Well, once a week turned out well. In any case, I think I’ve done a lot this past few two weeks? Including finishing two of my courses, and making some headway in my conworld, but I’ll begin with my reading.
This past few weeks, I finished Against the Grain by James C. Scott. I began reading this book to answer some questions I had regarding the formation of states. Whenever I’m conworlding, I’m baffled by several things: how the first state forms, how the idea of state is transmitted from culture to culture (along with other technologies), what drives the collapse of states, and how states and cultures are replaced. Indeed, this book answered several of these questions.
Scott asserts that one of the primary drivers of the formation of states is the cultivation of a grain as the staple of a sedentary population. Only grains are capable of being taxed properly as they grow in a seasonal pattern, unlike legumes, and they are easily visible to the tax collector, unlike tubers. Indeed, only a hierarchy with power at the top is capable of taxing, and only a state can do this.
Scott ventures into some further points with regards to collapse and how this does not mean a reversion to previous barbaric ways, and how what we classify as barbarism and the lifestyles associated with it; their association with being less civilized, is far from the truth. I believe all these are valuable rules to consider in my conworlding. Not to mention, you need to understand the rules before you break them, no?
In my conworld, I’m currently working on building the Affalhaqic civilization. I concede that it may be a little foolhardy to IMMEDIATELY begin breaking rules, but here I am. The culture is based around a fictional legume (the aqa bean) which grows year round, but that develops a particular growing ‘rhythm’ where yields are exceptionally high during the monsoon. Tax collectors can come after a set period following the onset of the monsoon for each growing period.
I also began working on a language for this civilization, centered around the prestige dialect of the early empires capital which ultimately became imposed on its subjects. My goals for this language are to keep it simple, so that working with it isn’t a pain, and then to diachronically create a a set of daughter languages for this history rich region. I’ll be uploading most of my progress to my novo wiki so you can check it out there!
In other news, I’ve played a LOT of league of legends again recently, even compared to last term, which isn’t optimal I must say. I don’t think the quantity would be less if I hadn’t stopped social media but either way its a little disconcerting. For the first time though, I feel like I’m actually enjoying the game more then I hate it (despite my grumbling about hating to play every lane). Additionally, league of legends Mid-Season Invitational is coming up and I’m excited! All the regional playoffs are coming to a conclusion and the teams, especially for LPL and LCK (which are pretty much the only regions I watch) are incredibly good. I’m hoping for FPX or JDG to represent China and Griffin to represent Korea. If any don’t make it its fine cause at least they’re all sealed in for the LPL-LCK-LMS Rift Rivals.
Finally, I made a reading list of some 20th century books that I’ve always wanted to read but never did. The list is here:
| Siddhartha | Hesse, Herman |
| In Search of Lost Time | Proust, Marcel |
| Dune | Herbert, Frank |
| Catch-22 | Heller, Joseph |
| Red Sorghum | Mo, Yan |
| House of Leaves | Danieliewski, Mark Z |
| East of Eden | Steinback, John |
| The Poisonwood Bible | Kingsolver, Barbara |
| Zeno’s Conscience | Svevo, Italo |
| The Metamorphosis | Kafka, Franz |
| The Alchemist | Coelho, Paulo |
| The Name of the Rose | Eco, Umberto |
| Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy | Adams, Douglas |
| Good Omens | Pratchett, Terry; Gaiman, Neil |
| Nadja | Breton, Andre |
| Lolita | Nabokov, Vladimir |
| The Sound and the Fury | Faulkner, William |
| Heart of Darkness | Conrad, Joseph |
| Darkness at Noon | Koestler, Arthur |
| Ulysses | Joyce, James |
House of Leaves is an exception but its a 2000 book so close enough… Hitchhikers Guide is another one that I didn’t necessarily always want to read, indeed its never really appealed to me, but its cult following alone intrigues me to what the book may have to offer.
My plan is to try and go through these by the end of the year, but this is rather daunting as some of these (like Ulysses) are particularly long. Hopefully its rounded out by some of the shorter works like Siddhartha or Heart of Darkness. Look forward to some posts about them as I finish these books. Don’t expect anything particularly intellectual in my analysis but I will still try and give my two cents.