This may be a bit of a weird question but does anyone know wich/how many rocks were mentioned on the book journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne? I remember calcined stones, pyroxene and igneous rocks appearing but I can not recall any other rocks. Maybe it's because I have not read the book in a log time, but remembering any other rocks that were alluded is actually impossible.

Anyone can help me out?

I've been reading about literary description, and I'm trying to find as many examples as I can. I know it's super subjective what constitutes a description, but I'm thinking anything like the scene-settings at the beginnings or middles of novels: descriptions of towns, houses, rooms, or lengthy passages of highly visual, visceral, or vivacious language. Whatever really paints the picture for you, in your head.

What are some of your favorite descriptions, in literature?

They're really night and day. Love them both, but while Irving is completely readable today, Melville's style is occasionally hard to parse, and feels a lot older -- almost more like Shakespeare. Is this a completely stylistic difference? Was Melville known for heavily wrought sentences at the time? Was Irving known for a highly "modern" style?

Jane Austen's "Persuasion" spoilers below is that's a thing here...

I was just debating after watching the recent (much hated) movie adaptation of persuasion. Can anyone tell me, when Ms Russell (strongly implies? I don't think it's said explicitly) that Wentworth is engaged to Louisa: is the audience let in on this at all in the novel?

My wife feels like it's just commonplace for Austen to just mislead the audience, as in the movie, as opposed to hinting at it in some way so as to let the audience in on the secret, like a form of dramatic irony

I’ve been playing a lot of Horizon, Zero Dawn recently and began to wonder ‘does this genre have a name?’ Now I know it’s post-apocalyptic, but I mean real specifically, whats it called when humans are so far past an apocalypse that they rebuild to a stone age (or beyond) civilization from the rubble? Or am I searching for a word that doesn’t exist?

I've just started reading the first book in the Star Scavenger series and it really seems to be giving me the recap of another book/series to set the stage. I want to know if I really should be reading something else first to actually start at the beginning.

Inspired by the fact I learned the translation of The Count of Monte Cristo I been using for years is censored and missig stuff from the original French.

Now I understand that foreign editions often get abridged out of necessity and censorship esp sexual content is needed to make it acceptable for the general populace, and some author included a lot of poltiical and social commentaries in the original edition that went against the government and ruling classes. So its only gonna be natural abridged editions will exist oftenw ith government censorship.

That said I have to ask why do pretty uncontroversial natively written in English books still get abridged editions such as Moby Dick? Do people actually buy these editions? Why read this well in fact the unabridged edition also exists in a library? Esp if you plan o only read the story once, wouldn't you want to read it all in your first and presumably only readthrough?

It's a few hefty paragraphs where he writes about a man who tells himself he loves someone but doesn't, and how he kind of knew this the whole time unconsciously.

It's one of these for sure:

• The cossacks
• Family Happiness
• The death of Ivan ilych
• The Kreutzer Sonata
• Master and Man

EDIT: I found it it's the cossacks

For example

Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly

Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death

Like, elephants and bears are imaginary creatures, everyone is assigned a name, and people stop counting age at twelve? No spoilers please, I didn’t finish it if the end explains it.

hi, it seems that Chapter 3 is the Nick's first party at Gatsby. Are there any other chapters where he talks about them? Thank you!

Hi, I'm a big reader of Bret Easton Ellis'books. I loved Less Than Zero and The Rules of Attraction. I read all his books and I search now an other authors or books that's talk about nihilism or subject like the depraved youth described in Less Than Zero. Advise me, please.

I am looking for the phrase to write about playing tug of war with my dogs. Is there another word? We tugged over the rope?
Thanks

-Jack Todisco

Hello, I am reading through The Graduate for my first time and I was hoping you all could help me understand Mrs. Robinson's motivation better. I am on page 78 where the premise is she and Ben have gotten a hotel room together and Ben is obviously uncomfortable but she keeps pushing him, similar to after Ben's party where she continues to pursue him even after he makes it obvious he is not interested. I am just wondering if anyone has any insight to why Mrs. Robinson wants to be with someone who is so obviously uncomfortable being with her? Don't worry about spoilers I've seen the movie several times, just can't seem to wrap my mind around why she would keep trying with someone who is so obviously uninterested. On the flip side, I am also curious why Ben decided to meet up with her. I can see why he would want to see her out of boredom and to do something exciting, but once he finds himself in the situation he begins to regret it, but is there another bigger piece I am missing?

Hey all,

I'm reading the 1961 Capricorn edition of Jaspers' work, and on pages 42-43, he quotes something from a "letter," but I can't seem to find where he took it from.

The quote goes as follows: "does a neutral have any right to judge in public, having stayed out of the struggle and failed to stake his existence and conscience on the main cause?" and, again, it's from pages 42-43.

Just trying to figure out who/what he's quoting — seems pretty Hegelian, but I haven't read enough of him to know. Any help would be appreciated! :)

Thanks!

This may seem like an either broad or dumb question but I was listening to a podcast in which they're describing Gabriele D'Annunzio, and they said at the time they wanted to ban his books in Italy but decided against it because his mastery of italian was so good. This brought me to ask myself: what is it exactly that which makes writing so good? Are there any examples of such in English, Spanish, or German? What exactly is it that makes a writer show total dominion or mastery of a language and if possible, how is that achieved at all?

This has bugged me for years: how am I supposed to read Ishmael's declaration that whales are fish? There's a significant difference between an author's mistake and an unreliable narrator, and I can't tell which it is in this case.

Hi All,

Reading The Star Pit by Samuel R. Delany now. He mentions alien creatures called ani-worts. I am interested in the possible etymology of this word. Do you think it is a random combination of sounds, or does it call to mind some other word for you?

So my 9yr old son is reading ‘a christmas carol’ by himself for the first time and just asked were Marley and Scrooge gay? Is Scrooge so grumpy because of his lost love?

I said ummmm And he wanted me to ask reddit so here we are

Writing an analysis on Edna and her husbands relationship. any input helps!

Saw this crop up on a post about how goblincore (apparently some kind of subculture/aesthetic-y thing on Tumblr) is anti-semitic because the traits of goblins it draws upon are drawn from anti-semitic stereotypes and I want to know if dwarves are as negative. I mean sure there's the gold thing but at least with the Tolkien dwarves, I thought they're portrayed rather complexly apart from that with other similar traits (like how the songs from the new Hobbits movies "sound Jewish" and how they're seeking to take their homeland back) and a lot of criticisms of their portrayal in The Hobbit are mainly potshots at Thorin Oakenshield, and him being a flawed character isn't anti-Semitic. And seeing as Pratchett's Discworld dwarves are also apparently very Jewish-coded (albeit I've read less Pratchett than I have Tolkien), I'm wondering if that archetype of the "fantasy Jewish" dwarf is okay or not

See: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Secret_History_of_the_French_Court_under_Richelieu_and_Mazarin/Chapter_I

We see, at the beginning of the chapter, a summary, with distinct items separated by dashes. This style of summary can also be seen in 'Three Men in a Boat' by Jerome. I can't seem to find anything about it on google.

How did this originate, and how common is (was) it?

As far as I’m aware Joyce is the only other writer I know who’s taken up the challenge. Is there another example I’m missing?

The Portrait of a Lady is my first novel by Henry James. In general I have no problem with understanding what's written on the page, but fairly regularly a word or phrase will leave me baffled. I'm not familiar enough with James or with the writing of that period to know whether these words/phrases are perplexing because their meaning has changed since the period of James' life, because they are idiosyncratic to the author, or just because of my own deficiencies. Here's an example from chapter 16. Isabel Archer and Caspar Goodwood are arguing over Isabel's refusal to entertain Caspar's proposal of marriage. Caspar is very much wounded by something Isabel has just said, and the narrator remarks as follows:

He might be pardoned if for an instant this exclamation seemed to him to sound the infernal note*,...*

Now I just cannot make heads or tails of "to sound the infernal note". It seems to be such a precise reference that I feel that it must refer to some precedent in history or literature. Or maybe it's just something original to James? Any help would be appreciated.

I guess a broader question would be to ask for advice on where to seek out resources that would help me to answer such questions (on the writings of Henry James) in future.

Thanks!

Mark