Some thoughts
Here I am proposing doing something maybe a little juvenile, so you are free to be all growed up and just observe.
Here is also my attempt at changing @denlillaapan 's mind about stories. Although I know he's reviewed fiction here, I am not convinced he has done so for any reason other than he thought it might be a good way to seduce me to zap his posts in the territory.
That aside, my other-half--who works arguably harder than I do--has been having trouble sleeping, so I have offered to read to her a bedtime story so that she stays away from her screen. We picked the Odyssey and we have just finished Book 1. So far, the results have been positive.
The translation
Selected edition: The Odyssey, Homed. Translated by W.H.D. Rouse.
After toying with the idea of not watching the film, and reading the poem instead, I came across the translation of W.H.D Rouse, which--to me--strikes a fair balance in using lay-person friendly language while, at the same time, is uncontroversial in its treatment of the classical ethics that readers often look for in the poem.
The Odyssey, in it's heyday, wouldn't have been thought of as a 'book' per se, but a poetic performance. Kind of like how you watch Netflix before you doze off to sleep, except, to my knowledge, there was no internet in the classical period of Greek history. Bards performed sections of this epic poem, which had to be committed to memory, for every day folk like you and me. This oral tradition of the poem means that it should be made accessible to as many people as possible, which I think this translation is.
A read-along
I have chosen to call it a read-along, because you can contribute as well as just observe and learn about the poem. It will not follow book-club logic. There is no schedule. Anyone can contribute at any time. Just get a copy, read a chapter (preferably without skipping ahead), and then post your summary.
A note on pacing: my wife and I do not have a long attention span, may have missed a day here and there, and so it took us a week to get through book 1 (11 pages). I think those who wish to read along will find this pace amenable.
Read-along summary suggestions
As I do this, I may have other ideas, but for each "Book" I am thinking the following would be nice to have:
- a short summary of the story
- a key character list (including gods, humans, giants, etc.)
- key places mentioned
- some thoughts/questions
If you do participate, I may catalogue it in a pinned post on ~the_stacker_muse territory. In that case, I will use the following naming convention:
[Read-along] The Odyssey, W.H.D. Rouse, <Book Number>
That way at the end we'll have a neat looking list of posts to compile and passers-by can peruse and learn about the epic poem.
Also, please feel free to cross-post in ~BooksAndArticles (I hear there are some pretty juicy rewards sloshing around over there).
Join me
If you are interested and would like to get your hands on a copy, you have a few days before I update you on Book 1.
So what are you waiting for, get off your damn government-surveilling, blue-light radiating, endocrine-disrupting smartphones and join me as I read the greatest story ever told.
lol, beautiful!
It's not that I dislike stories — they're crucial to the human understanding and existence — it's that in an age of abundance and infinite generation, the search space/potential stories are, well, infinite. So what's the point with trying to create literature when literally anything can and, by the assistance of LLMs, will happen?
Why are you taking me and my attention into a dream world of infinite potentiality when there's plenty of real, objective, reality-constrained stories to tell about our not-dreamy world?
So in that sense, going to the classics make perfect sense
But hasn't the mind always been infinite? Homer might have also opined that any pleb could imagine up a story like this, and then he would have not created. In fact, Homer might have been such a pleb.
So then why do anything, like, why generate thoughts about the economy and post them in ~econ? I would prefer to read your thoughts even if they are assisted by the LLM than pure and unabashed slop.
Why secure your wealth with SHA256 encryption? Surely quantum will crack that too, one day?
The point I am trying to make is, if there is no threshold on human accomplishment, and it is in fact infinite, then perhaps you are right, and business case for monetising good fiction might actually be shot. I don't think that is most writers' raison d'etre, and I do believe there is a cosmic balance that upholds work that has integrity, that somehow makes it worth its while.
Why do you climb mountains? Is it not possible to fly to the peak with a helicopter and enjoy the same view? You probably get something out of the struggle, which I think storytellers do as well. I can accept that the majority of fiction might be cooked now, like the majority of any creative content.
I'll level with you, I don't have a lot of experience in publishing, so I haven't worked out the economics of it. I probably should.
Because reality constrains you: there's a finite, limited set of ideas that are true or useful. Compare chess: there are infinite potential moves, but only a few make sense and of those some (or usually one) is best. There's a reality feedback when you make mistakes.
Literature, especially (science) fiction doesn't. It's just whatever, anything goes
But then why is Elon building shit straight from Iain M. Banks novels? Heck, even his warnings about AI are grounded in that. Is he delusional, and if so, does that even matter?
Yes, but here's the thing: unlike the mind, an instance of an LLM isn't infinite. The only infinity in LLMs is that you can create infinite LLMs, but each instance that you "chat" with, is finite, and not only that, it is static!
Thus, you can add a source of near-infinity, for example a random number generator of arbitrary size and feed that into your LLM (this is one of the main things that causes incoherent hallucinations in LLMs) or rely on "natural" randomness from GPU circuit timing, but no matter what you do, a human fiction (or non-fiction) writer will evolve with their story, whereas an LLM cannot evolve, nor can it retain that evolution. Only the next training round, if it incorporates the traces right, can cause that evolution.
The things we do to ourselves just for a cheap thrill never ceases to astound me.
I imagine in your own nordic, yogic way you have learned a bit about self-regulating.