A friend and I were discussing writing in the first person POV, and it motivated me to try this experiment:

I own many novels with memorable first-person narrators that I always considered distinctive. The question is, how much of that is plot and action and packaging, and how much is _voice_? If I actually ask you to match sample paragraphs of their voices together, will you be able to? And if so, what clues would you use?

I will provide you with twelve sample paragraphs from first-person narrators in different novels by different authors --- then out of these twelve novels, I pick three and provide another sample paragraph from them. Your challenge is to guess which narrators are the ones speaking - i.e A is 7, B is 1, etc...

I went through the novels picking a sample paragraph from the narrator I wanted, with two criteria: (1) no dialogue; (2) no proper names or specialist words used only in that book (because it makes guessing too easy and can jog your memory if you've read or heard of the books. I am not providing authors and titles of the source novels at this time. Just go by the text. Unless you have the entire book memorized, this isn't a trivia game, it's a discourse analysis game.). Finding paragraphs with no proper names is much trickier than I expected for some of the books, so sometimes I simply strike them out. Each paragraph is a complete paragraph; no truncation, in case the cues the reader uses to judge involve paragraph length.

Almost all are genre novels. Some are male characters written by male authors; some are female characters written by female authors; one is a female character written by a male author; one is a male character written by a female author under a male pen name. Most were written in English, but two are translated; I do not think that is a significant difference, with sufficient skill of the translator.
( Read more... )
If you are conscious of what cues you used to make your decision, I appreciate knowing, but if you just went by your gut, that is fine too.

Oh, and I'll appreciate it if some of you ask your friends to do this poll as well. The more the merrier, because I am really curious how people perceive narrative voice, and whether that varies with how they read books in general. Please don't give your reasoning for your precise answers in the comments at this time, just general statements and impressions. I will reveal the answers, and the source novels, in three or four days, or when I get twenty or more responses, whichever comes later, so if you want to know the answers, come try the questions!

- Moved to the United States
- Attended ESSLLI
- Visited Slovenia, or any part of Yugoslavia
- Hit a high C - repeatedly
- Attended CLS and WSCLA
- Eaten ruggeleh - seriously, this staple of Chicago coffee shops has never appeared in any other Canadian or American coffee shop
- Staffed the ICT
- Sung in Xhosa, Georgian, Sotho, and Bulgarian Church Slavonic
- Sung Poulenc, Satie, Schubert, Rachmaninoff (both choral and solo), and Shostakovich
- Won money in a trivia game
- Owned a weighted-key keyboard
- Played Settlers of Catan and Munchkin (hard as the Reach for the Top team I coached tried to teach me, way back when)
- Hosted for several days at my own place a person not genetically related to me
- Used Skype (astonishing, isn't it)
- Visited an observatory and identified Cassiopeia and Aquila in the night sky
- Seen the International Space Station in the night sky
- Had a speaking part in a play that charged money for admission
- Drunk scotch (didn't like it, though, although the people offering it to me are wonderful)
- Got a professional haircut, surprising as this may sound
- Read John le Carre. Among many others.
- Watched Citizen Kane and Babylon 5
- Owned a Macbook, and associated software
- Put up video of myself on the Internet
- Recorded music I myself composed both lyrics and melody to
- Visited the Art Institute of Chicago
- As far as I know, the first time I made people cry with my music
- Got convinced of the validity of null linguistic items
- Attended a chamber opera
- Attended an American Thanksgiving dinner

There are surely many others.

Given that Rachmaninov has been showing up in my musical life from several different directions lately, I've been thinking of a scene I never forgot from Natalya Sats's memoirs, "Sketches of My Life".

Natalya Sats (1903-1993) was the director of the Moscow Musical Theatre for Children (and according to the Russian Wikipedia, the world's first female opera director). She helped Sergei Prokofiev produce the famous children's musical story "Peter and the Wolf" (and apparently when the famous radio play of "Alice in Wonderland" that involved Vysotsky's songs, was discussed, she accused the studio of "corrupting children with Vysotsky's mostrous songs --- see, I can like both of them despite this).

She was the daughter of the composer Ilya Sats, who was best known for composing the children's musical "The Blue Bird," and she herself received a musical education.

From the surrounding paragraphs, this scene must have happened when she was about eight years old (translation by me; apparently an official translation of that book exists, but I haven't been able to find it; the tense shifts are in the original, and I think capture the child's perception of the event):

Once I was home all alone. I sat readng. The doorbell rang and I opened the door. There stood a tall thin man in black, clean-shaven, severe-looking.

"Is Ilya Alexandrovich home?" he asked me in a grim voice.

"He'll be coming soon," I replied, feeling that this was someone special, and I grew a little frightened.

He came in, took off his hat, then his leather gloves --- each finger separately. He put his gloves in his hat. He wiped his feet, even though it was dry outside. He took off his coat and hung it up. His movements had some kind of stony formality, and his face, too, was of stone. No, he can't be one of the actors.

The dry man in the stiff collar didn't smile to me; his mouth was tightly locked, you can't talk to him. He was very cleanly shaven; he had little hair on his had, and a very high forehead. He seemed somehow completely separate, like an island. Tilting his head, he followed me to Papa's office --- he seemed to feel cramped under the low ceiling of our apartment. I offered him a chair, then shut Papa's door and stood pondering on the other side. What if Papa won't come for a long time? What will I do with this stranger?

Our Papa always has his tie and everything all askew; the "island" has everything very straight, with many buttons on his suit jacket which are all precisely buttoned.

I stood there, not knowing what to do. And then suddenly from Papa's office I heard an entire orchestra, a much bigger one than the one I had heard under the stage of the Theatre of the Arts. How astounding! Papa's old upright piano couldn't possibly sound like that!

The sounds insistently demanded some truth; they would unite in the most powerful chords I have ever heard. They raced apart and merged back together with unearthly speed. These sounds, like some unknown current, snatched me up and carried me away --- nothing of the mundane usual was left around me, just those sounds around me and in me... Was this tall man a wizard?! Did he have twenty fingers?

We were not allowed to open the door when there was music playing. Respect for the arts, for musicians, was instilled in us almost from birth. But on that forever unforgettable day, when I suddenly felt so wonderful and so frightened, I slightly opened the door and saw the stranger sitting at Papa's piano, playing. There he was, big, straight, stony-faced, only his fingers moving; his hands were huge, soft, strong, he orders them, and they...they sing in the sweetest voices, they light up the sun, they destroy foes... They could do anything, these wonder-working hands! It's interesting that he is somehow grayish-yellow, dry, all made of corners, and his hands are young, soft, completely different from the rest of him. Oh! He is going from middle C to the A of the second octave above it --- almost two octaves with one hand!

He is playing something like a polka. My feet start dancing despite me, and my mouth is smiling. How hard it is to stand by the crack of the door while this polka is playing! But it gets more amazing the further it goes: it is as if a hot wave floods everything inside you, and you feel like it's now a holiday, to everyone's joy.

Now he is playing something else: one huge someone and many little ones; a giant and some amazingly quick little elves! The Wolf and many Red Riding Hoods? They are so quick that one can't tell at all who will win.

How, how could ten simple fingers play like that! What a miracle, what marvellous luck that must be!

Perhaps he is just pretending to be so wooden, so that no one could tell from his face how good he is, but when he is playing, he can't hide that...

A bell rang in the front hall. It was Papa. Without saying a word, he quickly took off his coat, buttoned up all the buttons of his suit jacket, quickly fixed his tie, even smoothed his moustache, and went into his office. Ours was a one-story home, a "breeze-through", Mama called it; of course, Papa had heard that music even outside, and had understood who had come.

The amazing man greeted Papa, polite and friendly, and said, "I really like your polka from "A Man's Life," while the music to "The Blue Bird" is simply charming."

Such a man is saying that to my Papa? I am filled with pride.

But why did they shut the door? And the most important thing in the world right now was that the "amazing one" play again. No, he keeps on talking, and not playing. His voice is gray, only on one or two notes, even when he is saying nice things.

I was shocked how one could play at times so softly and tenderly, at times so forcefully, like great bells. My playing was always somehow in the middle: a little louder, a little softer, well, just ordinary. Now Papa's music is playing in Papa's office, and I...for the first time in my life I am mad at Papa! I so want the other one, the big one, to play again.

About twenty minutes later the stranger left --- he must have valued his time --- but what a completely new world had opened to me!

I had thought that my Papa plays the piano better than anyone --- because I hadn't heard anyone except him! But now...! How could I have possibly imagined that a musician's fingers could obey his will so well, could run about so, could sing like the sweetest of singers, could sound like a hurricane, a storm, a war... How did he make our little old upright piano say so much, say something so important that it couldn't even be said with words!...

I sat by Papa. He was in a good mood.

"Papa, you won't be angry? He plays the piano better, so much better, than you. Why is that, Papa?"

Papa answered warmly, without the slightest hint of being insulted, "Because he is Rachmaninov. Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninov. He is a wonderful composer, but he is also a great pianist, a genius at the piano. I play the piano to tell people what I have to tell them, to help them understand the play, the show. I play to feel my music better. But Sergei Vasilyevich has unlimited command of the piano. Why, did he play long without me?"

- Natalya Sats, Sketches of My Life, 1985.

I've been toying around with a few Okudzhava songs now, and I like this one.

The Prayer of Francois Villon

While the Earth keeps spinning, while the light shines on,
Lord, I pray, give to everyone that of which they have none:
Give you a mind to the wise ones, a horse to the cowardly,
Give money to the lucky... And don't forget about me.

While the Earth keeps spinning, Lord, thine is the power and will,
Give one who longs for power, power unto his fill,
Give rest at least till sunset to those who give generously,
To Cain himself give repentance... And don't forget about me.

I know you can do anything, I believe truly, you are wise,
As a soldier slain on the field believes that he lives in Paradise,
As every ear believes you that the words you whisper are true,
As we all keep on believing, knowing not what we do.

My Lord and God Almighty, my beloved green-eyed God,
While the Earth keeps spinning, and she herself finds it odd,
While she still has enough of time and of fire to see,
Give out a little to everyone... And don't forget about me.
- Bulat Okudzhava

This is apparently Okudzhava's most-covered song.

I have gone reading about musical settings to Russian poetry, and found myself toying with how I would translate these two poems by Nikolai Gumilev (founder of the Russian Guild of Poets and the Acmeist movement in poetry, and one-time husband of Anna Akhmatova and father of her son).

The first one was called by the critic where I sourced it "key to all of Gumilev's poetry", advice from an experienced poet to a young one in the performing arts. And it casts a chilling irony when one knows that Gumilev was himself shot by the secret police in 1921 for alleged involvement with a conspiracy after an informant named him.

(I am not completely pleased with my translation, as it has too many consonant clusters to be easily singable, although Gumilev did not write it as a song lyric. It proved surprisingly difficult for so many easy rhymes --- but the Acmeist motto was "All the right words in the right order" so I've got to try to keep the right words as much as possible.)

THE MAGIC FIDDLE
(Link has music by V. Dashkevich, called 'the Mozart of Soviet cinematography', 
performed by Elena Kamburova)

My dear boy, you are so happy, ever merry, bright and smiling,
Do not ask for this sweet fortune that has poisoned worlds away.
You don't know, you don't know, you don't know what is this violin,
What dark horrors lie in store for one who dares begin to play!

If a player's hands commanding take the violin and bow,
Peaceful light is gone forever from the eyes that make that choice.
Rabid wolf packs wander, hungry, on the roads where fiddlers go.
Fiends and demons love to listen to the fiddle's regal voice. 

Ever, ever must these strings go on and sing and cry and wail,
And the maddened bow must leap and dance all through the nights and days,
Under sun and under snow, under blizzard, under gale,
Even when the west is burning, even when the east's ablaze.

You will tire, you will slow, you will stop for just one note,
And the power will be gone from you to breathe or make a sound,
And the wolves in rabid bloodlust will at once lunge at your throat,
And their claws will crush your ribcage as their teeth will drag you down. 

Then you'll know the cruel mockery of all that sang around,
And your eyes will see the over-late but overwhelming fear,
And the mournful cold will wind around your body like a shroud,
And your friends will bow their heads then, and your bride will burst in tears.

Go on, boy! You will not find either joy or treasure here! 
But I see that you are laughing, there are sunbeams from your eyes.
Here, take the magic fiddle, face the monsters others fear,
And go die a death of glory, the dread death that fiddlers die! 

Nikolai Gumilev (1886-1921), 1910

Gumilev was fascinated by Africa, and had visited it four times, but this poem, one of his most famous, is not about Africa, not really.

THE GIRAFFE
(Link has music written and performed by Elena Vaenga.)

Today I can tell that your gaze is especially sad
And your arms are especially thin as they clasp round your knee.
Listen, I'll tell you how far, far away, on the shores of Lake Chad,
An exquisite giraffe wanders free.

He has been created so languid and graceful and slim
With dapples in magical patterns adorning his hide,
So only the moon in her beauty compares with him
As she shimmers and breaks on the crystal lake's rippling tide.

He looks like the many-hued sails of a ship from afar.
He floats in his gallop as birds do in joy of their flight.
I know that the earth sees much wonder when at the first star
He hides in a cavern of marble to wait out the night.

I can tell of mysterious lands and of laughter and bliss,
Of the maid black but comely, of the passioned young chief on the plain...
But you, for too long you've inhaled the weight of the mist,
You do not believe there is anything other than rain. 

And how can I tell you of the scent of the grasses that play
Beneath slender palms, and how tropical gardens there lie...
You're crying? Just listen... on the shores of Lake Chad, far away,
An exquisite giraffe wanders by.

Nikolai Gumilev, 1908

I used 750words.com to write a draft of the write-up on a phonetics paper that I'm supposed to submit for Phonology class. Apparently, it believes I feel very affectionate about it.

LJ, what the heck have you done with all of my RSS feeds? Give them me. Give them me.

I think Dragonsinger was my first gateway drug to science fiction: I read it from the library of my school for grade four, and went on to her other books, and to anything else I could get my hands on that was about dragons, and to fanfic, and to writing SF in English, or trying to.

I knew that she was 85, so I think I kind of expected that I would hear the news one of these days.

Her books certainly have flaws. But many of them are very re-readable, and have the power to stir the imagination and move people to look for a better world.

I am glad she was with us.

Not an American citizen, but passing it on to those who are, and can do something: 

Originally posted by gabrielleabelle at Mississippi Personhood Amendment

I first shared that song in 2008. Now it haunts me again, and I'm trying to do it better.






A stranger star shines in a stranger sky.
We are torn from home again tonight.
Once again between us cities lie
And strange airports and runway lights.
Here we have fog and rain and more,
Here we have cold dawns and cold sunrises...
Here on paths untrodden, unexplored,
We will meet new plot twists and surprises.

Hope guides us through this earthly stuff
And luck is reward for our daring,
While even one song is enough
If it sings of home and of sharing.

Trust me, from afar, from over here,
Many details vanish from our view.
Thunderclouds part and disappear.
Hurts seem meaningless and seem untrue...
We must only learn to watch and wait,
Must be calm and stubborn on what matters,
So that life will send us, soon or late,
Her rare telegrams of joy a-flutter...

Hope guides us through this earthly stuff
And luck is reward for our daring,
While even one song is enough
If tales of home it is sharing.

And I still remember just as clear
All the things we didn't finish singing...
Weary eyes I know and hold so dear...
Moscow winter snowstorms wildly spinning...
Once again between us cities lie,
As before, life forces us apart.
A stranger star above us in the sky
Shines as hope's memorial in our heart.

Hope guides us through this earthly stuff
And luck is reward for our daring,
While even one song is enough
If it sings of home and of sharing.
- Sung by Anna German

Originally posted by deathpixie at Signal Boost: Speak Out With Your Geek Out

I find this more funny than anything, so via Cpolk, I'm in.

Okay, I am seriously fed up with Livejournal’s DDOS attackers playing havoc with my work. I went and tried to back up my LJ to DW (changing the password once that happens); we’ll see how that goes. ETA: it came through beautifully, and surprisingly fast. Password now changed.

I actually sneakily used Excel at work to work out the colour scheme I want my personalized blog to have, and note down the RGB colour values.

Went home, installed Thunderbird to back up my mighty Gmail account at last. As I write this, we’re getting into 2008. All those emails I forgot, some from people I used to care about, some from people I wanted to forget, but do not wish to destroy the work I had put into crafting replies. It may all contribute to my autobiography someday.

That was my life; I will not let dreams that had to die take the joys of reality down with them.

Went to the Shoppers Drug Mart to pick up a couple of thing I will need at ESSLLI.

On the way there, walking along Highway 9, I saw a bird lying on the road, hit by a car.

And realized that the bird, a young starling possibly, was still alive, breathing hard, desperately, through its open beak.

“You shouldn’t die on the road, at least.”

It was warm and soft, its feathers glossy, as I carefully set it down in the grass by the road.

I considered waiting with it. I considered carrying it to the nearest vet, or something. In Ottawa, I may have even phoned the Wild Bird Care Centre, if that is still around.

I would have done it, when I was younger and more idealistic. I have seen too many creatures die, warm soft creatures under my hand, creatures that wanted desperately to live. This bird was not going to live, despite all your love and longing, despite all you wishing and wanting. This bird was a wild creature; having a human stand over it will give it no comfort.

I walked to the Shoppers Drug Mart.

On the way back, I saw a bluebottle fly resting on the bird’s eye.

It didn’t die on the road, at least.

I made sure to wash my hands.

There are over ten thousand emails that I will not reread.

I wish you joy.

got home at 5 am. woke at 11 am.
and read that amy winehouse had died.
she’s joined jimi, janis, jim and kurt (sadly apropos…it’s the 20th anniversary of “nevermind”) in the 27 club.
- Amanda Palmer, http://blog.amandapalmer.net/post/8010579522/amy-take-a-bow

That made me think of Vysotsky’s song “Of Fateful Dates and Numbers”.

You’re a true poet if your life was tragically done,
And best if you’d a sense of proper timing.
At 26, one stuck his head beneath a duel gun,
One into a hotel room noose went climbing.

And 33 was Christ; he was a poet, and he told:
“Kill not; for if you do, I’ll always find you.”
They nailed down his hands, so he won’t try anything bold,
Not write so much, and just do much less minding.

The number 37 always sends a chilling breath
To clear my brain with clarifying fear.
At that age was when Pushkin picked the duel of his death
And Mayakovsky sunk lead by his ear.

We’ll pause at 37; seemed at that treacherous age
God’s coin flip judged if you can defy it.
Here Byron and Rimbaud both also wrote their final page...
But poets today apparently pass by it.

The duel didn’t happen, or was cancelled or postponed.
At 33, got crucified, but mildly.
At 37, even gray, speak not of blood and bone,
Does not besplatter temples quite so wildly.

“No, pansy poets today won’t shoot,” the psychopaths go talk,
“They haven’t soul in their little toe.”
Hold your blood lust! On tiptoe on a knife edge poets walk,
And slash their bare souls bloody as they go.

“Pretentiously” has 13 letters, that unlucky word,
So cut the poet down a size, it’s clear.
The lucky cuss gets stuck on the tip of the stabbing sword,
An upstart that the higher-ups would fear.

I pity you, believers in all fateful codes and dates!
Like harem concubines, go pine in style.
Our lifespans have increased now, and so perhaps the fates
Of poets...have moved back a little while.

- 1971, Vladimir Vysotsky (1938-1980)

The irony is that Vysotsky himself went a lot like Cobain, Winehouse and Joplin: disorders brought on by alcoholism and drug abuse. But he died at age 42. Wikipedia claims that Yesenin died at 30, not 26 no matter how you twist calendar reforms, but the original mentions the Hotel Angleterre, which makes it unequivocally a reference to Yesenin.

There is a lot of wordplay in the original that I had to completely re-derive from first principles. The original plays on the fact that the Russian word 'long-necked', длинношеее, does have three e's at the end in the neuter gender nominative case (all are pronounced and syllabic) and has the connotation of something like 'pretentious' or 'presumptuous.' The pun on soles and souls does not happen in the original, but was way too good to pass up.

On Friday, the usual games and geekery crowd had a celebration of Melanie's birthday by playing games, and we ended up playing Wizardology.

Which was my choice, since I've never played it before, but I conclude that I don't like it. Way too much depends on chance and luck of the draw, nor do your odds of succeeding increase as you progress through the game; I cannot imagine how playing the game multiple times would increase your odds of winning, the way they would for Settlers of Catan.

Best comment of the night, by Carmen on the Twilight love triangle: "Would you rather have an oral fixation, or doggy style for the rest of your life?"

Saturday i picked up the first season of Babylon 5, as a boxed set of DVDs, at the pharmacy. Thankfully, Abi Sutherland's rewatch on Making Light had told me what episodes I may safely skip, so I watched 1, 6, 7 and 8 before going to bed. I am enjoying it so far, therefore (possibly because I skipped the bad episodes.) The aliens in this one may actually be intelligent, although the first incluing by basically accusing Londo, on behalf of his entire species, of misleading humans a hundred years before, threw me off. Even if he is an ambassador, no individual can speak for his entire species' decisions of possibly before he was born, nor have to.

I happen to feel very strongly on that point, of confusing individuals with groups, possibly because of hearing "Oh, those Russians did..." way too many times. When you equate the self-identity of a population of umpteen million with the actions of a few hundred people in the government, especially if you know that this government is not fairly and democratically elected, that is assigning responsibility without power. And just plain feels like being accused of something you didn't do.

Probably a common feeling for many members of monoliths, be they Arabs, mining industry workers, members of the media, or Microsoft employees. The cure for it, however, is pausing to think a little and distinguish the monolith into a few more subsets, separating the human beings from the system.

I guess both these frustrations, the one with Wizardology and the one with Sinclair's discussion with Londo, come from the same source: I want effort to be correlated with reward, and I do not like punishment not related with your own effort. Indeed, I react to frustration, to feeling powerless in the system, strongly enough that there are many good books set in oppressive regimes that I have quit reading (e.g. Cory Doctorow's For The Win), even though I know that the hero will triumph in the end; I do not want to emotionally empathize with that world for even the short time before the heroes will start winning, by pretending that I was in their place and in their place, there was nothing I could do.