Eddis, Attolia, Sounis

The audiobooks pronounce his name You-JEN-uh-dees.

I'm a Jewish atheist wannabe Buddhist with pagan tendencies
Wow. Cool.

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Welcome! What is a pathological lurker? Just curious.

I took some ancient classics courses in college but couldn't even tell you what I read. Or if I actually read it. I was too into Kurt Vonnegut at the time.

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idiosyncreant.livejournal.com

Why, thank you...
It's thematic depth DOES seem to counter the awfulness that is my color choices determined by visibility.

I'm an ignoramus in many ways so pardon me when I ask what _your_ picture came from?

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alineadrklrdsis.livejournal.com

Y'all are a lot smarter than me and let's just leave it at that. Anyway: Welcome fellow pathological lurker! Can anyone truly know how to pronounce Eugenides? I must echo: "What does that icon come from?"

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emerald-happy.livejournal.com

WELCOME! (belatedly) Hope you enjoy the ~~insanity~~ discussion and ~~chaos~~ cookies! *offers cookies*

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Totally. People are always astounding (and/or confounding!)me with their complicated-ness. Everyone is so multilayered. Which, of course, is part of why Gen delights so much. He isn't stereotyped; he isn't a cardboard cutout; he's a multifaceted real live PERSON that has faults and cracks and brilliance just like every human being.

"The hardest part was getting used to being an atheist, after the comfort of being an agnostic Jew." (see me use pathetic quotes because I haven't figured out smart checkers's way of making italics) That musta been tough. Not to stick in unwanted noses or anything, but I've found loads of Jews feel their religion isn't 'doing it' for them, only not realizing that they've never really been exposed to what judaism really means, because they've been raised with a kind of "judaism-lite". Which is a terrible shame, because all that rich heritage just flew below the radar without anyone noticing. it's, like, they never even get to check it out.

Anyhow, again, I don't mean to be prying or anything, it's absolutely not meant in a bad way, I just wanted to respond. I'm already beginning to have second thoughts *blush* so if you're insulted just consider it as if your comment was so compelling I had to post *blush*
Okay, shutting up now.

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Echoing "where's that icon from?" statement....
Welcome!!! Yeah, Sounis totally rocks.
Funny you mention hypocausts, I was totally out-of-my mind excited when I visited some Roman ruins overseas last winter. My sisters thought I was slightly mad, I was hyperventilating and snapping photos as if those hypocaust ruins were the red carpet at the Oscars!!!!
Tee hee.
History is soooo much fun.
"Annux"? O, woe betide me, I never took Greek classics. I hide my head in shame. Explanations for poor uneducated plebe?

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Ah, that's the answer I was looking for!

I speak bad modern Greek but no Attic, so it's more that I can think of at least two ways to pronounce it. In modern I think it would be "ev-ghen-EE-dthes" which I like better. Let's rephrase that to, I'm distracted by pronunciation possibilities.

And yeah, Gen is kind of the main attraction...although crawling around a hypocaust floor just sort of makes it better. I've always wanted to do that.

Turner says she wanted her world to be Byzantine; it seems a lot more Classical to me - only the watches and guns and stained glass keep it from being solidly so. Never mind.

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Well, I use it to mean, someone who lurks a lot and doesn't usually talk. It could have a whole bunch of other meanings for all I know. ;)

LOVE your icon - do you like Game of Kings? Francis Crawford makes my world go round. And before you think I condone arson and kidnapping, he's actually not quite as bad as he looks.

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Well, it's his head shot, right? And head shots are always in black and white...I didn't even think about the colour choice. It's classy.

Mine is a still from the Neil LaBute movie Possession, which is a far better book than movie, but never mind. It won the Booker in 1995, which is sort of amazing, given that it's a romance. It's gorgeous - one of my all-time fave books. It's. Um. It's like Tom Stoppard's Arcadia, but with Christina Rossetti and Robert Browning instead of Byron, and no physics.

The movie is too short, but it does have Jeremy Northam and Jennifer Ehle (AKA Elizabeth Bennett) which makes it worthwhile, and gives me pretty icons.

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Heh. The movie of Possession. That's Jeremy Northam and Jennifer Ehle you see; it's a brilliant book and a decent movie, but it's super-pretty and the Victoriana is really over the top.

Yours is cute - how is that? I've sort of debated reading it but haven't been able to make up my mind.

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Snicker. I actually did get to climb in a hypocaust system earlier this year and I was ecstatic. My friends all thought I was nuts too, but they very kindly took a few pictures of me standing among waist-high piles of bricks and then went to see if they could get into the drain. Because drains are so much more interesting...not.

Annux is an old word for king. So is basileaus - it has the same root as basilica or the Slavic name Vassily (this becomes William in English, but I'm not entirely sure how). I've also seen it as "wanax"; I understood it to be a pre-Greek word for king with in a mainly Minoan/Mycenean meaning. I didn't know it had connotations of High King of Everything, except in as much as a Minoan king was High King of Everything. Wikipedia disagrees with me. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/anax

Sounds like "wanker" to me. But that's just a personal response.

The icon? Oh, that's from Possession. Brilliant book, decent movie with pretty people. I've got it mostly because I love Jennifer Ehle's enormous cloak.

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smart checkers

I like that.

Put < i> in front of what you want in italics and </ i> after but without all the spaces.

There. Now you're smart, too.

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I'm glad you have turned into a former lurker.

I feel like about a quarter of what's going on in Game of Kings is going over my head--most of the verse, all the Latin, a good part of the history and some of the French. But I've stuck with it because Lymond is such a compelling character and I'm lovin' me some Will Scott.

Lymond reminds me of a wicked, wicked Lord Peter Wimsey. He has the wit, we’ll see if he has the heart. I admit I was a bit stunned by the scene where he robbed his own mother, stabbed her friend and set his brother's house on fire.

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Lymond reminds me of a wicked, wicked Lord Peter Wimsey.
Smart Checkers - that's because he is. Dunnett stared out with murder mysteries. You can see it in the way she puts her plots together...and the fact that Lymond really is Lord Peter on crack, in the same way Lord Peter is Percy Blakeny and Bertie Wooster on...well, maybe not crack, but something.

But then I fell head over heels for Lymond about the time he set fire to Midcultur, so you might not want to listen to me.

Have fun, anyway. It's worth it if you can push yourself through to book three - they pick up their own momentum from there. Like having to push yourself through things like Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club so you can get to Strong Poison and Gaudy Night.

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Ha! And Miles Vorkosigan is Eugenides on crack.

Not sure where you could go with the Lord Peter/Bertie Wooster comparison. Lord Peter is Bertie Wooster...with a brain? With a brain and a purpose? Both have awesome valets, though, and lovely clothes. I prefer Jeeves, I think.

Yeah, if I had read Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club I might have never read further. Instead, I read Murder Must Advertise and was intrigued. Then I read Strong Poison and was hooked.

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I think it's the overbred silly-ass thing, but that's about it. And maybe the lovely clothes! I'm not a huge, huge Wooster fan, but he'll do.

I read MMA first too! And Five Red Herrings, and then I decided I was going to do this thing right and read them all in order. Worked out surprisingly well, actually.

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Oh, lovely, impromptu history lesson!
I love little factoids like this.
Possession...Possession....oh dear, data banks of brain coming up empty. Must fill.
Climbing into hypocausts! Drain exploration! *sigh* you live a lucky life.

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*feels brain cells rocketing skyward*

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faerie-music.livejournal.com

I know this thread is probably dead, since I'm coming in weeks later, but I simply cannot pass up a discussion including Eugenides, Miles, Lord Peter, and Lymond.

The only Wooster I know is the Jeeves and Wooster TV show with Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry, which is marvelous for that reason. I think it's definitely the Silly-ass-about-town thing. It's just that that's all there is to Bertie, while Peter has the Lymondish aspect as well. Particularly in Murder Must Advertise, with Harlequin and all.

Of course, there's also Peaceable Drummond Sherwood, who is in fact Lymond. Really. My best friend recently said that someone had said something about not trusting Lymond even in a cemetary with a nice heavy monument on him. But then I reread The Sherwood Ring, and discovered it was actually about Peaceable.

The idea that Miles is Eugenides on crack kind of makes my brain explode. Since they are probably my two favorite characters *ever* (right now, anyway)[and sorry, Traboule, I still like them better than Lymond]. But I'm not sure. Stealing is not one of Miles' notable characteristics. And he's not the Bujold character who only has one hand...

/confusing ramble

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