The Reading Room

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Bookworm

8:10 AM

Q: Is perception and understanding a theme in the moon and sixpence?

In the moon and sixpence, from the different perspectives of the different characters such as the narrator, Strickland's wife, Ata, Dirk etc show different views on Strickland, and while some of their perceptions of Strickland change throughout the novel, the book does not reveal what Strickland ...

the-moon-and-sixpence

verbose

8:42 AM

@Bookworm opinion-based?

Matt Thrower

9:07 AM

@Mithical I mostly read in bed, and mostly ebooks on my phone. I've increasingly realised that this is a terrible way to read more demanding texts. You're not predisposed to think about the text more widely because you're tired, and you can't make notes in the margins. But I'm going to carry on because it's convenient and it's often the only time I can carve out in the day to read.

Bookworm

9:27 AM

Q: Is there really a bawdy pun at the conclusion of Romeo and Juliet?

Romeo and Juliet is listed as one of Shakespeare's tragedies and, personally, I found it one of the more affecting ones. With that in mind I was gobsmacked to learn that there's apparently a dirty joke right at the high point of pathos in the play. When Juliet says: O happy dagger! This is thy s...

william-shakespeare romeo-and-juliet

Tsundoku

10:02 AM

@verbose Interpretation questions are on topic on this site.

CowperKettle

10:23 AM

The Pulley (1633), a poem loved by J R Oppenheimer

4 hours later…

Matt Thrower

2:23 PM

It's a bit frustrating that only low-effort Q's and A's from here ever seem to make it to HNQ. I don't suppose anyone knows enough about the algorithm to see if we can do anything about that?

Bookworm

2:58 PM

Q: Is 'the process is worth more than the prize' a theme of The Alchemist?

In the book The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, Santiago discovers that the treasure he sought was underneath the very place he set out in search of it. However, it was only after a long difficult journey was he able to find it. So does this mean that he is only worthy to find the treasure after going...

the-alchemist

Gareth Rees

3:24 PM

@MattThrower I am not sure that is a fair characterisation. I've had a few answers go HNQ and didn't think that I was taking a "low-effort" approach in any of those cases, for example, the "Address to a Haggis" question went HNQ and that was an answer that required some original research.

The most recent explanation of the HNQ formula that I can find was written as long ago as 2010 and so presumably the exact formula has been tweaked over the years, but you can see that the "hotness" criteria were (i) number of answers (ii) score of answers (iii) recency of answers.

If those criteria are still used, then we can influence which questions go HNQ by (i) writing more answers (ii) voting more often, and (iii) writing answers quickly. It's criterion (iii) that means that more straightforward questions are going to have a higher chance of going HNQ. If it takes a few days to write an answer, that's probably too late for HNQ.

Matt Thrower

3:44 PM

@GarethRees fair enough, I wasn't intending to denigrate your (or anyone else's) efforts that have made HNQ - it's just been my personal experience and there's a hint of frustration there too. Thanks for the explanation.

2 hours later…

Tsundoku

5:57 PM

@MattThrower Not all HNQs have benefited low-quality answers but the algorithm's bias against questions that require extensive research is something I have previously mentioned on Meta.

Tsundoku

6:10 PM

Looking for Sex in Shakespeare by Stanley Wells. At 124 pages, that book can hardly be exhaustive.

Shakespeare, Sex, and Love by the same author has 304 pages. That sounds more like it.

Tea and Sex and Shakespeare by Thomas Kilroy (who was not here). That's a connection I hadn't made yet.

Matt Thrower

Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger - Kilroy Was Here

►

Tsundoku

6:37 PM

> On the other hand, there is much evidence to show that in late-Elizabethan, in Jacobean, and in Caroline times, women spoke very freely of sex in the presence of men and that the men and women of those times conversed together, with considerable freedom, on the theme of fornication and 'wedding and bedding'.

From Shakespeare's Bawdy by Eric Partridge (cited at Why do we get some explicit references in Shakespearean plays that are meant for something else?)

Tsundoku

6:58 PM

@Bookworm Is there really a bawdy HNQ in Romeo and Juliet?

3 hours later…

Henry WH Hack v3.0b

9:46 PM

Question: Does anyone here read things slowly one word at a time? I do when what I am reading is important.

I also read slowly one word at a time when reviewing post on Stack Exchange, which is why I take sooo long on one review task.

Actually I have a deep post inspection method that involves reading the post slowly and carefully one word at a time... 9 times, reviewing is hard!!! (But SE reviews are not the point here. The point is about reading)

verbose

@Spagirl Thanks for this! I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

verbose

10:07 PM

@Tsundoku "Is X a theme of Y?" doesn't count as an interpretation question. It's not "what does this work mean?," which could be defended as an interpretation question, but is itself too broad for an entire novel. But the OP asking for a Yes-No answer to an overly broad question that basically comes down to opinion: Yes, this is a valid interpretation; no, this is not.

If OP asked, "what is the theme of this novel?" I'd vtc as too broad. A novel doesn't have a single theme.

What does "theme" mean anyway

verbose

10:25 PM

See also the guidelines, which specifically say to avoid asking questions when there is no actual problem to be solved: "I’m curious if other people feel like I do."

Tsundoku

10:54 PM

@verbose Equating the Maugham question with "I’m curious if other people feel like I do." is a bit of a stretch, in my opinion, because I read that question as one that asks for answers based on evidence from the text.

verbose

11:06 PM

@Tsundoku I can't see what sort of answer OP is looking for except "Yes, I agree", but we'll have to disagree on that one.

And what would evidence for a "no" look like?

Tsundoku

11:26 PM

@verbose If the impossibility of providing evidence for a "no" is an argument against that question, can you please explain why the question about the pun in Romeo and Juliet shouldn't be closed? How would anyone have been able to provide evidence that there is no bawdy pun?

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