Sorting out stuff on Thomas Mann, I bumped into the following Disambiguation Notice:

Death in Venice and Other Stories by Thomas Mann (98 copies)

Disambiguation notice: This is the Signet Classics selection of Thomas Mann stories, translated by Chase. Please do not combine with other editions, especially not with the translations by Lowe-Porter or Neugroschel.

I thought we had a broad consensus on
(1) Death in Venice (single story edition / any ed. any translation)
(2) Death in Venice & Other stories (multiple stories / any ed. any translation)

If everybody is going to make Disambiguation notices with conflicting policies, then after a while nobody will take heed.

I don't know the editions well enough to say - I certainly wouldn't combine any where the 'other stories' differ between editions. If the content is the same, I would. Either way, I wouldn't say this was a particularly well-worded DN as it gives no reason why not to combine.

Is there a possibility that this edition contains a significantly different selection of stories? That may be the reason for the notice (although I agree - it should be more specific as to why).

>3

I am sure that that is the suggestion. But if we go along that road, we will go back to sorting editions and connectivity will be lost.

I also find the suggestion to separate on Translator weird.

You could ask the user who posted the notice: existanai. He has posted quite a few Disambiguation Notices for various editions of Death in Venice and additional stories.

"I also find the suggestion to separate on Translator weird"

I would certainly separate based on different content (i.e. 'other') but I agree, to separate according to translator is wrong. In addition, this gives no helpful information about content that might help people combine in any future collections with the same content but translated by a different individual.

In case anyone is interested and wants to update the information:

Signet Classics (Chase translation): Tobias Mindernickel -- Tristan -- Tonio Kröger -- The child prodigy -- Hour of hardship -- Death in Venice -- Man and dog

Vintage Edition (Lowe-Porter translation): Death in Venice -- Tonio Kröger -- Mario and the magician -- Disorder and early sorrow -- A man and his dog -- The blood of the Walsungs -- Tristan -- Felix Krull

Penguin Edition (Neugroschel translation): Will for happiness -- Little Herr Friedemann -- Tobias Mindernickel -- Little Lizzy -- Gladius dei -- Tristan -- Starvelings: a study -- Tonio Kröger -- Wunderkind -- Harsh hour -- Blood of the Walsungs -- Death in Venice

Ah, "different selection". That's a much better argument than "other translator".

>5

I may, but I would first like to hear from others whether this makes sense.

I think this way of separating will be very difficult and confusing and will kill connectivity.

To paraphrase Tim, I suppose the conversation would be:

A: Have you ever read anything by Thomas Mann?
B: Yes, I've read Death in Venice and some other stories.

Nobody is going to spell out which stories & which not.

For some classical or popular authors there will be hundreds of different collections of short stories. Is there a real difference between reading Death in Venice + Story a+b+c+d and Death in Venice + Story a+c+d+e+f?

> 9

It depends. Does the conversation continue with a discussion of Death in Venice, or with a discussion of story f?

In the later case, if you've lumped the works, then you have a very confused conversation. If you've separated them, the conversation immediately continues with:
A: Did you read the edition with story f?

and the situation is clarified.

#9: edwinbcn: "Is there a real difference between reading Death in Venice + Story a+b+c+d and Death in Venice + Story a+c+d+e+f?"

Yes.

And adding the translator's name in a disambiguation notice is a useful way to identify a certain selection in a long list of LT entered titles, and has nothing to do with the actual translation as reason for disambiguation.

>10

You must be joking! I read Der Tod in Venedig und andere Erzählungen (Fischer edition in German) 15 years ago, I have no recall of the titles of those other stories.

That seems quite natural to me.

Somebody could add "because they contain different collections of stories" to the existing notice. Wouldn't we then all be happy?

I'd separate if the stories are different, sorry. If the content's different, it should be separate with story collections. No grey area for me.

> 13

That's because you're talking about Death in Venice then. The fact you can't remember what the other stories are indicates that you're not talking about them. But that doesn't mean other people aren't.

This is beyond slippery slope in the lumping category!

They are not the same work, period. Now we're going to claim that because the "more famous" short story is in a collection, then we combine all collections together regardless of additional content?

I'm sure the publishers that spent time putting together the collection and packaging it would love to know that it's just the same as any other short story collection that has Death in Venice plus other stories not even the SAME as the ones you chose in it.

This overzealous lumping really needs to stop. MY Copy of Death in Venice and Other Tales is by Vikinig Penguin and contains the following:

The Will for Happiness
Little Herr Fiedmann
Tobias Mindernickel
Little Lizzev
Gladius Dei
Tristan
The Starvelings: A Study
Tonio Kroger
The Wunderkind
Harsh Hour
The Blood of the Walsungs
Death in Venice

DO NOT tell me that the content of the other stories mean absolutely nothing to a work! Unless you're prepared to piss on Thomas Mann's grave and spraypaint, "nothing but 'Death in Venice' mattered - LT RULEZZZ!!!" on it, I don't want to hear about it.

Proposing to put short story collections together because, "the one important one is in there" is the most short-sighted thing I've ever seen.

>16

well, if people would ask me about some of the more famous stories, eg Tonio Kröger or Mario and the magician, my answer would be yes, but not in that particular edition.

7>
Good enough for me.

14>

Yes, I think this is a good idea.

I am really utterly surprised by the reactions above.

Although i have no difficulty agreeing that a different selection constitutes a different work, I have never ever seen any collection of works with a generic title such as Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde & Other stories split into various subsets. This was the first time, and that's why it struck me.

It will be obvious that basically every publisher has their own selection of stories (unless the collection appeared in the original author's life time).

This approach to catalogueing on LT will completely destroy connectivity between readers internationally, except if they all read the signet edition translated by Mr Chase.

Obviously a Spanish publisher will not translate the Signet English edition. They will choose the most famous stories, add one or two and have them translated directly from German into Spanish.

I am obviously not saying that everything on LT should be lumped together (though in many places it is).

I also rather doubt whether the 100 people who own the Signet edition prefer to be separated from the 1823+ other people who own editions of "Death in Venice & Other Stories".

21>

Separation based on contents certainly isn't easy, and it's fairly easy to make a mistake without tables of contents from all the different editions in front of one. But I think those are only relevant considerations up to a point; a different work is a different work.

I have an English edition and a German edition. They have different stories. They have now disappeared off my work duplicates page. Fine by me. The other was also fine by me. My original thought was that they didn't really belong together, but that I didn't care enough to separate them. If someone else does, then I don't think they should be recombined.

I think different content means different work. Just my two cents. I've done some separating/combining with story collections, and I have tried to group by content. Reading the complete Juvenilia of Jane Austen is different than reading just four or five stories, at least to me.

>21 When the differences aren't known, of course folks don't mind. When the differences are known, it becomes ubundantly clear that they're different works - period.

Trying to back-justify it by saying, "oh, 'Death in Venice' is really the main work" or "it's just a few different stories" doesn't correct new information. They're still different works. New disambiguation notices explaining the table of contents will make this clear.

I do wish we could have gotten the okay for the Table of Contents for CK now. Tim didn't want it back in the day, but things like this would be much easier to find.

I have to agree with johanna that different content means different work.

No one would suggest (I hope) that Four Great Tragedies: Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Macbeth be combined with Four Tragedies: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth because "if we go along that road, we will go back to sorting editions and connectivity will be lost." If you're interested in Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Othello, or King Lear, the differences are not negligible.

Similarly, just because many of us can't remember anything by Mann except for Death in Venice is not enough of a reason to impose our single-mindedness on others. If edwinbcn is concerned about people getting carried away separating editions, I'm concerned about the opposite end of the spectrum: combining for social connectivity can only go so far before we end up with all of the works by one author combined because people who have read them might have something in common to talk about at a cocktail party.

I guess the key here is moderation. But if, like MarthaJeanne, you could reasonably have two different editions in your library and not consider them duplicates, I think that's a pretty good indicator that they ought not to be combined.

Just my 2¢.

I can give you an example that's not Mann, just for the sake of balanced argument.

If you take 'Rashomon and Other Stories' and apply the 'bread-sticks-in-a-basket' test in the same way as is being proposed for 'Death in Venice', you would combine it with 'Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories'. Most likely (although not exclusively) as a result of Kurosawa's film, 'Rashomon' is taken as the most recognisable of the stories and used as the titular offering (ironically, the film itself was mostly based on 'In a Bamboo Grove', another story in both collections). One of the most substantial stories, 'Hell Screen', isn't present in the abbreviated collection at all (even though Jay Rubin maintains that if only one of Akutagawa's stories survived, this should be it).

Lumping based on recognition factor of the main story of a collection is just not right. To a degree LT is about connections but not to the extent of obliterating actual serious content differences, it's also fairly arbitrary in nature and reliant on reducing work connectivity to a 'lowest common denominator' connection - because many people only recognise/remember 'Death in Venice', does this mean that their lower level of interaction with the work should define everyone else's connections? I think not.

Sorry but this is one I'd fight for!

Actually, I have them in my library because we were reading the German in college (of Tod in Venedig) and I wanted a translation for when it got hard to understand. I have doubt very much whether I have ever read anything else in those books, although I have read several of his novels. Mostly in English, but I read Der Erwählte in both, along with the MHD epic it was based on. (College again. A paper I wrote.)

Message edited by its author, Feb 13, 2009, 4:26pm.

Looks like we are into 'weight of opinion' again. I think it is very difficult to be anything but black and whit over this issue. My 2p. worth is that different collections are different works and that's it.

I seem to remember some discussion about entering individual short stories from collections as stand-alone works without an ISBN. Provides connectivity but seems a bit iffy to me - I've not really thought it through.

Message edited by its author, Feb 13, 2009, 5:44pm.

Yes, stuff with "... and other x, y or z" is tricky. I'd say, if you can tell (or someone else tells you) that content is different, then it's different.

But this is the case where I prefer to know less. As Edwin noted, there's the issue of combinations with other languages (zilch now for the Signet edition-owners), and other cases where it's possible or even highly probable that the content is different ("Poems", "Stories", "Selected stories" etc.)

I will express my feelings about this in two reaction, to separate my conflicting views. On the one hand, I can agree to seeing different editions as different works, but on the other hand I think separating them is wrong. Hence my original dilemma.

Why I think they should be together

When people talk about travel, and people dicover they have both visited Germany, they may have visited different cities, but it is the overall experience that counts. Visiting only one city is obviously different from visiting a few cities. Visiting Berlin, Hannover, Cologne and Frankfurt is different from visiting Berlin, Frankfurt, Mannheim and Stuttgart. It would be ridiculous to deny that both have an interest / experience in Germany.

It is not the differences that matter, it is the communalities that matter.

Social networking is not based on deciding the degree in which people have the same, but have similar interests

I can imagine Tim's cocktail party:

A; Have you ever been to Germany?
B: Yes, I have.
A: Really? Where did you go?
B: Oh, we visited Berlin, Frankfurt and Mannheim.
A: Pity! That's not where we went. Bye!

Does it sound absurd? Yes it does.

The way various people above want to separate editions will lead to exclusion rather than inclusion. It will mean that social connectivity will be limited by local commercial availability of certain editions. It leads to homophily.

At the same time, I can agree that different collections of stories form a different work, and might be separated.

Now, some people above are making totally unwarranted and ridiculous suggestions. Obviously, I wouldn't want to lump everything on LT together. Obviously, I would never combine Four comedies with Five tragedies. Actually, I would never combine any records which have clearly different titles, as in A+B or C+A. Suggestions that I would do so really p*** me off.

I have only posted this thread to find a common rationale for grouping or separating books with a generic title such as X & Other stories (or "Poems", "Stories", "Selected stories" etc).

It seems most people think we should separate by distinctive editions, so then I suppose that is what I should do as well.

Does it mean: separate what is known, lump together what is not known?

I would also suggest to include the particular set of tales either in the disambiguation notice or a field in CK. This would be convenient for reference and save other combiners time who wonder whether some edition could be combined or not.

#32: edwinbcn "unwarranted and ridiculous suggestions. Obviously, I wouldn't want to lump everything on LT together"

Nor does anyone else, probably, but the suggestion is that we would gradually approach that state. Person A says "I don't see why X and Y should be separated". Person B says "I don't see why Y and Z should be separated". Person C says "I don't see why P and Q should be separated". Person D says "I don't see why X and Q should be separated".

Message edited by its author, Feb 14, 2009, 4:18am.

>33

Well, I see the opposite happening, with people gradually moving away from "works" back to specific editions.

Before long, some users will consider a specific foreword or afterword as an "essay" in its own right, and then they will want to separate those editions from other editions.

If LT want to be a social networking site, there will have to be compromises as to what is similar, not what is same.

It is the communalities that matter, more than the differences.

We do need a way to combine editions under works. It could well work like the new author splitting. I think a lot of us with issues on certain editions being put in the general pool would be happy with this. We can then talk at cocktail parties both about the work and in general, and also about the fact that I happen to own an early edition with special plates...

After collections.

Message edited by its author, Feb 14, 2009, 5:16am.

>35

I doubt "splitting authors" will do the trick. It has to be something more along the lines of interconnections from a work to all contributers. That system is already operational at a rival site (www.anobii.com). Every book is also listed under the name of every contributor. However, Anobii lacks the comprehensive systematicality of LT's authorpages, which is why I still prefer LT.

>36 The discussions above about the risks of wildly inappropriate combinations might seem to be an irrelevant reductio ad absurdam but, as I understand it, some such things have happened in the past, and taken a lot of time to fix. So, perhaps, don't feel too personally attacked.

There is another dichotomy here: I, and I think many other site users, value LT primarily as a bibliographical cataloguing tool. The social aspects are fun, sure, but optional and of secondary importance. I'm sure there are many LT-ers who would take a different view but, as you say, LT does do the cataloguing thing rather well.

I hope we can keep a 'broad church' and not get into arguments about which end of a boiled egg to eat first ;-)

It is a trade-off where we need to look at the specific case. As long as LT lacks "contains/contained in" and "is close to" association feature, collections of short stories will always be a mess. I think few prefer the ultimate atomization of editions.

I propose to enlarge edwinbcn's proposal (>1) with works based on significant permutations (titles that are also published separately under their own title, so Tobias Mindernickel is classic filler. Man and Dog is an edge case - I consider it filler too, as separate prints are due to its gift appeal to literary minded dog owners.)

(1) Death in Venice (single story edition / any ed. any translation)
(2) Death in Venice & other stories (generic multiple stories / translation)

Works with a significant difference (defined not by their Anglo-centric publisher but by the major works it contains):
(3) Death in Venice, Tonio Kröger, Tristan, and XYZ (Signet)
(4) Death in Venice, Tonio Kröger, Tristan, Felix Krull, Mario and the magician, and XYZ (Vintage)
(5) Death in Venice, Tonio Kröger, Tristan, Little Herr Friedemann, and XYZ (Penguin)
(6) ...

Isn't this a workable compromise?

By the way, if anybody wants to lend a hand in cataloging Mann's legacy library (715 out of 3.400 done), we surely could need some volunteers. As LT drops most of the NEBIS data and the import filter is a mess (it always adds Schriftsteller Thomas Mann), there is quite a bit of copy and paste involved. Just send me a message.

31> But if it's similar interests, then there's a lot more books that can be combined together; Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 1 (1939) through Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 6 (1944) could be combined together, because they're really interested in the science fiction of the early Golden Age, and The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick, Vol. 1 and The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick, Vol. 2 can be combined together, since they're really interested in the writings of Philip K. Dick. The editions of the work I split this way, Green Tea and Other Strange Tales, had one story in common despite having the same title; how can you justify combining on just one story?

I can imagine your version of Tim's cocktail party:

A: Have you ever been to the US?
B: Yes, I have.
A: Really? Where did you go?
B: Oh, we flew into Oklahoma City, visited family in northern Idaho, and then went up to visit Governor Palin.
A: Oh, we flew into San Francisco, took a quick hop to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and went up to visit Senator Kerry. Wow, your experiences must have been the same as ours!

The concept that they aren't talking about the same things at all doesn't sound absurd.

Yes, it leads to homophily. This whole system leads to homophily. If you don't like homophily, start hitting the random reader button. The way the system works is that you combine books with the same content, not books you believe has similar interests. Yes, it would be nice to have a system to recognize the connection between everyone who owns a copy of Isaac Asimov's Reason, whether it's in the anthology of 1944, or in I, Robot, or elsewhere, and every copy of J. Sheridan Le Fanu's Green Tea no matter where it's found, but this system doesn't.

Agree with #39. (And, btw, lol.) Different content means different work.

I refuse to allow the mere happenstance of two completely different publishers applying "The Selected Short Stories of X" to some volumes, and other publishers applying "A Selection of Short Stories by X" to other volumes, to being a more meaningful distinction than the actual contents of the work. ("The Award-Winning Short Stories of X" done midway thru X's life may be very very different than "The Award-Winning Short Stories of X" done posthumously, and someone seeking to read all the award-winning short stories is going to be very upset at being misled by a bad combination.)

As for the Germany example -- allow me to say, "Oh, you're from Australia? Do you know Jim?" I mean, really. There are some similarities between people who both visited Germany, or both visited Europe, but you're not going to be able to compare restaurants or museums or all kinds of other things.

Also, to *never* distinguish on the basis of translator is a very bad idea. It is frankly the case that translation can be a very big deal. Remember a few years ago all the people very excited about the new translations of Proust? What about if we could ever get a decent translation into English of The Second Sex? What about works that were translated in the 19th century and significantly expurgated, versus a complete translation done in more modern times? What about poetry, ferchrissake? Translation may not be of interest at *every* cocktail party but it is certainly of interest at a *lot* of cocktail parties. In fact I think we can say that if there has been enough *scholarly* interest in a work to generate two distinct translations then those translations are probably distinct enough to warrant separate entries.

Message edited by its author, Feb 14, 2009, 12:49pm.

> 40 : That would lead to an edition based system. Not that there's inherently anything wrong with that, but it's an fundamentally different choice.

I care about different translations for some works too - that's why I have some in several editions. But they're still the same "work".

> 41: Not necessarily. (Although my preference would be to have an edition level as well as having copy level and work level.) Many -- most? -- editions of works have basically the same content -- different editions of all kinds of stories, for instance, with only a different foreword or more or less footnoting or minor fixes.

But yeah, I don't think title is the be-all and end-all. Not only would I not combine radically different short story collections, but I also would not combine an author's short story/novella later turned into a full-length novel. Some of the same content & people at a cocktail party would have something to talk about, sure. But not the same work.

eta: Oh I think in retrospect, 41, that you were addressing only my translator point. So scotch my response. I do think reasonable people can differ on the translation question.

Message edited by its author, Feb 14, 2009, 1:10pm.

And which translation do you combine with the original?

>43

None of course. The translation is superior! (lol)

Might happen. I recall that the Swedish translator of... The Song of Roland, I think it was... smugly noted in the preface that he had kept the original metre, but since the original poet hadn't been skilful enough to rhyme, he had added the rhymes.