> Socialism was already in the air in 1870s Russia such that it's often discussed by characters in the novel.
That's not necessarily a valid conclusion. It is a work of fiction. You can't use it as evidence of what was going on in Russia. At best it can be used as evidence of what were the topics the author were thinking about, and as such an indirect proof of what was discussed in the zeitgeist.
Similarly I could write a book set in 2025's America where everyone constantly talks about how the collapse of the bubblegum markets wiped them out, and discusses the benefits and ills of bubblegum trading. Doesn't make it true.
Sure, but the author is writing with his audience in mind. As I understand it, it started out as serialized stories in a periodical and was popular. If he wrote about something that was completely foreign to his audience it's not likely to have become popular. It really seems like he's having his characters take various positions on topics that were being discussed in the culture.
Perhaps you can appreciate the difference between The Lord of the Rings, which was self-consciously written to be a mythology for England, and The Brother's Karamazov which is set in the middle of the 19th century. We get it Walter, you hate socialism.
I appreciate that, and I'm sure we feel very similarly about the importance of individual freedoms. My snark has to do with the fact that I find your comments on political threads to be ideological and uninteresting, which is disappointing as someone who thinks highly of your work (and talks) on programming.
You can say the same thing about any book ever written, "it's only about what the author was thinking about" - yeah, that's how writing generally works lol.
Between 1991 and 1998 there was an undercover war waged in Great Britain between two warring factions of a secret cabal. At various points one faction or the other controlled the so called "Ministry of Magic" main function of which is to enforce the secrecy of the whole conspiracy.
I know it is true because I read it in a book. Except it is not, it is completely made up and none of it is true. One can accidentally stumble upon true statements in the book. For example there is indeed a Kings Cross station both in the real world London and the fictional one.
> You can say the same thing about any book ever written,
Not really. There are this class of books called "nonfiction" where the stated goal of the author is to write true things. For example if you say "Socialism was already in the air in 1870s Russia, I read it in Peter Kenez's A History of the Soviet Union from the Beginning to the End" that would be not mistaken.
This is a truly bizarre and random attack. I don't think OP claimed the book as "proof" of radical socialist fervor in the first place - it's the widely known history, and are we attempting to contradict that?
> You interpreted it as “Socialism is discussed in the novel therefore it was in the air,”
Yes. I still read it that way.
> but that’s not what was said.
If you say so. I re-read the comment and I interpret it the same way still. If we are not using the book as evidence of what was going in Russia, but evidence of what topic was interesting to its audience then I'm happy with that.
That's not necessarily a valid conclusion. It is a work of fiction. You can't use it as evidence of what was going on in Russia. At best it can be used as evidence of what were the topics the author were thinking about, and as such an indirect proof of what was discussed in the zeitgeist.
Similarly I could write a book set in 2025's America where everyone constantly talks about how the collapse of the bubblegum markets wiped them out, and discusses the benefits and ills of bubblegum trading. Doesn't make it true.