Traveller’s Comments (group member since Jan 14, 2015)

Traveller’s comments from the On Paths Unknown group.

...but I did say "tends to" I didn't say definitely is.
...meaning that morality is often tied to specific creeds and religions, and the codes tend to change along with the creed.
Whereas ethics is something more objective, and the codes involved there, tend to go more with occupations and the like, if you see what I'm saying. As for example, the surgeon's code of ethics. If you are one, you need to adhere to their ethics which is something totally separate from what that surgeon's ideas of morality might be. But ethics do fit in with morality when we get to moral philosophy and beliefs on how we should treat other people, the earth, our environment and so forth.

How is it going with City of Saints, Magdelanye, did you find our threads for it?

Well, the term "variation" in music (where I suppose I'm taking it from), has to do with the mode of delivery - the content of the melody stays the same; but the rythm, timing, and pitch changes.

I apologize if this is also a term meaning something else in literature, but I had meant it in that sense - and you are quite right, (and this is what makes drama/theater so "alive"), you are of course quite correct in pointing out that EVERY performance of a play will per se in this sense be a variation.

...and yes, I had meant variation from the traditional way of interpreting well-known plays, because, of course, there tend to be "traditional" parameters with most plays, even controversial ones in which case there tend to be a few "traditional" interpretations, if you know what I mean.

As an aside, something to think about, is that the playwright him/herself tends to put in stage/acting directions in brackets; for example: (in a melancholy tone) or (with great force) etc. So I suppose one can't deviate too much from that or it will really become a "variation". :P

I was also thinking of the film plays done in modern settings, but with still exactly the same dialogue, like the film version of Romeo and Juliet sporting Leonardo Di Caprio and Clare Danes.

Oh! ..and about the Murakami: I'm not sure that is the one that everyone achieved consensus on, since we have a few on the shelf, so that is just a place keeper. I think the best thing to do re Murakami is to have a POLL. No seriously. ;)

Personally I think I would prefer Wind-up Bird Chronicle. I know 1Q84 is probably Murakami's BIG one, but... yeah, I am afraid of big... but can be convinced - so let's hear it on a poll for him.

No, but seriously, it's no use having a discussion at a time that the people who want it cannot do it. So, this was just a way to see how much we can cram into 6 months, because we're greedy, aren't we? XD

So please, if there are dates that don't suit any of you, moving things around a bit won't be the end of the world, honestly. All I have to do at this point is to...er... juggle a few dates - doing it becomes easier with practice. :P

You're so sweet, Ruth!

Ruth wrote: " let's just tag it onto the end."

Er... *cough* that is exactly what I did with Invisible Cities. I hope anybody is not cross that's it's on so late, but I did promise Disha that we'd read The Castle of Crossed Destinies soon, which is the Calvino she had wanted to read instead of "If on a Winter's Night", and then somehow I forgot about IC because I was so busy trying to fit in the Dickens and the Shakespeare projects into all the other stuff that members had wanted us to do.

Oh, and after I tacked IC onto the end, I realized I had forgotten "The Female Man". #_# ...sooo... if you're wondering why things are a bit squashed, you know why.... :P

...but in any case, the rationale is that hopefully those who prefer SF will have that nicely spaced, and I'm not sure that everybody would want to participate in the Shakespeare and Dickens projects, which is why I interspersed those with other reading.

EDIT: I know The Book of the New Sun is not in there, but there simply wasn't space. It's there for the second half of 2016.

Well, I missed it at the time, though I'm not very surprised:
Amazon sues 1,114 reviewers, some selling their opinions for $5

Some old-timey sci-fi stories or TV shows from the earlier 20th century to around the 1980's which are set to play out in around the year 2000 or just after, often make you giggle at how unrealistic their future projections were, but I must say that 1984 was actually not so very far off in many respects (given the vantage point in time it was written from), which is what makes it rather chilling.

I want to quickly test something. I've bust my gut today trying to make a schedule for the next 6 or 7 months that's going to suit all of us. I've arranged our "to-read" shelf in such a way that genres interleave; in other words; an SF, then a po-mo, then a classic (like Shakespeare or Dickens), then a contemporary work, and so forth, but let me tell you, it's not so easy as it sounds!
Then I took screenshots of my arrangement, and now I just need a way to upload the images, so here goes a test.
Okay, I got the images up, though some of it is unreadable. Still, is everyone happy with the parts they can make out? :P I'll take new, more legible images tomorrow.










If anyone can manage to spot an omission, or if they want to read something there on a different date than I have it there, please try to let me know before I redo that incorrectly blurry image? Ugh, I don't imagine anyone can read it....

Amy, I needed your post to orient me; I was going to look up " how the Tariff and Labour questions were settled." and then I realized that it is all fictional since the story is set in his future at the time!
Even though William Chambers only died in 1933, this story was first published by F. Tennyson Neely in 1895, and the story narrates events from 1920...so.

Listen, people, so when are we going to read All the Light We Cannot See ? March 2016? Make a poll? :P

Greg wrote: "The postmodern has a decent dose of paranoia and therefore it is not magical realism in the least. Like horror, fantasy works best with a healthy scepticism. Fantasy has no master and sets the imag..."

Okay, agreed... but have I missed something? I went through this thread again to try and see where anybody said that po-mo = magical realism? Or was that just an off-the-cuff remark?

Michele wrote: "Hmm....I don't see how you can be deeply self-aware and not post-modern. ?? Both are meta or recursive."

Exactly. One of the biggest characteristics of po-mo is that it is self-conscious.

I love the Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism books! There was another criticism series that I also found good, being the Norton Critical Editions : http://books.wwnorton.com/books/subje...

^ True, dat, Name R. I love 'variations' like the one you mention, as long as they clearly state that it is a variation.

Re buddy read still within 2015: If you're prepared to wait until end of November, I would be happy to do buddy reads of Shriek + Finch with you starting around November 29-30, for which I will make a few threads in this "Vandermeer" folder.

(I've done 'flash' buddy reads here with up to 4 other people at a time, but we were quite well-matched as far as reading speed was concerned).

I've noticed you read pretty fast - will a week to 10 days per book be too slow for you? I tend to be slow-ish because I have a gazillion books and things going at the same time.

There is at least one other person on this group who was interested in reading Finch, but I could always PM them and invite them along as long as they don't mind that you and I will be reading it more or less in synch. (That is if you agree to my plan. If not, no worries at all - it's just a suggestion.)

Excellent plan! I will mark the titles of the threads as such, then. :)

EDIT: A LONG DIGRESSION BETWEEN MYSELF AND AMY STARTS HERE. APOLOGIES - ACTUAL THREAD CONTINUES AT POST NO.23.


I am very glad to hear that you are interested in reading more Vandermeer. I happen to own Finch which has been sitting on my 'real' bookshelf for more than 2 years now; so 2016 is going to be my year of Vandemeer, and I have it on some authority that one -can- read Finch before Shriek without losing much; but you have made me reconsider and I might just read Shriek first after all. :D

Thanks Yolande! I am gratified to see how close that t/lation is to my own initial one: The one Yolande links to, says:" Do not mock the insane; their madness lasts longer than ours… that is the only difference."; whereas my own original t/lation went: "Let us not mock the insane, for their folly outlasts ours; that's the only difference." Ok, folly - yeah, I guess madness is better there. (In this context I suppose both would kinda fit).

Anyway, in other words, agreed on the last sentence, and glad to see "the insane" which is what I also thought.

Thanks everyone!

Sorry, Ruth, I just could not resist, and can you really blame me? :) I hope we are still friends. XD
Never fear, you will get me to read AG still, I promise.
If we had not done it by May/June next year yet, you can refer me back to this post of mine (post 46) in which I:
"solemnly promise that I will read American Gods with Ruth/the group before August 2016." That sound fair? :P

Maybe you can cure my phobia. We'll have to see...

Yep, I actually originally had something like that, and then the other one sounded a bit more... er... it sounded nicer. @_@ More English, I guess.

...but pls help out with which of crazy/nutto/foolish/or, er (yeah ok insane is just a nicer word for crazy and nutto) Is it fools or madmen we are talking about here?

Derek (Guilty of thoughtcrime) wrote: "Sounds good. I've probably seen Hamlet more times than any other Shakespeare play — not that that means I understand it any better. If we do Hamlet, though, we should include [book:Rosencrantz and ..."

Oh boy... you can add the latter to my list of shame, so yes! Though I am afeared of R&G are Dead...:S