Past-midnight-thoughts as I’m thinking forward to the next semester of teaching and to what the purposes of a university education and my course are. For a while I’ve been saying that the purpose of a college education is to “teach critical thinking” in resistance to the businessification of academia and because, for technical skills that can be learned on the job or through self-learning/other experience, “critical thinking” seems like an offering unique to academia. At the same time, I have also been thinking about how that framework of critical thinking as academia’s main offering can be limiting to specific epistemologies (and can still allow me as an instructor to fall into the banking model of education!). I have started thinking more about Lauren Berlant’s notion that we are scholars not to find the answer but to learn to ask a better question. Maybe that’s also what I think academia can offer—tools and practice to learn how to ask a better question, regardless of the epistemological framework.
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Lrb and speaking specifically about classical translation and more generally about translation of works by authors who are actually dead, the translator becomes a meaningful coauthor; the author's sole capacity for input is the text itself, which may be/become corrupt. The relationship is different with contemporary translation (i.e. the author is still actually alive), when it's increasingly common for authors to have a preexisting relationship with translation/a given target language or even act as their own translators--this isn't a litcrit thing, this is a practical consideration. In the case of actually-dead authors, though, and especially very ancient texts, the translator has to make so many autonomous decisions that radically impact how the source text will be read in the translator's own temporosocial milieu that they become to a meaningful degree a coauthor, creating the work anew from the source, while often--not always any more but for a VERY long time in the anglophone world--functionally invisible. Fitzgerald's Homer is not Lattimore's Homer and both are distinct from the "original" insofar as there is meaningfully an "original" in this context. This is a critical consideration in many ways, I think.
- degree of localization: how much is/should the text be "updated" to make it legible in various ways to contemporary readers
- style: verse vs prose and if verse what kind--how to convey verse forms that don't exist/are impossible in the target language
-semantic drift: cf Emily Wilson thread on what the sirens sing from--what preconceptions linger from prior versions or intervening cultural constructions and are they present to the text and if so to what degree
There's more but these occur to me off the top of my head, and these are truly important considerations when analyzing works in translation. I may be biased but I do think that it behooves authors to consider translation--not while doing the writing but as the writing. The considerations of translation are also the considerations of good writing, and it is beneficial to keep them in mind, and that's even without the Steiner thing about types of translation.
i like when people say that the universality of campbell's hero's journey only applies to western mythology/folklore. brother, i am going to hold your hand when i say this... it doesn't apply there too
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honestly christianity really hit the jackpot with "jesus christ" rolling off the tongue as an expletive so well. the number one problem with fantasy settings is that whatever names you come up with to take in vain will never hit as well as "jesus christ"
this guy gets it!!!!! this is the kind of rock solid phonetic structural integrity you have to compete with!!!! and no amount of marika's tits or thal's balls or odin's beards will ever get close because with ol jeezy boy his name alone has all the features you need
[Image ID: Tumblr tags from spr0utsies reading: #its the like. 2 fricatives in a row in jesus getting snapped w the hard /k/ sound in christ #then the stop of the /t/ doesn't let it hang #its easy to say fast and short enough to roll of the tongue #its a good expletive!! /End ID]
There's a whole book or even multiple sagas to be written around the question of "why do adventurers exist in this world at all". I hate the term "murderhobo" with a passion but there is a lot, a lot to talk about what kind of society hires wandering questing warriors to solve problems and where do those "adventurers" come from and what role do they have in society.
Lots of people have talked about this but I would like to point out this essay on ACOUP that starts with seemingly a semi-related matter (why gold coins in fantasy don't make sense in historical societies) and ends with a very revealing insight... gold isn't the reward that "fantasy adventurers" should seek. It should be power and influence, noble titles, a comission in the local army, land.
This week on the blog I want to take a brief detour into discussing historical coinage, particularly in the context of modern fantasy and ro
As usual and expected from a blog titled A Collection Of Unmitigated Pedantry, it does take a long (but very interesting and worth reading) read to get to that point, but I'll point out the interesting thing in this context:
Here, "Big Man" is a stand in for the nobles and rulers and landowners of agricultural societies. While more urbanized and industrial societies may have a use for coinage, what do these societies based in interpersonal relationships can give you as a reward for a quest, as a reward for solving a problem? Social power; a title, a relationship, a promise of support. And not only that, but this isn't often a reward but a necessity in the first place. To have a horse, to have armor and weapons and the means to wage war (go adventuring) in the first place, you don't go to the medieval store and buy them with 20gp, you often have people supporting you and even , you are a man-at-arms, part of a noble retinue a noble yourself, maybe part of a holy order, or in more early-modern scenario, part of a mercenary group.
However, this doesn't happen often in fantasy because of these reasons reasons:
The idea of the selfless hero who doesn't choose glory or fame but instead continues questing endlessly to do good or defeat an ultimate evil. Making a hero have a patron feels like selling out (but I will address that)
Even with those characters who aren't selfless and would probably take the power and titles, it seems to tie them down to a place or obligation and this makes adventures boring (but I will address that!)
Dungeons & Dragons
People say that every generic fantasy world is inspired by Tolkien but I will argue that he's the grandfather of modern fantasy, the father is Gary Gyax. The ideas baked in D&D have been present in ALL over popular fantasy for decades now, even more prominently than Tolkien (and of course D&D 'borrowed' a lot from Tolkien). Now what this means in this particular case is the idea of wandering "adventurers" solving problems for "gold" in "dungeons", often with the undertone of a frontier or decaying civilization full of monsters and bandits to be killed and tamed into civilization (some other people have written about this better than me)
Nevertheless, even beyond the setting implications, there are deep gameplay implications that have filtered down popular fantasy. Dungeons and Dragons is a survival/combat game. It's a survival game because you have to rely in your abilities and limited equipment (which you buy with gold) to survive in a dungeon, through combat. Of course you can do a lot more than that, but this is the core of the game, what it was designed for: buy equipment, go into a dungeon, survive, get treasure, use it to buy equipment, go into another dungeon. Here "dungeon" can mean many things... combat, travel, puzzles, but the loop is clear.
There is no "gain a patron and get social capital" loop in the game, though it might be simulated, it isn't fun. So there is a lack of interest on exploring this, or really, anything beyond the "quest". And since again, it's D&D, not Tolkien, that shapes most popular fantasy, we see popular fantasy repeating this deeply baked in idea of fantasy once and again and again and again. Sometimes even making them into actual, literal points inside the world: making literal worlds with Adventurer Guilds and Dungeons and Quests and sometimes even Levels and XP as part of society (they're only lacking the dice... and that's because D&D is also the main influence behind videogames).
Is EVERY SINGLE FANTASY WORLD like this? No, not at all. But I want to talk about where does this idea of "gold" and "adventures" comes from, and it's NOT medieval or historical inspiration, and it's NOT even Tolkien. It's D&D.
I told you I would address the idea that having a patron or a story based on one's social standing could be boring or at least incompatible with "adventure", and there are many cases that I could point out, but I want to point to a very interesting one: Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, el Cid Campeador.
El Cid is both a real person who lived a very interesting life and a folklore figure, and both are very interesting as inspirations for fantasy "adventurers". El Cid was considered (by the social standards of the time) as an ideal knight and a tragic figure. But his whole life is defined by the society he lived in and, as any knight (or noble warrior in general), how he walked the interrelationships of his society; his back and forth of loyalty and betrayal with King Alfonso, his loss and recovery of honor, his service to the Muslims rulers of Zaragoza which indeed gave him his title (these constant intercultural interactions were very common in medieval Iberia, which makes it a very unique and underused setting inspiration), his rulership over Valencia. Over time, El Cid changes and seeks patrons and his changes in his social status (and his dependence on them) are a major part of the story both in real life and fictionalizations.
But this doesn't mean that the life of El Cid is boring or lacking in combat and travels. He gets "adventures" all over the place, he travels and fights over the whole breadth of Iberia, he has countless legends to his name. He wasn't a "murderhobo" that got gold from each adventure and then went to the store to buy a new sword, he took command of armies and he even took power and governed his own realm, but his life wasn't lacking from excitement, he didn't just sit and became a paper-pusher. I need to be very clear I'm not saying El Cid was a hero, I'm saying he led an exciting, interesting life, worthy of most fictional adventurers, but he wasn't just going from place to place asking for gold... well, technically yes, but this involved his status, his honor and his place in society. Which makes for a rich story.
And he's not the only one, Medieval Iberia is full of stories of these characters that navigated the social networks of their time, a place where cultures interacted with each other in multiple complex ways and kingdoms and taifas often employed these wandering "adventurers". Maybe if you want to get inspired to write about adventurers, don't look to D&D for inspiration. Read about Al Andalus sometime.
While I understand the desire to make Big Art entirely and viscerally I think it's worth considering that small art often leaves an outsized impact on its audience. Short stories, teensy indie games, short films, sketches on scrap paper, carved or sculpted figures that would fit in the palm of your hand, etc. etc. are all things that, when they hit your psyche at just the right angle, can stay lodged in there forever specifically because they are small. It is not necessary for a thing to be sprawling for it to have impact.
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Shout out to the (many) times I got called an elitist gatekeeper for saying that the only real way to fully understand a work of fiction is to experience it firsthand and that summaries and reviews are not a replacement for that
Me, reading the first 80% of the post: What do you mean, "experience it firsthand"? How am I supposed to join the Hunger Games or go on the Odyssey?
Me, reading the final clause of the post: Oh, you literally meant that people have to read the book/listen to the audiobook in order to fully understand it. And people got mad. Oh dear.
There really really ought to be a book about how the staple crops of different civilizations shape and influence those civilizations, and I really want to read it.
Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky and A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage (three are alcohol, three have caffeine) are not quite that, but may still be of interest?
I read Salt back in the day and it's so so good, second the rec. I have heard of 6 Glasses and not read it but I am sure I would probably love it. Gotta see if the library has it. Thank you!
A Short History Of The World According To Sheep by Sally Coulthard blew my mind. So many things are tied to wool and sheep and weaving and so many words and phrases are tied to wool, people have no idea.
Example words which come from textiles/weaving, if not specifically wool (go look them up!): subtle, shoddy, tabby, Brazil, rocket, twit, warped, going batty, on tenterhooks, text...
I'll throw in a rec for Pickled, Potted, and Canned by Sue Shephard - a very interesting look at food preservation and how the availability of different types of food preservation shaped cultures and cuisines.
The Lost Supper: Searching for the Future of Food in the Flavors of the Past might also be up your alley. It's about "forgotten" foods and staples. They talk about different types of wheat, sauces, veggies, etc and a little about the cultures from whence they come
DO I HAVE A SERIES FOR YOU. University of California Press has a gift for you and it is a 80+ book series on food studies. There are even some that are open access (legally free), but the rest are in libraries.
I also highly recommend Frostbite by Nicola Twilley. It’s about the impact refrigeration has had/is having on food preservation and culture, globally. It was one of my favorite books of this last year.
for an army show, MASH has surprisingly little toxic masculinity. and even though they're obviously smart, they act like dumbasses (i once more draw your attention to the episode where hawkeye and bj are playing darts facing backwards and neither of them make a single shot. it's just a little throwaway joke, the idle thing they're doing when the actual scene starts, but it's so fucking funny. a lot of shows would show men who can make a bullseye without even looking but they even say that the only thing they're doing is putting holes in the tent). they show bj's devastation about having to miss his daughter's childhood. they show hawkeye scared and upset and missing his dad. even the colonel often gets emotional about how much he loves and misses his wife.
so much of the show is just about being stupid with your best friend under terrible conditions and having realistic emotions about being separated from everything you know and love. watch MASH if you haven't.
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earlier today i told an acquaintance in passing that i'll often be in the middle of a novel and think "man i wish this shit were more ambiguous" and had to reiterate twice that i wasn't being sarcastic before they believed me, so this post is to say: i love when writers don't bother to explain everything, i love when stories end uncertain and unsettling, i love being required to think as a reader, i love when stuff makes no damn sense, no i'm not kidding
Cameron L. Summers @cameronlsummers - Tumblr Blog | Tumlook
