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1500 questions
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Is House of Leaves' ergodicity preserved as a digital text?
I've been trying to read House of Leaves for a couple years now, but don't have the opportunity to sit down with a big physical book for long stretches of time. I do, however, have much more time available to read ebooks.
Does the experience of…
BESW
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Story about two siblings who run away from home and stay in a museum at night
I remember when I was a kid my dad read us a book about two children, brother and sister, who ran away from home, and stayed the night in a museum. They slept under a bed (that was an example of a certain style of furniture, if I remember right),…
kristan
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Why did George have to kill this character?
In Of Mice and Men, I never understood why it was necessary for
George to kill Lennie,
when George simply could've pulled some sort of diversionary tactic and falsely led the rest of the lynch mob somewhere else in the forest. By the time the…
fi12
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Is Casanunda a reference in "Witches Abroad"?
In Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett, the witches meet a dwarf named Casanunda who claims to be the "greatest lover in the world":
''Allo, foxy lady,' said a voice behind her. She looked around. There was no-one there.
'Down here.'
She looked…
Mithical
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What is the significance of Grendel being descended from Cain?
In the tale of Beowulf, the monster Grendel is said to be descended from the biblical character of Cain. This was surprising to me, as I'd thought Beowulf was a pre-Christian story given its setting in pagan Germanic countries, but I learned that…
Rand al'Thor
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Everyone keeps diaries due to regular, town-wide amnesia
I would have read this English YA novel in the late 2010s, though I'm not sure how old it was at that point. It was picked up from a local library in the Western United States. I am 50% sure there was at least one sequel. It's also likely that…
bobble
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12
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What are the "torch dance" and "garter dance", in 19th-century Germany?
From Theodor Fontane's Effi Briest, which I'm reading online, during the wedding of Effi and Innstetten in Chapter V:
The dancing had continued till three o'clock, with the effect that Briest, who had been gradually talking himself into the highest…
Rand al'Thor
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Which book has a main character named William in a church in a forest?
There is this one book I've been looking for:
The book is relatively small, but pretty thick. The cover features a young boy running upwards, with a tiny doglike creature in the bottom lefthand corner. It's all black and white, and I believe it is…
Q-tip
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What does "skimmish" mean, in this eye dialect?
This is perhaps a surprising instalment in my sequence of Watership Down questions, being about human dialect and nothing to do with rabbits at all. Of course, it comes from the chapter "Dea ex Machina":
"Why don' you do somethin' sensible," he…
Rand al'Thor
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Why did the doctor give Count Bezukhov cream of tartar?
In War and Peace, Count Bezukhov's doctors gave him Cream of Tartar after his stroke. What purpose did that serve? I haven't been able to find anything about medical benefits of cream of tartar that seem even vaguely related to this condition; what…
EJoshuaS - Stand with Ukraine
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12
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3 answers
What classic mystery novels and stories led to "the butler did it" becoming a cliché?
"The butler did it" is a common trope indicating a hackneyed solution to a mystery. I have read several classic mysteries from the 1920s and earlier (Poe, Conan Doyle, Christie, Sayers, etc.) but do not recall a single instance of the butler's…
verbose
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2 answers
How many gables are there in the four-gabled house?
In "The Fifth Gable" by Kay Chronister, the protagonist interacts with the women who live in the four-gabled house. Which, suddenly and inexplicably, at the end of the story finds itself with five gables.
“Where are we going?” said Marigold.
“The…
Shokhet
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Do we have any solid evidence for how much material Middleton contributed to Macbeth?
In verbose's question How close to actual incantations are the witches' spells in Macbeth? he says
It is worth mentioning that the latter [the witches' incantation from Act IV scene i] was possibly written not by Shakespeare, but by his…
Peter Shor
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Identification of a short story about a short irrefutable self-evident proof that God exists that is kept secret
I am trying to find a short story (about 20 - 30 pages long) I read a couple of years ago. Here is what I recall:
The central idea is that a [catholic] priest creates (and writes) a very short (about 4 pages long) proof of the existence of God just…
今夜九
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1 answer
Are the talking animals real or figments of the Little Prince's imagination?
The Little Prince meets some animals that can talk: for example, a fox and a snake.
Well, we know[citation needed] that they can't actually talk, but do they really exist or are they just figments of the Little Prince's imagination?
bleh
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