of laying out a few sides and a brief history of the debate, with Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel as an example for defining the blurred lines. Station Eleven is not a good example of this, it fits very neatly in the sci-fi sub-genre of "post-apocalyptic survival". The book is primarily about the events that occur in the book and the main theme of "the virtue of preserving bits of civilization that are non-essential for survival" are absolutely secondary and subservient to the plot. The clumsiness and arbitrariness with which much of the plot is handled makes this evident - why does the character of the prophet exist? Because post-apocalyptic survival books need to have weird religious cults, of course, and because the plot needs to have eerie synchronicity to carry emotional effectiveness. Hell, the museum of lost technology thing is about the tropiest post-apocalyptic genre trope there is. The author even feels the need to go our of her way to beat us over the head with the book's central theme, which is...a Star Trek quote. It's a pretty good book but it mystified me to see it receive such high praise from "literary circles" when it's really just another collection of post-apocalyptic fiction cliches that have been around since at least the mid-20th century. Earth Abides, for example, handles the concept of "survival is insufficient" in a more elegant and much more emotionally impacting way - where Station Eleven has the literal phrase emblazoned on a banner that the characters carry around, just in case we didn't get the point, Earth Abides actually depicts a society where the majority think survival is sufficient, and the resulting cultural devastation and dehumanization. also wtf does this mean lol quote:The twist—the thing that makes “Station Eleven” National Book Award material—is that the survivors are artists.
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Nov 14, 2018 22:42
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in my reading Hamlet's dad's ghost is actually a hologram projected by space aliens and Yorick's skull is that of the starchild, therefore Shakespeare is arguing ancient aliens are real, prove me wrong!! I have known someone who was an obstinate believer in "objective readings" and would say dumb poo poo like this to prove that subjectivity is wrong or w/e, and they were an English major :/ :/
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Nov 16, 2018 19:43
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Replace all instances of TKaM in syllabi with Intruder in the Dust imo. Or at least have both of em
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Jan 9, 2019 16:50
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