If you could design the English Curriculum..

I can understand that, and I know a great many professors create classes with just such indulgences in mind. Literature and Film classes focusing on the Western, classes on detective fiction, or vampire literature, or the Trans-Lunar Narrative in Early 20th Century American Fiction (how one prof I knew gussied up the title of a class on pulp space operas). The problem was, I suppose, that they did have to provide a syllabus for the department head's approval, so the courses had to have a definitive structure. Also, none of them were entry level survey courses.

You sniff at David and Leigh Eddings's stuff? Deboss, I bite my thumb at you sir.

Their work, apart from the Elder Gods books which I ended up hating, is really good fantasy works. Great characters, plot, situations, massive battles, good, evil and most stuff in between. In short, the perfect gateway drugs for getting folks hooked and lead them into stuff like Martin, Donaldson, Kerr and Erikson.

Sorry, can't recommend Donaldson. At least, not Thomas Covenant. I'm one of those people who quit midway through chapter seven, if that's the chapter it was.

Hail Martin Septim!

I liked the first Thomas Covenant series, but I couldn't quite finish the second. Covenant is a jerk, but somehow I found him more likeable than Linden Avery. Plus, I could imagine him singing "Don't Touch Me" when he was being really insufferable.

"Doctor Who means never having to say you're kidding." - Bocaj

I loved David and Leigh Eddings, or at least the Belgariad and the Mallorean, when I was younger, but on repeated readings I've found myself catching them on a lot of inconsistencies, logical holes, and just plain complacency and laziness (a major character — one on whom the plot hinges — in the Malloreon for all intents and purposes vanishes midway through the series; he's still mentioned every so often, but he doesn't do a damned thing until he plays his part in the conclusion, likely because he wasn't very interesting and they didn't feel like writing him). On a personal level, I started to find a lot of their characterizations just becoming annoying. Don't get me wrong, their work can be very engaging, I just find myself picking it apart.

Which is why I suggested them as gateway drugs. I personally love the books, the characters, the plots, and even the plot holes and inconsistencies. I really hated the last series they did though. It wasn't them so much using the reset button at the end of the last book, as it was them hitting it with a twelve-pound sledgehammer.

The Belgariad, the Malloreon, the Elenium and the Tamuli still stand up as being amongst the best fantasy series I have ever read, to this day. The stand alone ones like "The Redemption of Althalus" and the two about Polgara and Belgarath I could have taken or left though.

As for Donaldson, some of his best work is in the "Gap" series. Hard edge science fiction and one of the best explanations for how faster than light travel would be plausible there has been.

edited 17th Oct '12 3:47:34 AM by TamH70

Franz Kafka, The Castle. Children need to know what their future will be like.

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

I sniffed because David died and we won't get any more.

Fight smart, not fair.

Oh, my apologies. I got the wrong end of the stick. Yeah, say it with me children, "AS USUAL!!!"

Threadhop after a certain post...

Unless you can back it up with proper arguments that cannot be easily refuted. For instance, I do have arguments on why I think War And Peace (book) is a subtly immoral piece of crap and why no one should ever read it at the risk of tainting their worldview. (although here my arguments are flawed in places — simply because I can't bring myself to spend enough time with what I feel is such a travesty of a book to build a better defense of my viewpoint)

(Also, please, let's not discuss this here, not only it'd be off-topic, but such a discussion would drain me right now — I feel sick and hatred is not the best way to cope with sickness)

If a teacher would ask me about my personal opinion on the matter, I'd provide all of it with all the arguments at once. The only reason I do not do this without provocation is because my personal opinion on this book is such venomous, overwhelming hatred that if I fail in the debate, I'll look like a fool and if I succeed, then any other planned lessons about this book would become completely impossible.

So it's not about the opinions, it's about the reasons behind them. You can think whatever you want, as long as you can back yourself up on the matter.

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Could you explain at least why you consider War and Peace "immoral" and why you would tell people not to read it because it might "taint their worldview"? Because the way you worded that statement struck me as terribly moralistic.

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

Short answer: because the ethical system in this book is ever-so-slightly skewed. No amount of extreme content can do more damage than such a well written book with an awesomely presented system of ethics that are almost right, but not quite.

Unfortunately, the most glaring example of immorality that I was using as proof is all about Exact Words in a particular sentence. Since I was reading it in Russian, I need to find a suitable translation of that phrase before I can provide that argument.

Some of the problems also result from skewed characterization. Helene is described as some sort of a jerk, but comes across as the most reasonable character in the story. Pierre decides to lead a new life with masons (or freemasons, don't know how they were translated) but then proceeds to tell Helene off in the most hypocritical manner and you get a vague sense that the author supports his actions. Well, OK, maybe he needed to separate himself from her, but why in such an awful way?

More characterization issues: Andrey Bolkonsky, fearing that his cynical worldview is correct, argues with Pierre and his more idealistic viewpoint that resulted from talking with masons. Again, I have no idea what that part looks like in the English translation, but in the Russian original it started out awesome and then it got screwed up.

Andrey is fearing that he is right, so he should've BOMBARDED Pierre with arguments. Instead, the debate ends smack-dab in the middle and Andrey suddenly changes his opinion incredibly easily, with Tolstoy resorting to descriptions of nature to make it look plausible. But then there's this awesomely-described tree that makes Andrey change his opinion back. And then when he sees the tree again after some time, he changes his mind AGAIN!

I get that he could change his opinion strangely easily once, but three times? His cynical worldview formed painfully, with Lise's death. So how does it change with the speed and ease of a freaking revolving door?

And so on and so forth. Most of the book is like that.

I know this is mostly about lifeless characters, but if I ever find a suitable translation of the sentence that clued me in, I'll provide that argument as well.

edited 24th Oct '12 5:27:20 PM by Muzozavr

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Separate post here to make things more readable.

Alright, so I've found this sentence in English... and wow does the translation make it a lot better than it was. I'm quoting the scene here for context:

The sentence I made bold is the one that originally (in Russian) betrayed what the book was really like and what Tolstoy's real ethical system was like.

In that sentence, mentally replace the word "winning" with "attractive". Trust me, that's what it was in Russian.

My instant reaction: "Attractive look of fear? Are you attracted towards human suffering?!"

Pierre is too kind for this phrase to relate to him and Andrew, despite being emotionally stupid at this point, also does not show any sadistic tendencies here (or anywhere else in the book, actually) For Lise, that phrase doesn't make any sense either. There's no one else in the scene.

So here the author's voice really does belong to the author and not to a character. And the author says "attractive look of fear". The word "piteous" is mentioned second, as if in passing. The way Tolstoy wrote it, fear is, first and foremost, attractive. The fuck.

I'm not willing to dissect the whole book because I've had more than enough of it, but let me tell you, the whole book feels like that. All of it. There's one character that for a duration of time is awesome (Dolokhov, before the duel) and one subplot that is awesome, the food subplot with Denisov. Here is it, the only part of the book that I liked in the two thirds I've been able to swallow:

This scene is awesome. Unfortunately, it's the only good one.

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"ome of the problems also result from skewed characterization. Helene is described as some sort of a jerk, but comes across as the most reasonable character in the story."

...how on Earth does Helene come across as reasonable? She's cheating on her faithful husband, taking advantage of his idealistic and kind nature, and laughs at him when he wants to produce an heir.

"Pierre decides to lead a new life with masons (or freemasons, don't know how they were translated) but then proceeds to tell Helene off in the most hypocritical manner and you get a vague sense that the author supports his actions. Well, OK, maybe he needed to separate himself from her, but why in such an awful way?"

Aside from the above, Pierre is a highly flawed character. The book goes out of the way to show that he often makes poor decisions, despite (or because of) his idealism.

In fact, if there's one thing that can be called the central arc of the book, it's Pierre learning how to reconcile his idealism with everything else in the world, and even in the end he hasn't gotten things 100% right.

"So here the author's voice really does belong to the author and not to a character. And the author says "attractive look of fear". The word "piteous" is mentioned second, as if in passing. The way Tolstoy wrote it, fear is, first and foremost, attractive. The fuck."

We have a trope for that -Wounded Gazelle Gambit.

...

The dumber people think you are, the more surprised they're going to be when you kill them.

First of all, it's not *proven* (correct me if there's some information in the last third of the book that I've missed), Pierre just ASSUMES it to be true based on the rumors. (And as we all know, assuming makes an ass out of you and me) And YOU, as a reader, did the same thing. (like countless others, BTW)

Second, she won me over with this:

And then I'm immediately reminded of The Count Of Monte Cristo (book) and how Albert willingly declined the duel right there in front of everyone. Yet later on Tolstoy tries to make it look like she's wrong and she really, really isn't.

As for Pierre's decisions: well, OK, poor decisions I can understand. Decisions that are almost not a part of his new worldview? Not so much.

As for the Wounded Gazelle Gambit trope, there's several problems with this interpretation. First of all, the way the phrase is written, it simply can't belong to Lise, it can only belong to the author. Second, it'd paint Lise as some sort of a mischievous manipulator, but that's not supported anywhere else in the book.

So if we assume the gambit AND that Lise is a good person, that means it's a completely desperate situation which requires such trickery. That, in turn, paints Andrew as a MUCH bigger asshole than he has EVER been described anywhere else in the book.

Basically, no matter how you slice it, it just doesn't add up.

edited 25th Oct '12 10:40:05 PM by Muzozavr

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"First of all, it's not *proven* (correct me if there's some information in the last third of the book that I've missed), Pierre just ASSUMES it to be true based on the rumors. (And as we all know, assuming makes an ass out of you and me) And YOU, as a reader, did the same thing. (like countless others, BTW)"

Nothing is ever "proven" in fiction. Literature is not a court of law, and it isn't subject to the same standards of evidence that reality is. When you read a book, there's an understanding between you and the author that when he tells you something is happened, you believe him. The reality of a work of fiction is defined by the author. Sometimes authors intentionality subvert this, but it's overwhelmingly the rule.

Everything Tolstoy shows us about Helene points to her being a very poor wife, and he doesn't provide any reason to think she's not. For whatever reason, you've decided that you don't want this to be true. That's fine for some "What if" analysis, but you need to understand that you're redefining the book's reality at that point. Any conclusions or morals you make out of it after doing that can't be honestly applied to the original work.

Helene and Dolohov give Pierre every reason to thing that she's being unfaithful, and they rub it in his face because they think he's going to be too much of a doormat to do anything about it. Dolohov is a bully and was enjoying pushing Pierre, thinking he would never fight back.

"What a brave fellow we’ve got here! Well, answer, what is this duel? What did you want to prove by it? What, I ask you…since you don’t answer, I’ll tell you…you believe everything you’re told. You were told…that Dolokhov is my lover…and you believed it! But what did you prove by it? What did you prove by this duel? That you’re a fool, that you’re a fool; everybody knew that anyway. What will it lead to? That I will become the laughing-stock of all Moscow; that everyone will say that you, in a drunken state, forgetting yourself, challenged to a duel a man of whom you were groundlessly jealous…and who is better than you in all respects…We’ll part if you please, but only if you give me a fortune."

She won you over by bitching at Pierre for getting into a duel that she and her massive ass of a boyfriend provoked Pierre into declaring? And being mostly concerned about her being a laughing stock and money?

"Yet later on Tolstoy tries to make it look like she's wrong and she really, really isn't."

Tolstoy doesn't try to make the duel look like a good decision, but Helene isn't innocent by any stretch. Hell, Pierre feels more genuine guilt than Helene feels sorrow about it happening.

"As for Pierre's decisions: well, OK, poor decisions I can understand. Decisions that are almost not a part of his new worldview? Not so much."

What decisions does Pierre make that aren't part of his worldview at that particular moment? Remember, his worldview is in flux throughout the whole book, and he's constantly trying to make sense of it.

"As for the Wounded Gazelle Gambit trope, there's several problems with this interpretation. First of all, the way the phrase is written, it simply can't belong to Lise, it can only belong to the author. Second, it'd paint Lise as some sort of a mischievous manipulator, but that's not supported anywhere else in the book."

The Wounded Gazelle Gambit is something you need to be a magnificent bastard to pull off- children can do it. Meanwhile, the author isn't a character in this book. It's written largely in third person limited, where it's common for the narration to be colored by what the characters see or feel.

Tolstoy is basically saying that she made puppy dog eyes at him. Oh, wait, he's "basically" saying it, he's actually saying it, complete with tail wagging and everything.

Can you please use quoteblock tags next time? Walls of text are fine, but seeing parts of two different posts in one wall of text drives me crazy for some reason.

Anyway:

1) Helene. Poor wife, maybe, but the fact is, Tolstoy never tells us that she cheated on him. Given how Tolstoy routinely uses scenes of comparatively little plot importance to flesh out the atmosphere, I don't believe that his omission of such a scene was by accident. I think he wanted to leave it ambiguous. And I believe in this thing called "presumption of innocence".

The only people saying that she cheated on him are other characters. It's all rumors that may or may not have factual basis. Dolokhov, being an awesome The Trickster bastard that he is, could've intentionally provoked Pierre even if the actual cheating did not take place. In fact, since Dolokhov does everything with this terrible and fascinating sense of style, I firmly believe that the cheating did NOT take place because provoking Pierre then — with only a few gestures, no less! — is the more stylish action than if cheating did happen... and, therefore, is more in-character for Dolokhov. (Actually it still feels a bit OOC due to the sheer pettiness of this provocation... but then again, he's seen from Pierre's POV, so it actually does make a weird kind of sense)

1.5 Helene's speech. Even if you hate her guts, there is a trope for this. It's called Jerkass Has a Point. It exists for a reason.

1.5.5 The "laughingstock" part. What did Helene DO to make Pierre a laughingstock? Pierre himself made it happen with such expertise that even if Helene wanted to do that, there's no way she could have added to what Pierre had already done.

2. Pierre's worldview. He was taking a turn for kindness with the masons. It all started happening really fast. And then he turns around a proceeds to act like an absolute jerk in a manner most hypocritical?

3. Wounded Gazelle Gambit. This may be just me, but children do it because, up to a certain point, it's the only thing they can do. Once you grow up, however, intentionally using pity to control somebody is low.

4. Author-reader belief. If there exists a fictional world and the writer is describing it, all is fine. If there exists a fictional world, and every single BS flag in me tells me that, had this world existed in our reality, this book would've been a false account of the events and characters, that's totally different. Tolstoy is LYING to me from the very first page and to the last, and you expect me to believe him?

I get Willing Suspension of Disbelief, when Dostoevsky writes, I believe, when Turgenev writes, I believe, when Ray Bradbury writes, I believe, etc... when Tolstoy writes, I go "in this fictional world, these events did not and could not happen the way they are described, and these characters are not and could not have been the people they're presented as". Tolstoy is literally the only writer that I know of that does this to me. I don't like Nabokov, for example, but he's honest. Tolstoy isn't.

P.S. As for "third person limited", Tolstoy sucked at using it, anyway. If you want to see a real master of "third person limited", read A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov.

P.S.S This seems like it's going to go on for a long time, so maybe a separate topic should be started. There is one thing I like about the book: the debates. As much as I hate it, it makes me think when I try to justify my hatred. Credit is where credit's due.

edited 26th Oct '12 8:36:28 AM by Muzozavr

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1) Tolstoy didn't explicitly show Helene cheating because he was showing things mostly through Pierre's perspective. Your basic premise- that Tolstoy has to prove that Helene cheated to your satisfaction, or else that's not what really happened- is flat-out wrong. All you're doing is looking for an opportunity to paint Helene is a far more sympathetic light than her behavior in the book actually warrants.

1.5) No, she doesn't have a point. She's completely wrong about the real reasons why challenging Dolokhov was foolish. She says that Pierre came off looking like a fool, but it was really her who came out looking bad. She says that Dolokhov is better than him in all respects, which is a flat-out reprehensible statement. Pierre also did prove something rather important, which was that there were limits to how far he could be pushed. She's only right that challenging Dolokhov to a duel was foolish by coincidence.

2) Given how much Alternative Character Interpretation you're running with, you're going to have to be more specific on what he does to be a "total jerk".

3) It's something that people do all the time. Stop blowing things massively out of context and it looks far more reasonable.

4) The problem here is that you've yet to actually identify a single "BS flag". It sounds far, far more like you're taking some pre-existing bias into the work and are completely oblivious to how much it's causing you to re-imagine the book.

edited 26th Oct '12 11:52:39 AM by Bloodsquirrel

EDIT: I've just noticed that I use italics (to highlight a certain word) way too much in this debate. Please forgive me for this. It's one of my bad writing habits that pops up every now and then. Also, I used the word "fuck" a lot in this post, I was too emotional and got carried away. I'm sorry.

Note that I didn't say she was a good person. I said she was the most reasonable character in the book. So that's one point.

Also I'm not looking for an opportunity to paint her in a certain light. That opportunity screamed out to me all by itself, it's literally my first perception of what happened.

Abhorrent statement... as a reply to a similarly abhorrent action, aka the duel. An eye for an eye. Makes sense to me. Not a way of a healthy relationship, but not necessarily the way of cheating, either. It's very possible that she didn't actually think that way until the duel lowered Pierre in her eyes MASSIVELY. Then it's just Brutal Honesty.

Makes her a fool instead of Pierre? She already looked like a fool when the rumors started appearing — and given her fast thinking, she knows it. The duel may have been the final nail in the coffin, but by far the least important one. Maybe that WAS the logic Tolstoy wanted to use — I don't know, I'm not a mind reader nor a time traveler — but, regardless of author's intentions, this logic doesn't work all that well.

As for the speech itself, again, it really reminds me of Monte Cristo (book) and Albert declining the duel right there in front of everyone. Helene's speech, regardless of her character, is morally smarter and saner than Pierre's decision to duel. When I find myself agreeing to the villains and jerks (and not the heroes) on moral viewpoints there's a big fucking problem with the story. Note here that no other books have ever made that happen to me, so it's not a problem of my character, either.

Alright, this is one scene that I'll pass, cause I don't remember it very well and I don't want to re-read it. I remember the impression — the absolute first impression — and that's more than enough for me.

And as for Alternate Character Interpretation? Of course I run on it, because if I try to accept everything as written, nothing makes sense! Again, how about Andrew flipping his worldview with the ease and speed of a revolving door three times — twice due to a goddamn TREE. The fuck was that all about?! Worldviews ingrained as painfully as Andrew's was don't fucking work that way!

Or Dolokhov, who does everything with this style, gracefulness and a certain... scale. He does everything on an epic scale, whether you like him or not. He may be an asshole but he's not petty. And then the pre-duel scene has the author force him into acting petty? Then again, it's Pierre's POV, so maybe it was not as petty as it was described, but if that's what Tolstoy wanted, then he handled it very clumsily.

So right here, if I accept Tolstoy's narration as true, the entire book falls apart at the seams. It's only when I accept the narration as that of a filthy liar that it begins to make a modicum of sense — but then the narration disgusts me and makes me want to morally vomit with every. single. word.

As for the author not being a character inside his book — this particular book isn't there to tell a story, it's there for the author's ideas about the world. If the entire book is one giant Author Tract, how is he not a character in the book? He is the one who perceives the fictional world (horribly) and tells it to us. That was actually extremely common for Russian (and not only Russian) literature of the time. Probably the only Russian writer of the times who did not insert himself as a character inside the work was Anton Chekhov — and critics back then kept misunderstanding him as the result, they kept thinking that the ideas of his characters are his own.

If people murdered all the time, would that make murder any better than what it is now? This is an extremely far-fetched comparison, of course, but just because people do something all the time does not mean it's a good thing to do. And even if Wounded Gazelle Gambit is not as bad of a thing as I think it is, the way the scene played out, Lise using a Wounded Gazelle Gambit in this situation would at the very least show her to be a manipulative person, which is not supported by the rest of her characterization. (Note: it's not necessary to be good at manipulation to try to use it)

So at the very least on the logical basis, it falls apart.

(And even then, the word "winning" does work here, but "attractive"? That would mean Lise considers fear to be attractive, and by the rest of her characterization, that is fucking impossible.)

I had no pre-existing bias when I started. I'm an extremely open-minded person — which is part of the reason why this post was written in the first place, had I been less open-minded I would have bowed down before authority and this debate wouldn't have happened.

I genuinely intended to enjoy the book but found that the first page made me immensely angry at whoever wrote it, although I didn't yet know why.

The final straw (in terms of the author/reader trust) for me was the "sky of Austerlitz" episode. I have read a description of being horribly wounded by another writer, who himself was horribly wounded at one point in WWII, so he wrote from personal experience. With a wound like this, you don't stare at the fucking sky and have fucking revelations about fucking life, you only feel PAIN up until a certain point. It's sometimes possible to beat this with sheer willpower in the company of others — but not alone. And no way a newbie to war could've been that strong, anyway. There is some possibility for thinking during such a time — but not in this detached, abstract manner. There is also a possibility about a "power of will" strong reaction, where a concrete goal is ahead and adrenaline keeps you running — but such a reaction can only work towards something concrete, not towards weird Fauxlosophical Narration.

Had the "sky of Austerlitz" part been written by someone else, it would've been tolerable, but Tolstoy was himself part of a war, just a different one. OK, so maybe he was never wounded, but has he ever seen a person wounded as horribly? If he did and then he didn't understand what it's like by seeing it, where's his empathy, why is he being so emotionally stupid?

That's when I stopped trying to accept the narration at face value and started actively looking for possible "lies about the fictional world" and found out that the book started making a lot more sense when I did this.

edited 26th Oct '12 4:28:58 PM by Muzozavr

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I don't know how it is in the Russian, but "winning" and "attractive" aren't synonymous in English.

"Doctor Who means never having to say you're kidding." - Bocaj

Of course they aren't, that's my point! The Russian word that was there originally is properly translated as "attractive". Using the word "winning" is a Woolseyism of epic proportions because it's completely unrelated to the word that was there in Russian.

edited 26th Oct '12 4:46:25 PM by Muzozavr

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Sorry, I misread your post. Would you like to make a general Tolstoy thread?

"Doctor Who means never having to say you're kidding." - Bocaj

I think it should be done, just so that we stop cluttering this thread with off-topic. However, I'm going to sleep very soon, so I'm probably going to do it tomorrow. (It's 3 AM for me right now)

edited 26th Oct '12 5:00:55 PM by Muzozavr

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Alright, trying to get this thread on topic after Ranty Mc Rantsmith derailed us. I didn't read those posts, so maybe he's talking in favor of giving puppies to orphans or something, I don't really care. Let's talk about curriculums.

Good Omens, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, maybe some Persepolis, A Study In Scarlet, At the Mountains of Madness, Gulliver's Travels (the edition that actually has the third and fourth parts with all the satire, not the delightful story for children)...this would be high school stuff.

"Monsters are tragic beings. They are born too tall, too strong, too heavy. They are not evil by choice. That is their tragedy."