Cross-postong from https://Kbin/m/wheeloftime

⚠️⚠️ FULL SERIES SPOILERS ⚠️⚠️

My readings of Shakespeare in reconstructed early 17th century pronunciation continue with Sonnet 64 ("When I have seen by time's fell hand defac'd...")

@literature @linguistics @poetry @bookstodon

The silmarillion narrated by Andy Serkis has been released. #lotr #silmarillion #tolkien @literature

I updated this post where I list a bunch of books that will encompass my personality. The gyst is getting to know me through these books. They all reveal an aspect of my personality. I am going to add to this list in the future Books to understand me. https://blindjournalist.wordpress.com/2022/11/26/books-to-understand-me/ @literature

Cross posting from https://kbin.social/m/wheeloftime

⚠️⚠️ FULL SERIES SPOILERS ⚠️⚠️

Figured I would start moving over some of my high effort posts to the fediverse. This is a post I originally made on the /r/wot and then posted to [email protected] and [email protected]. Hope it's all right that I'm re-posting here. Just trying to do my part to get some content going

⚠️⚠️ TRIGGER WARNING ⚠️⚠️: This post analyses a rather infamous arc that centers on male rape.

⚠️⚠️ FULL SERIES SPOILERS AHEAD ⚠️⚠️

Original Post ----------

Mat's arc with Tylin sparks a lot of discussion, and I notice a fair number of comments wishing the books took her actions more seriously, or taking the character's amused reactions as the book itself signaling this should be funny and rightly finding that disconcerting. I want to take some time to post an analysis of this arc and show that you are meant to find her actions and the lackluster reactions of the other characters disturbing at best, and sickening at worst.

There were a lot of great comments in this thread about how this arc was meant to mirror and comment on media from the 80's and 90's where rape of women is played for laughs. Jordan really liked to take tropes like this and reverse the roles to make a point or make people examine why they felt uneasy. I won't retread those points here, but think that thread is worth checking out.

I had the same initial reaction, but the more I think about it, the more I like the way it's handled.

One other thing to keep in mind with Jordan's writing is that he was absolutely steadfast in maintaining the unreliable narrator and letting things play out the way they would in real life without the book itself moralizing about right and wrong. All moralizing is done by the characters, and often we are meant to realize that what the characters are presenting as "right" is wrong. This is especially obvious in matters of fact when we know something a character is saying with 100% confidence is 100% wrong, but Jordan often does the same thing with moral lessons as well, where something a character is presenting as morally right is meant to be taken as morally wrong.

Jordan wrote his story the way he felt it would actually unfold, and left it up to you, the reader, to apply your own moral lens without being told by the book how to feel. Character's moral sensibilities are strictly bound by their culture, upbringing, and personality. No character ever breaks the fourth wall and applies our moral sensibilities to a situation for the sake of teaching a lesson to the audience.

That means a couple things for this arc:

• The prose itself never casts Tylin as a rapist, since none of our protagonists see it that way. Mat is a man so they find Tylin's "pursuit" of him amusing, the way Jordan believes they actually would given their culture.

• Mat does not have the language to describe or process what is happening to him. We clearly see he knows on some level it's wrong but his inner monologue is his normal, brash, humorous, self. Mat lies to himself about a lot of things and this is no exception.

However, there are a couple things that I think clearly demonstrate that RJ saw her actions as wrong.

First: Mat's inner dialog is really hard to read, he's constantly oscillating between confusion, despair, and cracking jokes. It's so clear he doesn't have the ability to process what is happening to him, and this makes his sections gut-wrenching. I think it's why so many people have a visceral reaction to the arc. A sample:

> > > “It isn’t natural,” he burst out, yanking the pipestem from between his teeth. “I’m the one who’s supposed to do the chasing!” [Tylin's] astonished eyes surely mirrored his own. Had Tylin been a tavern maid who smiled the right way, he might have tried his luck—well, if the tavern maid lacked a son who liked poking holes in people—but he was the one who chased. He had just never thought of it that way before. He had never had the need to, before. > >

> > > Tylin began laughing, shaking her head and wiping at her eyes with her fingers. “Oh, pigeon. I do keep forgetting. You are in Ebou Dar, now. I left a little present for you in the sitting room.” She patted his foot through the sheet. “Eat well today. You are going to need your strength.” > >

> > > Mat put a hand over his eyes and tried very hard not to weep. When he uncovered them, she was gone. > >

> > > ... > >

> > > There was also a red silk purse holding twenty gold crowns and a note that smelled of flowers. > >

> > > I would have bought you an earring, piglet, but I noticed your ear is not pierced. Have it done, and buy yourself something nice. > >

> > > He nearly wept again. He gave women presents. The world was standing on its head! Piglet? Oh, Light! After a minute, he did take the mask; she owed him that much, for his coat alone. > >

The crying is what really drives it home. If this was meant to truly be played for laughs Mat would not have such a painful inner monologue. Instead, Jordan is creating a dissonance between the humorous tone the other characters approach this arc with and Mat's inner emotional distress. It feels like Jordan asking us to consider the inner life of characters in other media that are the butt of rape jokes. Should we really be laughing at them? Or are we the palace maids to those characters' Mat?

There's also some points to make around Mat trying to figure out why he feels this way and reaching for reasons like "I'm the one who chases" rather than "she raped me" being a really great illustration of victims who can't even articulate why something was a violation in the aftermath of a traumatic experience and the gaslighting that happens to them, but let's move on to another character who laughs at the victim.

Second: when Mat tells Elayne what's happening, Elayne laughs at him initially, but then Mat, in a moment of selflessness, offers her the foxhead medallion to protect her from the Gohlam. She pauses, reassesses him, and:

> > > I. . . .” That faint blush returned to her cheeks. “I am sorry I laughed at you.” She cleared her throat, looking away. “Sometimes I forget my duty to my subjects. You are a worthy subject, Matrim Cauthon. I will see that Nynaeve understands the right of . . . of you and Tylin. Perhaps we can help.” > >

> > > “No,” he spluttered. “I mean, yes. I mean. . . . That is. . . . Oh, kiss a flaming goat if I know what I mean. I almost wish you didn’t know the truth. > >

> > > ... > >

> > > Aloud, she said, “I understand.” Sounding just as if she did. “Come along, now, Mat. We can’t waste time standing in one spot.” Gaping, he watched her lift skirts and cloak to make her way along the landing. She understood? She understood, and not one acid little comment, not one cutting remark? > >

This moment is narrated through Mat's eyes, so we don't know exactly what Elayne is thinking, but we DO know that Elayne is often depicted as having the highest EQ / empathy in the series. She plays peacemaker between her friends, cares for animals, and is the glue that holds her, Min and Aviendha together as friends rather than rivals through the tight bonds she consciously forms with both. She makes friends easily and is fiercely protective of them.

She also has zero issues with calling Mat on his bullshit.

So it's telling that she seems to recognize that this is affecting Mat deeply, and respect that even if she doesn't understand it. She may not go as far as realizing what is actually happening, and it may take her a moment to get there, but we can infer from her that she recognizes on some level that Mat is in real distress over it, and reacts to that, even offering to help him resolve it. This moment really stood out to me on my first read through.

There's a bunch of other things to dissect here, especially around the way victim-blaming and slut-shaming is interwoven into this scene (Elayne implies Mat was asking for it and got a taste of his own medicine, even though Mat is never shown flirting with someone who does not show interest), but let's move on to the next point.

Third: Tylin is killed by the Gholam.

Now, this may not seem like a point in the book's favor. Tylin's death seems to be played as a tragedy. When a character is killed for karmic reasons, most books wink at the reader a little, with some line of narration or dialog emphasizing that they got what was coming to them.

This is not the case with Tylin. Robert Jordan writes Mat's reaction authentically, and Mat has come to care for his abuser, as often happens in the real world. Her death is "played" as tragedy because that's how our narrator feels about it.

> > > Mat did not realize his knees had given way until he found himself sitting on the floor with his head buzzing. He could hear her voice. You’ll get your head cut off yet if you’re not careful, piglet, and I wouldn’t like that. Setalle leaned forward on the narrow bed to press a hand against his cheek in commiseration. > >

> > > ... > >

> > > [Tuon] was watching him, a neutral expression on her face. “Did you care for Tylin so deeply?” she said in a cautious voice. > >

> > > “Yes. No. Burn me, I liked her!” Turning away, he scrubbed fingers through his hair, pushing the cap off. He had never been so glad to get away from a woman in his life, but this…! “And I left her tied up and gagged so she couldn’t even call for help, easy prey for the gholam,” he said bitterly. “It was looking for me. Don’t shake your head. Thom. You know it as well as I do.” > >

But I contend that this death is one of Karmic justice. The Gholam only finds Tylin because it is looking for Mat, and his scent is all over her room as a result of her actions, so her immoral actions directly lead to her death

Further, she is killed by the Gholam while tied up and helpless, a perfect mirror of the situations she forces on Mat with her pink ribbons. Mat even remarks that she never would have stood a chance and couldn't call for help, which has symmetry with the absolute political and social power Tylin had over him. We even have scenes earlier on when he realizes the whole palace is complicit in serving him up to Tylin and there's no one he can turn to for help.

Such symmetry between death and actions is typical of characters being punished for their transgressions, but Jordan's style is not to moralize about it directly. Instead he presents to us the character's authentic reactions and thoughts. The symbolism and meaning is there for us to pick up on, but the unreliable narrator lenses it as a senseless killing of an innocent woman.

Jordan wants to make us uncomfortable, but he's not interested in handing us the answer to why on a silver platter. It's up to us to use our own reasoning and morals to suss that out.

TLDR: Jordan doesn't moralize himself in the books. He expects you to feel the outrage and uneasiness yourself, then connect the dots. Tylin's killing bears all the hallmarks of Karmic justice, so while our characters don't take what she is doing to Mat seriously, I think we are clearly meant to conclude it is wrong.

In many ways Jordan used this arc to examine Rape Culture before "Rape Culture" was a mainstream discussion.

Too true…

https://xkcd.com/2791/

@literature just got 2 Bunnicula bundles from Audible and, yup, these books are still fantastic!

@literature how do you find new books to read? For me, it’s YouTube channels, blogs like lovely Audiobooks, the Libro FM blog and the Audible blog. I listen to audiobooks

Here's me reading the whole of Canto 1 of Dante's #Inferno in my English verse-translation.

Basically, I enjoyed the Chantilly manuscript of the Inferno so much that one thing led to another and I wound up making this.

\#medieval

@literature @medievodons @bookstodon @poetry

I'm still on Goodreads but it's so slow, the app's just an even slower webview of the site and the redesign has made me have to click more to do what I want.

What's the alternative? Obviously we're on the fediverse and I see people talking about Bookwyrm.

I used Anobii till 2010 and I can't remember why I left but it's still there. I've poked StoryGraph a bit but it was lacking several of the books I wanted to add.

There must be more! What do you use/recommend?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/114069

> Born in Kirkwood, Missouri, on November 15, 1887, Moore was raised solely by her mother in an interesting, albeit not unique, world. Her father, John Milton Moore, was victimized by a psychotic episode that would dissever his marriage to Mary Warner Moore, Marianne's mother, before their daughter was born. Her early life would solidify her strong Presbyterian faith and formulate the bedrock themes of much of her future poetry. > > When her grandfather, Presbyterian pastor John Riddle Warner, died in 1894, while Marianne was only six years old, her family moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania before eventually settling in the town of Carlisle two years later. This move would set the stage for her future renown as it placed her within the proximity of Bryn Mawr College, which she would attend in 1905. Graduating four years later with degrees in history, economics, and political science, Moore would also write her first poems here alongside her classmate, poet H.D. (Hilda Doolittle). > > Later, Moore would live with her mother in Brooklyn, working as a librarian before eventually holding a four-year tenure as editor of the literary journal The Dial. Her time spent in the city would make her an avid Dodgers fan, to such a degree that she would even compose an ode to the 1955 World Champions. During this time, she also networked with, and received no small degree of praise from, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and Wallace Stevens. Moore would return the favor by later mentoring and encouraging promising young poets Elizabeth Bishop, Allen Ginsberg, John Ashbury, and James Merrill. > > Moore's habit of using quotations "not as illustrations, but as a means to extend and complete a poem's original intentions" would prove to be a major innovation in the modern American style. She also pushed the limits of minimalism in some of her work by revising previously published poems and reducing them to their core, famously saying "omissions are not accidents." > > She lived her life holding true to the idea that strength came from adversity, becoming a staunch supporter of the women's suffrage movement and opposing Pound's anti-Semitic beliefs. Moore would die on February 5, 1972, having received the National Book Award (1951), Pulitzer Prize (1951), Bollingen Prize (1951), Edward MacDowell Medal (1967), and National Medal for Literature (1968) in her lifetime. > > (Brief biography sourced from The Oxford Book of American Poetry (2006 edition), Poets.org, and Wikipedia) > > --- > > Silence > > My father used to say, > "Superior people never make long visits, > have to be shown Longfellow's grave > or the glass flowers at Harvard. > Self-reliant like the cat — > that takes its prey to privacy, > the mouse's limp tail hanging like a shoelace from its mouth — > they sometimes enjoy solitude, > and can be robbed of speech > by speech which has delighted them. > The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence; > not in silence, but restraint." > Nor was he insincere in saying, "Make my house your inn." > Inns are not residences. > > — Marianne Moore

Apparently this is where Penguin books was conceived

!

Has anyone read this book? What did you think of it?

I've been studying this book a lot recently and a few things have consistently come up:

• Stay open.
• Remove the parts of you that get unhappy/bothered.
• Be unconditionally happy.
• Deal with the stored Samskaras inside of you through conscious relaxing and releasing.

This has got me feeling very zen, though it's also made me realise how many people are walking around with both sensitivities and damage inside that they are storing within them. It's a perspective-changer for sure.

! !

I recently finished Moon Witch, Spider King, the second novel of James' fantasy trilogy after reading the first novel, Black Leopard, Red Wolf earlier this year. I'd love to hear if anyone else has any thoughts on these two books.

I was drawn into Jame's world building. The epic fantasy world he creates draws primarily from African folklore and culture. From the perspective of someone used to the ideology of Western fantasy, I was engrossed in the lore. The prose can be meandering--I had to go back and re-read paragraphs regularly ("wait, what did I just miss?"), but it's masterfully written.

The book is vulgar and incredibly violent. There are numerous scenes of graphic sexual violence, some of which was bad enough my immersion and had me questioning "does this really need to be in the book?". If you're sensitive about that, I would definitely avoid this one. I still feel uncomfortable about some of the scenes I read.

The plot of the books is centered around the same series of events (more or less), from different characters' perspectives. The first novel is narrated by Tracker--a mercenary with a supernatural 'scent', and the second by Sogolon, a misandrist with her own mysterious abilities. Both are unreliable narrators, and sometimes recount their stories in non-chronological order. By the end of the second book I was re-evaluating what I thought had happened from reading Tracker's tale in the first. I am sure the upcoming third novel will continue that trend.

Both books were fairly long, and dense reading, but they felt like only a short glimpse into the world of the North and South Kingdoms. I really want to learn more about that world, so I will probably pick up the third book when it arrives, even if I'm also still a little apprehensive about some of the more extreme scenes.

Loving American Love Story more than I thought I would, partly because it tackles activism and personal lives https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/12420831 #Hoopla #Romance #RomanceLandia @books @literature

@[email protected] Keeping a promise to share my thoughts on wheel of time periodically!

If anyone reading this hasn't read it, there will be spoilers up to where I am in the books!

According to my audiobook app I am 42% through the great hunt, the second wheel of time book.

So far I am enjoying it a lot more than the eye of the world. Having time with the characters has helped a lot. I often found myself getting annoyed by the 3 main boys in the first book and the decisions they made. However, when the audio of the first book finished, there was an interview with Robert Jordan I listened to. I began to understand kind of the whole point of the books (at least as he said when this was recorded) was that the "chosen ones" really just had 0 interest in being any of that. With that in mind, I began to be less annoyed by the decisions Rand and the others would make.

I do have to say, I got very apprehensive when the concept of parallel universe things got introduced. Where I'm at Rand and the others just got back to their world, so I still don't know a ton. But with so much media these days having multiverses and parallel universes, my knee jerk reaction was definitely an eye roll. But we'll see how it plays out. I know the books are beloved, and I've really enjoyed them so far, so I'm optimistic.

Excited to keep listening!

Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey audiobook for $7.99

If you are a #scifi fan and haven't read #TheExpanse yet do yourself a favor and pick this up. $7.99 is a tough price to beat, and it's a great series.

https://www.chirpbooks.com/audiobooks/leviathan-wakes-by-james-s-a-corey

\#bookstodon @literature

I’m using LibraryThing, after fleeing GoodReads a few years back, and I just learned about BookWyrm. I’m interested in what others apps and sites are out there for keeping track of your books and/or to-read list, and/or reviewing and/or discussing them, and what folks think about them.

> [...] Eco separated his visitors into two categories: “those who react with ‘Wow! Signore professore dottore Eco, what a library you have. How many of these books have you read’ and the others — a very small minority — who get the point is that a private library is not an ego-boosting appendages but a research tool.”