Clueless Northman

How bad slaves had it (as a rule, they always had it bad) depended, to an extent, on how their masters acquired them and what job they had - be it in Rome or in Greece earlier. It looks like public slaves working the mines had one of the worst fates human beings had in peace time. Though Rome didn't always have the massive fresh supply of slaves that happened with the Atlantic or Arabic slave trade from Africa - sure, after major wars and conquests, there was an insane supply of slaves that basically crashed the market in Italy, but specially later centuries wouldn't experience such a massive influx of slaves, with the Empire stagnating or even regressing (granted, life wasn't better if the Empire was invaded or was into civil war for a decade, but for other reasons).

Wait, there's an official list of "Best novelists in France"? I'd like to see that, I've no idea who could be 1st (assuming it's not a previous Nobel like Modiano or Le Clezio). Considering past and recent choices fom the Committee we can probably forget about obvious picks like Rushdie, Kundera or Murakami.

Since this is a ASOIAF forum, mandatory mention of Maurice Druon's Accursed Kings And since we're dealing with French authors of historical fiction, are we limited to post-WWII writers? If not, then obvious mandatory mention of Dumas and his numerous writings.

Greek is indeed literally "like a thief in the night", and there shouldn't be any dispute about the translation. "kleptein" is "thieving". It's as straightforward as you can get in ancient Greek or in the Bible. Tolkien obviously knowing the origin of the expression and its reference to the Messiah probably had some fun ascribing it to Bilbo

The text doesn't hint at any special reason, as far as I remember. I used to interpret it as the Ring not wanting to let Isildur become way too powerful, as this could've been an issue for the Nazgul and later for Sauron himself. It was safer to just disappear and reappear only when Sauron came back with most of his might and power. A hypothesis that would fit with both viewpoints is that the Ring knew that Isildur had fulfilled his role - making sure the Ring wasn't destroyed - and was of no further positive use. Once the Ring was out in the wilderness, it was the perfect occasion to drop and disappear, something which would've been impossible in Minas Tirith, Rivendell or Annuminas.

Didn't Tolkien also state that, had Sauron still be physcially there as Dark Lord, he would've been very upset (and would've possibly eviscarated them) with his Orc officers, who basically let the Ring slip through instead of catching it for their master?

Small Gods is really great, and if you have some basic notions of ancient times and can see where Pratchett gets some of his references and satires, it's just glorious. Haven't noticed any major link to other books and story arcs. Other than that indeed, I think beginning with Mort or Guards! Guards! works well. I actually read Pyramids before Mort, and assumed it was another standalone, but when I read Mort, I noticed a few passing references to the Egypt-like land of pyramids, and of course Pyramids spends some time in Ankh-Morpork so if it's your first reading, there might be a few references that go well over your head.

Lies of Locke Lamora is one of the very rare cases where I actually laughed out loud reading a book - which was startling people since I was in a train. Happened in the early chapter, when Locke arrives to rob an inn and fakes being hit by the plague, so the whole place is evacuated, then looted, then burned down by local security forces.

Case in point: https://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/archive/show_people.php?id=9303 At least, the Peace Prize got it right the first time - but they had plenty to choose from for the 1901 prize. Though I'm still laughing hysterically at the Austrian officiales who proposed czar Nicholas II for it.

The way it would make the most sense, to me, would be if it was a way to state the obvious and acknowledge it once and for all: US music has had a tremendous influence and importance on the world for the last 100 years, way more than any other country, and way more than US poetry or high literature. Though Myshkin is probably right that it was definitely not the intent. Yet I still don't know how Engdahl could actually keep his post in the Nobel committee after making such ridiculous comments - European national literatures are definitely not less insular than US one, and are definitely not the centre of world literature anymore (as far as I can see, there's no centre anymore, in fact).

Even though the Literature prize hasn't been as controversial as the Peace one, let's remember that the very first one was awarded to Sully Prudhomme, who's totally forgotten even by the French, instead of, say Zola, or even a few later laureates like Kipling and Sienkiewicz - who would already have been worthier candidates in 1900. Not to mention they went way beyond mere literary considerations with awarding Bertrand Russell and Winston Churchill (and Bergson and Sartre, probably)... (I also agree that the committee seems to favour way more often European writers than US ones these last years, specially a few countries like France and Germany - as if modern French literature was more than a shadow of what it once was) Also worth noting that Dylan himself hasn't officially reacted, as far as I know. He must be as puzzled as most commenters. One can even wonder if he's considering rejecting it because it looks too "out there", or he's not seeing himself as making literature - he could try totally ignoring it, but that would be a tough act to maintain over the years. Makes me wonder who should be considered a "sucker bet" for this US presidential election

And we have a winner here.