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[Starver]

Superfluous letter "u"s are superfluous.

English (UK or US) is by no means the most logically phonetic language[1], as everyone knows, but "color" looks (to this reader, and YMDV, I know) like it should be "kuhl-orr" where at least "colour" relates as "kuhl-eur".  (How the first three letters give a "kuhl" sound, at least in my accent and most others I can currently think of, I have no idea...)

Really, though, going well OT and we're entering Raymond Luxury Yacht[2]/Throat-Wobbler Mangrove territory...


More on-topic, but still adrift, the first time I read The Hunt For Red October (back in the mid 80s), I found it an excellent storyline (although I was younger, less discriminating[3] and it was the first Clancy I'd read, so can't say for sure I was a good judge of that fact) but I kept hitting apparent typos in the text.  I only later realised that this was probably because it was either a direct US import that had lodged itself in my local library, or else the UK version hadn't been given as thorough an Anglicisation as most of the import-as-reprint books usually are.  (The same problem did not occur with the likes of Red Storm Rising, Clear And Present Danger, Patriot Games, etc, etc, so it was probably suitably rectified in them, although the latter did get translated into a "Meh" movie[4].)  A non-fiction example was a rather interesting book on self-sustaining space-stations (try saying that with a mouth full of crisps!), where things like "sulfur" (c.f. "sulphur"... actually phonetically identical, just 'having the wrong shape to it'!) and the old favourite of "aluminum" (yeah, I know that the version without the additional 'i' is the original word, but 'wrong' shape and 'wrong' pronunciation...) caused mental jarring whenever encountered.


[1] And I'll admit that the US -ize is a more accurately spelling-to-pronounced relationship than the UK's "this is not American" -ise alternative...  You'd be on much better ground, there.

[2] This Anglo word being probably a written mistake/mutation from the Dutch "Jaght"

[3] As a possible metric, I even lapped up Battlefield Earth (the film being laughably good, as in good to laugh at...) and even the ten volume (or, From The Author's Mouth, "dekalogy") Mission Earth set, by a certain infamous religion-founder...  Reading current synopses of the plots from each, I really was not that discriminating in my literature, back then...  Plus anyone else read the Survivor series?  One man and his wife and children (and Russian lover, and enemies-becoming-friends, etc) surviving nuclear war and then the next millennium or so of trans-human history, through a clinically-described Power Of The Gun, various examples of Invulnerable Plot Armour and just general all-round Apple Pie Americanism...

[4] And, to some extent, CaPD (tHfRO being more decently arranged, but PG also suffering in the theatrical version, though at least it made better use of the re-write), although I did quite like the fact that probably given the difficulty of replicating the "nightstalker being night-stalked" Chavez/Clark scene, mostly revolving around the former's internal thoughts while training in dark and featureless jungle/forest, there was an effective replacement scene that set up Chavez's skills in sniping and hiding (for another big diversion away from the book-plot, nearer the climax).  But Clark didn't get any replacement CMOA at all, by my mind.  In another book (I forget which one, momentarily, as it isn't really part of the main plot) he is shown having infiltrated the HQ tent of the US unit being used to test his infiltration skills, and bumming a cigarette from one of the officers while they were still wondering how many more hours he would take to be spotted trying to get in.  Sort of like the "cheeseburger"/whatever wrapper from the CaPD film, but only sort of.

[nowanmai]

Mark Z. Danielewski's "House of Leaves".

Hint: Try not to read this one, while you're in a mental institution. Doctors may misunderstand you.

I've borrowed the book from my friend, and while I haven't had the chance to read anything, it seems pretty slammin'.

1) It's quite difficult to read, because of the writing style. (If you've read Lovecraft, you'll understand.)
2) There's much inbetween the lines. Basically, with every reread, you'll find something new. (At least, I found quite much stuff which I never noticed on my first and second times.)
3) The suspense is quite heavy. (Seemed ok, but then, when I tried to fall asleep, questions arised.)

Anyway, have !FUN! with this, as it really is a wonderful read.

[ETV]

The Emperor Wears No Clothes.

Would like to read it at some point.

[Ampersand]

Just finished Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson, whose cropped up in this thread quite a bit. Working on the Confusion now, and will definitely continue on to The System of the World, when I am finished.

[Lord Shonus]

Superfluous letter "u"s are superfluous.

English (UK or US) is by no means the most logically phonetic language[1], as everyone knows, but "color" looks (to this reader, and YMDV, I know) like it should be "kuhl-orr" where at least "colour" relates as "kuhl-eur".  (How the first three letters give a "kuhl" sound, at least in my accent and most others I can currently think of, I have no idea...)

Really, though, going well OT and we're entering Raymond Luxury Yacht[2]/Throat-Wobbler Mangrove territory...


More on-topic, but still adrift, the first time I read The Hunt For Red October (back in the mid 80s), I found it an excellent storyline (although I was younger, less discriminating[3] and it was the first Clancy I'd read, so can't say for sure I was a good judge of that fact) but I kept hitting apparent typos in the text.  I only later realised that this was probably because it was either a direct US import that had lodged itself in my local library, or else the UK version hadn't been given as thorough an Anglicisation as most of the import-as-reprint books usually are.  (The same problem did not occur with the likes of Red Storm Rising, Clear And Present Danger, Patriot Games, etc, etc, so it was probably suitably rectified in them, although the latter did get translated into a "Meh" movie[4].)  A non-fiction example was a rather interesting book on self-sustaining space-stations (try saying that with a mouth full of crisps!), where things like "sulfur" (c.f. "sulphur"... actually phonetically identical, just 'having the wrong shape to it'!) and the old favourite of "aluminum" (yeah, I know that the version without the additional 'i' is the original word, but 'wrong' shape and 'wrong' pronunciation...) caused mental jarring whenever encountered.


[1] And I'll admit that the US -ize is a more accurately spelling-to-pronounced relationship than the UK's "this is not American" -ise alternative...  You'd be on much better ground, there.

[2] This Anglo word being probably a written mistake/mutation from the Dutch "Jaght"

[3] As a possible metric, I even lapped up Battlefield Earth (the film being laughably good, as in good to laugh at...) and even the ten volume (or, From The Author's Mouth, "dekalogy") Mission Earth set, by a certain infamous religion-founder...  Reading current synopses of the plots from each, I really was not that discriminating in my literature, back then...  Plus anyone else read the Survivor series?  One man and his wife and children (and Russian lover, and enemies-becoming-friends, etc) surviving nuclear war and then the next millennium or so of trans-human history, through a clinically-described Power Of The Gun, various examples of Invulnerable Plot Armour and just general all-round Apple Pie Americanism...

[4] And, to some extent, CaPD (tHfRO being more decently arranged, but PG also suffering in the theatrical version, though at least it made better use of the re-write), although I did quite like the fact that probably given the difficulty of replicating the "nightstalker being night-stalked" Chavez/Clark scene, mostly revolving around the former's internal thoughts while training in dark and featureless jungle/forest, there was an effective replacement scene that set up Chavez's skills in sniping and hiding (for another big diversion away from the book-plot, nearer the climax).  But Clark didn't get any replacement CMOA at all, by my mind.  In another book (I forget which one, momentarily, as it isn't really part of the main plot) he is shown having infiltrated the HQ tent of the US unit being used to test his infiltration skills, and bumming a cigarette from one of the officers while they were still wondering how many more hours he would take to be spotted trying to get in.  Sort of like the "cheeseburger"/whatever wrapper from the CaPD film, but only sort of.

There really aren't any really good Clancy adaptations, although Red October is the best by far. Patriot Games isn't all that bad either, but that's a better map to a movie format than any of his other books, so it's less of an accomplishment. Clear and Present Danger barely sticks to the plot of the novel, and The Sum of All Fears is simply a terrible adaptation.

Also, the book with the cigarette scene is Without Remorse, the Vietnam-era one.

[Siquo]

[2] This Anglo word being probably a written mistake/mutation from the Dutch "Jaght"

Assimilation. Nearly 80% of english nautical terms are originally dutch words. Except for admiral, that's originally Arab. It gets funny when we re-assimilate English words that were originally dutch.

Currently re-reading Quicksilver (of the same trilogy Ampersand mentioned), it's so good that it's re-readable, the commemorative edition of assembled works of H.P. Lovecraft, Small Gods by Pratchett, something called "The Childrens Book" (which it isn't, but it's about), and a Dutch novel called Pastorale 1943 (written in '48). Oh and another Dutch SF novel from 1910.

Back in the days, I always finished a book before picking up a new one. I do not know what happened.

[ChairmanPoo]

I have yet to find any remarks contemporary of his that confirm the common image of him as extradiarily racist or antisemetic. There's a lot to suggest he was disgusted by the poor.

Pfwah, he was clearly a racist. His time was one rampant with racism, pro-eugenicism, and the like, so he can be forgiven, but he can't be cleared of the charge. Heck, just a casual check through his works will give you a few quotable wonders.

Medusa's coil

Nor was it right that the neighbours should know that other horror which my strange host of the night could not bring himself to tell me - that horror which he must have learned, as I learned it, from details in the lost masterpiece of poor Frank Marsh.
It would be too hideous if they knew that the one-time heiress of Riverside - the accursed gorgon or lamia whose hateful crinkly coil of serpent-hair must even now be brooding and twining vampirically around an artist's skeleton in a lime-packed grave beneath a charred foundation - was faintly, subtly, yet to the eyes of genius unmistakably the scion of Zimbabwe's most primal grovellers. No wonder she owned a link with that old witch-woman - for, though in deceitfully slight proportion, Marceline was a negress.

Cool Air.

The landlady, a slatternly, almost bearded Spanish woman named Herrero, did not annoy me with gossip or with criticisms of the late-burning electric light in my third-floor front hall room; and my fellow-lodgers were as quiet and uncommunicative as one might desire, being mostly Spaniards a little above the coarsest and crudest grade.

The Street:

Swarthy and sinister were most of the strangers, yet among them one might find a few faces like those who fashioned the Street and moulded its spirit. Like and yet unlike, for there was in the eyes of all a weird, unhealthy glitter as of greed, ambition, vindictiveness, or misguided zeal. Unrest and treason were abroad amongst an evil few who plotted to strike the Western Land its death blow, that they might mount to power over its ruins, even as assassins had mounted in that unhappy, frozen land from whence most of them had come. And the heart of that plotting was in the Street, whose crumbling houses teemed with alien makers of discord and echoed with the plans and speeches of those who yearned for the appointed day of blood, flame and crime.

And those are just a few. His writings are full of hints and touches.

[Lord Shonus]

The only overt one of those is the one that Lovecraft didn't write. Medusa's coil was written by another author in a compilation that Lovecraft edited.

The other two? Just noticing that a woman is Spanish does not make you racist. If it did, almost every author on earth could be described that way. Nor do the modifiers indicate racism, except to someone so intent on inserting it that they are grasping at straws. "Slatternly" and "almost bearded" is simply calling her an ugly, whorish woman, a description applied to thousands of women in literature.

In the last story, I literally can not see any remotely racist portions.

[Siquo]

Pfwah, he was clearly a racist. His time was one rampant with racism, pro-eugenicism, and the like, so he can be forgiven, but he can't be cleared of the charge. Heck, just a casual check through his works will give you a few quotable wonders.

Noticing race, and even attributing stereotypical cultural attributes does not make one racist. Even having evil negroes in your story does not make one racist. Stating that all of them are evil, that is racist.

[ChairmanPoo]

I strongly disagree. I'd say that sticking to denigrant stereotypes of ethnical groups and/or considering membership of one such group a shameful thing is, indeed, racism. One does not need to advocate a "final solution" to fit the label. Heck, I'd say that a person could be a racist even if he didn't act in a discriminatory manner towards every single member of the target race.

[Africa]

"A Man in Full" by Tom Wolfe. One of the great American novels of our time. Except for Wolfe's attempt to write rap lyrics...that's pretty embarrassingly bad.

[Siquo]

I strongly disagree. I'd say that sticking to denigrant stereotypes of ethnical groups and/or considering membership of one such group a shameful thing is, indeed, racism. One does not need to advocate a "final solution" to fit the label. Heck, I'd say that a person could be a racist even if he didn't act in a discriminatory manner towards every single member of the target race.

Yet, all three examples you name have one thing in common with mine: that it needs to be directed at all members of a race/group, or the race/group itself. I can't read any of your definitions (denigrant stereotypes, shameful membership) in the quotes, except for the Medusa's coil quote, which in context just means a blood-link link to Voodoo practice for that individual.

Pulling the racist card too easily is actually harmful to the minorities you may be trying to protect.

[Ephemeriis]

Yet, all three examples you name have one thing in common with mine: that it needs to be directed at all members of a race/group, or the race/group itself. I can't read any of your definitions (denigrant stereotypes, shameful membership) in the quotes, except for the Medusa's coil quote, which in context just means a blood-link link to Voodoo practice for that individual.

Pulling the racist card too easily is actually harmful to the minorities you may be trying to protect.

I'm not sure if there are any specific quotes that'd be good, damning evidence of HPL's racism...

But, if you read much of what he wrote, you'll see some very consistent themes.  One of them, obviously, is the whole malevolent forces beyond the ken of mankind thing. 

But you'll also see women repeatedly portrayed as somehow inferior to men.  There are places where some wizard or creature has transferred its mind into a woman's body, and laments being trapped in such a limited thing, and wishes it were in a male body.  There are places where people are surprised at what a simple woman has managed to do.

And you'll see pretty much anyone who isn't of good European stock portrayed as some kind of degenerate species.  There's repeated references to tainted bloodlines and the evil influences of various ethnicities.

And you'll see classist tendencies as well.  Referring to the uneducated masses as being far too simple to realize what they're doing.  Or being incapable of appreciating art, or science, or whatever.

I don't know if I'd actually call HPL a racist - as I indicated earlier, he was consciously aping a specific era and mentality.  But I don't know if intentionally pretending to be a racist is actually better than just being racist.

Again, I'm a huge fan of HPL.  I think he's contributed an awful lot to the genres of science fiction and horror.  I don't think the literary landscape would be what it is today without his contributions.

But I can read and thoroughly enjoy his works without having to make excuses for his racism.  He was what he was - and that's not something I find morally acceptable, regardless of how much I like his stories.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Given how many groups of people that Lovecraft seemed to dislike, I sometimes start to get the feeling that he hated everyone on the planet. That wouldn't suprise me, given the "insignificance of humanity" thing he had going on.

[SalmonGod]

I have a writer friend who is really into both history and Lovecraft.  His goal is to become a great writer by immitating the personalities of people he identifies as great writers.  So he studies them a lot.  His description of Lovecraft was basically an ultra-reactionary cranky old man from birth, who subsisted mostly on a diet of sugar.