Jo Walton ([info]papersky) wrote,
@ 2008-12-03 13:20:00
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Tangled Things and Texts?
OK, how do you like the title for the novel formerly known as ILE, of:

Tangled Things and Texts

The whole quote is from Chesterton's Lepanto and it is:

"The North is full of tangled things and texts and aching eyes,
And dead is all the innocence of anger and surprise."

The reason it works is that it's full of tangled things and texts... and the way the magic works has to do with entanglement. I like it. Anyone else? I'd really like to have a title for it.


Secrets, Books and Magic
What Minds Let Slip
There is a way from here to there

Please don't say you liked Industrial Landscape of Elfland because it's a misleading title and not the book you're looking for.

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[info]mrissa
2008-12-03 06:23 pm UTC (link)
I have great sympathy over the misleading title now that I'm fairly convinced I will have to go off and write a YA novel called What We Did to Save the Kingdom and come up with a new title for The Novel Formerly Known As WWDtStK.

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[info]rysmiel
2008-12-03 06:27 pm UTC (link)
That is I think the best yet save for the already-rejected Night's Plutonian Shore.

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[info]ron_newman
2008-12-03 06:29 pm UTC (link)
Why was that rejected?

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(no subject) - [info]papersky, 2008-12-03 06:30 pm UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]embryomystic, 2008-12-04 09:46 am UTC (Expand)

[info]carbonel
2008-12-03 06:28 pm UTC (link)
I'd prefer just Tangled Things; the other is too much of a tongue-twister.

Of the others, I think What Minds Let Slip is the best.

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[info]kate_nepveu
2008-12-03 06:33 pm UTC (link)
Ditto.

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(no subject) - [info]fairmer, 2008-12-03 06:43 pm UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]desperance, 2008-12-03 07:25 pm UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]kythiaranos, 2008-12-03 08:44 pm UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]ljgeoff, 2008-12-03 08:47 pm UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]fledgist, 2008-12-03 10:43 pm UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]heleninwales, 2008-12-04 02:16 pm UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]montoya, 2008-12-03 06:47 pm UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]gwynnega, 2008-12-03 07:07 pm UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]pdlloyd, 2008-12-03 07:23 pm UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]ashnistrike, 2008-12-03 07:38 pm UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]papersky, 2008-12-03 07:50 pm UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]fledgist, 2008-12-03 10:44 pm UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]elisem, 2008-12-03 10:19 pm UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]papersky, 2008-12-03 11:24 pm UTC (Expand)

[info]tiger_spot
2008-12-03 06:29 pm UTC (link)
I think Tangled Things and Texts is awkward without the surrounding lines. Also, it and Secrets, Books, and Magic both sound sort of like they should be collections of short works (I think it's the "and"). Just Tangled Things sounds more like a novel title and loses the tongue-twister nature.

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[info]nolly
2008-12-03 06:59 pm UTC (link)
Seconded -- I think it's a great title for a short-story collection, but not so much for a novel. Of the others, the 2nd and 3rd are both OK, though I might shorten the third a bit. (I can think of a few way to shorten it, but I'm not quite sure which would be most right for this book.)

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[info]ron_newman
2008-12-03 06:31 pm UTC (link)
Just as a title, not considering the content of the book itself, I don't like it. Too hard to say and to remember (was it Tangled Texts and Things? Texts and Tangled Things?)

Edited at 2008-12-03 06:43 pm UTC

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[info]slashfairy
2008-12-03 06:39 pm UTC (link)
I like Tangled Things and Texts, and now I'm curious about Lepanto, too. so, a two-fer. :))

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[info]papersky
2008-12-03 08:03 pm UTC (link)
Here it is.

It's about an interesting sea battle in 1571.

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[info]hobbitbabe
2008-12-03 06:41 pm UTC (link)
I like it, either as a whole or just as Tangled Things. I did not recognize the quotation, although it sounded like a quotation so I would have looked it up. Would you put the quotation as an epigraph?

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[info]papersky
2008-12-03 08:02 pm UTC (link)
Yes, probably. I think it works.

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[info]steepholm
2008-12-03 06:42 pm UTC (link)
I'm afraid if I saw that title I'd assume it was a work of lit. crit. Tangled Things on its own is better.

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[info]aranel
2008-12-03 06:47 pm UTC (link)
Titles with "texts" in them do strongly suggest lit crit, but I'm guessing the publication format, cover illustration, and such would be different enough that this point of confusion wouldn't be a huge problem.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
(no subject) - [info]papersky, 2008-12-03 06:47 pm UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]txanne, 2008-12-03 10:26 pm UTC (Expand)
(no subject) - [info]beamjockey, 2008-12-04 12:59 am UTC (Expand)
I, too, like Tangled Things
[info]dakiwiboid
2008-12-03 06:44 pm UTC (link)
I think I'd grab at a book with that on its cover, especially if it promised to be about magic!

My Art Museum used to own a portrait that was supposed to be Don Juan of Austria as a young boy. Alas, that identification was removed from it some years ago. I'd show you a copy, but it doesn't seem to be listed in their online collection. That portrait got me interested in the Battle of Lepanto, though.

Edited at 2008-12-03 07:01 pm UTC

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[info]aranel
2008-12-03 06:45 pm UTC (link)
As I'm familiar with the poem, I immediately filled in "and aching eyes." I'm not sure if it's because of my prior familiarity or because of the metrics and sounds of the phrase itself, but it seems to me to sound fragmentary and therefore somewhat unsatisfactory as a title--as opposed to fragment-of-poem titles that stand nicely on their own. Sort of like that anecdote about Mozart having to leap out of bed to play the note that would round off an unresolved chord.

Also, I have no idea whether your book has any possible connection to Reformation-era controversies of scriptural interpretation, or other problems of interpretation that would be somehow analogous, but they're what that line calls up, for me.

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[info]papersky
2008-12-03 11:35 pm UTC (link)
It doesn't have a direct connection to what Chesterton was talking about, but it does have a metaphorical one. If it calls up Chesterton that would be good, and if you filled in the phrase and noticed it wasn't all there that would also be fine. In fact the unresolved chord is something I like about it.

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(no subject) - [info]aranel, 2008-12-04 12:43 am UTC (Expand)

[info]adrian_turtle
2008-12-03 06:52 pm UTC (link)
I love _What Minds Let Slip_. I think it's the best title you've suggested yet for this.

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[info]dd_b
2008-12-03 06:55 pm UTC (link)
What Minds Let Slip is a great title. It doesn't to me connect that directly to this book.

Tangled Things and Texts is at least a very good title. It may frequently get remembered, and repeated, as just Tangled Things, but that'd be enough to find it in most systems of indexing. Texts play such an important role in the book that I like having them in the title. Having them in the disposable part of the title may not be ideal. The fact that I just wrote "disposable part of the title" is also worrying me a bit; maybe it's not as good as my immediate reaction suggested.

The other two are okay, but don't hit me. Somehow I feel Secrets, Books and Magic is written wrong for this book. The words are all appropriate, but the phrase just doesn't sound like it belongs to this book in any way.

(I do love ILE as a title, but you're quite right that this is not the book that it's a title for.)

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[info]intertext
2008-12-03 07:04 pm UTC (link)
I like Tangled Things

Secrets, Books and Magic sounds like a children's fantasy.

Edited at 2008-12-03 07:04 pm UTC

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[info]grimmwire
2008-12-03 07:17 pm UTC (link)
Tangled Things and Textsis good, but I have to agree with the votes for the simplified Tangled Things. Still works as an allusion, and doesn't sound academic.

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[info]drplokta
2008-12-03 07:25 pm UTC (link)
I also vote for just Tangled Things.

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[info]kgbooklog
2008-12-03 07:50 pm UTC (link)
I agree with everyone saying that "Texts" is awkward and should be dropped. I also kinda like The Innocence of Anger and Surprise, though I suspect that may be as inappropriate as Not Actually Set on Pluto.

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[info]papersky
2008-12-03 07:55 pm UTC (link)
Actually it would almost work.

I was wondering about just picking random phrases I like from poetry and seeing if they work. "The West Moon" almost works, though again too SFnal.

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(no subject) - [info]kate_nepveu, 2008-12-03 08:17 pm UTC (Expand)

[info]shewhomust
2008-12-03 08:30 pm UTC (link)
I like Tangled Things and Texts, though I seem to be in a minority there; i like both the sense of it and the rhythm. Tangled Things on its own is a little generic (Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things is a short story collection, for example) - adding 'texts' is unexpected, and intriguing. I'd buy it - I mean, even if I weren't already sold on it!

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[info]ffutures
2008-12-03 08:40 pm UTC (link)
I think I'm going to suck up and say I like Tangled Things and Texts - Tangled Things gives me a different vibe, I'd expect it to be a horror novel.

Mind you, I speak as someone who had to run a poll to choose between "Perilous Planets" and "Planets of Peril" for my current WIP, so maybe not the best judge.

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[info]kateelliott
2008-12-03 09:00 pm UTC (link)
In a bookstore, my eye would skip right over Tangled Things and Text unless it was by an author whose name I knew (like yours). Doesn't grab me.

Of the ones mentioned, I'll cast a minority vote for There is a way from here to there but perhaps that's only because I spent much of my youth wishing there was a way from here to there, there being some region of Elfland. I would certainly pause over a book with that title and scan the first page at the least.

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[info]sylvia_rachel
2008-12-03 09:10 pm UTC (link)
I like both Tangled Things and Texts and There Is a Way from Here to There. I like Tangled Things on its own less: the book is so much about books that it seems right to have "texts" in there, and also the rhythm is much better with the extra two words.

Actually What Minds Let Slip is pretty good, too. Secrets, Books and Magic doesn't do anything for me, despite the nice rhythm; I suspect my brain may consider it too generic, but that's only a theory.

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[info]sovay
2008-12-03 09:14 pm UTC (link)
Tangled Things and Texts

I like it, both the rhythm and the sound; Tangled Things is not odd enough.

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[info]sartorias
2008-12-03 09:25 pm UTC (link)
I like Tangled Things. The 'and texts' sounds too busy.

I also like dead is the innocence, but for a totally different book.

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[info]neile
2008-12-03 09:39 pm UTC (link)
I also prefer Tangled Things.

Or how about Tanglement (or is it too offensive that it's not really a word)?

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[info]marykaykare
2008-12-03 09:53 pm UTC (link)
If I saw a book with the title Tangled Things and Texts, I'd never look at it unless it was by someone whose writing I knew I enjoyed. Tangled Things, maybe. Like [info]kateelliot I'd grab There is a way from here to there in a NY minute. It should be noted however that I majorly suck at titling things.

MKK

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[info]stakebait
2008-12-03 10:13 pm UTC (link)
This is nice, though I confess I would like just plain Tangled Things even better, or From Here to There.

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[info]txanne
2008-12-03 10:30 pm UTC (link)
From Here to There: A Novel. I hope this isn't that kind of a book!

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