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In "The Sandman", what are nightmares for?
What purpose do nightmares serve in the world of The Sandman? In the second volume of The Sandman Library (The Doll's House), Dream spends most of his time tracking down and dealing with a number of errant nightmares (Brute, Glob, and the…
Shokhet
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Is there any significance to the names of the painters listed in Lolita?
In part 2 chapter 12 of Lolita, Humbert buys her a book about "modern American painting" and attempts to discuss some of the artists with her. The conversation is not a success but I found it noteworthy that Nabokov name-drops four particular…
Matt Thrower
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10
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Can I trust that Shakespeare's sonnets will always be published with the same numbering system?
Can I trust that Shakespeare's sonnets will always be published using the same numbering system? Will Sonnet 30 always be published as Sonnet 30; sonnet 29 always as 29? Was the current order and numbering system published or in manuscript form in…
user17834
10
votes
1 answer
What do these long em dashes and the word inst. mean in Railway Children?
I'm struggling to make sense of the word inst. and the long dashes — in this excerpt from E. Nesbit's The Railway Children. The excerpt is part of a letter that the children receive. The dashes are actually em dashes, with no space before or…
nuggethead
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What word was used for "anisotropic" in the original Russian text of "Hard to Be a God"?
In the beginning of Hard to Be a God, there is the matter of the skeleton chained to a machine gun.
"An anisotropic road," Anton explained. Anka stood with her back to
him. "Traffic can move only in one direction."
This is also remembered by the…
Shokhet
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10
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1 answer
Is the story of "Tales in the Sand" (or its form) faithful to traditional African stories?
In the prologue to The Doll's House (The Sandman #9 "Tales in the Sand"), Gaiman tells the story of Queen Nada. Neil Gaiman is not African, nor (as far as I could tell) were any of the people who worked with him. Therefore, I wonder if the story of…
Shokhet
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10
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1 answer
Are any of the countries in Hard to Be a God based specifically on particular real-life countries?
Arkanar, Irukan, Soan, ... there are several countries mentioned and given at least some description and fleshing out in the book. Are any of these intended to be direct parallels of specific real-life countries?
I could see Arkanar being the USSR,…
Rand al'Thor
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Why does de Villefort ask for a letter from Salvieux and not Saint-Méran?
In Le Comte de Monte-Cristo as Villefort begins to enact his plot, he asks the Marquis de Saint-Méran to ask the Comte de Salvieux for a "laissez-passer" to get him in to see the king directly.
Given that a Marquis outranks a Count, why ask the…
Tim
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10
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What does 'levee' mean in the Three Musketeers?
What does "levees" mean in this paragraph quoted from The Three Musketeers (chapeter II, Penguin, translated by Richard Pevear)? Checked dictionaries and googled but I am still confused.
Louis XIV absorbed all the lesser stars of his court in his…
Ethan
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Is "Battlefield Earth" good science fiction by Hubbard's standards?
L. Ron Hubbard says that to be "pure," "credible," and "have a point," (all things he clearly values highly) science fiction must be plausible; limited in its possibilities; have to do with material-based sciences; be focused on people over…
BESW
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What is Hubbard's definition of "pure science fiction"?
In his 1980 introduction to Battlefield Earth, L. Ron Hubbard claims that the novel is a work of "pure science fiction" and then sets out to define that term. However...
Hubbard spends more time defining fantasy than he does science fiction, as if…
BESW
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10
votes
1 answer
Has there ever been a stage production of Chapter 15 of Ulysses?
Chapter 15 of Ulysses, "Circe" is written in the form of a play script, complete with stage directions. When I first read it, I idly wondered whether or not anyone had ever attempted to perform it. Given the increasingly hallucinogenic nature of the…
Matt Thrower
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10
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Looking for a science fiction short story about aliens harvesting heat from a probe
Around 2005 I remember reading a short story about an Earth probe that landed on another planet with aliens on it. The alien race determined seniority by the amount of heat they accumulated, which was visible when they spoke to each other.
After…
Andrew
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10
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1 answer
What is the name of a poem about relativity?
I am looking for a specific poem I read years ago. It was a poem on relativity and theories on the universe. I do not remember the author but I know she was female and either Spanish or Portuguese. The poem starts off with a large run-on monologue…
user156909
10
votes
1 answer
How to read "truths in Nietzsche’s sense of the word"
In the book titled Orientalism published in 1978, Edward W. Said wrote the following passage (page 204):
For any European during the nineteenth century — and I think one
can say this almost without qualification — Orientalism
was such a system of…
A Dark Divided Gem
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