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If you get a chance to see some of the impressionists in person, they’re kind of mind blowing for exactly the same reason - you’re looking at a scene of a ship

If you get a chance to see some of the impressionists in person, they’re kind of mind blowing for exactly the same reason - you’re looking at a scene of a ship in a storm and seeing all kinds of nuance, and then you get closer and realize it’s all your brain filling in the blanks. From a literary angle - two books I’ve read that are absolute master classes in this are Italio Calvino’s “Invisible Cities” and “This Is How You Lose the Time War” by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone - both do an incredible job of putting you in a series of vivid, fantastical places within a paragraph or two of exposition.

kylebenzle 1y ago
I read a lot of sci-fi and because it's come up in recommendations I've tried two or three times to read that book, "This Is How You Lose the Time War". The popularity of that book along with stuff like N.K. Jemisin winning "Best SciFi book" of the year 3 years in a row prove more than ever that the vast majority of people simply don't have taste in the sense they can not decide if they actually like something or not they can only like what other people like. That book was objectively bad but it keeps showing up on the top of best sci-fi book lists for some reason and so a lot of people keep (mistakingly) thinking they liked it.
- fish_phrenology 1y ago
  It took a bit but by the end it had grown on me. I agree it's technically not great but maybe I'm just used to that from reading sci-fi, most of which feels technically bad. That said my reaction to the first quarter was mostly "uhh?". Big disagree on N.K. Jemisin though, I enjoyed reading those. Books 2 and 3 of the three body problem series feel like what you're describing to me. Never got why those were popular, the first one had the interesting cultural revolution flashback element but the sequels did almost nothing for me. Filling-in-the-gaps-books wise, it's hard to do better than Earthsea in my mind. They're quite short books, yet I found myself far more engrossed in the world and the goings-on than some thousand page Sanderson tomb I snoozed through.
  - pests 1y ago
    > interesting cultural revolution flashback element Interestingly this section either appeared in the beginning or somewhere in the middle depending on the translation/version (I forget how the distinction was made) due to it being so different from the rest of the book. It was in the beginning when I read it years ago and I think it took a bit for its context to make sense but I also read many lost interest during it. I enjoyed all the books. (spoilers incoming) I actually enjoyed the love story elements, how a star given to someone would play such an important role later. How he survived in the end and communicated the three fairy tales, and enjoyed each in turn. I've never seen a story span such a vast amount of time nor remember one that took us literally to the end.
  - eru 1y ago
    I already felt pretty annoyed with the first Three Body Problem book. But a big part of the problem is that after looking into space colonisation etc a bit, the aliens in most alien invasion stories feel utterly stupid to me. I can still live with 'War of the worlds': their aliens only come from Mars not from the stars, and I can suspend my disbelief over eg its theory of how the planets formed: it's just a fantasy world where outer planets formed earlier and are older. But the Three Body Problem tries to be current-ish with modern technology. And its aliens have enough technology to just build orbitals or terraform Mars or so. Or just kill off all the humans from space with an orbital bombardment or a killer virus. Instead of whatever clunky and ineffective methods they use in the book. I did like the start though, when things were still kept behind the curtain. Also the Cultural Revolution flashbacks, too. War of the Worlds never lifts that curtain for sure. Everything stays fairly mysterious, and the narrative only gives us some limited speculation from the narrator who clearly has also only a limited view on things.
- gilleain 1y ago
  Are you not confusing 'liking' a work with 'thinking it good'. I'm not sure what criteria go into your evaluation, but perhaps those criteria are different from the ones other people are using?
- roughly 1y ago
  > objectively bad Well that settles that, then.
  - kylebenzle 1y ago
    The new reality for a lot of young people I find is that there is no objective reality. Its a dangerous and stupid idea but there is still an objective reality, even if you want to ignore it.
- michaelhoney 1y ago
  ... or maybe it's not objectively bad, and you're bouncing off it for some reason? Per the parent comment, it does a lot with very little. And it's heady and literary and beautiful. Not everyone is into that. But a lot of people are.
- dripdry45 1y ago
  Guh, NK Jemisin :Q I tried getting through a few chapters of three of her books and haven't felt so... Pushed? Talked at? Bored? Hadn't grimaced internally and externally as much with an author in a while. They feel juvenile, trying SO hard. Using a different person perspective in one of them to hamfisted effect, as opposed to someone like Tamsyn Muir who integrates that device for good reason and to brilliant effect. I gave NK a solid try and was appalled at how in the world anyone could think these are engaging.
- pbronez 1y ago
  Time War is NOT hard Sci-Fi. It’s a wartime romance that uses divergent technical evolution to create cultural distance and time travel to engineer social collisions. The combination is fantastically human.
- 542354234235 1y ago
  Try to learn to be less self-centered. Something isn’t objectively bad because you don’t like it. People aren’t tricked into liking something just because you don’t like it. People’s tastes vary and different people like different writing styles. Try something like “I think the books are very poorly written and I just cannot understand how they continue to be so popular. Seriously, what is the appeal?” Not only are you presenting your viewpoint, not as some arbiter of truth, but you are inviting discussion and an opportunity to learn something you don’t currently know i.e. what people enjoy about those books that makes them popular.
- alpaca128 1y ago
  If a belief needs to assume most people are stupid compared to you, it's basically guaranteed to be wrong. Talk to more people, you'll find they can think too.
nandomrumber 1y ago
Who’s that fella what did that TV show where he paints portraits of his famous guests.
dvt 1y ago
> Italio Calvino’s “Invisible Cities” So wild seeing this referenced here, it's a pretty obscure book (of poetry nonetheless), and one my absolute favorites. Cheers to having great taste :) PS: Small nit: it's "Italo," not "Italio."
- te_chris 1y ago
  Likewise! I love this book
- photonthug 1y ago
  Hey! We read more than code, and Calvino's not so obscure. ;) Here, enjoy some stuff from my open tabs: https://rustandmoth.com/work/on-the-ducks-who-are-people-and-the-ducks-who-are-ducks/ https://rustandmoth.com/work/on-the-ducks-who-are-people-and... https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/26063/hypocrite-auteur https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/26063/... https://fleursdumal.org/poem/099 https://fleursdumal.org/poem/099 https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/bernstein/books/artifice/index.html https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/bernstein/books/artifi...
  - BiraIgnacio 1y ago
    This is gold, thanks for the links! Really good
- jebarker 1y ago
  I remember reading Jonathan Blow saying this book was a big influence on his approach to game design.
TylerE 1y ago
Absolutely. I was at the Virginia Museum of Art where they have several Monets and 3 Van Goghs. They also let you get quite close to them… less than a foot away in some cases. The amount of texture is incredible. (What also struck me in person, though I had read about it previously, is how tiny almost all Van Goghs are. Barely more than postcard size in some cases.
- astr0n0m3r 1y ago
  You should probably fact check your statement about the size of Van Gogh paintings. Easily disproved.
  - wizzwizz4 1y ago
    They're shown on big walls, so I totally get how they can seem small.
  - TylerE 1y ago
    Several of the paintings at the VMA are less than 10 inches in their lingerie dimension. Perhaps postcard sized was slight hyperbole, but not by much. All 3 would have been in the bottom 5 of the museum size wise, and it’s a huge museum.
- hilbert42 1y ago
  "They also let you get quite close to them… less than a foot away in some cases." That happened to me some years ago in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, two remarkable pictures particularly come to mind Vermeer's The Milkmaid and a Rembrandt self portrait. The Milkmaid is comparatively small painting (~18×16" according to Wiki) and I was not only able to view it up incredibly close and in detail but also it was a quiet time for visitors and I had the painting all to myself. I stared at it for minutes in a strange state of amazement brought on by not only how wonderful this Vermeer masterpiece was and that I was looking at it for real and it wasn't a dream but also that I could get so close and do so for so long given the work is worth many, many millions, it's effectively priceless. My experience was even more remarkable given that I was visiting the museum just after Rembrandt's The Night Watch had been repaired, restored and put back on display after a maniac had slashed it with a knife. The other painting was a Rembrandt self portrait, it was in an alcove all on its own. Again, I had this truly remarkable painting all to myself to view close up. It was an incredible experience, with Rembrandt's eyes staring directly at me it felt as if he was talking to me. It shocked me that a painting that is over 350 years old and painted by someone many generations removed from today could generate such a large emotional response in me. I consider that particular visit to the Rijksmuseum (I've been there a number of times) as one of the most memorable experiences of my life and I consider it a great privilege that the museum provided me the opportunity to see these remarkable works up close and in depth. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Milkmaid_(Vermeer) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Milkmaid_(Vermeer)
pbronez 1y ago
“This is How You Lose the Time War” is brilliant. Highly recommend the audio book.
dmd 1y ago
If anyone's in Minneapolis, see this theater production of Invisible Cities: https://www.southerntheater.org/shows/invisible-cities-a-toy-theater-atlas https://www.southerntheater.org/shows/invisible-cities-a-toy... - it's fantastic.
- hammock 1y ago
  Sold out :(
loxias 1y ago
> "This Is How You Lose the Time War" No other book captured the feelings of being 20-something and flirting like reading this. Reading it felt like being right back there again, with all the excitement and anxiety. Highly recommended to anyone. Unsure how it connects to the notion of a brain filling in the blanks. I thought it was quite "filled in", but maybe my brain did it, and therefore I'm making your point for you :)
ahoog42 1y ago
Jonathan Sawday’s 2023 book “Blanks, Print, Space, and Void in English Renaissance Literature: An Archaeology of Absence.” [1] explores this phenomenon as well across multiple mediums. It also won the Modern Language Association's top award — the James Russell Lowell Prize for the most outstanding book published in 2023. [1] https://academic.oup.com/book/46695 https://academic.oup.com/book/46695

kylebenzle 1y ago

I read a lot of sci-fi and because it's come up in recommendations I've tried two or three times to read that book, "This Is How You Lose the Time War". The popularity of that book along with stuff like N.K. Jemisin winning "Best SciFi book" of the year 3 years in a row prove more than ever that the vast majority of people simply don't have taste in the sense they can not decide if they actually like something or not they can only like what other people like. That book was objectively bad but it keeps showing up on the top of best sci-fi book lists for some reason and so a lot of people keep (mistakingly) thinking they liked it.

fish_phrenology 1y ago
It took a bit but by the end it had grown on me. I agree it's technically not great but maybe I'm just used to that from reading sci-fi, most of which feels technically bad. That said my reaction to the first quarter was mostly "uhh?". Big disagree on N.K. Jemisin though, I enjoyed reading those. Books 2 and 3 of the three body problem series feel like what you're describing to me. Never got why those were popular, the first one had the interesting cultural revolution flashback element but the sequels did almost nothing for me. Filling-in-the-gaps-books wise, it's hard to do better than Earthsea in my mind. They're quite short books, yet I found myself far more engrossed in the world and the goings-on than some thousand page Sanderson tomb I snoozed through.
- pests 1y ago
  > interesting cultural revolution flashback element Interestingly this section either appeared in the beginning or somewhere in the middle depending on the translation/version (I forget how the distinction was made) due to it being so different from the rest of the book. It was in the beginning when I read it years ago and I think it took a bit for its context to make sense but I also read many lost interest during it. I enjoyed all the books. (spoilers incoming) I actually enjoyed the love story elements, how a star given to someone would play such an important role later. How he survived in the end and communicated the three fairy tales, and enjoyed each in turn. I've never seen a story span such a vast amount of time nor remember one that took us literally to the end.
- eru 1y ago
  I already felt pretty annoyed with the first Three Body Problem book. But a big part of the problem is that after looking into space colonisation etc a bit, the aliens in most alien invasion stories feel utterly stupid to me. I can still live with 'War of the worlds': their aliens only come from Mars not from the stars, and I can suspend my disbelief over eg its theory of how the planets formed: it's just a fantasy world where outer planets formed earlier and are older. But the Three Body Problem tries to be current-ish with modern technology. And its aliens have enough technology to just build orbitals or terraform Mars or so. Or just kill off all the humans from space with an orbital bombardment or a killer virus. Instead of whatever clunky and ineffective methods they use in the book. I did like the start though, when things were still kept behind the curtain. Also the Cultural Revolution flashbacks, too. War of the Worlds never lifts that curtain for sure. Everything stays fairly mysterious, and the narrative only gives us some limited speculation from the narrator who clearly has also only a limited view on things.
gilleain 1y ago
Are you not confusing 'liking' a work with 'thinking it good'. I'm not sure what criteria go into your evaluation, but perhaps those criteria are different from the ones other people are using?
roughly 1y ago
> objectively bad Well that settles that, then.
- kylebenzle 1y ago
  The new reality for a lot of young people I find is that there is no objective reality. Its a dangerous and stupid idea but there is still an objective reality, even if you want to ignore it.
michaelhoney 1y ago
... or maybe it's not objectively bad, and you're bouncing off it for some reason? Per the parent comment, it does a lot with very little. And it's heady and literary and beautiful. Not everyone is into that. But a lot of people are.
dripdry45 1y ago
Guh, NK Jemisin :Q I tried getting through a few chapters of three of her books and haven't felt so... Pushed? Talked at? Bored? Hadn't grimaced internally and externally as much with an author in a while. They feel juvenile, trying SO hard. Using a different person perspective in one of them to hamfisted effect, as opposed to someone like Tamsyn Muir who integrates that device for good reason and to brilliant effect. I gave NK a solid try and was appalled at how in the world anyone could think these are engaging.
pbronez 1y ago
Time War is NOT hard Sci-Fi. It’s a wartime romance that uses divergent technical evolution to create cultural distance and time travel to engineer social collisions. The combination is fantastically human.
542354234235 1y ago
Try to learn to be less self-centered. Something isn’t objectively bad because you don’t like it. People aren’t tricked into liking something just because you don’t like it. People’s tastes vary and different people like different writing styles. Try something like “I think the books are very poorly written and I just cannot understand how they continue to be so popular. Seriously, what is the appeal?” Not only are you presenting your viewpoint, not as some arbiter of truth, but you are inviting discussion and an opportunity to learn something you don’t currently know i.e. what people enjoy about those books that makes them popular.
alpaca128 1y ago
If a belief needs to assume most people are stupid compared to you, it's basically guaranteed to be wrong. Talk to more people, you'll find they can think too.

nandomrumber 1y ago

Who’s that fella what did that TV show where he paints portraits of his famous guests.

dvt 1y ago

> Italio Calvino’s “Invisible Cities” So wild seeing this referenced here, it's a pretty obscure book (of poetry nonetheless), and one my absolute favorites. Cheers to having great taste :) PS: Small nit: it's "Italo," not "Italio."

te_chris 1y ago
Likewise! I love this book
photonthug 1y ago
Hey! We read more than code, and Calvino's not so obscure. ;) Here, enjoy some stuff from my open tabs: https://rustandmoth.com/work/on-the-ducks-who-are-people-and-the-ducks-who-are-ducks/ https://rustandmoth.com/work/on-the-ducks-who-are-people-and... https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/26063/hypocrite-auteur https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/26063/... https://fleursdumal.org/poem/099 https://fleursdumal.org/poem/099 https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/bernstein/books/artifice/index.html https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/bernstein/books/artifi...
- BiraIgnacio 1y ago
  This is gold, thanks for the links! Really good
jebarker 1y ago
I remember reading Jonathan Blow saying this book was a big influence on his approach to game design.

TylerE 1y ago

Absolutely. I was at the Virginia Museum of Art where they have several Monets and 3 Van Goghs. They also let you get quite close to them… less than a foot away in some cases. The amount of texture is incredible. (What also struck me in person, though I had read about it previously, is how tiny almost all Van Goghs are. Barely more than postcard size in some cases.

astr0n0m3r 1y ago
You should probably fact check your statement about the size of Van Gogh paintings. Easily disproved.
- wizzwizz4 1y ago
  They're shown on big walls, so I totally get how they can seem small.
- TylerE 1y ago
  Several of the paintings at the VMA are less than 10 inches in their lingerie dimension. Perhaps postcard sized was slight hyperbole, but not by much. All 3 would have been in the bottom 5 of the museum size wise, and it’s a huge museum.
hilbert42 1y ago
"They also let you get quite close to them… less than a foot away in some cases." That happened to me some years ago in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, two remarkable pictures particularly come to mind Vermeer's The Milkmaid and a Rembrandt self portrait. The Milkmaid is comparatively small painting (~18×16" according to Wiki) and I was not only able to view it up incredibly close and in detail but also it was a quiet time for visitors and I had the painting all to myself. I stared at it for minutes in a strange state of amazement brought on by not only how wonderful this Vermeer masterpiece was and that I was looking at it for real and it wasn't a dream but also that I could get so close and do so for so long given the work is worth many, many millions, it's effectively priceless. My experience was even more remarkable given that I was visiting the museum just after Rembrandt's The Night Watch had been repaired, restored and put back on display after a maniac had slashed it with a knife. The other painting was a Rembrandt self portrait, it was in an alcove all on its own. Again, I had this truly remarkable painting all to myself to view close up. It was an incredible experience, with Rembrandt's eyes staring directly at me it felt as if he was talking to me. It shocked me that a painting that is over 350 years old and painted by someone many generations removed from today could generate such a large emotional response in me. I consider that particular visit to the Rijksmuseum (I've been there a number of times) as one of the most memorable experiences of my life and I consider it a great privilege that the museum provided me the opportunity to see these remarkable works up close and in depth. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Milkmaid_(Vermeer) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Milkmaid_(Vermeer)

pbronez 1y ago

“This is How You Lose the Time War” is brilliant. Highly recommend the audio book.

dmd 1y ago

If anyone's in Minneapolis, see this theater production of Invisible Cities: https://www.southerntheater.org/shows/invisible-cities-a-toy-theater-atlas https://www.southerntheater.org/shows/invisible-cities-a-toy... - it's fantastic.

hammock 1y ago
Sold out :(

loxias 1y ago

> "This Is How You Lose the Time War" No other book captured the feelings of being 20-something and flirting like reading this. Reading it felt like being right back there again, with all the excitement and anxiety. Highly recommended to anyone. Unsure how it connects to the notion of a brain filling in the blanks. I thought it was quite "filled in", but maybe my brain did it, and therefore I'm making your point for you :)

ahoog42 1y ago

Jonathan Sawday’s 2023 book “Blanks, Print, Space, and Void in English Renaissance Literature: An Archaeology of Absence.” [1] explores this phenomenon as well across multiple mediums. It also won the Modern Language Association's top award — the James Russell Lowell Prize for the most outstanding book published in 2023. [1] https://academic.oup.com/book/46695 https://academic.oup.com/book/46695