The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories edited by the Vandermeers. So far I've read the Algernon Blackwood ("The Willows") and the Julio Cortázar ("Axolotl"), both outstanding. It also includes Saki, M.R. James, Tagore, Kafka, Lovecraft, Borges, Peake, Buzzati, Murakami, Octavia Butler, and loads of others.

About half way through Herodotus, which in its own way is also a compendium of strange and dark stories.

Yes. But even so, there's something about getting right into it...a sense of familiarity. It doesn't have to be boring. The author can surprise by not following it up with expected horror but delight in candlelight. Or being wonderstruck by thunder and lightning...awesome nature. They stood at the window... — Amity

That's an excellent point.

mega cool and hot stuff, baby! :wink: — Amity

:cool:

Maybe "show don't tell" is more like "tell the effects, not the fact." For example, instead of saying it was a dark and stormy night you describe indistinct shadowy movements, the trees swaying, rain pounding on the conservatory roof, and a door being blown open.

EDIT: So it comes down to attention to detail, important in realism. "It was a dark and stormy night" is a shorthand and therefore a cliché; it doesn't tell us exactly what is happening.

So it's all just telling. I suppose the reason they say show, don't tell, is when it's for plays and films, where instead of exposition---particularly awkward in this case because it has to take the form of dialogue or voice-over---you can show emotions, motivations and the setting with the acting, action, cinematography and set design, etc.

This is the entire conversation — Daniel

As far as I can tell, what you've posted above was produced entirely by ChatGPT, so if there was a conversation, you haven't presented it here. Also, you didn't comment on its "understanding" of the philosophical issues discussed—which is what this thread is supposed to be about.

As for your deleted discussions, when you posted the ChatGPT output as a new discussion you did not indicate, except by the title of the discussion, that the entire content of the post was a quotation from ChatGPT. That would have been a good start (using the quote functionality), but even then, you need more than a quotation to properly initiate a discussion.

Welcome to TPF :grin:

Yes, @fdrake had a post pinned to the top of the forum for a while quite recently.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/15480/site-rules-amendment-regarding-chatgpt-and-sourcing/p1

Extra stuff was added to the guidelines later.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/480/site-guidelines

It wouldn't be able to go ahead without the approval of admin Jamal @fdrake and then the support of any mods or any other volunteers. — Amity

It's a nice idea. I hope it gets plenty of interest and participation. You and, if willing, @Moliere (who is a moderator) can lead, and I'll do anything that you are unable to do yourselves, like creating categories. I suppose we need a new category; once that's created you can go ahead and post in it.

On a desktop browser you can zoom in and it'll remember the new setting. It's usually Ctrl+ (control and the plus key) to zoom in.

I have mine permanently zoomed in quite a lot.

How can 'optimism' be 'inhumane'? — Amity

One example, at the personal and interpersonal level, is toxic positivty.

Otherwise, a few times on TPF I've made use of Terry Eagleton's distinction between hope and optimism. The way I see it, optimism, particularly with respect to society and history, has a tendency to disregard or minimize bad stuff, whereas hope does not.

I have plenty of experience with toxic positivity, and I've noticed that it is humourless. So my tentative scheme is like this: on one side we have optimism, humourlessness, and inhumanity--a lack of attention to real people and real experience--and on the other side we have hope and humour, where humour is often if not always built on an attention to misfortune.

I tried to write a Gothic once and everyone in it turned nice by Chapter 3, so I had to throw it away and start another project. — Vera Mont

:lol:

Sometimes it's all in the style, tone, or approach, rather than the theme. The theme can be serious or dark while the tone is light, playful, or optimistic. As a reader it's not themes I find life-affirming and intellectually or emotionally energizing; rather it's in the creativity itself. Sometimes it's obvious that the writer is having fun even when writing a tragedy. — Jamal

There's a deeper layer here too. Optimism is in a sense inhumane (it's hope that is humane), and there is no humour in success and contentedness

I'm trying very hard to find a light, humorous, optimistic theme. — Vera Mont

Sometimes it's all in the style, tone, or approach, rather than the theme. The theme can be serious or dark while the tone is light, playful, or optimistic. As a reader it's not themes I find life-affirming and intellectually or emotionally energizing; rather it's in the creativity itself. Sometimes it's obvious that the writer is having fun even when writing a tragedy.

Echoes of Gogol continue to rebound. I just read Kafka's Metamorphosis for the first time since I was a nipper. Back then I found it frustrating, but now I love it. Very reminiscent of stories like "The Nose" and "The Overcoat", with a similar humour and creative joy.

It is difficult to meet an Iberian neighbour on the Internet, by the way. — javi2541997

On the other hand, there is a plethora of venomous far right keyboard warriors on the internet.

In what thread did this happen? — ssu

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/945354

@Lionino was banned for homophobia and racism.

He won't mind too much:

Unsurprisingly, this website is still a waste of time. — Lionino

I can't explain why this track is so good.

I tried it myself from a different email address and it worked for me, and I can't find any blocks relating to your email address, so I don't know what's up.

Sorry I didn't reply, Christoffer. I haven't had any similar reports; I think lots of people get notifications by email, and nobody has told me that's not working. I'll look into it though. Could be your email address is blocked or something.

We have now been upgraded to the medium plan, so this shouldn't happen again.

The Reefs of Earth by R. A. Lafferty — Jamal

Now a new favourite author. Very odd and very entertaining. Writing that appears at first to be sloppy but is actually masterful. Fun on multiple levels. Superior to most books you see on top 10 science fiction of all time lists, and maybe could be classified as fabulist literary fiction. Also short enough to read in a day.

EDIT: Also, in a spooky coincidence, there's a scam going on in the novel perpetrated by someone described as a Pavel Ivanovich, a reference to Gogol's Dead Souls.

Yes, you remembered it correctly! — javi2541997

That is a relief.

Nice.

The title is tricky — javi2541997

Yes. When I read it I thought, why didn't they translate it as "Morel's Invention," since that is the surface meaning. Then I realized it has a double meaning: Morel as he appears has been invented too, in a sense (am I remembering it correctly?).

It's not a crowd-pleaser, but it's strangely engrossing. — SophistiCat

My kind of book!

I get why you say it is non-nihilistic but it changed the shape of my nightmares forever. — Paine

Aye, it's no picnic.

You make a good point. I never felt that War and Peace quite fit the mold of "Russian literature," either. Anna Karenina and the Death of Ivan Iylich do more. Master and the Margarita is another one that, while dark in some ways, breaks the "mold" in being quite playful at times. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yep.

The bleakest work of Russian literature I've read is probably Life and Fate by Grossman. Or maybe it's harrowing, rather than bleak, since it's fundamentally optimistic and non-nihilistic. Anyway, it's great.

Viktor Pelavin — Count Timothy von Icarus

Cool, I hadn't heard of him.

I found this analysis of German "guilt pride" fascinating. Moeller applies his concept of profilicity — which I've had my doubts about (probably because I'm stuck in the age of authenticity) — to good effect, I think.

Next, probably one of these:

• The Reefs of Earth by R. A. Lafferty
• We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
• Not Wanted on the Voyage by Timothy Findley
• Darconville's Cat by Alexander Theroux

One of my favorite! — Count Timothy von Icarus

As you can see above, I have mixed feelings about it. I like the Petersburg stories a lot more.

The Obscene Bird of Night by Jose Donoso — SophistiCat

Looks interesting. How is it?

All of the above I suspect. But I should give it time; I sometimes misjudge a book in its immediate aftermath.

Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol — Jamal

I really think Penguin have done a disservice to Gogol with this cover. It perfectly aligns with the stereotype of Russian literature so often thrown around by people who have read none of it (or have read one or two Dostoevsky novels and feel qualified to speak about the rest). The title, and covers like this, were enough to put me off for a long time.

In fact, Dead Souls is a comic novel, mostly bouncy and light in tone, not ponderous and depressing. The descriptions and similes are exuberantly weird. I particularly liked the apparently undisciplined digressions into irrelevant detail, which would these days be called maximalism. Also fascinating is Gogol's metafictional defence of his own literary style and motivations, within the narration itself. Sometimes it seems that he is writing about writing as much as about the Russian countryside, bureaucracy, hypocrisy, etc.

Ultimately though — and this is where personal taste comes in — I found the sarcasm heavy-handed, the satire obvious, the hyperbole awkward, the characters merely sketched, and the lengthy rhapsodic evocation of "Rus" tedious (even when ironic). This is partly because of the anticlimactic fifty pages of narration after Chichikov has already left town, and partly because much is lost in translation. I expect to come back around to liking it down the line, when I might try a different translation.

:blush:

I'm dealing with Thrasymachus, but have been distracted by some novels. I don't know if I'll be posting anything here anyway.

Haven't heard anything from Jamal or any previous participants for a while. — Amity

I'm working through the Republic but I'm still on book 1. I read the whole thing in my youth, and again a few weeks ago, but I'm not thinking about book 10 at the moment. I can't do everything at once, no matter how much you badger me.

:up:

Let us know what you think of it when you're finished.

Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol.

Good stuff. I may say more when I've read it again.

@Amity

My statement that Book 10 is weird is based on my own experience with it, and so far this is a quite vague impression. My comment that some people have a low opinion of it is based on my secondary readings (including some of those referred to in your quotation from that dissertation). I am on my second and more thorough read through the Republic after having read it a few weeks ago, and I don't have a stable view either way. But certainly, Book 10 feels different from what has gone before.