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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Apr 12, 2024 14:15:21 GMT -5
I'm reading the book by JJ Abrams and Doug Dorst, called "S." (The Ship of Theseus). It's an incredible book, I'm still at the very beginning. But I basically feel like I'm dealing with a big imitator of Lemony Snicket. A good imitator, though. The book was released in 2013, while "A Series of Unfortunate Events" was published in 2009. But the initial concept is quite similar. The fictional author is named Straka (V.M. Straka). The introduction is written by his editor and translator. And basically, in this introduction, there's a discussion about who the author was. The editor says that the author, Straka, is dead. He, along with the editor, received the originals without ever having personally seen the author. But, besides that, the book is sold full of handwritten notes, made by two people who read the book and engage in a dialogue through the margin annotations. Additionally, between the pages, there are attached documents (replicating the fact that "A Series of Unfortunate Events" has documents), but in the case of the book "S.", these documents are actually loose documents between the pages. Previous readers discuss the meaning of what was written as well as their personal lives (they are university literature students). The initial experience is sensational, it's quite immersive, especially because the book really looks like an old book. I found it impressive that something like this was translated into Portuguese.
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Post by HAL 10,000 on Apr 12, 2024 14:19:46 GMT -5
Never heard of this book but sounds interesting.
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Apr 12, 2024 14:28:06 GMT -5
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Post by Resemblance on Apr 12, 2024 15:59:28 GMT -5
"A Series of Unfortunate Events" was published in 2009. It was actually published in 1999. This sounds intriguing. Perhaps I'll attempt to read it.
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Apr 12, 2024 16:30:04 GMT -5
"A Series of Unfortunate Events" was published in 2009. It was actually published in 1999. This sounds intriguing. Perhaps I'll attempt to read it. Sorry, I was specifically referring to LSTUA. And it would still be wrong. It was in 2002. It was published in Portuguese in 2009, if I'm not mistaken.
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Post by Reba on Apr 12, 2024 19:00:15 GMT -5
i had this book in 2013. nuff said.
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Post by Poe's Coats Host Toast on Apr 15, 2024 6:27:39 GMT -5
I've come across this book when researching fiction related to the ship of Theseus paradox some years ago when I was making a short film based on the topic. The book sounded interesting, but the involvement of JJ Abrams made me think it was probably all gimmick, no substance, so I didn't try to seek it out. I should give a look if there's a library copy of it by now somewhere.
And I did notice a parallel to Snicket and TUA as well at the time, but also to the structure of Nabokov's Pale Fire.
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Apr 16, 2024 11:21:35 GMT -5
I've come across this book when researching fiction related to the ship of Theseus paradox some years ago when I was making a short film based on the topic. The book sounded interesting, but the involvement of JJ Abrams made me think it was probably all gimmick, no substance, so I didn't try to seek it out. I should give a look if there's a library copy of it by now somewhere. And I did notice a parallel to Snicket and TUA as well at the time, but also to the structure of Nabokov's Pale Fire. Regarding the depth of the work, I'm still in chapter 1 of the initial book, but I can guarantee that I was surprised by the themes that the work seems to cover. The way it was done doesn't just seem to be a different aesthetic, but there is a purpose to it, an attempt to explain the allegory of the main work without making the allegory so obvious that it loses its subtlety. For example: The fictional author created for this work, VM Straka, was a political activist involved in exposing fraud by governments and corporations, as well as involved with unions fighting against oppression and exploitation of workers. This information is delivered to us, the readers, through attached documents and handwritten notes from other readers. But this heightens the significance of a specific scene in which the protagonist who has lost his memory analyzes how a foreign organ grinder is tricked by the man who gave him this job. What could seem like just a setting scene creates a new meaning. The protagonist himself could be an allegory for a political organization that has lost its purpose. But of course, this is one of the possible interceptions, and it only exists because I had access to these attachments very early on. So, it's a profound work from my point of view.
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