I had this in the hopper and never posted it. To go back a few pages: WANT TALK ABOUT ART.
jellobell wrote...
@CulturalGeekGirl: 
Oh God that's perfect! I'd never really thought of it before, but reading the Hitchhiker's Guide in the ME-verse would be an exceedingly odd experience.
I wonder if reading current books in the 22nd century will be like us trying to read 19th century novels now.
Well, based on how much human speech has changed in game, it wouldn't be that hard. That's unfair, of course. Pretty much all future stuff uses the vernacular of today, because it's hard to make speech sound future-y in the same way it's easy to make it sound old-timey. Still, going off the presumption that speech patterns haven't changed, it's not the language itself that's hard to work with, it's the references. I mean, it's pretty easy to understand two people on vacation falling in love, or a giant blob rolling through the streets consuming all it touches, but jokes, or political and social commentary? Those can become incomprehensible very quickly.
(There are things in game that support this idea: Ashley likes Heinlein and Tennyson, Grunt likes Hemmingway. Mordin liked Gilbert and Sullivan, people still do Shakespeare.)
I've already discovered that Jane likes
science fiction from the 60s and 70s (There's actually a joke about old movies in the game, and that was my jumping-off point. Those mini-writing prompts they put in the Femshep thread are irresistible, sometimes), but I also think that she really had to work at understanding the weirder stuff... sorting through extranet archives, doing research to understand the cultural references. I'm guessing with books, she stated out with Heinlein and Bradbury, the classics, and she's just trying to pick something Garrus will actually like. He'd be more likely to identify with
Starship Troopers or
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress than a story about a group of completely selfish insane people navigating a sea of complete absurdity.
A lot of the jokes are "get-able," once we get off of Earth. Quite a few of the more significant bits are about AIs being really annoying, or galactic economics, or politics, in a way that still translates quite well to the ME universe. But the central idea... a ship that runs on improbability... I think that idea is particularly human. Ok, no, I take that back - I think the Salarians would "get" the Hitchhiker's Guide. It runs at their speed, and they seem to be a species with highly evolved mockery glands. They also have the necessary societal ADD to keep up with the pacing, which is absolutely
brutal if you're not used to it. I know modern humans who have tossed it away, unable to keep up. Turians though? Even not-particularly-good Turians? I doubt they have the skills required. While they do obviously have sarcasm on their planet, they invented the airquotes after all, their irony seems to be based around statements of the obvious, contempt for the ignorant, and advanced cynicism, rather than on absurdity.
I honestly don't know whether Garrus will eventually like the book or hate every second, but he will finish it, because he's that stubborn. I get the feeling that there's nothing in Turian literature exactly like it. I picture Turian lit being a lot like old Chinese and Japanese stories - mostly about warring kingdoms and self-sacrifice. There's also possibly some cool animist folklore in there (the Turians seem to be animists, or pantheists, depending on what label you want to use), but Garrus doesn't seem to be the type for that. To be fair, those old Chinese and Japanese epics are still pretty readable, if you can get a good translation and cut out some of the slow parts. Also, if you don't mind the fact that pretty much everyone dies and almost nobody actually gets anything they want. I picture the Turian lit being significantly less bleak, but just as codified by the conventions of honor and society.
I think it's interesting to look at what little we know about the art of other societies. The Asari seem to favor light comedies, feel good movies, glamor, and erotica. The Salarians do cerebral science fiction and sci-fi comedy. I wonder who produced Fleet and Flotilla - whether it was actually a Turian/Quarian production, or if someone else (likely Human or Asari) decided to produce it? Kasumi said that Turian art and literature aren't often found outside of their homeworlds, whereas humans seem to have burst onto the entertainment scene with huge impact - which is actually something I think feels totally in-character.
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