Talk:A Voyage to Arcturus

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 03:42, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Name section
The speculative etymologies in the name section are indeed original research; unless there is some critical work out there analyizing them which can be cited they should be removed; I will put in my own two bits worth, though - that 'Tormance" is tor + mance'', i.e. "tower" + "magic/divination".Skookum1 (talk) 16:23, 6 November 2009 (UTC)


 * The ones explicating allusions to Norse mythology should be retained, and the others (overwhelmingly subjective) deleted (though some of the non-etymological notes could be moved elsewhere in the article)... AnonMoos (talk) 13:33, 2 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Drastically cut it down... AnonMoos (talk) 14:37, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

"message" of the book
Not sure the current state of the article adequately explains Lindsay's basic philosophy/cosmology. Some characters celebrate the beauties and sensations of the material world, while others are contemptuous of them as distractions of the demiurge which are an obstacle to perceiving what lies beyond the material world (Krag is even contemptuous of the light of Alppain, which other characters give great importance to). Of course, the ultimate source of the vital life sparks (which are degraded by being dragged down into vulgar matter) is in the end revealed to be something of an empty shell, leaving Lindsay's final message a little enigmatic... AnonMoos (talk) 16:25, 3 December 2009 (UTC)


 * A "little" enigmatic is an understatement....in general I think the interpretation of the book's meaning is entirely original research, stating conclusions when there really are none; I don't even think Colin Wilson tried to impose a meaning on this book, despite raving over it. Similarly some interpretations of some passages are very over-simplified and, to me, not representative of the tale and its "meaning".  Giving a meaning to this is like giving a meaning to a Salvador Dali painting; it's too surrealistic even as allegory for any quick summation of it to suffice; I don't have a copy on hand to review each section/character but it strikes me that only what Lindsay says, or his characters, should be in the article; anything else is interpretation/opinion and must come from a citable source....or be deleted.....Skookum1 (talk) 16:55, 3 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Some things are pretty clear, such as the allusion to the Gnostic demiurge, and the reference to the "The Gnostic myths .. of the Demiurge who ... sets about a work of creation in unconscious imitation of the superior Pleromatic realm. Thus Sophia's [stolen] power becomes enclosed within the material forms of humanity, themselves entrapped within the material universe: the goal of Gnostic movements was typically the awakening of this spark, which permitted a return by the subject to the superior, non-material realities which were its primal source." (as stated on Wikipedia article Gnosticism) -- even though the words "Gnostic" and "demiurge" do not appear to occur in the text of the book (see the e-texts linked at the bottom of the article page). AnonMoos (talk) 17:24, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I edited the entry (i.e., /* Names */ deleted the parenthetical remark "(the Gnostic demiurge, also known as "Shaping" or "Crystalman") " following "Surtur" -- Shaping and Crystalman are the same, and equivalent to the Gnostic demi-urge, but are not the same as "Surtur."71.232.225.45 (talk) 23:03, 6 October 2012 (UTC)), to correct a misinterpretation. As Krag says in the book, the identification of Crystalman/Shaping with Surtur is Crystalman's "greatest lie." As noted above, Crystalman/Shaping are equivalent to the demi-urge, but Surtur is the actual source of reality, and thus not a demi-urge.71.232.225.45 (talk) 23:03, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Adaptions
There was a version broadcast on BBC radio Third Program - I think in the early sixties - someone should check out. Alf Heben (talk) 19:03, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Synopsis -- excessive length
The summary of the plot is far too long. Rwood128 (talk) 22:30, 16 May 2014 (UTC)


 * For an ordinary novel it would be, but for a somewhat unique work of philosophical-symbolist picaresque with quasi-Gnostic tendencies, I'm not sure it is... AnonMoos (talk) 23:46, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

It's a long while since I read it but I can understand the difficulty. Unfortunately plot summaries just remind me of Coles Notes, etc, and this article doesn't consist of much else. I prefer more of a short summary. By the way I really like your description of the novel. Arcturus deserves a thorough discussion on those lines. Rwood128 (talk) 00:01, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Explanation of Dec. 15 2014 edit of Tolkien cite
Hi - the previous version cited Tolkien as praising Voyage "as a work of philosophy, religion and morality." This is from a post interpreting Tolkien's letter, on a now-defunct blog. I replaced this reference with a citation to the actual letter. However, the actual letter doesn't support the poster's interpretation. Tolkien said that you wouldn't care to read it just for the story unless you were interested in the matters of philosophy, religion, and morality being presented. This is different from praising its philosophy. In view of this, and since the blog post doesn't qualify as authoritative, I took the liberty of eliding the "praise" part. - Theodulf-W (talk) 18:22, 15 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Looks fine... AnonMoos (talk) 00:46, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Minor editing quirk
Typo team/moss found the "word" t]he in this article, which it flagged as a typo. The relevant section is: "(Lindsay writes: '[t]he sense impressions caused in Maskull by these two additional primary colours ..." I'm assuming this is meant as an editor's mark, showing the 't' in brackets as replacing the original text to make the whole thing flow more smoothly. So if it's an editor's mark, I would guess that the small 't' is replacing a capital 'T' at the beginning of a sentence.  But the word "the" here is not used in a fluid sentence that begins "Lindsay writes" where one wouldn't want to have a capital letter in the middle.  It should be perfectly fine to render this as:"(Lindsay writes: 'The sense impressions caused in Maskull by these two additional primary colours ..." or perhaps replace the colon with a comma. In any case, I don't have access to the original text, and this is a very, very minor issue, so I'm just leaving it with the "not a typo" tag. - Jkgree (talk) 15:50, 2 June 2020 (UTC)