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 Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 6:02 pm
I just picked up a copy of Flatland. I read it all the way through without setting it down once. Does anyone else like this book?
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Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 11:29 pm
I've read a synopsis and never cared to pick it up because of anti-male sentiments in the story.
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Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 6:30 am
I read it a long while ago. I thought it was pretty great, but looking back on it I don't know why I liked it so much.
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Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 8:18 pm
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Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2007 8:56 am
Baron von Turkeypants I've read a synopsis and never cared to pick it up because of anti-male sentiments in the story. anti-male? you mean anti-female, right? From what I heard women are lines while men are 2D shapes.
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Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 11:01 pm
I liked it because the concept was cute. The parts about social mores went completely over my head when I was 10.
Flatterland is interesting, though, one a mathematical level; I'm not sure if it's still social commentary, though.
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Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 9:11 am
Soy un hombre muy honrado,
que me gusta lo mejor Yes, and the women have the ability to become invisible while the men don't. Las mujeres no me faltan,
ni el dinero ni el amor
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Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 11:48 pm
Now that I think about it, the bit about the women having to wear shoes was kinda cute, as a mockery of how stifling women's clothing was (or was it really just a shoe?)
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Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 8:33 am
Layra-chan I liked it because the concept was cute. The parts about social mores went completely over my head when I was 10. Flatterland is interesting, though, one a mathematical level; I'm not sure if it's still social commentary, though. it's not a social commentary necessarily, it just reflects the opinions of society at the time, I'm pretty sure this was done unconsciously. Once you absorb the values of society you don't really see anything else.
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Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 12:40 pm
Subconsciously? It seemed like a pretty direct satire of the class and gender structure...it was about as subtle as "A Modest Proposal"
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Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 1:37 pm
It's hailed as one of the stranger (but deliberate) social commentaries about that age. I have to agree with Dragon that it's pretty obvious that it's a satire.
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Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 3:16 pm
Layra-chan It's hailed as one of the stranger (but deliberate) social commentaries about that age. I have to agree with Dragon that it's pretty obvious that it's a satire. In which case I must apologize, since I made this deduction without reading the book. I read about it in another book, which presented it as if it was not a satire.
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Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 11:39 pm
poweroutage Layra-chan It's hailed as one of the stranger (but deliberate) social commentaries about that age. I have to agree with Dragon that it's pretty obvious that it's a satire. In which case I must apologize, since I made this deduction without reading the book. I read about it in another book, which presented it as if it was not a satire. Ah. Okay. I guess you could try to take it at surface-value, but then it just ends up as a very strange and somewhat nonsensical children's story.
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Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2007 10:02 am
Which is what I had read it as the first time (I was 13 years old and more interested in geometry than in social studies). I had re-read it more recently as part of a paper on transhumanism, and the social commentary is really the focus of the book.
I guess it falls into the realms of Dr. Seuss, Gulliver's Travels, Alice in Wonderland, and the Animaniacs in that respect. Without the commentary, they are geared towards kids. With the commentary, they can be biting satires of the contemporary times.
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Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2007 12:06 pm
Swordmaster Dragon Which is what I had read it as the first time (I was 13 years old and more interested in geometry than in social studies). I had re-read it more recently as part of a paper on transhumanism, and the social commentary is really the focus of the book. I guess it falls into the realms of Dr. Seuss, Gulliver's Travels, Alice in Wonderland, and the Animaniacs in that respect. Without the commentary, they are geared towards kids. With the commentary, they can be biting satires of the contemporary times. I think that more important part is that without the commentary they simply don't make any logical sense. Which is not to say that they lack internal logic, but rather that there are parts of the story that don't connect to the rest without the framework of the social commentary.
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