A Book Meme

[eumelia]

* Grab the nearest book.
* Open the book to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions if you want to.
* Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

"She is the most beautiful of dusky Dianas and the belle of the Piccaninnies, coquettish, cold and amorous by turns: there is not a brave who would not have the wayward thing to wife, but she staves off the alter with a hatchet."

Peter Pan; childhood classic? Or Imperialist propaganda extraordinaire?
Who can tell.

I always preferred Tiger Lily to Wendy.

Comments

[sabrina-il.livejournal.com]

Well, since I grew up on a healthy diet of Soviet 50s scifi and 19th century swashbuckling novels, I vote "both".

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Ooh ooh! One of the lectures at iCon (http://www.icon.org.il/2008/) is about Sci-Fi behind the "Iron Curtain", it's on Wednesday at two if I'm not mistaken.

I keep forgetting if you'll be attending or not?

[sabrina-il.livejournal.com]

I shall be attending, yes, and I saw that lecture and was like "yeah I"m gonna give it a miss since I ALREADY KNOW ALL THERE IS TO KNOW ABOUT SCIFI BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN (i.e. that it was awesome LOL)".

Which, you know, I don't really, but it feels like going to a lecture on "going to highschool", you know? Like, been there, done that. If you are interested in the subject however (though I can't imagine why you would be) I'd strongly reccomend either hitting up the lecture or... hitting me up for a lecture LOL

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I will be attending that particular lecture.

As to why? Well sci-fi is about futurism and social commentary, more often than not, and it'd be interesting to hear learn more about that stuff about a society which I never experienced :)

[sabrina-il.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you have just summed up why contemporary American sci fi makes me froth at the mouth and well, makes me angrier than I honestly can ever articulate.

Cos I'm a scifi girl. And I grew up with scifi that was life changing, that was banned, that talked about philosophy and social commentary and gots its authors exiled. And that was scifi to me. Aaaaaaand then I find out the English speaking world defines scifi as either Star Trek or Stargate or whatever and ever since, dipping into that pond has been like living in a world where the sky is green and the water is red because WHAT. THE. FUCKING. FUCK.

Ahem. Before I go into a two page comment, I'll stop myself and say, hey, I hope you like the lecture :)

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Not... sure what I said...

Futurism and social commentary isn't what sci-fi is about?
I mean life changing books haven't been written in a while... I don't feel. The really good hard core sci-fi in the 50's, 60's and 70's, in both blocs I imagine.

[sabrina-il.livejournal.com]

Oi, sorry, I've ranted about this stuff like 4312423 times and still can't figure out how to sum it up neatly in two sentences or less (see also: inarticulate rage).

Well sci-fi is about futurism and social commentary, more often than not, and it'd be interesting to hear learn more about that stuff
I was going off of this sentence and for some reason my brain just saw that first portion and went into hyper mode or something and I thought that you thinking of scifi as a tool for social commentary + not knowing much about Russian-speaking scifi = umm... this is the point where I think my brain switched off.

I do think scifi is a great tool for social commentary. It doesn't have to be, like any genre, but it offers unique social critique opportunities that somehow didn't make it into the mainstream, imo, in the west. The treatment of scifi (as serious literature, treated with reverence) in the former USSR is not the treatment of scifi in the west (mostly an escapist genre). You can find all kinds of works on both sides of the aisle but the attitude is pricipally different, and so is the mainstream preception, and the implications of that on the material being produced and the implications of the material on the readership, and what that does to concepts like "geek" and "fandom"... anyway. I hope you enjoy the lecture, and I hope it's a good one, and if you ever wanna talk about any of that stuff, you know where I blog.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Ah, okay.
Makes sense.

Sci-Fi as a genre was always a fave because it spoke about possibilities and human potential, but I'm very entrenched in Western sci-fi and I'm also very, very picky.

So I'm hoping the lecture will help me expand my repertoire.

[nurint.livejournal.com]

Funny that, just got a sentence that I noted when I passed over it the first time as well since it has so much to do with my field of study, also known as Complex Systems:

"There was no contradiction, deepest down. Complexity, yes, but not contradiction. Only connection".
- Son of a Witch, Gregory Maguire

(yes, I cheated and gave 3 sentences, only the first of which being the 5th line. But they're short!)

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I forgive.
I got an absurdly long and racist sentence.

I forgot that happened in Victorian literature.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_lux_aeterna_1/]

"כאשר האסוציאציה חזקה, יש סיכוי גדול להגיע למסקנה שהאירועים הופיעו יחד לעתים קרובות."
הספר הוא "רציונליות, הוגנות, אושר" של דניאלך כהנמן
ואני מניחה שהסיבה שהוא הקרוב ביותר היא שבד"כ אני לא קוראת להנאתי ליד המחשב, אבל השתמשתי בו כרפרנס לעבודה שכתבתי לא מזמן, והוא פשוט נשאר שם.