Talk:I, the Supreme/Archive 1

First comment

This is the talk page for Augusto Roa Bastos' novel: Yo, el Supreme (I, The Supreme)

I'm just starting to figure out how to navigate the wikiworld and welcome discussion.

Structure

This article needs some kind of structure, with subheadings etc., that can be filled out as we come up with documented information about the book. You could look at the Novels project guidelines, though note that other feature articles on books and novels don't necessarily follow the structure given:: there's a list of them here and here. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 10:41, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject MMM and the FA-Team

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We're all really enthusiastic about this project, and looking forward to working with you. All the best, The FA-Team 11:16, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

From Michael

Hi there. I tried to get a bit of a start here today on this. I think it would be valuable to have a section on the style of the novel, as it is unique. I also started the characters section, but got side-tracked... will do more tomorrow. Kendal and Mike... We can talk about this on tues. but if you have the chance before then, just add whatever you feel is needed and pretty soon we'll have a nice bit of info. to work with. --Michaeltufaro (talk) 06:35, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Guys, the main thing is to get sources! I note that the new information about style and character etc. is not sourced. Hie thee to the library! --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 07:52, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

We're on it Jon! Wiki'ing away...Question: Do you know of an English Translation of Roa Bastos' essay, "Algunos núcleos generadores de un texto narrativo" aka "Some Nuclei Which Have Generated a Narrative Text" Escritura 4 (1977): 167-93. I have some excerpts from Incledon's "Parracide and Exile article", but a full translation would be helpful and interesting. Thanks for the reminder! (Powars (talk) 20:18, 6 March 2008 (UTC))

Mike, no, I don't know an English translation of that essay. But you can cite ("qtd. in") the sections quoted in the book you showed me earlier. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 23:40, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Article development

Thanks all for the work that has gone into this article so far. Obviously the main initial task is to expand the article content... making sure that everything that's added is sourced to a reliable source. It's easier to do this as we're going along rather than chase down sources later.

The Characters section is a good idea, although we need to make sure it's confined to the main characters only (and sourced!). As suggestions for additional content, in no particular order:

• Its Publication and Context ie when and why the book was written; we need to explain why it's notable enough to be included in an encyclopedia
• A brief Plot summary, no more than say 5-600 words
• Reception details of how the book was recieved including any awards etc
• Maybe a (very brief) section on the author, linking to his main article.

Hope this helps! EyeSerene^TALK 10:17, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Supreme To Do List

As of March 6, 2008: There are 5 sections in the article-Style, Characters, See Also, Footnotes, References. We should develop our content (and Article for that matter), according to the Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels/Style guidelines.

• Content Development:

Sections

• Lead Section

The lead should summarize the article as a whole (WP:LEAD), thus the structure and content of your article should be reflected in the lead of the article. Leads tend to average between 2-4 paragraphs, depending on the size of the article. (Powars (talk) 03:55, 7 March 2008 (UTC))

• Plot introduction?

This introduction is intended to give a general overview, spoiler free or teaser plot section. It should not exceed 80 words unless there is a specific reason. Describe the basic premise of the story in a couple of sentences and introduce key characters.

Plot introductions are strictly optional. Be sure when considering whether or not to include one that you carefully weigh the benefits and the drawbacks; pages that are dominated by plot summary exhaust the reader sooner and tend to degenerate into a rehashing of the novel itself rather than an encyclopedia article on the novel. See WP:WAF for advice about how to write about fiction for Wikipedia (how to avoid an in-universe perspective, for example) as well as WP:FICTION.

• Plot summary

Plot summaries should be concise and an integral part of the article. According to WP:NOT#INFO, "Wikipedia articles on works of fiction should contain real-world context and sourced analysis, offering detail on a work's achievements, impact or historical significance, not solely a summary of that work's plot. A plot summary may be appropriate as an aspect of a larger topic."

A plot summary should avoid reproducing the work being discussed. Instead, it should summarise the work, touching on plot, important events, character developments etc. In a longer work, every conversation and event does not need to be mentioned. Size of the plot summary should be roughly proportional to the size of the plot. This is not always equivalent to the length of the work, since some plots are complex and dense while others are simple and straight-forward.

Spoilers should not under any circumstances be deleted or omitted, as doing so directly contradicts the Wikipedia-wide content disclaimer. In short, Wikipedia contains spoilers; please respect this policy.

• Characters in "NovelTitle"

The character section should consist of brief character outlines, as opposed to a simple list. Length of each entry should vary relative to the character's importance to the story.

Another option is to delete the character section entirely to prevent the article from looking like SparkNotes (rather than a respectable encyclopedia entry). Instead, use a finely crafted plot summary to introduce the characters to the reader.

• Major themes

In many ways this is the most important section of the page because it details the "meat" of the novel. The plot of a novel carries the themes and it is the themes that are often the most interesting. A small example will illustrate this. A plot summary of the story of the Fall might run like this: "Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit and therefore God banished them from Paradise and cursed them with mortality." One of the themes of this little tale is "sin leads to death." It is more important that readers are made aware of the theme of "sin" than all of the details about the bits of fruit. This example also illustrates why an overly detailed plot summary will only confuse readers. Details about who ate the fruit first and who tempted whom are irrelevant to the larger issues—sin and death. At least in a Protestant reading.

And that brings us to a very important point. In order to write a comprehensive "Themes" section, you must do research. You cannot present your own opinion of what the novel's themes are (WP:OR). You must present the consensus of literary scholars and historians. For so-called "classic" texts, this is easy, but time-consuming (it may involve months of research). You can use the following resource to find citations for these publications online

• Style

• Reception

• Adaptations

• There was a theatrical adaptation of the book: Cambridge Guide to Theatre By Martin Banham p. 839(Powars (talk) 03:55, 7 March 2008 (UTC))

• Footnotes and References

• In accordance with Wikipedia's verifiability policy, all articles should cite their sources. A variety of methods to present your references is available at Citing sources:Style and how-to as well as an inline citations/footnoting system at Help:Footnotes. If you are unsure of how to use internet links as references, simply inserting the URL into square brackets at the end of the corresponding text (e.g. [http://www.google.com/] becomes [1]) is an adequate form of referencing the web; you must also provide the date on which you accessed the site so that should the information disappear from that site or the link cease to function (a danger in using web sources), a user wanting to use the Wayback Machine to verify your information can do so.

• Other???

Feel Free to add and edit as necessary...put names to sections.

Editing

I don't think we're quite there yet...

Evaluations

FA...FA...FA...You can do it! baby steps...ga...ga...? (Powars (talk) 04:04, 7 March 2008 (UTC))

References

For References, add to the list below:

• Buffery, Helena. "Roa Bastos and the Question of Cultural Translatability (or how does one get to Paraguay?)". Dissidences.

Hispanic Journal of Theory and Criticism. On line. Internet: 30/08/05 ([2]) (Powars (talk) 19:47, 6 March 2008 (UTC))

• Augusto Roa Bastos, I, The Supreme, trans. Helen Lane (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986). (Powars (talk) 19:54, 6 March 2008 (UTC))

• John Deiner. "I, The Supreme: The Politics of Personalist Dictatorships: The Politics of a Time Gone Bye". MACLAS

LATIN AMERICAN ESSAYS: Selected Papers Presented at the 20th Annual Conference of the Middle Atlantic Council of Latin American Studies .Ursinus College, March 1999. Volume XIII. Ed. Judy B. McInnis (Newark, DE: University of Delaware, 2000). (Powars (talk) 19:54, 6 March 2008 (UTC))

• Incledon, John. "Parracide and Exile: Tracing Derrida in Augusto Roa Bastos' Yo El Supremo." The Literature of Emigration and Exile. Eds. James S. Whitlark and Wendell Aycock. Lubbock, Texas: Texas Tech University Press, 1992. 169-181. (Powars (talk) 20:11, 6 March 2008 (UTC))

Updated article development

This article is motoring along now. Excellent stuff. You actually have a fairly decent collection of references, though you could still do more with them. Also see the various "to do" lists above. A plot summary is definitely needed, difficult though I know that is. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 02:57, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Agreed; this article is rapidly approaching the point where we can nominate it for Good article assessment. Brilliant work all!

Just a couple of points:

• I think it might help to organise the layout slightly differently by swapping the 'Historical context' and 'Synopsis' sections over. This would give readers a framework to place the novel in before they come to the plot, which they can then read in the light of the previous sections (which often aids understanding).
• The lead needs expanding per the guidelines on WP:LEAD. Basically this should be a summary of the entire article, rather than an introduction to it (rather like an abstract in a research paper). It should be a few (no more than four) paragraphs, and should mention every main point covered by the article. Leads are often the hardest part of an article to write, and are usually best left until the end when all the content is in place. If you like - assuming the bulk of the content is now in place - I can help out with this.
• Your writing is very good, it's pleasant to read, and flows logically. Every article benefits from a copyedit and proofread though, and I, the Supreme also needs sweeping for Manual of Style compliance etc. Again, this sort of thing is best done when the major writing is finished, so I'll leave the timing up to you. An external copyeditor is always recommended - the FA-Team may be useful here, so just shout when you're ready!

You're doing an excellent job coping with not only producing a quality article, but also with Wikipedia. Part of the reason I don't comment as much here as on other MMM articles is that you seem to have things under control, but your work is being noted and appreciated! All the best, EyeSerene^talk 14:18, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Lead

The WP:Lead needs to be expanded. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 20:46, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Reference Problem

Guys, there's a problem with a reference that's just been added:

As John King writes, "I, The Supreme is a surprisingly political novel. It is a commentary on Paraguay's first great political leader... and a condemnation of the countries last, [General Alfredo Stroessner.]"[39]

This is sourced to:

I, The Supreme: Politically Related Themes In The Novel by John King, Accessed through MACLAS http://www.maclas.vcu.edu/journal/maclas_essays-VIII-2000.pdf p.118

But there are a few problems.

• John King isn't the author of "I, The Supreme: Politically Related Themes In The Novel." That's Deiner, who's already in the reference list.
• That text doesn't appear on page 118 of Deiner's article
• In fact, it doesn't appear anywhere within the article.

So there is some confusion here, which we need to sort out. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 05:47, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

OK, I think I've fixed these now. These quotations were from Deiner, but from different pages. (And they did appear; I don't know why I couldn't find that first one.) But be careful, eh! We had both the author and the pages wrong, earlier. Accuracy is essential; otherwise, what's the point? --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 05:56, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry Jon, It had to do with a discrepancy between the mini-pdf reader page number and the one on the document and i stood by the wrong one. The other thing must have been a mistake of who wrote the article and who wrote the essay. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Michaeltufaro (talk • contribs) 17:25, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

GA Review

General

• Needs a Genre section (see El Señor Presidente), and even more so now that there’s info about that in the lead.

--added Genre section Michaeltufaro (talk) 17:10, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

• Needs spell check Did this myself

• Needs wiki links (theme section in particular only has 2)

-added wiki links. Regarding Wiki links, is the convention that every linkable word should be linked in each section? Or only the first time it appears? --Michaeltufaro (talk) 17:26, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

The convention is that it should be linked only once, the exception being for words that initially appear in the lead, in which case it should be linked both in the lead and the first time it appears in the body of the article. But nevermind about wikilinks, I got some free time tonight and tomorrow so I'll handle this for you. Your time will be better spent finding sources and adding content. Also, very good job dealing with the issues so far, if you keep this up this article will be a GA in no time :) Acer (talk) 00:04, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

• Some of the refs are missing page numbers

• citation needed tags should be dealt with

• A publication history section, (a list of published editions) would also be nice though I'm not requiring this for GA

• There are notes on the body of the article left by your professor, these should be addressed and then removed Maria took care of this

• Actually, I just hid it; the note is still there at the very end of the first paragraph in the "Themes" section. María (habla conmigo) 18:09, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, thanks for dropping by and claifying that Acer (talk) 18:59, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

• There's a picture of the Asunción Cathedral but it's not mentioned anywhere in the article

- mentioned importance in synopsis section (note was found) there) --Michaeltufaro (talk) 04:16, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

• Yup, this should be dealt with once a proper synopsis is written. I'd add that for me, this is the biggest weakness of the article at present: it doesn't explain what actually happens in the book. I recognize that that is not in fact the easiest question to answer (What happens?), but you can at least describe the beginning and the end, both of which are quite clear. And mention some of the incidents in between. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 18:29, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't sure about this when I read the article, I had the impression that the book didn't have a clear cut plot that could be summarized (writting summaries of novels that lack a central plot is hard), if it can be done withought making the section disproportionally large, then by all means go ahead. Acer (talk) 18:59, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Its true that its difficult to summarize exactly what happens in this book because it doesn't have a plot and is generally in many places at once. I tried to write a sumary of what happens for while but it turned sour quickly after I realized everything that I was saying would not illuminate anything about the rest of the article for anyone (I wound up fliping back and forth between the protagonists stories of diplomatic meetings and of him talking with dogs). So should we mention just that, that it is does not have a clear cut plot and is hard to summarize or just leave it be and have people infer that?

• References should be stated using <\ref> and shoud not be in the body of the article as in: ...being portrayed as both by Roa Bastos.Deiner 1999, p. 115

It's not really true that the book doesn't have a plot. Again, as I've said, the book has a beginning and an end. And then it has a fairly consistent set of strands in the middle, although it's true that they interrupt each other. (You might as legitimately say that it has too many plots.) Why don't you write up a that draft that you started? This is a wiki: it can always be revised. Better to write up something that's too long, and then cut it down and clarify, than to leave it as it is, I reckon. Imagine trying to explain the book to someone else, in as much detail as possible. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 03:38, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

fixed --Michaeltufaro (talk) 01:54, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Influences section

• Macedonio's writing utilized characters that did not fit the archetype of Western fiction, each existed on their own, only having meaning through their interaction with others in a collective

• Reviewer Comment: This seems contradictory to me, If they existed on their own they wouldn't need others in order to have meaning no?

• Roa Bastos borrows from these ideas yet uses the existing political and social history to challenge their factuality

• Reviewer Comment: To challenge the factuality of what? I take it you're referring to Francia’s reconstruction of reality but this is not clear.

I fixed these up, so they should hopefully be clearer now.

Style section

• There are, for me, simply two aspects of a single phenomenon

• Reviewer Comment: Is this supposed to read They are?

- fixed --Michaeltufaro (talk) 03:21, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Characters section

• However, there is also evidence that Patiño wielded considerable influence with The Supreme, as "in 1835 Patiño denounced a slave for attempting to induce an abortion in his daughter and to poison him. A close investigation... turned up [that] the daughter had requested the abortion and Patiño had lied, [yet] he was not jailed, and retained his powerful position. The Supreme's paranoia and fear is "taken out on poor, obese Patiño, who represents the scriptors that are liable of corrupting even the old oral tradition" and Patiño is frequently the victim of The Supreme's abuse, even having his own death sentence dictated to him, although in the end he outlives his master. - reworked entire section... much clearer now.--Michaeltufaro (talk) 18:01, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

• Reviewer Comment: This bit needs some connectors, It states that Patino wield considerable influence, then it goes and says that he was the victim of abuse and powerless. You need to structure this along the lines of: He wield considerable influence yet .... or however... so the transition flows better.

-fixed--Michaeltufaro (talk) 03:21, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Themes section

• The first paragraph repeats information already present in the Characters section, you should try to minimize overlap.

-removed overlap from beginning of paragraph. Also removed dual-references for same quote--Michaeltufaro (talk) 17:30, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

• Also he first paragraph begins with the words: Language, Writing and Power, they should be made into subsection headers or removed.

-removed--Michaeltufaro (talk) 01:45, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

• I, The Supreme was published (in exile, of course) in 1974.

• Reviewer Comment: You should note that he was in exile but remarks such as of course don't belong in an encyclopedia article (It reads like a message from whoever wrote the article to the reader, implying some kind of understanding between them, and that’s a no no for encyclopedias)

-fixed--Michaeltufaro (talk) 17:45, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Comments

On the whole I thought you did a good job with this article and I feel it succeeds in its main mission of indicating and explaining the main aspects of the book so that somebody who hasn't read it (like me) can get an overall idea of the novel. I will place this on hold until you address (either in the main body or the talk page) the issues I raised, I won’t be setting any deadline for this since you already got one (your semester’s :P ), after the issues are addressed I’ll do another read thru and if everything is ok I’ll promote it. Also I’d like to congratulate you all for the work so far, considering that at the beginning of March this article consisted of only four lines the improvement has been remarkable, keep up the good work! Acer (talk) 16:42, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Michaeltufaro, just a comment: the convention is to reply here when you think that you've fixed something from the review, but then to let the reviewer (here Acer) cross out or strike if and when he or she agrees that the change satisfies them. In other words, don't cross out what someone else has written; let them do it. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 04:16, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, the accepted norm here is to let the reviewer himself cross out his comments, though honestly I'm too easy going to care either way (that said there are some people who do get upset over this so its better to be on the safe side) Acer (talk) 23:33, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Sources and influences

Michaeltufaro, you've done a great job following up on the GA Review suggestions. You've very close. Well done!

A couple more points, perhaps for after GA:

1. If you search in the MLA Bibliography, for "Roa Bastos" plus "language=English" (this link may take you there, or you may be told the session is timed out) you get a bunch more sources. Some of these are dissertations, which you can dowload. They may look intimidating, but the good thing about them is that they are searchable pdfs.

2. And one of the sources is this one:

• Parricide and Exile: Tracing Derrida in Augusto Roa Bastos' Yo el Supremo By: Incledon, John. pp. 169-81 IN: Whitlark, James (ed.); Aycock, Wendell (ed.); The Literature of Emigration and Exile. Lubbock: Texas Tech UP; 1992. vi, 186 pp. (book article). It's in Koerner, at PN863.C64 L57 V. 23; currently out, but overdue; recall it!

And it brings up an important point: Roa Bastos's influences aren't simply literary; he also draws a lot on European philosphers such as Derrida. This is another reason why he's so damned hard to read, of course! But this fact needs to be discussed, if only briefly.

Good luck! --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 11:00, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I made a little page with all those sources, though the formatting is a bit of a mess. Hope it helps! --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 11:04, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Title

Fresh from sticking my oar in about the title at El Señor Presidente I think you should decide on the punctuation here. Comma or no comma? Capital on the definite article or not? Yomangani^talk 23:48, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Heh, you're carving out a niche for yourself here, aren't you?  ;) We did bat this around a bit. In the literature on the book, you see it every which way (in Spanish and English). And as I recall (I don't have the book on me right now), looking at the title page doesn't much help either. The convention in naming English titles would normally have a small "t" for the. In that the title is also the first three words of the novel, there (as I recall, again) for grammatical reasons there's a comma. So we decided in the end that I, the Supreme was indeed the best choice. But I wouldn't stake my life on it. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 00:06, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Ahh, this time I wasn't referring so much to the article title as to the title used for the book in the article - every combination is floating around in the text both here and in the Augusto Roa Bastos article(I the Supreme, I, The Supreme, I the Supreme, Yo el Supremo, Yo, el Supremo). Also the personal title The Supreme needs to be consistently rendered (I'd suggest either moving the "the" outside the quotes or uppercasing it.) Yomangani^talk 00:35, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Ah, yes. We'll get on to that! --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 00:39, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I fixed a bunch of these. We should probably check the instances when the title is quoted by other people, and respect their formulations for those quotations. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 00:46, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Questions

Is the quote actually: he inherited all Francia's despotism, but none of his populism
or is there an of missing? Acer (talk) 11:22, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

The bit bellow is missing the first quotation mark, where does the quote begin?

Policarpo Patiño is the Supreme's secretary and amanuensis. Patiño was an "efficient and loyal" servant, [who] became government secretary and served the Supreme until his death. A jack of all trades, Patiño arranged audiences, transcribed documents, visited the jails, and conferred with the Dictator on most routine matters. Toward the end of [The Supreme's] life, and presumably with his knowledge, Patiño began signing some official documents that did not bear his master's signature."

Acer (talk) 13:09, 5 April 2008 (UTC)