61–70 of 107 posts
The series starts with books that are allegories for World War II like "The Moomins and the Great Flood" and "Comet in Moominland". Good reading in these pandemic times not gory but all about seriousnes of the world we live in and how small humans and families can cope with that.
The author knows old kids tales are violent, but there is a meaning to thr tragedy. Tolstoy's stories are just meaninglessly violent and tragic.
The author knows old kids tales are violent, but there is a meaning to thr tragedy. Tolstoy's stories are just meaninglessly violent and tragic.
Assuming "meaningless" truly is an apt description for them, I actually think this makes Tolstoy's stories seem all the more intriguing. Most violence and tragedy in life is meaningless, we humans ascribe meaning to it. It's sometimes fun to read a fictional piece and contemplate why the themes resonate with me, without having a ham-handed, prefabricated meaning shoved down my throat. Modernized fairy tales (and almo…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Assuming "meaningless" truly is an apt description for them, I actually think this makes Tolstoy's stories seem all the more intriguing. Most violence and tragedy in life is meaningless, we humans ascribe meaning to it. It's sometimes fun to read a fictional piece and contemplate why the themes resonate with me, without having a ham-handed, prefabricated meaning shoved down my throat. Modernized fairy tales (and almo…
Meaningless violence is too easy, so is ham fisted moralizing. True classics find some kind of meaning, even in the meaninless tragedy of life, like the Iliad.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Assuming "meaningless" truly is an apt description for them, I actually think this makes Tolstoy's stories seem all the more intriguing. Most violence and tragedy in life is meaningless, we humans ascribe meaning to it. It's sometimes fun to read a fictional piece and contemplate why the themes resonate with me, without having a ham-handed, prefabricated meaning shoved down my throat. Modernized fairy tales (and almo…
Meaningless violence is too easy, so is ham fisted moralizing. True classics find some kind of meaning, even in the meaninless tragedy of life, like the Iliad.
I doubt Tolstoy wrote his stories without some kind of purpose, but I agree it would be a mistake to try too hard looking for meaning in case he just felt like writing up some sad shit.
Important point many are missing: Folktales were not originally for children. They were told among adults after children had gone to sleep. But when folklorists (like the Grimm brothers) started collecting and publishing folk tales, it became a trend to publish sanitized edition for children. Read something like the Arabian Nights tales in an uncensored version - these were clearly not intended for children anymore t…
> Folktales were not originally for children. I learned this the hard way. I purchased a beautifully made "Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales" to read to my then toddler. There are some particularly disturbing stories but I was surprised by how many were flat out nonsensical or silly (like The Story of a Boy Who Went Forth to Learn Fear [0]). It's fascinating to read these in their (translated) original form. Not your typi…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Aren't we and our children exposed to much more violence, blood, and plain evilness in media nowadays? I don't understand how people in those times would be less sensitive to such themes.
I think the operative term is "evilness" - if you are a moderately wealthy westerner in this century, violence and bloodshed are things you have relegated to seeing in media, and not an unavoidable part of life
And ideally, most of that sanitized away by the media which just talks numbers, shows air strikes from 50 km away, and tells you how many "insurgents" were killed today.
There have been lots of comments about how dark children’a books were. But, back then, children’s lives were pretty dark. With the high infant and childhood mortality, a good proportion of children had lost a brother or sister. Given maternal mortality, many children had probably lost a mother in childbirth. Given the nature of farmwork and the primitive nature of medicine, many children probably had a father, uncle,…
> If you do this, be sure to read something lighter afterward, like perhaps Anna Karenina’s suicide scene, or a biography of Sylvia Plath Nobody, including the author, seems to have mentioned the cultural aspect in all this. Allow me: Q: What is the difference between a Russian optimist and a Russian pessimist? A: A Russian pessmist thinks that things can't get any worse. A Russian optimist thinks they not only can,…
Im currently reading Archipel Gulag from Alexander Solschenitzyn and that joke sounds quite familliar. The reality of the past century in Russia really proved optimists wrong. Devestating to read that book. It literally puts me on breaks to just sit and think. Sad that humans are capable of such cruelty.