Melange means mix or blend. Melanger is the verb, meaning mixing.
Depending on the context, mélange can mean variety cf. ‘un mélange de styles’
A mix of styles?
Variété is a French word, meaning variety. If the interpretation used in the screenshot was the intended goal, then that word was available too.
Mélange can sometimes be interpreted as a “variety” in a figurative sense, it doesn’t directly translate to “variety” in the way variété does - there is semantic overlap.
This is why literature is dying. If it’s not literally, explicitly, no ambiguity at all stated, then it doesn’t exist. Have you never heard of what a pun is? It’s a literal play on words. Twisting them slightly for the sake of a joke.
People can’t understand this and then they jump on Reddit/Lemmy and have “discussions” where they do the same shit and can’t grasp any nuance or thought deeper than surface level.
what do you mean nobody talks about it? they call it “the spice melange” all the time so even if you have no concept of French you know that it’s being called a spice.
Sometimes I put pepper on my freedom fries, when I’m feeling adventurous.
Dune “cycle”? Is that what people are calling it? Like its an impactful series sure but has Herbert really reached the level of Homer?
Or is there some other reason?
Maybe OP is francophone, in French almost any series of books is called a cycle.
The Inheritance Cycle uses the same word, and I don’t think that has anything to do with “impactfulness.” What, to you, does it mean for books to be part of a Cycle? I thought it was another word for “series” tbh
I looked it up, a cycle refers to disconnected body of works that cover the same event such as the siege of Troy. A series refers to a linear body of works that cover different events, such as Dune and most other modern books.
So ya everyone downvoting me is straight up wrong. The op was wrong, and also I was wrong. Go figure.
A literary cycle is a group of stories focused on common figures, often (though not necessarily) based on mythical figures or loosely on historical ones.
From Wikipedia. Generally, a quick search agrees with everyting except “disconnected” which I cant find anywhere as a requirement
Actually this was wildly dickish of me. Thank you for sharing what you found. Those are pretty cool definitions, even if they differ from how I’d use the words
Paul, Chani and Princess Irulan are a melange-et-tois
I think about it all the time, actually
