Modern day classics
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Infiltrator
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written Thursday, March 30 2006 13:44
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While I have no doubt that these are good books, I haven't heard of any of them. While they might be considered worthy of that title by a literature professor, I have difficulty seeing them as classics with staying power. -------------------- "As our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it." --Albert Einstein -------------------- Posts: 536 | Registered: Sunday, September 7 2003 07:00 |
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Apprentice
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written Thursday, March 30 2006 14:01
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"Chief of the Smugglers' Alliance" writes: "While I have no doubt that these are good books, I haven't heard of any of them. While they might be considered worthy of that title by a literature professor, I have difficulty seeing them as classics with staying power." I'm going to guess (or at least hope) that you're exaggerating some. Surely you've at least heard of One Hundred Years of Solitude. Further, people have been listing Stephen King and Dean Koontz as possible "classics." That's ridiculous. They're pulp novels that will be forgotten just like the pulp novels of the early twentieth century are not remembered now. Not that there isn't plenty of crap that gets iconic "classic" status, usually because it reinforces the insipid conventional wisdom in the guise of being oppositional or even subversive (Orwell is the best example of this). But others that people have been listing as "classics" (e.g., Tolkien) are crap that doesn't even rise to "classics" status as far as I'm concerned. Tolkien is far too derivative of a much better artist (Wagner, who was of course not a novelist) for my tastes. Further, Tolkien had that tiresome Anglican -- or was it Anglo-Catholic? can't remember which -- thing going on, which T.S. Eliot did too (though at least Eliot had talent). Contrast that with Wagner's virile humanism and high tragedy -- not to mention his sheer technical brilliance -- and Tolkien fades into the shadows, looking like a farce. Gabriel Garcia Marquez will be remembered until the end of time as probably the greatest novelist of the second half of the twentieth century. Rushdie, Saramago, and (shudder) Naipaul will be remembered, too. But Chuck Palahniuk? Stephen King? Puhleeeze . . . Posts: 19 | Registered: Monday, November 10 2003 08:00 |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
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written Thursday, March 30 2006 14:21
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Your cynical view of Tolkien is rather simplistic. "Derivative" is a very serious adjective, but it is one with many shades of meaning. If you label anything that borries a story, or pieces of one, or a certain stylistic technique, as derivative, then you will be hard-pressed to find anything worthy of being called a classic. Shakespeare is most often pointed to as an example of someone who cribbed all of his stories from older writers; whatever you think of his work as a whole, it would be absurd to label his poetry, his wordplay, and his characterizations as "derivative." The same is true of Tolkien. He did not invent the "fantasy world" and anyone who tells you he did is an idiot. Like Shakespeare, he had no scruples in taking stories he was fond of and using them in his own creative pursuits. He didn't try to hide this. (Wagner, incidentally, has much less of a claim in this regard than Snorri Sturluson does.) In this regard he is no different from David Eddings or any other fantasy writer. But what Tolkien did with the stories at that point was not at all derivative. I'm not sure how exactly you can suggest that Eliot had talent and Tolkien did not. I suppose you like Eliot better; that's perfectly reasonable, but it's just a preference. And as for "that tiresome Anglican thing" -- how exactly did that interfere with any of his writing? So just what is "insipid conventional wisdom," anyhow? What those words conjure up for me is something very different from the wisdom contained in folk tales; and it is the latter sort of wisdom to which Tolkien (and Wagner, and Marquez, and yes, Orwell) err closer, if anything. [ Thursday, March 30, 2006 14:23: Message edited by: Dame Annals ] -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
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Apprentice
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written Thursday, March 30 2006 14:59
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Dame Annals writes: "'Derivative' is a very serious adjective, but it is one with many shades of meaning. If you label anything that borries a story, or pieces of one, or a certain stylistic technique, as derivative, then you will be hard-pressed to find anything worthy of being called a classic." Fair enough. :) It is of course no secret that R. Wagner reworked the Volsunga Saga and the Nibelungenlied -- and much else besides -- for his work on the Ring. But it is his use of those tales to say something about our modern condition -- and of course his music, which I do have to admit makes it a little unfair of me to use him as a stick (or a spear, if you prefer) with which to beat Tolkien, since the genre is so different -- that makes Wagner's stuff so compelling. Consider the recent movie that came out about the legend of Tristan and Isolde. How stupid is that? They even used the tagline, "Before Romeo and Juliet, there was Tristan and Isolde." But frankly, there were also plenty of Romeo and Juliet legends before Shakespeare turned it into Romeo and Juliet -- and Shakespeare's version, with his unsurpassed dialogue and peculiar insight into the human condition, is the only reason any of us give a hoot about the Romeo and Juliet legend today. Similarly, without Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, who in their right mind -- and professors of medieval literature do not count -- would care a whit for the old legends of Tristan and Isolde? Tolkien is actually derivative of Wagner in plot element details (e.g., the one all-powerful ring, stolen by a dwarf from the bottom of a river -- elements that are not found in that combination in any of the old legends, and which Wagner confected himself). But that is not the most important thing. The reason (apart from his music, and yes, despite his appropriation by the Third Reich) that RW speaks to us while JRRT does not and never did is the following: RW's philosophy is about the apotheosis of Man (note the capital "M"), about human beings making their way in a world without gods and forging their own destinies. He mined ancient legends for that reason. Tolkien, by contrast, liked the old legends because he wanted a return to old sureties, and believed that a world without God was leading to disaster; that people could not act in the world without the steadying hand of religious and spiritual devotion, else they would royally mess things up; yadda yadda yadda. :o Frankly, I can't stand that kind of crap. It's definitely the insipid conventional wisdom, and his books sure are simpler to grasp and easier to understand than better novels or other works of art -- but that does not make their middlebrow pop philosophy any more true. I know I'm not going to get many fans for bashing Tolkien around here, but there you have it. On the Orwell question: he is simply a second-rate writer who was deified because he was politically useful. Even his defenders should admit that Animal Farm is tripe, a painfully belabored allegory in which Stalin is a pig named Napoleon -- if I ever have to read that again, please just shoot me. And 1984? With the cartoon villain whose motivation, we find out, is "pure power"? Pure evil, just for the fun of it? There are Blades of Avernum scenarios that have better-drawn villains than that -- and that's not a knock on Avernum at all, it's just that no one is going to go around claiming that video games are great literature. There's no way Orwell would be considered a good novelist if he had not been politically congenial for powerful people who wanted to stockpile nuclear weapons and fight leftover colonial wars in places like Vietnam. His supposed "socialist" convictions were largely a ruse to cover his small-minded "Middle England" views. I would say he's totally worthless, except I found his essay denouncing Gandhi to be pretty funny. Posts: 19 | Registered: Monday, November 10 2003 08:00 |
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Infiltrator
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written Thursday, March 30 2006 15:02
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Out of curiosity, Siegfried, have you ever read any of Palahnuik's books. They are certainly not pulp novels. He was an extremely obscure and edgy writer who just so happened to have one of his books read by a Hollywood director. Rushdie will most likely be remembered, but only because of the fatwah thing. And at the risk of feeding your feelings of intellectual superiority, I will admit to being quite serious about not having heard of those books. I really don't have the time to read as much as I would like. I am also largely ignorant of modern foriegn literature. Unfortunately learning Aerospace Engineering leaves little time for such pursuits. EDIT: Also, Tristan und Isolde pre-dates Wagner by a good deal. Check out the earlier text by Gottfried von Strassburg [ Thursday, March 30, 2006 15:08: Message edited by: Smugglers' Alliance, Chief of the ] -------------------- "As our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it." --Albert Einstein -------------------- Posts: 536 | Registered: Sunday, September 7 2003 07:00 |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
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written Thursday, March 30 2006 15:26
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quote:Well, since you asked... I have never encountered Wagner's version, but I like the old story, and am rather fond of Matthew Arnold's Tristram and Iseult. The argument you are making seems to take the form, again and again, of "who would care about version X if not for version Y?" That argument only works, though, if you believe version Y is superior. When you don't explain why you think it is superior, you're just making assertions without even trying to justify them. quote:I assume you are using the royal "us"? :) It's easy for me to argue against this because JRRT *does* speak to me, so I know there is something in his stuff capable of speaking to someone. I am perfectly willing to assume the same thing about RW (unfortunate set of initials there, btw, heh) speaking to you. Plenty of other people can be added to both lists, of course. quote:Although Tolkien was religious, I would strongly disagree with the underlying philosophy you have attributed to his works. Strongly. Far from pushing devotion, Tolkien was all but obsessed with his idea of individual freedom. He believed that people needed to act with regard for morality, but this is absolutely not synonymous with "religious and spiritual devotion." The most identiable theme in his works, as far as royally messing things up goes, is that people screw things up when they attempt to control and take dominion over other people. This is most clearly delineated in his essay "On Fairy-Stories" which I suspect many reading this thread would find interesting (though it is dense). It should be googleable. HOWEVER, even if we suppose that were his philosophy and his intention: so what? One author mines ancient legends to write about men in a godless world. Another author mines ancient legends to write about men in a godded world. Why is one automatically inferior to the other? Whatever your view is about the existence or relevance of gods, it seems to me that both sorts of writing would have many relevant things to say! quote:Sorry to harp on this, but I really would like to understand what you mean by "insipid conventional wisdom." On Orwell: Okay, so I guess you don't like straight-up allegories... you have some delicious invective in there, but if you explained why you don't like them, I missed it. Beyond that, I don't really know enough about his politics to comment. I liked Animal Farm, though, and I liked it on its own merits as a story. [ Thursday, March 30, 2006 15:29: Message edited by: Dame Annals ] -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
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Shock Trooper
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written Thursday, March 30 2006 15:57
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Err, with regard to the current debate, I sort of agree with Sigfried about satirists/allegorists in general. Half the recognition they get is for the rebellion-aesthetic cachet. Also, suspense-driven and escape-driven literature (i.e. SFF), while enjoyable, isn't quite "classic" material. No one has yet mentioned Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace, which was heralded as such by literature-snob types. It's not particularly popular, probably because of the length, the plot-necessary footnotes, and the polysyllables, but it's a great book, in my opinion. Also, I am 100% with anyone who says that One Hundred Years of Solitude is a classic. [ Thursday, March 30, 2006 16:08: Message edited by: PoD person ] Posts: 293 | Registered: Saturday, May 29 2004 07:00 |
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? Man, ? Amazing
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written Thursday, March 30 2006 16:46
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David James Duncan - The River Why Michael Chabon - Summerland & The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay David McCullough - various, including John Adams Neil Stephenson - The Baroque Cycle None of the authors that are serious about SF or Fantasy are creating classics. Holt, Fforde and a few others may have a chance. -------------------- quote: Posts: 4114 | Registered: Monday, April 25 2005 07:00 |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
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written Thursday, March 30 2006 17:03
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On the subject of escapism: "All the best stories in the world are but one story in reality -- the story of escape. It is the only thing which interests us all and at all times, how to escape." -- A.C. Benson -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
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Law Bringer
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written Thursday, March 30 2006 19:51
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quote:I have to disagree about pulp novels. Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon was a pulp novel that's style has become considered a classic. Even before the movie version. The same can be said about the better works of Raymond Chandler. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, anything by Charles Dickens, and even William Shakespear were all the equivalent of pulp fiction of their day. They were written for mass appeal and only later considered classics. Christopher Marlowe was a better writer than Shakespear, but how many people remember anything but his Faust? For derative works, Shakespear's A Comedy of Errors was derived from Plautus Menaechmi which was derived from an earlier Greek play. Shakespear added a second set of twins to play the servants. This was later adapted as the musical The Boys From Syracuse with music by Rodgers and Hart. Each version was a classic at its time since we know about them. Richard Wagner in turn derive his operas from Norse sources, The Volsung Saga, for his Ring series. A great author adds something when reusing older material. Tolkien's LOTR was a compromise between his earlier and then unpublished grand history and the publisher wanting more with hobbits. The Shadow From the Past shows that in the original version Aragorn was a hobbit named Halfast Took. Frodo's long lost cousin who went for an adventure and never seen again in the Shire. He was first called Trotter and only much later turned into the human Strider. It was only after several revisions that Aragorn achieved his final status as the last king. Tolkien in his essay "Leaf" explains his views on creation and meaning in his writings. The Silmarillion was an attempt to create a British myth like the Elder Eddas of Scandanavia and the Arthurian legends of Wales. LOTR was never meant to be high literatue. It used material from his older works and only later did the major themes develope of sacrificing for the good of others, etc. So you get chapters about Tom Bombadillo from a childrens story that was used to give Frodo a chance to develope from a refugee (passive) fleeing the Ringwraiths into a hero taking control of his fate (active). Without that scene on the Barrows he wouldn't have faced the Ringwraiths on Weathertop. [ Friday, March 31, 2006 02:02: Message edited by: Randomizer ] Posts: 4643 | Registered: Friday, February 10 2006 08:00 |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
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written Friday, March 31 2006 03:50
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quote:Isn't this just a tad subjective to assert without anything to back it up? -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
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Apprentice
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written Friday, March 31 2006 05:15
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Chief of the Smugglers' Alliance writes: "Rushdie will most likely be remembered, but only because of the fatwah thing." Come on, now. Rushdie's literary career is about a good deal more than the fatwa. His greatest novel, Midnight's Children, is the book that will secure his place in literary history, and it predates The Satanic Verses by several years. The Chief of the Smugglers' Alliance continues: Also, Tristan und Isolde pre-dates Wagner by a good deal. Check out the earlier text by Gottfried von Strassburg Yes, I know, and in fact this is part of my point: who would care about the earlier legends of Tristan and Isolde were it not for the opera (or "music-drama," if you prefer)? Who cares about any version of the Romeo and Juliet story before Shakespeare's? What others have said here about the enduring popularity of some pulp novels -- The Maltese Falcon, for instance -- is convincing as far as it goes, but I still think that there's a distinction to be drawn between entertainment and art. The two are not mutually exclusive -- not by any means. But they do not always completely overlap, either. Something may be entertaining but ultimately empty and frivolous -- which is no knock on cheap entertainment from my point of view, but it is a fact. And at the same time, there are works of art that are so deeply inspiring and poignant that it borders on blasphemy to call them "entertainment." Posts: 19 | Registered: Monday, November 10 2003 08:00 |
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Law Bringer
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written Friday, March 31 2006 07:49
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quote:I completely disagree. If something isn't enjoyable, it's poorly written or poorly conceived. It may not be easy to read and it may not be all laughter and smiles, but if it doesn't in any way cause enjoyment it's no good. Chaucer's criteria in Canterbury Tales are "sentence and solace," which I've seen translated as "moral guidance and general pleasure." Those seem like decent criteria to me, and you need some of both for a classic. —Alorael, who can accept that pure enjoyment does not a classic make, although he's not really sure why. Is there a reason literature demands meaning as well as aesthetics? Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
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Infiltrator
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written Friday, March 31 2006 08:20
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My point Sigrfied, was that the older versions of Tristan and Isolde are aclaimed and of high quality. I knew about the story of Tristan and Isolde long before I was aware of Wagner's opera. I'll admit that I don't know a ton about Rushdie, so you may well be right. The gist of what I'm getting across is that it doesn't have the widespread appeal now to such an extent that I, a reasonably literate college student, have not heard of it, it seems unlikely that it will stand the tests of time. I am not concerned with literary quality, well that's not quite true, but I recognize that mere good writing is rather commonplace. It is the ability to capture the imagination and consciousness of the public that truly enables a piece of literature to take the leap into the canon of Western Civilization. -------------------- "As our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it." --Albert Einstein -------------------- Posts: 536 | Registered: Sunday, September 7 2003 07:00 |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
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written Friday, March 31 2006 09:09
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Meaning and aesthetics are pretty much the two things we're after in any arena, no? -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
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Infiltrator
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written Friday, March 31 2006 09:21
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I could go with that, yeah. -------------------- "As our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it." --Albert Einstein -------------------- Posts: 536 | Registered: Sunday, September 7 2003 07:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
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written Friday, March 31 2006 09:30
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quote:Marlowe was not a better writer than Shakespeare. It is probably true that his plays were better than the plays that Shakespeare wrote at a comparable point in his career — if Shakespeare had died after only his first seven or eight plays, we might remember him for Richard III and Taming of the Shrew, but he probably wouldn't have gotten much acclaim. However, if Lebron James died now, you wouldn't say that he was a better basketball player than Michael Jordan, would you? But I've read Marlowe's Dido, Queen of Carthage, too, and if you want to denigrate Shakespeare's works by calling them derivative, you must do the same for Dido. quote:As far as Tristan and Isolde, that story goes back a long ways, and many versions are considered classics. You may not care about the predecessors, but that doesn't mean that no one does. Malory wrote a version of it, for instance, and you can't say that nobody cares about Le Morte D'Arthur. -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
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Apprentice
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written Friday, March 31 2006 09:33
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Chief of the Smugglers' Alliance writes: "The gist of what I'm getting across is that it doesn't have the widespread appeal now to such an extent that I, a reasonably literate college student, have not heard of it, it seems unlikely that it will stand the tests of time." This is a non-sequitir. I don't at all intend to cast aspersions on you intellectually or morally by saying this, but simply because you have not heard of it does not mean that it isn't going to be a proven classic, nor does it mean that it doesn't have widespread appeal. You have said yourself that you haven't read that widely. I'm not passing judgment on that; c'est la vie, but you have to admit that it does call into question your standing to pass judgment on literature, no? For example, you also write: "I am not concerned with literary quality, well that's not quite true, but I recognize that mere good writing is rather commonplace. It is the ability to capture the imagination and consciousness of the public that truly enables a piece of literature to take the leap into the canon of Western Civilization." There are several problems with your line of argument here. One is this idea of the "canon of Western Civilization." I won't go into too much detail to dispute this, but it should suffice to say that (1) it is debatable whether any such "Western" canon ever existed, because even among the literate public in Western Europe and North America in previous centuries, plenty of the great works of art, music and literature came from "non-Western" countries (e.g., even Russia is not "Western" by any standard, and there you have Pushkin, Golgol, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Shostakovich, etc. etc.) and (2) even in the metropoles of the world now, it is widely acknowledged that the better part of the greatest works of art of the last fifty years at least -- and probably more than that -- come from "non-Western" countries (in literature this means especially the Indian subcontinent and Latin America), and these are already largely incorporated into any "canon" worthy of the name. Apart from that, though, let's consider some of the things that have been said in this discussion. You have indicated that you've not heard of One Hundred Years of Solitude. This does not mean that you are a bad person, but it does mean that you're more than a little out of touch. You could perhaps get away with not having heard of V.S. Naipaul, Salman Rushdie, or even Jose Saramago, but Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a different story. He has tens of millions of readers around the world, and his "magical realism" is hugely influential. If you have not even heard of him, that says something about you and not about his literary legacy. I am not arguing with you, I am simply telling you this. One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera at least will live on as long as the human race does -- much longer than Harry Potter or similar works that have been cited (with apparent seriousness) by some people in this discussion. Posts: 19 | Registered: Monday, November 10 2003 08:00 |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
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written Friday, March 31 2006 09:55
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Russia is not Western by any standard? Uh, no, that's just wrong, sorry. The relevance of the so-called "Western canon" may be questionable. The degree to which it is exclusively Western may be questionable. But it is an abstract concept that CLEARLY exists, and has clearly had a great deal of influence on certain segments of the Western world. "One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera at least will live on as long as the human race does." With all due respect, I really think we'd be better off avoiding grandiose hyperbole in this discussion. Why are we judging each other over which writers we have and haven't heard of? -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
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Apprentice
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written Friday, March 31 2006 09:58
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Kelandon writes: "As far as Tristan and Isolde, that story goes back a long ways, and many versions are considered classics. You may not care about the predecessors, but that doesn't mean that no one does. Malory wrote a version of it, for instance, and you can't say that nobody cares about Le Morte D'Arthur." True; isn't the Lancelot and Guinevere story basically a species of the Tristan and Isolde story? But I suppose the adulterous love triangle is a staple of medieval courtly literature anyway. In any case, there are several things that make Wagner's Tristan as powerful as it is. He did, in fact, have a supreme appreciation for medieval legends and literature, and he was no dilettante in that regard; the simple fact that he wrote his own libretti, a rarity for any composer, is proof of his literary and dramatic seriousness. But the medieval legend was not his only source material; that is really only a shell, and the core of the drama comes from his reading of Schopenhauer, mixed with his own, idiosyncratic ideas about redemption through love and the symbiotic relationship between love and death (a theme which anticipates Siegmund Freud). Further, of course, there is the music, and maybe I will use this as an occasion to illustrate by way of example what I meant when talking about the distinction between art and entertainment. Someone else here agreed that not all entertainment is real art, but that all art must have an entertaining aspect -- or more precisely, this person said that it must produce "enjoyment." I'm inclined to agree with this, but maybe I'm not sure that "entertainment" and "enjoyment" are the same thing. You don't go to a performance of Tristan to be "entertained" the same way you would go to a showing of, oh, I don't know, My Fair Lady or something like that (and I do hate showtunes, so maybe my prejudice is showing again). But at moments like the second act love duet of Tristan, you are washed over by something of transcendent -- almost unearthly -- beauty, something that caused Giuseppe Verdi (who knew a thing or two about opera) to remark that he could never quite grasp the fact that it had been created by a mere human being. Call that what you want, but "enjoyment" and "entertainment" don't adequately describe the experience, I think. Posts: 19 | Registered: Monday, November 10 2003 08:00 |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
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written Friday, March 31 2006 10:04
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I have a custom title suggestion for Siegfried. "That Guy" -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
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Law Bringer
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written Friday, March 31 2006 11:18
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quote:Not exactly. In many (if not most) arts we're willing to accept aesthetics without meaning. Granted, literature is harder because all of the aesthetics have to come from words, which are conveyors of meaning, but I'm still not wholly convinced that all "classics" must have a moral or deep understanding of the mysteries of time and human existence (5.5 points to anyone who catches the reference). Some writing is just good even if it doesn't mean anything. —Alorael, who is impressed that someone got a custom title suggestion in just eleven posts and the suggestion doesn't end with -anned. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
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Apprentice
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written Friday, March 31 2006 11:19
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Dame Annals writes: "Russia is not Western by any standard? Uh, no, that's just wrong, sorry." There are plenty of Russians who will be pleased to learn that they are now part of Western Europe. Similarly and for the same reasons, I am sure that V.S. Naipaul would be pleased if someone told him that he was a "Westerner." But it just ain't so. Posts: 19 | Registered: Monday, November 10 2003 08:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
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written Friday, March 31 2006 11:29
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"Western" does not equal "from Western Europe." Compared to, say, China or Japan, Russia is a "Western" entity. And not just geographically. [ Friday, March 31, 2006 11:30: Message edited by: Kelandon ] -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
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written Friday, March 31 2006 11:43
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The italics you omitted from my statement are rather significant. Obviously, many standards would not count Russia as Western. But there are also ways of dividing the world that would count it as Western. See, for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_world which points out the ambiguity in the word "Western" at extravagant length. To quote: "In the Near East or Middle East, (both terms relative to Europe as being in the west), the distinction between Western Europe and Eastern Europe is of less importance; countries that western Europeans might think of as part of Eastern Europe, i.e. Russia, might be counted as Western in the Middle East, in the sense of being both European and Christian. People from the West are known by many in the East and Middle East as "Westerners". -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |