Reading group for Gilman's Moonwise

Greer Gilman's Moonwise is a remarkable book. It's dense, poetic, and has devastating puns. When I read the paperback, I was shocked with admiration for Roc, the publisher-- I've never seen anything like it come out for the mass market.

I've only read it once, and haven't worked up the momentum since. It occurs to me that making it a group experience would supply an incentive and a lot of background information. Practically every paragraph has references to other fantasy, poetry, folk dance, and mythology.

So I've started a reading group: reading_moonwise.

I'm pretty good on the other fantasy and not so good on the other references, so what I'd like is notating the references, sorting out the plot, looking for the larger themes, and noticing the puns.

This group is intended to be a refuge from political discussion as well as an enjoyable place. Please do your bit to make it fascinating.

If the group goes well, we can continue with Gilman's other works set in the same (related?) universe(s).

There are two editions: hardcover and paperback. I'd rather make it easy for people to get their reading material than keep everything perfectly in sync, so there's going to be a little slack about what gets covered at each update. The paperback is cheaper and out of print. The hardcover is more expensive, prettier, and has an introduction by Michael Swanwick.

A Cloudish Word-Hoard, a glossary by Michael Swanwick.

Tentative schedule: 2 pages twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays.

Monday, October 15 HC: p. 11, 12 PB: p. 3,4
Thursday, October 19 HC: 13, 14 PB: p. 15, 16

Let me know if a posted schedule helps-- I'm not going to do it if it isn't useful for people. It may make more sense to create a conversion system for the two editions.

It's fine to finish a paragraph even if it's on the next page. Everybody is allowed, even encouraged, to write updates about the current pages.

If you have something substantial to say about earlier pages, please do it as a new post. Comments to old posts tend to get lost. If the conversation in an old post is lively, please make the occasional current post about it.

The size and rate of updates is my guess about what would be reasonable. If it turns out to be too fast or too slow, it will be changed.

Ironclad policies: This is intended to be a pleasant group. No matter how strongly you feel that someone else's errors reflect badly on their intellect and/or character, I expect you to pretend you think it was an honest mistake. I'm sincerely hoping not to need to use moderation tools, but I've got them.

Furthermore, this is a group for appreciating a book that I like. If you feel inclined to do an analysis that's primarily about what's wrong with it and how what's wrong with it reflects badly on the author, please do it somewhere else.

Obama, the economy, and the difficulties of prediction

I've noticed that people who are pro-Obama tend towards "the financial crisis was a really hard problem, and besides, it was Bush's fault". People who are anti-Obama tend towards "It's been four years, and if Obama were a good president, he would have made things a lot better already."

There are some other standard moves-- for example, saying that Obama would have made things better if the Republicans hadn't blocked most of what he tried to do.

However, the question I'm interested in is what do you think are reasonable predictions for recovery under various conditions?

In an interview, Nate Silver (author of FiveThirtyEight and The Signal and the Noise-- Why So Many Predictions Fail But Some Don't) said that this a particularly hard sort of recession to recover from because there's so much fraud and confusion. He predicted the presidential outcome in 49 out of fifty states and the winners in all 35 senate races. Besides, he says that you can't have a good statistical model without understanding what's going on, so I'm very fond of him.

On the other hand, I don't have a timeline for how fast recovery ought to be. What do you think?

First post to reading_moonwise

It's here.

Trying to make the crosspost happen is like wandering in maze, or possibly like knocking my head against a wall. Any suggestions?

First post about Moonwise

The first section is called Silly Sisters, a reference to June Tabor and Maddy Prior's folk music.

"There was a green bough hanging on the door." A fast search to see whether this is a custom didn't turn up anything, but I found this: "If I keep a green bough in my heart, the singing bird will come." (Chinese proverb) I have no idea whether it's an actual Chinese proverb, but it's a good thought.

"The year was old, and turning lightward, into winter." I don't know whether the actual date will turn up in the text, but this matches the Delaware/Philadelphia climate I'm used to. The hottest part of the summer and the coldest part of the winter come after the solstices.

"Cold and waning....Ariane looked back the way she'd come". One of the big themes I want to look at is resemblances between the two women and the two goddesses. I'm not going into more detail because I'm trying to avoid spoilers.
( cut for length )

reading_moonwise at livejournal

My original plan was to have a community that would crosspost my posts to livejournal, but apparently things don't work that way.

So, since I have different people who prefer to read at livejournal or at dreamwidth, I've got a community at dreamwidth, and I'm individually posting my posts to livejournal. I'm not making a community at livejournal because I'd either have to pay for another account or have ads on it.