Talk:Lilith (novel)

Untitled

I clarified the origins of Lilith; old version could have been misinterpreted as characterising Jewish religious texts as mythology, in contrast to the Bible. They're all mythology of course but should be treated equally. - Anon. User:195.92.67.69 15:49, 17 October 2004

OK, so far, but unfortunately in your clarification you introduced the error of implying that Lilith is a character mentioned in the Bible, which she is not. --Blainster 17:38, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

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The article states that the Little Ones "never grow up", and yet "Vane's mission is to help the Little Ones to grow up". Is this a mistake in the article text, or is there some other way to reconcile the apparent discrepancy? --Blainster 17:38, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

It is right; but you have to read the book to understand this.

Ballantine Adult Fantasy

Must this sentence be included: "Its importance was recognized in its later revival in paperback by Ballantine Books as the fifth volume of the celebrated Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in September, 1969." I have noticed that this same sentence is used in every article about a book in that series. This simply cannot be true for all of them. With the steadily incresing popularity of Chesterton, Lewis, and Tollkin, the importance of MacDonald's works have never been 'forgotten', which makes the inclusion of this sentence appear to be a mere advertisement. I deleted it once, but it was replaced. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.245.57.35 (talk) 22:04, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

I think the point of the sentence is that being published as part of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series denotes importance. It was essentially a series of classic fantasy reprints, and therefore the works selected by the editor for the series are classics. This would hold true for all the works the editor selected. Demonstrating Lilith's importance in this way doesn't suggest that MacDonald's works would have forgotten without the BAF reprint, it is merely another demonstration of that importance. I'm also not sure that I would classify the sentence as an advertisement. I'm not sure what the point would be of advertising a series which which was published over 30 years ago and is not currently in print. I would support adding the sentence back, but I'll wait and see if anyone else wants to weigh in.--Rtrace (talk) 00:56, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

As the person who probably put in most of those notices, I naturally agree. I in fact used the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series article as a springboard for the creation of many of the articles on the works included in it. The BAFS was a landmark series in the publication of modern fantasy, and the inclusion of any work in it is noteworthy. Therefore, I have put the sentence back. BPK (talk) 03:32, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I am the person who took the sentence out. First of all, at the very least the phrase 'Its importance was recognized in' is overstrong. The implication is that its importance is recognized in its apperence in the Ballantine collection...and nowhere else, or for the first time. I think that the implication of this is that it had been 'forgotten' by the public until its republication. This indeed might have been the case for many of the works in the Ballantine collection, but certainly not for MacDonald. Seconldly, I think it is clear that fans of a certain artistic entity (be it book, publisher, or genre) are often disposed to promote that entity and I think that this promotion is fairly charicterized as 'adverstisement'. Moreover, if it is the case that being (re)published in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series denotes importance then it must also be the case that being included in other collections, of greater merit, also denotes importance. Yet by far the vast majority of the books included in Encyclopedia Britanica Inc.'s Great Books of the Western World, Harvard's Harvard Classics, and Harold Bloom's The Western Canon all leave unmentioned their apperence in these noteworthy collections. This fact alone seems to me to justify the removal of the sentence. I almost never edit Wikipedia pages (think this might be the second one I have done) and I know little about how the very process of discussion in which I am currently partaking really works. I am not adament about the removal of the sentence, but I do think that my points are correct. It strikes me as inappropreate to tie a book to one publication in this way. Particularly when the book pre-existed the publication in question by 73 years, has seen many other publications before and since, is currently available in several other publications, and now resides in the public domain.

I just don't get the same implication from the phrase "Its importance was recognized in its later revival..." that you do. I just don't think that mentioning one example of the novel's importance implies there were no other such examples. Certainly, if there are other examples, they could (and should) be added to the article. As to the other classic reprint series you mention, I would enjoy seeing links to series from the individual articles and in fact it has been done for a few of the volumes (e.g. Candide, Almagest, On Old Age and The Cenci). The fact that no editor has chosen to back link for all the articles in the series you mention doesn't mean that it shouldn't be done. I had previously assumed that your use of the term "advertisement" was along the lines of types of articles mentioned in WP:ADS, which is clearly not what is being done here. As far as promoting the BAF article by linking the individual volumes, I don't really see a problem with that. It is not as if links to the BAF article are being placed in an article to which it has no relation. Lastly, I'm not even certain that Lilith was in print when Ballantine reprinted it in 1969. There was not a printing for 5 years before the BAF reprint. The Donald H. Tuck Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy which covers through 1968 lists UK printings in 1895, 1896 and 1924. There were US printings 1895, 1896 and 1925 as a standalone novel, and in 1954 and 1964 as part of an omnibus. Worldcat appears to agree with Tuck.--Rtrace (talk) 22:12, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

I commend your efforts in uncoving the printing history. I will look into this myself. I stand by my claims about the implications of this sentence, but at this point I would only be repeating arguments that I have already made, and I suppose an impasse goes to the regular contributers and those with the governing authority of these articles. I think your note about the literary articles which do cite their appearnce in certain collections only affirms my claim about such references. Note that the articles on the works which you cited are really the lesser known of the works in the collections (with the possible exception of Candide). These works are simply not recognizeable to the average reader, ergo the connection to an appearence in a collection helps provide some context. Note that the major achors of such a collection (The Illiad, The Odyssey, The Annied, Hamlet, War and Peace, etc.) don't bother to cite their apperence in such collections. Nor should they, for what would be added to the prestege of The Odyssey if it's article cited each collecton (of merit) in which it had appeared? So at the very least it seems like a matter of appropreate weighting (which was the point of my innitial post on this comment section). If the book stands alone as a work, then there is no need to reference an appearence in such a collection; if it does not then such a citation is helpful. But the important thing to notice here is that such a citation makes the work subordinate to the collection. Yet this is typically getting things backwards. The Great Books series is not an inherently great entity which then bestowes greatness on the books which it chooses to collect, rather the books it collects are great and therefore collected. That's what makes the Great Books series great. So even though there are occasions where I think referenceing a work's appearence in a collection (of merit) might provide helpful historical/cultural context, I am, in general, opposed to such a practice which debases books in favor of collections, and authors in favor of publishers. FURTHER NOTE: I just looked at the articles which you pointed out cited the works appearance in a collection, and it is completely clear that both the works themselves and the articles demand such a note in a way that the article on Lilith simply does not. The Candide article includes its appearance in the Great Books collection in a paragraph which is aimed at listing laudatory comments about the book. It names Candide's place in the Great Books collection along side several other 'best of' lists. While I object to this practice too, it is at least different in that it is praising the book and not making it subservient to a particular collection. An Old Age and The Cencil are even clearer cases, both works are lesser known and demand such context, and both articles are single paragraph snippets about the book (probably not read by the author of the article). The article themselves were probably only prompted by someone scanning down the library shelf of collections mentioned. I would support the removal of such references should the articles be expanded (say to the extent of the Lilith article). The Almagest is clearly a different case. That article simply references its appearance as a note at the end of the article with the heading 'Modern Editions'. This simply tells the reader where to find a copy of an otherwise hard to find text. If this is the point of the sentence in the Lilith article then I would support it being moved to the end of the article, given the status of a bibliographic reference and listed alongside other editions. As it stands none of the examples you provided: (i) do what the sentence in the Lilith article does, (ii) do what you say that the sentence in the Lilith article should do, (iii) are entirely appropriate to the article at hand or any such article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.245.57.35 (talk) 16:05, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

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BetacommandBot (talk) 23:39, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

This article has gotten steadily worse

The major revision of the plot summary which was instituted on May 17, 2006, the bulk of which remains to this day, was absolutely abysmal. I just finished reading the book and the plot summary prior to that time was much better. I would like to revert all edits back to that point but I have a feeling all the editors since that time would be incensed.Spiritquest (talk) 15:56, 1 June 2010 (UTC)