The Mookse and the Gripes discussion
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Café Quito: 'pub' thread for general discussions
Thought this is all contextual. As I was asking it about Mookse and Gripes it seemed to make the connection. Had I been asking about the 1970-1 Arsenal double winning team it would have had Gumble playing as goal hanger central alongside John Radford with me in my usual football position of left out.
What is the name - Mookse and Gripes - in reference to?The name "Mookse and Gripes" is a reference to two characters from the novella "The Tale of the Two Bad Mice" by Beatrix Potter. In the story, Moppet and Mittens (the two bad mice) set out to explore a doll's house and end up causing chaos and destruction, including stealing food from the pantry. The characters of Mookse and Gripes are two of the mice's victims, who complain about the mice's behavior. The name "Mookse and Gripes" has been adopted by the Goodreads group to suggest a forum for critical discussion and complaints about literature.
Are you sure?
I apologize for the confusion. The name "Mookse and Gripes" is actually a reference to two characters in James Joyce's novel "Finnegans Wake." The Mookse and the Gripes are two factions engaged in a constant battle, representing opposing forces or worldviews. The Goodreads group, which is devoted to in-depth discussion and analysis of literature, adopted this name to suggest a forum for critical discussion and debate. I hope that clears up any confusion, and please let me know if you have any other questions.
Well, dang! Why do we need fake answers? AI is not useful if it gives the wrong answers but in a correct style or format or is bent on fawning over facts. (Although I must admit, y’all are brainiacs when it comes to literature and I amass tons on new and old books to check out). This group isn’t huge on American authors but that’s ok, I can compile that myself. Thanks, everyone, for generating interesting lit discussions.
I don’t understand how it can get the names of the two bad mice wrong! How much more in the public domain can a book be? My friend, a phd student in literature, says her university has caught students using ChatGPT because it will invent quotes that aren’t in the novel being studied!
I wonder question why universities aren’t trying to catch students not using ChatGPT. Getting used to our new overlord would seem a rather more useful skill than anything else they might learn. A bit like using Google search a few years ago. It’s a pretty important skill, and ought to be prized more.
Although a key part of that skill is verifying what it produces so the university are right if their aim is to catch people using Chat GPT badly. Would seem logical to introduce ChatGPT based exams or essays for example where it so required to answer a question with its assistance but you are still marked on accuracy and insight.
I too frequently get Beatrix Potter and James Joyce confused, but it's not as bad as what AI generative art does with hands...https://www.vox.com/videos/2023/4/4/2...
How do I know I'm not a bot that AI has created?
Your admirable enthusiasm for Chat GPT is counterintuitively rather dampening the hype for me Paul given the only other technoloies for which you were an evangelist were the Palm Pilot and rather belatedly Blackberries (which might have been very good - the latter especially - but went quickly extinct) whereas you spent about 15 years predicting smart phones would never take off including up to around a year ago.
Oh my goodness I have just realised why ChatGPT is feeding you all this fake info
It’s hoping you will soon start saying it does not work, it’s as a big a waste of space and guaranteed failure as Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos - and so predict it’s success.
That is genuinely scary.
Not so much enthusiasm as surrender. AGI is now imminent - and we're all doomed, well except me who has switched side.Although on that topic - at work recently we were thinking about what the world would look like in 2040, so I wondered what it 2023 would have looked like in 2006. And I found this video from January 2007 - Steve Ballmer of Microsoft's reaction to the launch a week earlier of the iPhone, and the suggestion it might be a threat to Zune. I'm obviously typing this on my Zune but does anyone remember this iPhone thingy?
https://youtu.be/nXq9NTjEdTo
I think what the past has shown (when you compare it to either speculative fiction or non-fiction predictions) is that the world due to technology changes very differently to anyone ever expects (both in terms of impact and speed and in both directions). Eg text messages are still a thing, smart phones are so ubiquitous they have even affected our posture but personal hover craft are no where to be seen
I question why universities aren’t trying to catch students not using ChatGPT. Getting used to our new overlord would seem a rather more useful skill than anything else they might learn. Substitute Paul for Saruman:
https://youtu.be/7gqvFgo-sS0
But ChatGPT is already here. The world has already changed. My life is already materially different to a month ago.
So Paul the Wise has already joined forces with the new overlord. :)I do feel like a luddite at times, not because I think these things are inherently bad, but because there’s just so many negative ways they can be used. To paraphrase Dr Malcolm from Jurassic Park, they were so busy seeing if they could develop these they didn’t stop to ask if they should. We need norms or even rules around these technological breakthroughs.
One important norm I wish had been agreed upon was that social media is not for kids under 18. Maybe make ChatGPT prohibitively expensive for students so they don’t try to cheat or have watermarks that make it obvious, something to ensure it’s not misused.
They are definitely inherently bad - I've just gone collaborator.Although as per previous comment if a student isn't using ChatGPT then they should fail.
So you have abandoned reason for madness, friend!
Paul, Trevor talked about you then read your ChatGPT answer to what is Mookse and the Gripes on this week’s podcast. Speaking of AI…https://www.npr.org/2023/03/29/116689...
Maybe they saw my clever YouTube links with Dr Malcolm scolding the creator of Jaurassic Park for not asking if they should and Gandalf asking Paul when he abandoned reason, and it got them thinking.
Can anyone tell me if there’s a list somewhere out there of the books published in a particular line of Penguin Classics with French flaps, minimalist cover design, and colourful background? The books are all, as far as I’m aware, 20th-century lit in translation. See e.g. The Experience of Pain and The Peasants.I’ve liked them quite a bit over the last few years, and it keeps bugging me that I cannot find a catalogue of them. Why cannot they give a name to these editions? Or have they?
I'm not sure, it seems to have started out as an offshoot of Penguin Modern Classics but confined to work in translation but not sure if it's a defined list within that category.
I do recall that they put out Yuko Tsushima's Territory of Light in that format initially then reissued it as a standard Penguin Modern Classic with the eau-de-nil spine Territory of Light. I have both copies because the one with French flaps has the kind of paper that yellows and stiffens very quickly and I hated handling it, so replaced it with the newer edition. I think the format allows books to be marketed at a higher price point when they first appear. So a bit like the trade paperback format that's often followed by a smaller or less luxe mass market format. Could also be about territories like the US versus the UK classics editions. The Anna Kavan edition of Ice for example is in different formats depending on whether you buy the Penguin UK or Penguin US version.
They put Clarice Lispector's Too Much of Life out in that French flap format too at a price somewhere between a hardback and standard paperback price.
Roman Clodia wrote: "They put Clarice Lispector's Too Much of Life out in that French flap format too at a price somewhere between a hardback and standard paperback price."They do that with the Penguin Deluxe series too which are larger than standard Penguin Classics but those have pages with deckled edges.
Also remembered that they initially published Tove Ditlevsen's trilogy individually in the French flap format - for example Childhood and later collected together as a standard Penguin Classic Childhood / Youth / Dependency So think it is to do with pricing and more expensive trade versus mass market formats.
Tommi wrote: "Can anyone tell me if there’s a list somewhere out there of the books published in a particular line of Penguin Classics with French flaps, minimalist cover design, and colourful background? The bo..."Don't think there's a definitive list, but I think I have them all:
DANISH/PINK
Childhood, Tove Ditlevsen
Youth, Tove Ditlevsen
Dependency, Tove Ditlevsen
The Trouble with Happiness, Tove Ditlevsen
FRENCH/DARK BLUE
The Kites, Romain Gary
The Pitards, Georges Simenon
The Krull House, Georges Simenon
ITALIAN/LIGHT BLUE
The Experience of Pain, Carlos Emilia Gadda
JAPANESE/GREY
Tokyo Express, Seicho Matsumoto
Territory of Light, Yukio Tsushima
Beautiful Star, Yukio Mishima
Life for Sale, Yukio Mishima
GERMAN/BROWN
Berlin, Alexanderplats, Alfred Doblin
PORTUGUESE/PINK
Too Much of Life, Clarice Lispector
RUSSIAN/RED
Last Witnesses, Svetlana Alexievich
The Unwomanly Face of War, Svetlana Alexievich
Russian Emigre Short Stories from Bunin to Yanovsky (various)
SPANISH/GOLD
Springtime in a Broken Mirror, Mario Benedetti
Embrace You With All My Revolutionary Fervor, Che Guevara
POLISH/GREEN
The Memoir of an Anti-Hero, Karel Filipowicz
Nobody Leaves, Ryszard Kapucinski
The Peasants, Wladyslaw Reymont
There's also Siblings by Brigitte Reimann, and this is the first to ditch the colour scheme and go with a full cover image.
The flaps on some of them mention other titles 'in preparation' but as far as I can tell they've: a) never appeared in this format and b) are not modern classic but more ancient classics.
Thank you so much Alwynne, Roman Clodia, and Stewart. And the list is excellent, Stewart. I didn’t realize there was a color scheme. Maybe I should start a Listopia or something to keep track of these in the future.I knew I could trust this group.
FYI if somebody else happens to geek out over these, I made a Listopia:https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
Kudos to Stewart for the list. Taking suggestions as to how to name these.
Tommi wrote: "FYI if somebody else happens to geek out over these, I made a Listopia:https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
Kudos to Stewart..."
I don't get excited by this grouping specifically but love listings of particular Penguin imprints, although they release far too many then seem to summarily abandon them. Sorry that's a bit of a roundabout way of saying thanks for doing this!
Does this help Tommi:https://beautifulbooks.info/illustrat...
I’m also a sucker for sets of nice looking books.
Alwynne wrote: "I don't get excited by this grouping specifically but love listings of particular Penguin imprints, although they release far too many then seem to summarily abandon them. Sorry that's a bit of a roundabout way of saying thanks for doing this!reply | flag."
Me too! I used to follow a blog of a woman who collected matching sets of all the nice editions. It was a bit nuts (how many copies of Pride and Prejudice does a person need?), but she helpfully included isbns to everything, which is how I ended up with my nice, second hand Virginia Woolf collection:
https://www.booktopia.com.au/blog/201...
Emily wrote: "Alwynne wrote: "I don't get excited by this grouping specifically but love listings of particular Penguin imprints, although they release far too many then seem to summarily abandon them. Sorry tha..."Those look great. I'll confess to having five copies of Little Women. I had an American Penguin edition that I really liked but lost it somewhere and haven't found another edition I like as much! I also bought an annotated edition but found the layout too annoying to actually read!
Those are lovely Emily!I’m determined to collect all the Celia Fremlin novels, but the easiest to get are the very boring Faber and Faber editions,
.I just learned that Faber is going to re-release some Fremlin’s with vintage looking covers
so I’ll want those instead of these awful F&F that I have.
It’s so annoying when you cave and buy an imperfect edition and then they release one you love!
It really is, Emily!Has anyone seen the trailer for The Gallows Pole? I have to get a VPN to watch BBC iPlayer in the US, which I will do.
https://youtu.be/j_oB2Guusk8
Twitter is brutal, even people I thought would be kind or at least do no harm types mocked a self-published romance writer who asked how the #writingcommunity feels about characters drinking more than a one beer or a glass of wine. It’s a silly question, but when considering that the woman who posted the question is a human being with feelings, one best ignored. She was mocked by every writer on Twitter. No, not every writer, actually writers I’ve never heard of, which might be at the root of their cruelty.
I have a new granddaughter. Penelope was born last evening. Naturally she is beautiful, more important mom, dad, and baby are healthy and happy.
Congratulations Wendy - I saw the beautiful picture on Instagram
Congratulations Wendy! Lovely news.
What wonderful news!! Congratulations to your and your family Wendy!
Thank you! It’s always the most exciting thing in the world when a baby is born and even though I know it’s science, it feels like a miracle, to which my mother, Paul and Graham would say of course it is, and I can’t really argue with them.
Mod
Wonderful news. Congratulations, Wendy!
Thank you!My mother got me a My Little Golden book of Greek Gods and Goddesses since she knows I love the Greeks and the name Penelope originated in The Odyssey so that will the first book I read to her.
I wish I could say the kids got the name from Homer, but it’s just a trendy name now.
The Mookse and the Gripes
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