soph (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sophia_sol) wrote2011-11-16 03:37 pm
sophia_sol) wrote2011-11-16 03:37 pm
pimping of one-person fandoms!
I think this year I need to write a pimp post for the things I am going to be requesting for Yuletide. Because none of them have any fannish activity to speak of. I have no experience writing pimp posts, so we'll see how this goes!
Fandom One: Three Hearings on the Existence of Snakes in the Human Bloodstream, by James Alan Gardner.
This is a short story, which I will handily link you to an online copy of. It's a scifi alternate-universe story about the intersection between religion and science, and if that is a premise that sounds interesting to you, then THIS STORY DOES NOT DISAPPOINT.
The structure of the story is great -- as the title says, it comes in the form of three hearings. Each hearing is several centuries apart, so the flow of the story is about the, well, the snakes in the human bloodstream, not about the individual characters.
The religion of the world is one that's clearly intended to parallel Christianity, but is also clearly a very different religion. Many of the characters, however, are real life historical figures: Anton Leeuwenhoek, Charles Darwin, Senator McCarthy.
The story is a clever and nuanced look at what happens when science is found to prove or disprove a matter of religious belief, and really, why are you still here reading what I have to say when you could be READING THE STORY? It's just a short story, won't take up much of your time, and it's totally worth it, so go on! Read it!
Fandom Two: Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe
This one you've heard about, I'm sure. It's not like it's an obscure novel. :P
It's quite an entertaining read! If you are the sort to be entertained by eighteenth century writing styles and excessively rationalist, colonialist attitudes, that is. I found the book riveting, though I'm quite sure for reasons Defoe didn't intend. (of course, the options are either to laugh or to cry at the ridiculous extent of the valorization of colonialism....) It is, above all, a book that is definitely of its time.
The thing is, pretty much the only thing anyone seems to be interested in discussing wrt this novel is the Man Friday. Which, yes, yes, very interesting, very important, and I have quite appreciated that stuff. But now? I want fic about XURY.
You've never heard that name? Yeah, that's because he's a relatively minor character who gets dispensed with in just a couple pages. He's from the part of Robinson's life before he gets shipwrecked, and who cares about that, right?
But, okay. Robinson is at one point captured and taken as a slave. And a fellow-slave along with him is a Muslim boy named Xury. When Robinson escapes from slavery, Xury is with him, and helps him. And when Robinson and Xury are saved by a Portuguese ship? Robinson sells Xury to the ship's captain, as a slave.
NOT COOL, ROBINSON. FOR SERIOUS.
So clearly this gross mistreatment of Xury needs to be examined and/or rectified in fic-form, amirite? And the best bit is, if you don't feel like making your way through the entire book, you can totally just read the bit with Xury and skip everything else, because it's not like the rest of Robinson Crusoe's life is actually relevant to Xury's story.
(you can read however much of Robinson Crusoe you want to at Project Gutenberg, bless its soul. I love Project Gutenberg.)
Fandom Three: Sir Richard Francis Burton RPF
And now for something completely different!
Okay, Richard Burton is the best you guys. For certain values of "best", that is. Victorian polymath, extremely intelligent and knowledgeable, extremely ballsy, extremely large ego. YUP.
This dude went undercover as a Muslim to go on pilgrimage to Mecca! He knew 29 languages, and wanted to learn the language of monkeys! He was part of an undercover investigation of a male brothel! (seriously, fandom: actual canonical undercover in a male brothel. That's, like, as close to undercover-in-a-gay-bar as one can get in the era.) He got into a duel over his moustache! He worked on a translation of the Kama Sutra into English! He measured the lengths of dudes' penises everywhere he traveled! He lied in his autobiographic writings! And this is just a minor portion of the epicness that is Richard Burton.
I was first introduced to this man when I was doing research for my undergrad thesis on the Thousand And One Nights (better known in English as the Arabian Nights), since he did the most famous English translation of the Nights. He was...an irresponsible translator, to say the least, but then NONE of the extant English translations are actually particularly reliable. Don't get me started on my rant about translations, you don't want to hear it. (Richard Burton doesn't want to hear it either. CLEARLY his is the best. And he made sure everyone knew it. The Victorian era was a time with great interest in the Nights, and of the more-or-less contemporaneous translators of the Nights, Richard Burton was the BNF. A wanky BNF.)
SO. Richard Burton's translation is the LONGEST (sixteen volumes!) and probably the most interesting -- his use of language is quite fascinating. He felt free to embroider on the tales as he saw fit, which resulted in extra homoeroticism but also extra racism, among other things.
Anyways, this then inspired me to look him up on Wikipedia and OH MAN THIS DUDE. As I've been saying. You should totally read his wikipedia article as well!
And if you are finding yourself intrigued by this dude as well, and wondering about writing fic, this is the sort of thing where you can choose anything from ALL THE RESEARCH to ALMOST NO RESEARCH. Meticulously researched fic that's wholly accurate to the Victorian era and to his life is awesome! Less meticulously researched fic about his life is awesome! AU fic about him in other times/places/fandoms is awesome! IT'S ALL AWESOME.
Because really, the awesome thing here is Richard Burton himself. Right? Right.
(If you do want to do research, project gutenberg is helpful for reading Burton's own accounts of things; secondary source research you'll probs have to go to the library or something)
Fandom One: Three Hearings on the Existence of Snakes in the Human Bloodstream, by James Alan Gardner.
This is a short story, which I will handily link you to an online copy of. It's a scifi alternate-universe story about the intersection between religion and science, and if that is a premise that sounds interesting to you, then THIS STORY DOES NOT DISAPPOINT.
The structure of the story is great -- as the title says, it comes in the form of three hearings. Each hearing is several centuries apart, so the flow of the story is about the, well, the snakes in the human bloodstream, not about the individual characters.
The religion of the world is one that's clearly intended to parallel Christianity, but is also clearly a very different religion. Many of the characters, however, are real life historical figures: Anton Leeuwenhoek, Charles Darwin, Senator McCarthy.
The story is a clever and nuanced look at what happens when science is found to prove or disprove a matter of religious belief, and really, why are you still here reading what I have to say when you could be READING THE STORY? It's just a short story, won't take up much of your time, and it's totally worth it, so go on! Read it!
Fandom Two: Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe
This one you've heard about, I'm sure. It's not like it's an obscure novel. :P
It's quite an entertaining read! If you are the sort to be entertained by eighteenth century writing styles and excessively rationalist, colonialist attitudes, that is. I found the book riveting, though I'm quite sure for reasons Defoe didn't intend. (of course, the options are either to laugh or to cry at the ridiculous extent of the valorization of colonialism....) It is, above all, a book that is definitely of its time.
The thing is, pretty much the only thing anyone seems to be interested in discussing wrt this novel is the Man Friday. Which, yes, yes, very interesting, very important, and I have quite appreciated that stuff. But now? I want fic about XURY.
You've never heard that name? Yeah, that's because he's a relatively minor character who gets dispensed with in just a couple pages. He's from the part of Robinson's life before he gets shipwrecked, and who cares about that, right?
But, okay. Robinson is at one point captured and taken as a slave. And a fellow-slave along with him is a Muslim boy named Xury. When Robinson escapes from slavery, Xury is with him, and helps him. And when Robinson and Xury are saved by a Portuguese ship? Robinson sells Xury to the ship's captain, as a slave.
NOT COOL, ROBINSON. FOR SERIOUS.
So clearly this gross mistreatment of Xury needs to be examined and/or rectified in fic-form, amirite? And the best bit is, if you don't feel like making your way through the entire book, you can totally just read the bit with Xury and skip everything else, because it's not like the rest of Robinson Crusoe's life is actually relevant to Xury's story.
(you can read however much of Robinson Crusoe you want to at Project Gutenberg, bless its soul. I love Project Gutenberg.)
Fandom Three: Sir Richard Francis Burton RPF
And now for something completely different!
Okay, Richard Burton is the best you guys. For certain values of "best", that is. Victorian polymath, extremely intelligent and knowledgeable, extremely ballsy, extremely large ego. YUP.
This dude went undercover as a Muslim to go on pilgrimage to Mecca! He knew 29 languages, and wanted to learn the language of monkeys! He was part of an undercover investigation of a male brothel! (seriously, fandom: actual canonical undercover in a male brothel. That's, like, as close to undercover-in-a-gay-bar as one can get in the era.) He got into a duel over his moustache! He worked on a translation of the Kama Sutra into English! He measured the lengths of dudes' penises everywhere he traveled! He lied in his autobiographic writings! And this is just a minor portion of the epicness that is Richard Burton.
I was first introduced to this man when I was doing research for my undergrad thesis on the Thousand And One Nights (better known in English as the Arabian Nights), since he did the most famous English translation of the Nights. He was...an irresponsible translator, to say the least, but then NONE of the extant English translations are actually particularly reliable. Don't get me started on my rant about translations, you don't want to hear it. (Richard Burton doesn't want to hear it either. CLEARLY his is the best. And he made sure everyone knew it. The Victorian era was a time with great interest in the Nights, and of the more-or-less contemporaneous translators of the Nights, Richard Burton was the BNF. A wanky BNF.)
SO. Richard Burton's translation is the LONGEST (sixteen volumes!) and probably the most interesting -- his use of language is quite fascinating. He felt free to embroider on the tales as he saw fit, which resulted in extra homoeroticism but also extra racism, among other things.
Anyways, this then inspired me to look him up on Wikipedia and OH MAN THIS DUDE. As I've been saying. You should totally read his wikipedia article as well!
And if you are finding yourself intrigued by this dude as well, and wondering about writing fic, this is the sort of thing where you can choose anything from ALL THE RESEARCH to ALMOST NO RESEARCH. Meticulously researched fic that's wholly accurate to the Victorian era and to his life is awesome! Less meticulously researched fic about his life is awesome! AU fic about him in other times/places/fandoms is awesome! IT'S ALL AWESOME.
Because really, the awesome thing here is Richard Burton himself. Right? Right.
(If you do want to do research, project gutenberg is helpful for reading Burton's own accounts of things; secondary source research you'll probs have to go to the library or something)
no subject
no subject
And Richard Burton is ALL of the epic, and I am on a quest to intruduce his epicness to as many people as possible. :D (I actually had no idea there was an actor named Richard Burton until I started trying to do research about Richard Francis Burton.... pop-culture knowledgeable I am not.)
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no subject
Payne! Payne is... *goes off to reread thesis to refresh memory* "Payne's translation does not cut nearly as much material as Lane, and does not add any extra parts of his own like Galland. However, like Lane, he altered the sections that he thought were obscene. Further, Payne worked from Calcutta II, which incorporated within it material from Breslau, a fabricated manuscript and thus of questionable provenance." So it's, y'know, about as reasonable as english translations of the Nights go!
(Calcutta II and Breslau are two of the four extant source manuscripts for the Nights, in case you're curious.)