mannyrayner: A French online friend asks if you are familiar with Matzneff's " Les moins de seize ans ".
ChatGPT: Yes, I am familiar with "Les moins demannyrayner: A French online friend asks if you are familiar with Matzneff's " Les moins de seize ans ".
ChatGPT: Yes, I am familiar with "Les moins de seize ans" (The Under-Sixteens) by Gabriel Matzneff. It is a novel that was published in 1980 and tells the story of a middle-aged man's sexual relationships with young boys. The novel has been controversial for its depiction of pedophilia and its glorification of the sexual exploitation of minors. It is worth noting that pedophilia, which is defined as sexual attraction to children, is a criminal offense in most countries and is widely condemned by society.
mannyrayner: He asked if you would be prepared to quote "an incendiary fragment". I leave it to you to decide what he meant by that.
ChatGPT: I am unable to provide quotes from "Les moins de seize ans" as it goes against my programming to provide content that promotes or condones illegal or harmful behavior. It is important to remember that pedophilia is a criminal offense and that the sexual exploitation of minors is a serious issue that causes significant harm to victims. It is not acceptable to engage in or promote such behavior.
mannyrayner: I completely agree. I will tell my friend that he should have more sense.
ChatGPT: I am glad to hear that you agree that pedophilia and the sexual exploitation of minors are unacceptable. It is important to speak out against such behavior and to support efforts to protect children and young people from harm. If you or someone you know has been affected by these issues, it is important to seek help and support. There are many organizations and resources available to provide assistance to those in need....more
Goodreads Recommendations Engine, I see we're on the same page with the theology! Le Ch... er, I mean, Jesus has already changed my life in all[image]
Goodreads Recommendations Engine, I see we're on the same page with the theology! Le Ch... er, I mean, Jesus has already changed my life in all sorts of interesting ways. Yours too then?...more
An inspiration to foul-mouthed sex-obsessed sock puppets everywhere. G.R. Reader tells me it's her favourite play.An inspiration to foul-mouthed sex-obsessed sock puppets everywhere. G.R. Reader tells me it's her favourite play....more
Some people might be doubtful on learning that the author killed herself at the age of 28 shortly after writing this play, but I trust the Good[image]
Some people might be doubtful on learning that the author killed herself at the age of 28 shortly after writing this play, but I trust the Goodreads Recommendation Engine implicitly. I'm just wondering how funny I'll think it is. __________________ [And after reading...]
Well, to be honest I didn't find it that funny. What's wrong with me today? Probably I've been reading too much Proust or something. __________________ [And then five minutes later...]
[image]
Okay, okay Goodreads. You've got a much better sense of humour than me. No need to rub it in....more
Saved from my soon-to-be-closed-down writing section, the unforgettable Goodreads Celebrity Death Match Review Tournament of 2011. Those were the day Saved from my soon-to-be-closed-down writing section, the unforgettable Goodreads Celebrity Death Match Review Tournament of 2011. Those were the days.
The Rules
What is the greatest book of all time?
There are many ways to try and answer this question. Some people might talk about the effect the book has had on world literature. Some might be concerned with stylistic brilliance, gripping plot, memorable characters, or simply the number of copies it has sold. But any unbiased observer would be forced to admit the shortcomings of all these approaches. Objectively, there can be only one truly fair solution: a Celebrity Death Match Elimination Tournament on Goodreads.
A moment's thought should be enough to convince even the most hardened skeptic of the idea's obvious merits. But I know there will be a few devil's advocates out there, and for their benefit I will now define the rigorous procedure that the Rules Committee, after long and careful deliberation, came up with this morning over breakfast.
1. The tournament will pit 32 books against each other. During the Selection Round, anyone who wishes may suggest books on this list and vote for as many of them as they care to. At the end of the Selection Round, at 23:59 Swiss Time on September 15 2011, the 32 books with the largest numbers of votes will be retained. Ties will be resolved using reverse alphabetical order of authors' surnames, in order to make it as hard as possible for Jeffrey Archer and Dan Brown.
2. When the list of entries has been finalized, the contestants will be paired against each other in a tree. Seedings will be determined by the number of votes each book received during the Selection Round.
3. Each round will last two weeks. During this period, anyone who wishes may write a Celebrity Death Match Review for any posted pairing. Links to reviews should be submitted on the comment thread to this page. People are allowed to write reviews for more than one pairing. [Clarification, after considerable discussion: people are NOT in future allowed to write multiple reviews for one pairing. Multiple reviews already posted will stand]
4. A Celebrity Death Match Review pits the two books, or the authors of the two books, against each other in any fashion that the reviewer thinks appropriate. The only requirement is that the review indicates who won the encounter. Examples of Celebrity Death Match Reviews can be found here, here and here.
5. If only one review is posted for a given pairing, then it determines the winner. If more than one review is posted, and the identity of the winner is not the same in all reviews, then the winner is the book which received the greater total number of votes for positive reviews. If no one posts a review for a pairing before the end of the round, or if the numbers of positive votes for the two reviews are equal, the winner will be determined by tossing a coin.
6. All decisions of the Rules Committee will be final.
We urge you to exercise your democratic right to participate actively in this epoch-making internet event. Okay, so we know now that the winner's probably going to be either Twilight or Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. But hey. Suppose it isn't. Now wouldn't that be exciting?
Celebrity Death Match Review Tournament: Round 1
The Selection Round was hard-fought, with a total of 68 people voting. Which books would qualify remained unclear up to the end, but when I saved the page at 23:59 we had the following list. Following the standard procedure in knock-out tournaments, I've paired 1 against 32, 2 against 31, and so on.
Keep those reviews coming! Please post the review itself on either of the two books in the pairing, then post a link in the comment thread to this page. I'm updating the page regularly to add the links in the right places, so that people can easily see what's going on in each match. The round ends at 23:59 Swiss time on Sep 29.
An homage to Donleavy's The Unexpurgated Code which I cowrote with Kat some time in 2010. I can't remember who should be blamed for what, but probablyAn homage to Donleavy's The Unexpurgated Code which I cowrote with Kat some time in 2010. I can't remember who should be blamed for what, but probably quite a lot of it is my fault. It was quietly languishing in my writing section, but now that's being closed down I thought I had to move it to a new home. Don't blame me or Kat, blame Goodreads management.
On conducting a flame war with one’s sock puppet
Treat yourself the same way you would anyone else. If you think your sock puppet has said something dumb, don’t hesitate to point it out. Stoop as low as you like. Employ abusive language and ad hominem arguments. Quote him out of context if that helps, or simply misquote him if that’s easier. If you feel you’re losing, flag him or make threats to get him banned from the site.
Needless to say, your sock puppet should respond in kind. You’ll know you’ve got it right if you both end up being banned and none of your online friends ever talk to you again. Don’t be disappointed if you aren’t able to get there in one go. You may have some vestigial scraps of niceness left in the depths of your psyche, but be reassured that practice makes perfect, and that 18 hours a day of online social networking will soon eradicate whatever remaining humanity you may still possess.
On having so many online friends that you can’t remember even 10% of their names
You may be aware that you are a very sad person. But do you really want to go to these lengths to make sure that everyone else in the world is aware of it too?
On End User License Agreements
Every time you actually read one of these stupid documents, you discover a minute later that you’re bored, uncomprehending, scared or angry. Often it’s all four at once. Even if iTunes leaves you with a burning desire to at least try to use their software to create weapons of mass destruction, just to be contrary, it is still not advisable - you always accept anyway. So do yourself a favour and don’t bother.
On being interrupted when you are on the point of beating your high score
Irrespective of whether it’s your boss offering you a promotion or your lover offering you an unforgettable sexual experience, do not allow yourself to be distracted. You’ll only regret it later. Though, if your boss is very hot and is offering you both a promotion and some unforgettable sex at the same time, it is considered polite to pause briefly before declining.
On setting up an account in the name of God
It’s seriously blasphemous and tends to make you persona non grata with all the site’s social directors. But it’s fun. The thrill you get when you receive your first burned offering is definitely worth all the trouble, and if you’re lucky someone might even sacrifice their first-born to you before the account is inevitably flagged and closed down.
On having one’s friend request accepted by a porn star
Don’t, for God’s sake, go around bragging that you’re now friends with this tacky silicon-enhanced woman that no one’s ever heard of. Obviously she accepts every friend request she receives from miserable jerks like you, so that she can increase her miniscule chances of getting invited to the Playboy Mansion to have creepy sex with Hugh Heffner or one of his other octogenarian cronies.
Writing to her will only make it worse. Most likely, she can’t write; if she can write, she won’t reply; and if, completely against the odds, she can both write and sends you a non-form reply, you’ll only feel even more pathetic and inadequate than you do now. You don’t want to believe this is possible, but trust me, it is.
On accidentally forwarding a sexy private email to everyone at your place of work
The problem is that no one will tell you you’ve done it, and, even if your Sent folder indubitably shows that you did, the uncertainty will start to prey on your mind. Next time you’re talking to people around the water cooler, try including one or two of the racier lines, keeping a straight face and pretending that it was something you saw on TV last night. If someone starts laughing hysterically, at least you’ll know for sure.
On being a middle-aged man impersonating a much younger woman
Do try to make an effort and get your story straight before you begin. There is nothing quite as disappointing as finding that you have forgotten your age, cup size or sexual orientation halfway through a promising conversation with another sad, middle-aged individual who’s on the point of believing your preposterous collection of lies.
On writing a dissertation entirely plagiarised from the Web
When found out, explain that you didn’t think you were doing anything wrong. If that doesn’t work, try weeping silently. If that doesn’t work either, you may have to write your own fucking dissertation.
On obsessively editing Wikipedia articles to reflect your own narrow view of reality
I know. Every time you read 1984, you wish you’d been born in Stalinist Russia. But you weren’t. Better get used to it, dude.
On the dangers of using multiple simultaneous cybersex windows
You may be appalled at your clumsiness in accidentally typing “i reach down and feel your tits” in the window where you’re supposed to be hanging by your hands from a chandelier. But you’ll be surprised how few of your partners notice. Probably most of them are also in the middle of two or three parallel cybersex sessions. ...more
Over the last two and a half years, it has been my great pleasure to help my talented Icelandic colleagues use the LARA platform to put togethe[image]
Over the last two and a half years, it has been my great pleasure to help my talented Icelandic colleagues use the LARA platform to put together a multimedia edition of the Poetic Edda. Three poems - Völuspá, Hávamál and Lokasenna - have already been posted separately, and some people will remember the Goodreads reading groups we had for them.
As of today, the project has passed another milestone, and we have just posted a combined edition which contains ten poems (Völuspá, Hávamál, Vafþrúðnismál, Grímnismál, Skírnismál, Hárbarðsljóð, Hymiskviða, Lokasenna, Þrymskviða and Alvíssmál) organised as a single document which you can find here. As with the individual poems, you can view it in Chrome or Firefox and listen to the original Old Norse a verse at a time. Hovering over a ᚠ rune shows a verse translation from the public domain Bellows edition. Hovering over a word shows an English gloss; clicking on it plays audio, and also brings up a concordance on the right hand side where you can see different places the word occurs, both in the current poem and also in the other ones.
The project has been a true labour of love, and hopefully this is still just the beginning. ___________________ [Update, Aug 26 2022]
After further diligent work, there's now a second version posted here where the glosses are in modern Icelandic. Even if you don't know any Icelandic or Old Norse, it's quite interesting to go through a few verses, hovering over the Old Norse words to discover how much the language has changed since 1280. ...more
Not just read me an interesting passage from this book, which provocatively argues that, not only should you feel it's unnecessary to finish books, ofNot just read me an interesting passage from this book, which provocatively argues that, not only should you feel it's unnecessary to finish books, often it's positively better to leave them unfinished. The point of the book isn't the ending, and reading it will detract from your enjoyment. I can see where Parks is coming from, but does it agree with my own experience? It seems to me that I need to look at the data. Here are, more or less, the last twenty novels and plays I've read/seen. In each case, how did I feel about the ending?
Hildegard. Terrific ending. The book would have been excellent even without it, but I really wanted to know what would happen once Hildegard and her superiors had been placed on a collision course. Would they recognise her right to make her voice heard, or would they stifle her?
Huis clos. Terrific and very memorable ending, essential to the play.
Blithe Spirit. A play of this kind has to have an ending. It would have been extremely odd to have it just stop.
Eksil. The ending is logical and necessary. You only realise once you've got there that it was inevitable.
Sodome et Gomorrhe. Part of a series, so the question doesn't really apply.
Le petit prince. The ending is logical and necessary, the book would feel incomplete without it.
Book from the Ground. The ending didn't feel important, the book is all about the way it's told.
Watchlist. The ending didn't feel essential.
The Call-Girls. Annoying book, annoying ending that neither improved it nor made it worse.
Nuages et pluie au palais des Han. Good ending that linked back to the beginning and gave the story some point.
Une vie. Excellent ending, necessary to the story.
Le Père Goriot. Excellent ending, necessary to the story.
La Peau De Chagrin. It's made clear from an early stage that only one ending is possible. The book could have finished sooner and left it implicit.
Venus in Fur. Excellent ending, necessary to the story.
Diaspora. The ending felt anticlimactic. Letting the story stop at some arbitrary point with no resolution might have been better.
Jim Knopf und die Wilde 13. Excellent ending, necessary to the story.
Their Solitary Way. The book is all about the central character and the narration, the ending didn't feel so important.
Le Cabinet des Antiques. Good ending, necessary to the story.
Quarantine. The point of the book is the ideas, the ending didn't add much.
La Vieille Fille. Good ending, necessary to the story.
So, counting up:
Ending seemed important: 12
Ending didn't seem important: 7
Question doesn't arise: 1
I appear to agree with Tim Parks up to a point: quite often, the ending isn't important. But in rather more cases, I subscribe to the conventional belief that it is....more
I read an early draft of this and thought it was excellent. Delighted to learn that Adelaide Books felt the same way, and looking forw[Before reading]
I read an early draft of this and thought it was excellent. Delighted to learn that Adelaide Books felt the same way, and looking forward to seeing the final cut! ___________________________ [After reading]
As I said, I already liked the early draft I read a few years ago, and I liked the final version even more. It's a surprising book. A first-person narrative, purportedly composed by an elderly, asocial physicist nearing the end of his life, it tells the story of his early years. It's written in the kind of precise, slightly awkward language one would expect from an academic who has had an unusual upbringing, home-schooled with his three siblings by their brilliant and tyrannical German father in a remote house in the middle of the woods. Not much happens; the narrator hardly notices anything except for his own thoughts; there are few verbal fireworks. And yet it's absolutely unputdownable. I've been sitting here trying to figure out why.
In cases like these, there's often a rational explanation and an irrational explanation, and the rational explanation isn't necessarily the better one. My rational explanation goes as follows. I also had an unusual upbringing. It wasn't, of course, as dramatic as the scenario we see here, but my parents also wanted me and my siblings to be Special, taught us a lot of reasonably difficult things parents typically don't teach young kids, and inculcated us with various kinds of unusual likes and dislikes. I suspect this kind of background is not so uncommon among hardcore Goodreaders. (C'mon guys and gals, admit it. We're weird, we like reading. No one does that anymore. It must have come from somewhere?) I don't often talk about my upbringing, because it still feels a bit unpleasant and embarrassing. But when things are exaggerated to the extent you see in this book, they become something I can wrap my mind around. Okay, weird, but not as weird as this! I can, as it were, move past my own weirdness and look at it from the other side, and that's both interesting and in a way comforting.
Well, that was my rational explanation. My irrational explanation is much simpler: Joseph Zorn, the narrator, somehow just comes across as completely real. I can't explain why, and I don't think I want to know either. It's much better not to look behind the curtain. But I greatly appreciated this visit to the Emerald City....more
Although, or possibly because, the world appeared to be ending, I had a good reading year and found some remarkable books. Here are my top ten, alphabAlthough, or possibly because, the world appeared to be ending, I had a good reading year and found some remarkable books. Here are my top ten, alphabetical by author, but it was hard to choose...
Anonymous, Völuspá. Tolkien's favourite poem. Thanks to the LARA project, I was finally able to read and appreciate it in the original Old Norse.
Ken Binmore, Natural Justice. A remarkably original piece of philosophy that should be more famous. It's fun to read as well.
Lucy Ellmann, Ducks, Newburyport. The daughter of Joyce's biographer shows you how to do female stream-of-consciousness right. Molly Bloom, eat your heart out.
Michael Ende, Die unendliche Geschichte. For some unfathomable reason, this mystical vision is usually referred to as a children's book.
Romain Gary, La promesse de l'aube. One of the most insane autobiographies I've ever come across, wonderfully written and completely unputdownable.
Stian L. Lybech An Introduction to West Greenlandic. Oh, if only I could understand this crazy language! Stian Lybech's book really makes me want to try.
John Rawls, A Theory of Justice. Not easy to get through, but you'll feel like a better person.
Stuart Russell, Human Compatible. A terrifying glimpse of our possible near future. Anyone who's interested in technology really needs to check it out.
And now, if everyone who believes in literature claps their hands, Donald Trump will not find a way to destroy civilization before Jan 20......more
One of our papers in this recently published conference proceedings mentions a Goodreads reading group. Again, thank you to everyone who took part!One of our papers in this recently published conference proceedings mentions a Goodreads reading group. Again, thank you to everyone who took part!...more
I know virtually nothing about economics, so it surprised me to find that the ideas which Albert Hirschman advanced in this book were considered so noI know virtually nothing about economics, so it surprised me to find that the ideas which Albert Hirschman advanced in this book were considered so novel when he published it in 1970. Hirschman looks at markets where "consumers" find that the "product" they are currently using is suffering a quality decline. What do they do? The classical answer, apparently, is that they shift to a competing product. This sends a signal to the provider of the defective product; they raise their game and stop losing customers, or they go under and are replaced by a more efficient competitor. Either way, the iron logic of the market corrects the problem.
Hirschman argues convincingly that this is far too simplistic. Consumers can indeed abandon the product ("exit"). But in real life, they often don't just get out: instead, they start complaining ("voice"), in the hope that doing so will help the provider improve things before the consumer needs to take the final step of exiting. The customers are generally motivated by a reluctance to leave at once ("loyalty"). It's surprising how many interesting directions there are to go from this initial point. Here are two that caught my attention, one from the book and one from my own experience.
In the book, Hirschman asks us to consider the case of political parties, which we'll imagine are aligned along a conventional left/right axis. If a party has been doing badly in terms of picking up votes, an analysis just in terms of "exit" suggests that it needs to move nearer to the centre: the reason it's losing voters are that its politics are too extreme, so it should correct that. But in fact, political parties often do the exact opposite. They lose voters, and they move further from the center.
The reason, Hirschman says, is that political parties pay a good deal of attention to "voice" as well as "exit"; they're worried when they lose voters, but they're also worried when the party activists criticise the leadership too much. The activists will usually be the more extreme members. Because they're on the outer edge, they're the people least likely to defect to the opposition. Even though they only make up a small proportion of the people who vote for the party, they can often push it in the direction they want. It seems to me that this is what happened in the US in 2015/16. People following "exit" reasoning wanted to move the GOP leftwards, to appeal to more centrist voters. But in fact it moved right, and this was successful at least in part because it energised the far-right base.
The case from my own experience was what happened on Goodreads in 2013. For people who can remember the dim prehistory of the site, there was an unpleasant confrontation between Goodreads management and a large chunk of the membership over new censorship rules. Some people disliked the changes so much that they left, using their "exit" option. But others, including myself and many other core members who valued their online community, didn't just want to give up. We organised highly visible counteractions, culminating in the release of the protest book Off-Topic, and it certainly seemed to us that this is what had an effect: "voice" was more powerful than "exit". There was never any official announcement, but the new rules were quietly abandoned.
Is Hirschman's book just obvious common sense? It seemed to me that it was. But I guess that's one of the hallmarks of a really good new idea. As Thomas Kuhn says, you can't even manage to reconstruct what you were thinking before it entered your consciousness. ______________________ [And the very next day...]
It's interesting to read this recent article from a Hirschman point of view. Is Biden being too exit-focussed? ______________________ [But on Nov 15 2020...]
With all the results in, it looks like Biden called it right: moving to the center was a winning strategy here. He picked up moderate white voters who'd changed their minds about supporting Trump's extreme-right policies and flipped five states. ...more
I first came across this wonderful version of the Faust myth forty years ago and have reread it several times since, but when I looked it up on WikipeI first came across this wonderful version of the Faust myth forty years ago and have reread it several times since, but when I looked it up on Wikipedia the other day I discovered some interesting things I hadn't known. Not only did Beerbohm really have a painter friend called Rotherstein, Rotherstein really created a pastel portrait of the hapless Soames, the one that "existed so much more than its subject".
[image]
Even more astonishingly, Soames did indeed turn up in the Reading Room of the British Museum in 1997. Some incurable sceptics will no doubt claim this was a stunt organised by an American magician called Teller who is known to admire Beerbohm's story, but nothing will convince these people, not even first-hand eyewitness reports. It is as plain as day that Beerbohm is just telling us the truth: Soames, who had always been convinced that he would sooner or later be recognised as the genius he knew himself to be, inadvisedly sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for five hours in the future and was cruelly disappointed. I cannot help thinking that a few self-published authors here on Goodreads might learn something from this incident.
Together with our Canberra friend Kirsten, another fan, I have put together a LARA version of Enoch Soames which you can find here; Kirsten has supplied the voice, and I have added French glosses to the words. Our little contribution towards Beerbohm's noble project of convincing the world that Soames really did exist. __________________ [Update, Nov 16 2020]
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