u/Itchy-Resolution6531

Few books into the 16th century, and I wonder if anybody who uses Machiavelli quotes actually read the books. Dude said that it is better to be feared than loved if you cannot be both, but that you can never let fear turn into hatred... there is a lot of nuance left out of this when some mob boss orders a hit and quotes this passage. Goes on to write a ton about how important it is not to be hated.

At least in The Prince, seems that most of what he is doing is assembling history and not offering too much editorializing. Yes, the history was dark and cold, but it happened. Dude was like Claude in early 1500s putting a lot of queries into one place, but people made a whole term for a type of behavior with his name that is calculating, ruthless way to stay in power, when he appears to just have been an aggregator... and more than half of the book comes to no conclusions about a single way to approach anything.

What other author is misquoted a lot?

Wolf Larssen could have taken over the world in any novel that he teleported himself into, maybe could have killed Dr. Frankenstein's monster by himself and humanity otherwise should be happy that he just wanted captain his own ship and did not have larger ambitions.

Sir Walter Scott was reincarnated as either Jerry Bruckheimer or Don Simpson.

If trained correctly, Nately's Whore would have been the best covert operative that the world had ever known. Could have snuck in and got Hitler, kept the cold war from ever happening and all kinds of things. Amazing skills.

Still have not heard anybody come up with a good reason that books are too long. Say to cut or trim, but never any good examples of how to do so. Feel that anybody in the history of the world who has posted this opinion has either taken it from somebody else or otherwise not finished a book. No, a common example of the battle scenes in Les Mis is not good enough... be original. The next time that somebody posts that a serialization was bad and gives an actual example of how it could have been better... they will be the first.

The ending of The Mill on the Floss will wreck you as much as anything out there. Even in Hunchback, Esmerelda acted stupidly and Quasimodo was happy to go, but this just got me out of nowhere.

If you ever downvoted anything and did not post a comment or offer anything in the comments, then there is a special place in the afterlife waiting for you. It is called the Pussygatory, invented by The Catholics, as a place to wait until you have helped enough people online instead of just taking a dump and heading out like a coward.

Lackeys should still exist today. Might be fun to have one. Might be a fun job to have. Sure, you get made fun of a bit, but you do get a lot of adventure on somebody else's dime.

Washington Irving was the the Father of American Literature. People wrongly take Faulkner at face value who said that it was Mark Twain. Faulkner never wrote anything straight forward in his life and people who believe this are falling for the mockery that Faulkner intended when he said it. It is OK for Irving to be the father who had a more famous son half a century later.

Anybody have any half-baked stuff of their own?

Here are some of mine:

The Underground Man is Stephen Dedalus at forty years old. Educated with no knowledge or information. Self aware with no self awareness.

If Moby Dick would have been popular in it's time, Ulysses would not be a thing. Melville did all the same stuff with a better side story.

The post WWI books about British Aristocracy falling apart and losing their touch as good as US Lost Generation novels.

People worry about translations way too much; use them as a crutch not to dig in. It would be better if people just picked one, burned the boats and dove in 100%.

More novels should have been serialized. Allow the authors some time to develop more story arcs, cut some of riff raff that did not age well and had better endings. Feel like the format and the structure of sterilization needed planning, depth and foresight that some authors might have benefited from.

What are yours?