Medellia's 2009 Reading

Right about now, the idea of a group where I can write about books I've not yet finished and little bits of other things (short stories and tales) is appealing. The first several months of the year, I was on track and finishing a lot of novels, but the past few months, I've been more heavily focused on school and creative projects. So my short attention span has changed my reading habits of late.

I am currently reading Proust, and I'm sure I'll still be at the beginning of '09. I'm stalled in the third volume (The Guermantes Way), but once the semester is over, I expect to be back on track. At the moment, I'm picking at little bits of Proust-related stuff: Proust Among the Stars by Malcolm Bowie, Proust's Way by Roger Shattuck, Letters of Marcel Proust, and Monsieur Proust by Celeste Albaret. As well, I've been reading from Andrew Lang's Red Fairy Book and Bruno Bettelheim's The Uses of Enchantment. And perusing some novels I read earlier this year. I look forward to journaling my potentially-as-unfocused reading in January.
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Updated reading list:

44. Jamilia by Chingiz Aitmatov
43. Sleeping in Flame by Jonathan Carroll
42. The Ghost in Love by Jonathan Carroll
41. The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton
40. The Longest Journey by E.M. Forster
39. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
38. Where Angels Fear to Tread by E.M. Forster
37. Howards End by E.M. Forster
36. Maurice by E.M. Forster
35. Solaris by Stanislaw Lem
34. Will in the World by Stephen Greenblatt
33. Diary of a Nobody by George Grossmith
32. The Riddle of the Traveling Skull by Harry Stephen Keeler
31. King Lear by William Shakespeare
30. Aspects of the Novel by E.M. Forster
29. The Little Prince by Antoine Saint-Exupéry
28. 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
27. The Painter of Signs by R. K. Narayan
26. Searching for Jane Austen by Emily Auerbach
25. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
24. Emma by Jane Austen
23. The Giver by Lois Lowry
22. Little Black Book of Stories by A.S. Byatt
21. The Annotated Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
20. Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
19. Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link
18. Outfoxing Fear by Kathleen Ragan
17. The Bride Price by Buchi Emecheta
12-16. Alexander McCall Smith's Sunday Philosophy Club series
2-11. Alexander McCall Smith's No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency books
1. Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault translated by Angela Carter

I recently read two books on the trot (or at least, parts of two books) which referenced The Uses Of Enchantment - The Book Of Lost Things and The Child That Books Built. Funny how it is keeping on cropping up...

I read The Book of Lost Things a couple of years ago, but haven't read The Child That Books Built--I'll check it out. There's also a novel by Heidi Julavits, also named The Uses of Enchantment, which I read earlier this year. (It's pretty good.)

There's also The Limits of Enchantment by Graham Joyce (I love Graham Joyce).

Oh yes avaland, The Limits of Enchantment is wonderful. What would you recommend next on Graham Joyce's list?

The Tooth Fairy, I think. I bit more menacing but well done.

Ooh, I don't know Graham Joyce--looks interesting. Another one (or two) on the wishlist!

I love Marcel Proust but have only read two volumes.

I've been working on the third volume for longer than I worked on the first and second combined, largely due to school and other distractions. I'm loving Proust as well--once I finish the book itself, I still have mounds of great criticism to sort through (I should really stop going to that section in the library :).

Found a couple of great critical works for those who love Proust and are also interested in mythology, religion, folklore, etc: Proust's Gods: Christian and Mythological Figures of Speech in the Works of Marcel Proust, and Supernatural Proust: Myth and Metaphor in A la recherce du temps perdu, both by Margaret Topping. I believe the former was her Oxford dissertation.

</i>#8 and #9 There's also a wonderful new art book out: Paintings in Proust: A Visual Companion to In Search of Lost Time. The book is a compendium of the all the art Proust references in À la recherche du temps perdu. It is wonderful.

Ooh, lovely, thanks. I put in a recall request at the library.

Here I am! I spent the last couple of weeks of 2008 in Texas, visiting family, and then I spent the first couple of weeks of 2009 battling what I suspect was the flu. That was my parting gift from the state of Texas, apparently. Word to the wise: get your flu shots if you haven't already, folks. My husband and I are very healthy and in our mid-20s, and this illness knocked us flat on our backs.

A chronicle of my reading since last time:
The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault by Angela Carter. A translation of the Mother Goose tales by Perrault--some of the classics, like Little Red Riding Hood and Blue Beard, and a few off the beaten path, like Ricky with the Tuft and Hop o' My Thumb. Carter's translations are lovely, simpler than the prose I've read in her own works, but still quite elegant. The introduction warns that she sometimes departs from the spirit of the originals (it's easy to see how these old fairy tales could spawn a response like The Bloody Chamber--as a female and a fan of fairy tales, I still occasionally want to whack the storytellers over the head every time I'm told that the moral of the Bluebeard story is that Bluebeard's wife should've minded her own business), so I've been reading an e-text available from my university library, a translation done in 1741. ("Histories, or tales of passed times. With morals. Written in French by M. Perrault, and Englished by R.S. gent." Seriously. How could one not immediately love that?!)

Unfinished:
The Magic Lantern of Marcel Proust by Howard Moss. Simple and straightforward so far. Would make a good introductory text, I think.

Paintings in Proust, which I have received from the library. Beautiful, beautiful book.

Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. Will return to this. Picked it up on vacation.

Just after Christmas, I finished Alexander McCall Smith's The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. I was delighted with it, especially as I wasn't sure I was going to like it, and I picked up the other 8 books in the series at Half Price Books. This turned out to be an excellent move, because once I fell ill in NYC, I spent a great deal of time in bed or draped in a chair, not wanting to read anything too difficult or too depressing. So I zipped through the next eight of these books at home:
Tears of the Giraffe
Morality for Beautiful Girls
The Kalahari Typing School for Men
The Full Cupboard of Life
In the Company of Cheerful Ladies
Blue Shoes and Happiness
The Good Husband of Zebra Drive
Miracle at Speedy Motors

They were the perfect "comfort books" for when I was sick--gentle, sweet, funny, not the least bit stressful. There are times when lack of suspense is a plus. The characters are simply drawn but eminently lovable, and I was surprised to find myself enjoying the plain (but finely wrought) prose. I thought the first book was the best (4 stars), the next three were quite good (3.5 stars), the next three fell slightly in quality (3 stars), The Good Husband of Zebra Drive was back up to 4 stars (but possibly because I'm a giant sucker for love and marriage, etc), and Miracle at Speedy Motors was about 3 stars. I still enjoyed the 3-star books, though, and frankly, I'll keep gobbling these books up if he keeps publishing them (the next one comes out in April).

Proust has fallen to the wayside during vacation and illness, and I may not get much Proust reading done in the next couple of weeks (I have a big project to finish). At these times, there's something to be said for the sweetness, the niceness, really, of the McCall Smith books. Proust is brilliant, of course, absurdly brilliant, and his snarkiness is quite funny, and he knows so much about human nature, and his neuroses and depression are really what enable him to see these things. But that doesn't mean that I don't very occasionally want to give him a hug, a nice, soothing cup of tea, and some Paxil, poor darling.

lol @ smoothing Proust. I'm just curious which Proust translation you're reading. The hubbie brought me the first book last Christmas but it's one of a set where only the first three books are available in the US for now (something about copyrights etc.). I tried to google around to find stuff comparing the translations (there is way more of that for Russian translations of stuff).

O, love Angela, I do.

Angela is awesome. There is not one books, among those I read, which I did not enjoy.

I love fairy tales, and have a few collections of them (some of my books are still in Italy, though). I read The Uses of Enchantment many years ago, for a psychology class at the university. Did you know that Bettelheim wrote it when he was in a concentration camp?
I am a big fan of Alexander McCall Smith. I am currently reading the daily instalments of Corduroy Mansions in the Daily Telegraph, which I get delivered to my e-mailbox every morning. It is very entertaining.

#13: I'm reading the ones to which you refer--the Penguin (Prendergast) translations. The first four are available in the US, and you can get the last couple of volumes from the UK, if you want. I ordered mine on Amazon Marketplace (US), through the Book Depository. The UK volumes are not as high quality as the US volumes, though--smaller print, thinner paper, less durable covers.

#14/15: Yes, I love Angela, too. :) There will be more Carter in store for me this reading year.

I didn't know that about the Bettelheim. Wow. I'll add that to my list of amazing things that people can accomplish under extremely adverse conditions.

#16, I also ordered the last two from the UK, from Amazon UK. The dollar/pound rate is better now than when I ordered them. You can also order direct from the Book Depository, which kidzdoc introduced me too, cheaper than Amazon and FREE shipping to the US, www.bookdepository.co.uk.

Thank you Medellia! And Rebecca! I must check out this Book Depository you speak of.

The thanks should go to kidzdoc, who gave me this amazing information last week.

Thanks to Kidzdoc then!

I don't know why it never occurred to me to order directly from the Book Depository--I've been using them on Amazon whenever I need a book from the UK. Thanks for jostling my brain into action, Rebecca. :)

>22 avaland: another thumbs up for the Book Depository, which to the best of my knowledge it is not cheaper than Amazon.uk but the no shipping fee is a plus. Interesting however, is that I've received only one book per package no matter how many I order. The only exception was when apparently I made a typo and double-ordered a brand new book - that package came with the two (same) books. I assume there must be some advantage to their sending one book per package. One drawback they have is that you can't preorder books, so you have to remind yourself to go back and check on it later on.

When I went to the Book Depository for the first time last week, they did compare their prices to Amazon (which I assumed to be Amazon.uk) and they were definitely lower. But you can' beat that free shipping. I ordered two books, so it will be interesting to see how they arrive.

ETA I didn't go to Amazon to check if the Book D prices were correct.

I love the Frankl, the first part, before the theory, is an amazing story.

I had to look up who you meant by the Prendergast translation - this is the new translation with a different translator for each volume? I went for the Kilmartin/enright revised translations thinking it might be more consistent - it'll only matter if I get passed volume 1 this decade. Look forward to reading more of your progress.

Yes, that's the new Penguin translation--Christopher Prendergast was the editor who oversaw the different translators. The translations from volume to volume are a bit uneven, IMHO--Lydia Davis' Swann's Way is excellent, but James Grieve's In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower is sometimes stilted and confusing. The Guermantes Way falls somewhere between this two, I think. I can imagine that the consistency of the translation would be a plus for the Moncrieff/Kilmartin/Enright (and I do plan to read that particular translation in full before I shuffle off this mortal coil--Proust will be a lifelong companion).

I agree with you, Medellia, about the uneven nature of the translators in general and specifically that Lydia Davis's was great, and James Grieve's was stilted. Since I was so absorbed by the brilliance of The Guermantes Way, I don't think I noticed the translation, which I guess means it was good! I should also add that I tried reading Proust without success at least three times over a period of decades before I read the whole In Search of Lost Time in this multiple-translator version, but I think maybe I had to reach my 50s to be able to appreciate it.

I enjoyed James Grieve's translation. While I admit, that the skill of translation varies from book to book in the new Penguin translation, I thought all the translators did an excellent job of highlighting Proust's comic moments. And all did an excellent job of pruning away Moncrieff's lavender prose.

What is lavender prose? I haven't read it in the french to know how accurate any of their prose is. The version I am reading is not simply Moncrieff but updated by Enight and Kilmartin - I haven't had an issue with any of the prose yet, but am not that far in I concede. I seem to remember one descriptive sentence I had to get my head around before realising what was being said somewhat poetically in fact. I didn't think the new translators used Moncrieff as a basis, so how could they prune him away? I don't mean to be grouchy, just confused first thing on a sunday morning.

#27, The most revelatory aspect of my reading of Proust was how funny he can be.

I've soon finished volume 3 of my Norwegian edition of ISOLT: The Guermantes Way, and I do like it so far.
I'll read the rest of In Search of Lost Time (volume 4-7) during the next seven months (approx.)
Marcel Proust is great.

#30: You've slipped ahead of me! I'll be back to Proust in a few weeks, though.

Since my last posting, I've read Alexander McCall Smith's Isabel Dalhousie series: The Sunday Philosophy Club, Friends, Lovers, Chocolate, The Right Attitude to Rain, The Careful Use of Compliments, and The Comforts of a Muddy Saturday. I swear I don't usually read this much fluff, folks (people who hung around my 50 books thread last year can attest). School has just begun, though, and I'm putting in a huge amount of work finishing up a composition for a March 1 performance (here in Manhattan). Gotta meet that deadline. So when I sit down to read at the end of the day, I need to read something that'll calm down the brain activity so that I can sleep.

At any rate, these books are charming, though not as good as the Ladies' Detective Agency series, I think. Isabel's philosophical musings are fun to read, but they get repetitive in the later books. The main effect of these books is that they've rekindled my desire to return to Edinburgh. My husband and I have spent all of two weeks there on two separate trips and decided that it's the greatest city in the world. Honestly, I've thought of trying to study for a year at the University of Edinburgh, even though it wouldn't be the optimal career move for a study-abroad (one of the electronic music studios in Paris would be a better idea). Ah, well--maybe someday.

In more highbrow lit, I've been reading from a collection of some of Bessie Head's short stories, Tales of Tenderness and Power (previously improperly combined with Maru, and the touchstone seems to be linking to that without giving me the option to correct it). I'm an instant fan. The stories have a warm, intimate feel, and Bessie Head has a charming wit. I feel a kinship with her: while she acknowledges the atrocities that we commit, she still seems to believe, or want to believe, in the basic goodness of much of humanity.

More on Bessie Head later, then. I also picked up an anthology which a lot of you might be interested in: African Love Stories: An Anthology. It's edited by Ama Ata Aidoo and contains 21 stories on the theme of love, all by female authors. The authors are: Leila Aboulela, Tomi Adeaga, Chimamanda Ngoza Adichie, Sefi Atta, Yaba Badoe, Doreen Baingana, Mildred Kiconco Barya, Rounke Coker, Anthonia C Kalu, Antjie Krog, Sindiwe Magona, Sarah Ladipo Manyika, Blessing Musariri, Monica Arac de Nyeko, Promise Ogochukwu, Molara Ogundipe, Helen Oyeyemi, Nawal el Saadawi, Véronique Tadjo, Chika Unigwe, and Wangui wa Goro. Here's some more info from the back cover:
http://www.newsfromnowhere.org.uk/books/DisplayBookInfo.php?ISBN=0954702360

Medillia,

Thanks for alerting us to the presence of African Love Stories: An Anthology. I'm going to check out the link right now.

Ashley, I heard Updike talking about Proust in one of the interviews reaired on "Fresh Air" (link on the Updike thread). I think he said he styled some of his early prose after Proust.

Thanks for letting me know, Lois--I'm running behind on thread reading these days, so I'd missed that. Going to check it out!

I may have more questions about Updike for you folks later.

Golly gee, I have a bunch of threads to catch up on! Lois, I'd say your group is a smashing success.

I had to take about a week off of reading--horror of horrors. It's a tactic I must use when I really, really have to get something done (in this case, my string quartet, which is now finished, woohoo!). So yesterday I curled up in bed with a couple of books and shut out the world.

One was The Bride Price by Buchi Emecheta. It's a very short novella that explores cultural institutions such as the bride price, the inheriting of a brother's spouse upon his death, former slave families vs. free families, and the tension between tradition and what one really desires. A simple story (it's YA fiction, I think) that would be suitable reading for many teenagers (NB: it does discuss menstruation and virginity). I have Emecheta's The Joys of Motherhood on my shelf, and I look forward to it as well.

I'm also halfway through a remainder that I picked up at Book Culture, Outfoxing Fear: Folktales from Around the World, anthologized by Kathleen Ragan. It's a collection of folktales on the subject of fear; the tales therein are mostly stories I haven't encountered, and I think the choices were spot-on, for the most part. The first story had me hooked: a tengu comes to menace an old Japanese woman in her little house. She asks him what he is most afraid of (thick brush) and he asks her in turn (her response: gold coins and rice cakes). When the tengu returns to find her house covered in thick brush, except for the roof, he exacts his revenge by jumping up on the roof and blanketing her in rice cakes and gold coins.

As the subtitle suggests, there's a good balance of stories from all different parts of the world, which helps boost the diversity of the content. These stories are entwined with a less interesting personal narrative--this collection was her response to her fears after 9/11--but I suppose I appreciate her candor. I can't ever figure out how writers manage to bare their souls to the world--I can hardly stand sometimes for people to hear my compositions, and I'm quite aware that the view through that window to my soul is an oblique one.

Ragan has another collection that she edited, Fearless Girls, Wise Women, and Beloved Sisters: Heroines in Folktales from Around the World. I'd like to pick up a copy of that one as well.

Today: I'm thinking about Ways of Dying by Zakes Mda. Interestingly, Emecheta's novel taught me that there is such a thing as "professional mourners" in Africa, people who are especially skilled at mourning and are paid to mourn for strangers at funerals. The protagonist in Ways of Dying is a professional mourner, and previously, I had assumed that this was part of the magic realist schtick of the novel. I didn't realize that they actually existed. The things you learn!

>35 Medellia:, I could be wrong on this, but I think there are also professional mourners in some Middle Eastern countries as well.

Yes, my Google research suggested that; in fact, there seems to be a long history of professional mourners, extending back to ancient Greece, Rome, and the Middle East!

I just finished The Joys Of Motherhood for my Africa read on reading globally. I haven't posted on it yet, but I loved it, and I suspect it will be my favorite read for February.

Haven't gotten to the Mda yet, but one of these days. I am back to my Proust reading and anticipate another little Proust ramble soon... stay tuned.

In the meantime, I've been reading short stories between my doses of ISOLT, from two authors who are new to me. The first is Ted Chiang, from his collection Stories of Your Life and Others. A big thank-you to bobmcconnaughey for this recommendation. I've read two of the stories, "Story of Your Life" and "Division By Zero," and both have been lingering with me ever since. No plotlines here: I don't want to ruin a word for anyone. But know that if you're looking for good science fiction short stories, this is the place to go.

The prose is admirably exact, each word chosen carefully. The ideas are fantastic, and the pacing masterful. The last year or so, my science fiction reads have been mostly underwhelming, so I was looking for something to redeem my faith in the genre. I just cannot look past bad writing--I really do envy sometimes the folks who love literary fiction and science fiction and can look past the faults the latter often contains and just read for the ideas. It's a thrill to find someone like Chiang, who has great ideas and writes well, and I think I'm going to be more careful about my SF picks from now on, so as not to find myself in another slump.

The other new author: Kelly Link, stories from her Stranger Things Happen. And, of course, how does one classify Link--fantasy, science fiction, magic realism, horror, or one of those newfangled labels like "New Weird" or "New Wave" or "New South Wales" or something. The stories that I've read so far are uneven in quality, but even the weaker stories still work their magic on me. "Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose," the first story in the collection, is a real gem. Everything fell together precisely at the end, in a way that the few other stories I've read so far haven't, really, so I find myself hoping that I'll see more of that from her. But if not, I can sit back and enjoy the dreamy, slightly disturbing atmosphere, the imaginative settings, the fairy tale quality. (Next up is "Travels with the Snow Queen," which I can only assume is playing off of the Hans Christian Andersen tale--it gives me a great excuse to pull out the beautiful Folio Society Complete Andersen that my husband bought me for Christmas!)

Quick notes on Stranger Things Happen, which I finished today.

I love this book. The stories that I found to be weaker have grown on me, and the best stories just get better. I saved "Travels With the Snow Queen" for last, and I was glad that I did: that story alone is worth the price of admission. Brilliantly conceived, funny, and oddly touching. I love Link's use of fairy tales--these stories come complete with lopped-off pinkies, trifold objects/characters/tales, talking animals, and musings on just how hard fairy tales are on females' feet. Sleeping Beauty is in there, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, the twelve dancing princesses, Orpheus and Eurydice, and more, all wonderfully reinvented and/or subverted.

So, for the stand-out stories, "Travels With the Snow Queen" was great (playing off of the Andersen tale as well as other well-known fairy tales);

"Vanishing Act" (a young girl's missionary parents leave her with her aunt, uncle and cousins, so the homesick girl learns how to "disappear herself" back with them, as her female cousin watches her household fall apart);

"Shoe and Marriage" (a three-part tale--a reworking of Cinderella, a honeymooning couple watches a surreal beauty pageant that includes Dorothy and her ruby red shoes as Miss Kansas (the beauty pageant scene is unforgettable), and the reluctant wife of a dictator saves the shoes of all the people that he has had murdered);

and as mentioned above, "Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose" (a dead man in a strange beach hotel writes letters to his still-living wife, whose name he cannot remember).

needless to say i'm glad and relieved being one of those who recommends this collection strongly. Personally i think it's really YA fiction (no, not really - though HS kids could certainly enjoy it).

Patty and I were wondering this evening if we should tag "goodnight moon" and "pat the bunny" as magical realism since this is becoming a near universal tag.

So we agree again! You're getting to be as bad as Lois--all these books that I simply must pick up on the strength of your recommendation.

Personally i think it's really YA fiction
Oh, no, we're not opening that can of worms on my thread. ;)

Funny, I checked the tags that I gave the three Link books in my library: Stranger Things Happen got "science fiction, fantasy," but Magic for Beginners and Pretty Monsters got "magic realism." That's what I get for going with the herd (I usually grab some of the most prominent tags off the main page before reading a book, then edit my tags after reading).

Do you have plans to obtain Pretty Monsters? That one is legitimately YA fiction.

Don't get Pretty Monsters. With one or two exceptions, it is compilation of material Link has published elsewhere. You can download freely and legally, a copy of Magic for Beginners here. The entire book used to be available for free; however, certain sections have been pulled for Pretty Monsters. I own a hard copy as well as a e-copy of Magic for Beginners. Get Magic for Beginners in hard copy.

You're right, that's probably good advice for Bob on Pretty Monsters--I forget that often people catch these stories in other publications. I didn't have 6 of the 9 stories in Pretty Monsters (3 were from Stranger Things Happen and Magic for Beginners), so I went ahead and grabbed a copy.

I love that Stranger Things Happen & Magic for Beginners are available for download. I have a couple of non-LT friends who are going to flip over her work, and this is a very convenient way to share. I do have hard copies of her work, though; I can't stand to read on a computer, and I figure that instead of going to the trouble of printing an ebook on my poor old printer (long may she live), I might as well just pay for a nice bound copy.

i actually have 'em all. Magic for Beginners is the better choice - but i found a couple of stories that i hadn't read elsewhere in Pretty Monsters that i liked alot.

Now, if like w/ music, if the kindle were not just cheap..but set up so one could buy specific stories, i'd be even more tempted!

We've been wondering what to do about older trade paperbacks - we were inventorying a few last night and the ones dating from earlier than ~ 1995 are getting to the point where our allergies is gonna prevent us from reading them. I really can't afford to replace 100s of books

I haven't bothered picking up Pretty Monsters after reading somewhere that much of the material is from the other two books. Not up to spending the money on a collection for just a couple of stories.

We've been wondering what to do about older trade paperbacks - we were inventorying a few last night and the ones dating from earlier than ~ 1995 are getting to the point where our allergies is gonna prevent us from reading them. I really can't afford to replace 100s of books
I have the perfect solution: ship them all to me. I'll give you full visitation rights and will even provide the Benadryl. ;)

Seriously, though, I didn't understand what you meant by books and allergies, so I did some Googling--I assume this is a mold allergy? Is it the sort of thing you can see, or are we talking microscopic spores? The horrors of not being able to be around old books! You have my sympathies.

My problem with some of my older paperbacks (going back to the late 60s) is that they literally fall apart if I try to reread them, not just the spine cracking but the paper disintegrating. I had to buy a new edition of The Magic Mountain when I wanted to read it, even though I had been visualizing the yellow cover of my original copy for decades!

Rebecca, funny you should pop in and mention that--the only book I've had fall apart on me somewhat while I read it was my copy of The Straight and Narrow Path. A 1956 paperback, which was in good shape when I received it. The paper is holding up fine, but the spine cracked and a section in the middle fell out. I better start collecting hardcover copies of all my favorites, eh?

Wow, Bob, it may not be serious, but it sure sounds like a pain. I'm glad you had good docs to figure out the problem, and I hope that it continues to be well-managed. You have my sympathies!

I think kidzdoc just read a Proust; thought you might be interested;-)

Thanks, Lois. I did spot it on his thread, and in fact, Book Culture has been dangling it in front of me for months. Every time I stop by (which is altogether too often) I'm tempted--one of these days I'll break down. :)

I bought my copy of The Lemoine Affair by Proust at Book Culture in January. It's now become my favorite NYC bookstore, over Strand (too crowded) and St. Mark's Bookshop (too much attitude from the Village wannabes).

dang, he caught me telling on him:-)

I like Book Culture too, but it was really better in its previous incarnation as Labyrinth Books. One of the neat things about Book Culture if you live in or near NYC is you can order books from their web site and they'll e-mail you when they're in so you can pick them up at the store (thereby enabling you to spend all the money you saved on shipping costs -- and more -- on books you didn't intend to buy when you walked in the door). My favorite NYC bookstore isn't in the same league as BC or St. Marks or Strand in terms of size or breadth of books in stock, but it is cozy and friendly and the owners/staff really know their books: Crawford-Doyle on Madison in the 80s. I have often found new (to me) and interesting authors on their fiction display table, and they will order anything.

Kidzdoc, I agree about Book Culture. St. Mark's and I never clicked, and Strand is great, but I have to be in the mood to fight the crowds, and I've more or less given up on ever searching for anything specific there. Book Culture also has a good, targeted selection of books on music and cheap scores.

Rebecca, I'm a recent transplant to NYC, so I never got to visit BC back when it was Labyrinth--too bad. I'll have to visit Crawford-Doyle; it sounds lovely.

Here's a collection to put on your wishlist, medelia. The first story begins with this:

Sheila split open and the air was filled with gumballs. Yellow gumballs. This was awful for Stan, just awful. He had loved Sheila for a time, fought for her heart, believed in their love until finally she had come around. They were about to kiss for the first time and then this: yellow gumballs.

The Ant King and Other Stories by Ben Rosenbaum.

Rebecca, I didn't start going to Labyrinth Books until a couple of years ago, and I dpn't appreciate the differences between then and now. I do like the staff there, and the selections are pretty good. What was better about the old store?

When I lived and worked in NYC I mainly went to Strand, St. Mark's, the flagship B&N on (I think) 5th Ave & 18th St...and a used bookstore at the WTC. There was a great used bookstore in lower Manhattan that I used to go to as a kid in the late 60s and early 70s, near the WTC and the Job Lot, and close to a wonderful cheese shop, but I and my parents can't remember where it is -- or was.

I'll definitely check out Crawford Doyle the next time I'm in the city. Do you guys know of any good bookstores in Brooklyn?

#57: You and your bad influence. It looks wonderful--like so many of the Small Beer Press books, which I've been paying attention to since the Link. Perhaps I'll order a copy from Book Culture, along with the copy of Abraham Verghese's Cutting for Stone, which kidzdoc has left me powerless to resist.

Kidzdoc, I'll confess I don't often make it into Brooklyn. Rebecca will have to field that one.

The other bookstore I occasionally visit is Shakespeare and Company on Broadway--and for a silly reason, which is that they have a store cat (oh, I miss pets). I doubt I'd go there otherwise--the selection is much smaller than at Book Culture, and the staff is usually downright surly.

Brooklyn -- sorry! Since the days when I used to spend time there, Brooklyn has changed so much that I have no idea where the good bookstores are.

BookCulture vs. Labyrinth: I can't quite put my finger on it, and by now I've gotten used to it being BookCulture. Labyrinth was a bit more focused on the academic (not that I'm an academic by a long shot, but that was one of the factors that made it different from other bookstores), and I'm surprised sometimes now at some of the fiction BookCulture doesn't have . . . but they will always order things.

Shakespeare & Company: When I first moved to the upper west side, there was a S&Co less than 10 blocks from my apartment. Of course I got off the subway one stop early so I could go to it all the time. I thought I would be devastated when they closed (one of the first stores to succumb to a huge B&N -- which actually is a very good store!), but the staff in the store were so so snobby that it turned out I didn't miss them at all. (They looked at you in disgust if you wanted to find a "popular" book.) Of course, that was when Coliseum Books was still at Columbus Circle -- I loved that store.

The flagship B&N: When I was a child that was the ONLY B&N and they were still a textbook retailer (new and used)!

Sorry to hijack your thread with bookstore reminiscences, Medellia!

Hijack away! That's what these threads are for, hm? At the S&Co I visit, it's less a matter of snobbiness than of laziness--asking them to do anything for you, including ring up your book purchases, will garner you the glaring of a lifetime.

While I'm here, I suppose I could put in a few words about my recent reading, which includes:
-more Ted Chiang (still good stuff)

-The Annotated Pride and Prejudice. I didn't mean to get sucked into Jane Austen, but you pick her up and just can't quit. I just picked up the annotated edition, and I must admit, it's clarifying a fair amount that I hadn't quite understood before. With some of the notes, I find myself saying, "Yes, that is quite obvious"--but then, savvier readers than I may be saying the same to the ones that I found enlightening.

-Little Black Book of Stories by A.S. Byatt. I've read the first 3 of 5 in this little collection:
"The Thing in the Forest"--two little girls who are evacuated to the countryside in WWII see (or think they see) a terrible creature in the forest, which overshadows the rest of their (parallel) lives. The ending was spot-on--without giving away too much, I'd say that it's about the power and purposes of storytelling/fiction.

"Body Art"--A coldly rational OB/GYN's life is turned upside down by a young art student. Quite good.

"A Stone Woman"--This one fell flat for me. The descriptions are just beautiful, but the glacial pace was frustrating. I get it, she's turning into stone. Would you just please finish petrifying her so that I can get onto a story that actually has a plot? ;)

edit: fixed touchstones... edit again: or not...

Everybody's posts on Cutting for Stone convinced me. I downloaded a copy to my Kindle last night.

(that's what she calls it, but really we know...)

>61 Medellia: no one should apologize for reading Jane Austen! I'm watching the adaptation of Wharton's Buccaneers while I exercise and thinking about Austen all the while. Different time, different story but I can't help but think that Jane would have loved it.

at #61 you sau more Ted Chiang. How much more has he written? I'm only aware of stories of your life Is it all good?

#62: You kids and your "technologies"... *Medellia shakes fist from her rocking chair on porch, scans for kids on lawn* ;)

#64: You're right, Lois. I'm less guilty about reading Jane than about my short attention span these days. I'm picking at little bits of so many books that I may never actually finish anything!

#65: Speaking of picking at little bits of books, sorry to be unclear--I meant that I was reading more stories from the same collection (Stories of Your Life and Others), which I've not yet finished.

>66 Medellia: I seem to always have several short fiction collections ongoing at any one time. Currently, that's two; which is why #3 is always something different.

Where are you, Medellia? Come back to us! I'm reading a little magical realism and thought of you:-)

How nice of you to stop by! I do love my magical realism.

Actually, I'm ashamed to say that I've done almost no (pleasure) reading in the last month, and I probably will get about as much done in the next month. I have a couple of qualifying exams coming up in a few weeks, plus my coursework is really picking up. I saw on your thread that you turned in your research project--congrats! Hope you enjoy your return to the 21st century. :)

So...the puny update:
I finished A.S. Byatt's Little Black Book of Stories. They were all beautifully written, but I found myself frustrated by the words to content (plot) ratio. I think that I'll enjoy her work much more if I'm reading a novel rather than a short story--she should have more room to tell a story in the longer form. I do have Possession: A Romance in my future, and I still look forward to it, whatever my misgivings about this collection.

I picked up Lois Lowry's The Giver on a whim at Strand a few weeks back and read it in my spare hours that evening. I actually enjoyed it--I'm not usually a YA fan, so I'm always surprised when I find something that works for me there. (Sorry, Bob. :) If I'd known that one of the major themes was "memory," I might've read it sooner.

I am about 1/5 of the way through Jane Austen's Emma. My first time through. It's great for my lifestyle at the moment--laugh my way through a chapter just before I go to sleep. I was a little apprehensive about Emma, because I've seen so many people say that her character annoyed them. But, maybe because I entered the book prepared to make myself like her, I find that Emma is quite endearing. "Aww... she's flawed. I love her anyway." And her father gives me a good laugh every time he speaks. I always love Jane Austen's hypochondriacs.

I also read the titular story of Karen Joy Fowler's Black Glass. If the words "zombie Carry Nation" don't induce you to pick it up, I don't know what will!

>69 Medellia: Glad you are still among the living. Darn, that schoolwork stuff just gets in the way, doesn't it? :-)

I was just trying to read an essay on Okri's work, but the academic rhetoric was just a little too thick - it took all the enjoyment out of it. Anyway, the academic writing this essay referred to Okri's use of "non-realist narrative modes." I do sort of like this phrase, as I often feel "magical realism" is overused as a one tag fits all sort of thing. And the word 'magical' comes with its own baggage. There are times, I'd rather find a phrase that fits somewhere between the two...

Darn, that schoolwork stuff just gets in the way, doesn't it?
I know, how dare they, right? :)

I remember running into an essay online about Okri--a mass of jargon impenetrable to the outsider--and thinking, really? This is what literary criticism has come to? But maybe that's just me.

I do like that phrase, though. I feel a bit guilty, anyway, calling Okri's work magical realism--I understand he doesn't care for the phrase. I've seen terms in Okri-lit-crit like "shamanic realism," which I hardly think is an improvement. So... kudos to you for ferreting out the good part of an otherwise unenjoyable essay, hm?

You've done a good deal of reading in literary fantasy--or you know, New Wave, slipstream, etc. Whatever gets us on the same page. Do you have a list of things that, for you, separate magical realism from these other types of works? I'm not really overly concerned with genre labels, so it's not a vitally important question to me, but I wonder if your superior literary knowledge can help me settle the question. I think the only fairly consistent quality I've spotted in magical realism that sets it apart is the frequent use of circular narratives (cyclical structures? not sure what will make this clear to a literature person), large- and/or small-scale. Any thoughts?

let me suggest Memory by Margaret Mahy. New Zealand author Mahy gradually shifted her writing to suit older and older audiences (perhaps just taking her original readers along over time). But Memory - ah finally found the touchstone - is a v. moving, and quite profound, story about a 19 yr old insomniac plagued by the memory of his sister's death who more or less by chance befriends Sophie, who is losing her memory to Alzheimer's.

#72: How did I know that you'd come up with some wonderful recommendation? :) I found a copy on Bookmooch (which I obtained with the points bequeathed to me by another lovely LT member), so it will be headed to my apartment soon.

*goes waltzing off, singing the praises of LT and the people therein*

>71 Medellia: I will have to think on this, it may be just quality of writing or seriousness of subject or perhaps the intent with the use of magical realism (and do we include the surreal here?). I have not done a study on the subject, but I do enjoy it in it's various forms and in books of varying 'styles' (as opposed to using the word 'genre'). Perhaps, when you have more time available, we should start a thread and pick people's brains. btw, I came across a site today that mentioned Tahar Ben Jelloun's surrealism, which you might be interested in. http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Jelloun.html

My goodness. What a semester this was. I am dreadfully behind on people's threads. If I had been doing any appreciable reading for pleasure during the semester, I would have been behind on logging my reading. But at last, these past few weeks, I am back to having my nose in a book.

Thanks, Lois, for your response--I did read it quite some time back, though I didn't reply. The Sand Child has been on my wishlist for a while.

I finished Emma, and I have to say, it's quite possibly my favorite Austen novel. (Persuasion provides some healthy competition.) I think that of all of Austen's protagonists, Emma had the longest way to go in terms of self-knowledge and self-correction, and I really liked that--made the last part of the book all the more powerful. I found the characters very memorable and the humor side-splitting (I learned not to take a sip of tea during any conversations involving Mr. Woodhouse).

I was so pleased with Emma that I continued to Mansfield Park, the last Austen novel that I hadn't read. I was not disappointed. Fanny Price, like Agnes Grey, falls into the category of sweet, shy, thoroughly virtuous heroines that I love so, so much.

As well, I'm back to Proust, hardcore. Finished The Guermantes Way and am deeply immersed in Sodom and Gomorrah. I don't feel right without my daily dose of Proust. My dear Marcel just has me pegged: for example, this passage from The Guermantes Way:

"People of past centuries seem infinitely remote from us. We cannot venture to assign to them any underlying motives beyond the ones they formally express; it amazes us to discover some sentiment that is roughly akin to our own feelings in a Homeric hero, or some skillful tactical feint by Hannibal during the Battle of Cannae, where he let his flank retreat in order to encircle his enemy by surprise; it is as if we imagined these two figures, the epic poet and the general, to be as remote as animals at the zoo . . . We are so astonished that bards from the distant past should have modern ideas that if, in what we assume to be an old Gaelic poem, we come across an idea we should have thought of as highly ingenious in a contemporary, we fall back in amazement."

...which came just as I was marveling to myself, for the thousandth time, "I just can't believe how much he understood about human nature! How did he know all this?? I mean, he lived in the past!" :)

Expect more Proust ramblings as the summer goes by...

I'm a Persuasion gal, myself (although me thinks Mansfield Park is underappreciated. Good to see what you are reading.

I agree about Mansfield Park. I can't imagine why someone wouldn't love Fanny Price (though I know that plenty of readers don't), and I appreciated the deeper look into the class issues of the time--at least, relative to Austen's other work. The reason I had left Emma and Mansfield Park for last was because I had seen so many mixed reviews, even from Austen fans, but part of my encouragement in proceeding to Mansfield Park was an excellent review by the LT member wisewoman:
http://www.librarything.com/work/10107/reviews/43852210

#75 - the quote has me eager to read more, when I actually get to do some reading.

Can't believe I left this for so long. Too many other things going on. Catching up, I have read:

Searching for Jane Austen by Emily Auerbach. A combination of biography and commentary on each of Austen's novels, plus a consideration of the minor works.

The Painter of Signs by R. K. Narayan. A short, bittersweet delight.

Solaris by Stanislaw Lem. Trippy.

84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff. Charming, but I must admit that after all the rave reviews I've seen, I expected a little more? Still, I enjoyed it.

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Clearly I missed the boat, having not read this in childhood. That one sailed too long ago for me to enjoy this. I'm immediately suspicious of any book that tells me that children see the world so much more clearly than adults. The trials & tribs of being an adult are a fair exchange for not being nauseatingly talked down to.

Diary of a Nobody by George Grossmith. Hilarious Victorian humor.

Will in the World by Stephen Greenblatt. I don't usually enjoy biography, but this one grabbed me. A nice combo of fact, speculation, and commentary.

Some of What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew by Daniel Poole. A lot of interesting info, but I think it could have been organized better, and sometimes there are sections that leave me with more questions than answers.

And The Riddle of the Traveling Skull by Harry Stephen Keeler. My husband and I read this out loud to each other. It's trash mystery lit from the '30s, and a rollicking fun ride. See my review here.

As well, in more serious extended projects, I'm poised at the brink of Time Regained (or Finding Time Again, as my translator would have it), the final volume of Proust. The Prisoner and The Fugitive were amazing. They get a bad rap for some reason, but I was sucked into the spiralling claustrophobia and panic of the narrator's world. The sense of absence after Albertine's death is astounding, so spooky. I've begun working on a couple of short movements for flute, harp, and viola based on my impressions of these two books. (Gotta justify all this time I spend in the world of literature, you know. ;)

I took a break between those two volumes to focus on King Lear. This marks the beginning of my long-long-term Shakespeare project, my first foray into S. since high school. I was young and stupid then, and I didn't much appreciate what I was reading. So the plan is to pick up a play, read it, check in with some of the major S. scholars, watch an adaptation (on video or on stage, as $$ permits), and reread. I chose Lear first because my husband has been itching to get me to read this for ages, so that we could discuss it, and we have had a lot of nice back-and-forth.

My other project of late has been E.M. Forster. I read A Room With a View last year and loved it, and while idly flipping back through it I realized how much more there was for me to find. I just adore Forster. You know those people whom you just want to tell, "Thank you--for being you"? He's one of those for me.

I hadn't even heard of Forster's Maurice before I spotted it in the bookstore recently. An Edwardian homosexual love story with a happy ending, just imagine. Written in 1913/14, not published until 1971, after his death--and I'm so glad it was. My review of this beautiful work is here.

I've also read Howards End and Where Angels Fear to Tread recently, as well as Aspects of the Novel. I plan to write a review of Howards End, which I also adored, when I can wrap my head around it a bit more. There's just so much there, it's so dense and profound. One of the major themes involves seeing the whole of a thing rather than part by part--as it stands now, I'm only seeing Howards End bit by bit and not as a whole. I'm sure there will be so much for me to find when I reread it. Aspects of the Novel is a good read, too, especially the last chapter. The second-to-last chapter, on "Prophecy," was over my head. I'll need to be more widely read and older and wiser to understand it, I suspect.

I still have two of Forster's novels left to read, and the short stories, and then I'll immerse myself in some critical works, and then reread. Most of this will take place after I finish Proust. (And during the school year! Oh heavens, it's creeping up on me again.)

Medellia, can we swap lives, so I can read what you're reading? just for a couple of days maybe?

I loved the painter of signs. Narayan has been a bit neglected of late, overshadowed by the younger and more noisy magic realists, but his books are great.

Excellent review of Maurice. Eagerly awaiting Howard's End. (I always wondered whether the title of this novel was a homosexual in-joke. what do you think?)

Welcome back, Medellia! I enjoyed your review of The Riddle of the Traveling Skull; I have the McSweeney's edition, and will read it soon.

Yes, welcome back, Medelia! I always look forward to reading about your reading.

Yay welcome back Medellia!

I didn't enjoy solaris much at all - but love the films, I find that trippy.

Howards End fantastic - a friend assures me that if I like that then a passage to india is an even better ride and I have it waiting for me.

Your success with Proust I am well impressed by, I now think I should restart volume 1 - I love it but find him hard work, and I spiral off in day dreams, which is not good with less time to read these days.

>80 Medellia:, wow, I am impressed. You are reading some great stuff. I really like the idea of your Shakespeare project and have been thinking about doing something similar myself. I find that when I just read a Shakespeare play, I really don't get much out of it. Maybe it is the unfamiliarity of the language, maybe it is that plays are meant to be seen & not read - I don't know. But I am thinking that if I read & watch, I might get more out of it.

I'm newly in love with E.M. Forster myself after having read a couple of his short stories in The Celestial Omnibus. I hate when people say this, but the only word I can think of for them is magical.

Hi everybody! Thanks for the welcome back.

#81 tomcatmurr: Howard's End--HA! I am wiping tears from my eyes. Narayan was yet another author I found out about here on LT--somebody's thread here in Club Read, actually, can't recall whose. As soon as I browsed a couple of his works, I knew I'd love him. (PS, re: switching lives: one Freaky Friday coming up! You can lounge around with Forster and Proust and not clean up my apartment, just like I'm doing. :)

#82 kidzdoc: I hope you enjoy it! Read in the right light, it can be quite entertaining. The last sentence of my review is the only major problem: the "ethnic stereotypes" were occasionally cringe-making. They seemed as satirical as the rest of the novel, but still. I continue to be amazed by your reading thread, btw, with you knocking off book after amazing book. You're unstoppable!

#83 avaland: Hi Lois! I've been following your thread, too, of course, and you have been a very busy lady! It sounds like you're doing great work, though, so congrats.

#84 Hi Tony! I found Solaris to be a pretty average read, nothing really special. Thought I might like it more, but oh well. Maybe I should give the films a try? If I pick only one of them, do you have a preference as to which? I think Tomcat would join your friend in his opinion of A Passage to India--I'm saving it for last. Proust takes so much mental energy (but so rewarding), and I know I wouldn't have the brainpower to tackle Infinite Jest and ISOLT at once!

#85 fannyprice: I saw that entry in your reading thread about the Forster stories! I've only read one so far, "The Machine Stops"--it's in a different collection from the 6 in The Celestial Omnibus. I was surprised at how good the story I read was, and that I hadn't encountered it in any discussions of dystopian lit before. Have you read the title story, "The Celestial Omnibus"? I've heard good things about it, and it'll probably be the next short story of Forster's that I read.

I have the russian Solaris on vhs i think, but never watch it -- I watched it when younger, it is long I seem to remember. I remember it as very good - but I was quite young when I first saw it, it opened my eyes to the possibilities of Russia a little and imagination even at that time. The newer version has some dylan thmoas for some reason, a soundtrack i bought and love and mr clooney (not sure if that would be a good thing from your point of view or not), I also liked his co star but she doesn't get to do much. Its shorter. I guess from memory I associate more depth with the russian one, don;t disliek the newer one, its kinda swisher.

I can understand saving Passage to India to last -- but then again I am also impatient sometimes, not sure Forster has connected quite as powerfully with me as you - but intrigued by these lesser known works. But so much else to read and am no further forward with Murakami or Mitchell yet for example.

As to Infinite Jest and Proust at the same time - no I couldn't cope either, effectively Proust has sat untouched for over a year (bad bad bad Tony!).

OK, if I get around to watching Solaris, then I'll watch the Russian version. Speaking of films, have you watched the Merchant Ivory version of Howards End? I hear it's quite good. Hubby and I may watch it next weekend. We have watched the Merchant Ivory Room With a View and Maurice. Both were enjoyable films, though I had some quibbles over a few character portrayals in A Room With a View, and Maurice was choppy at the beginning. It improved about halfway through, and I suspect the whole thing would improve upon rewatching. Of course, the movie is never the book, you know, and I felt that Maurice especially was so inwardly directed that it lost a lot onscreen. (Oh, and I don't usually "squee" about pretty actors, but the cast of Maurice is super hot. :)

I've pretty much done the Murakami tour, but I still have Black Swan Green left for Mitchell. And I hear we're getting a new novel from him next year, which is exciting. And of course Murakami has a new doorstopper out, so I assume we'll be seeing a translation in 2 or 3 years.

Do not chastise thyself, friend, for Proust will forgive all. Proust is patient, Proust is kind; he is not jealous--oh wait, strike that last part. ;)

I enjoyed the film of Howards End -- and I loved the book. I think M&I did a great job of picking what to include, what to leave out, and the casting was great too.

As for Proust, I tried off and on for decades, and I finally was ready in my 50s! So one year on the shelves (#87) -- nothing!

I enjoyed the film of Howards End -- and I loved the book. I think M&I did a great job of picking what to include, what to leave out, and the casting was great too.

Great to know, Rebecca--sounds like I have a movie night coming up, then!

I have seen the film version of Howards End and like it. Oooo super hot Maurice actors eh? I will have to watch!

Yes, Proust is kind, it is nie to know it awaits. Rebecca I take your point about a year - I know I love it, but it is so time consuming.

Tony, when I finally read Proust, I did it over the course of a year or so, mixing it up with other reads.

I have posted a review of Howards End:
http://www.librarything.com/work/17951/reviews/48379855

Wonderful review!!!!!! Splendid!!!!!!!

Mrs Wilcox (if I remember rightly) is the character who said: "How do I know what I think until I see what I say?"
Is that right?

I always thought that was an exceptionally wise and witty observation on Forster's part.

IMO all the MI productions of Forster are beautifully made and faithful to the books. ARWAV is gorgeous, as is Maurice.

#94 tomcat: Why, thank you!

Actually, the line you're thinking of came from an anecdote that Forster told in Aspects of the Novel. From the way he tells it, I'm not sure it was originally his. It's in the chapter on Plot, during the discussion of Gide. (I found it easily as I had underlined it and written an exclamation point in the margin. :)

Yeah, you're right, the MI productions are great. I'm just a big picky-pants when it comes to adaptations.

Proust quote of the day:

"In reality each reader, when he is reading, is uniquely reading himself. The writer's work is only a kind of optical instrument which he offers the reader to enable him to discern what without this book he might not perhaps have seen in himself." (I seem to remember Joseph Epstein quoting this in an essay in his collection In a Cardboard Belt. A lovely musing on Proust and a hilarious savaging of Phyllis Rose's memoir The Year of Reading Proust.)

Also, since I'm reading Forster lately, there's a much-quoted passage by F. on Proust:

"I was hoping to find Proust easier in English than in French, and do not. All the difficulties of the original are here faithfully reproduced. A sentence begins quite simply, then it undulates and expands, parentheses intervene like quick-set hedges, the flowers of comparison bloom, and three fields off, like a wounded partridge, crouches the principal verb, making on wonder as one picks it up, poor little thing, whether after all it was worth such a tramp, so many guns, such expensive dogs, and what, after all, is its relation to the main subject, potted so gaily half a page back, and proving finally to have been in the accusative case."

I only wish Forster had written more on Proust. There are some very clear, concise comments in Aspects of the Novel and an essay in Two Cheers for Democracy!. I think there's also a little essay in Abinger Harvest, which I don't own yet.

In reality each reader, when he is reading, is uniquely reading himself. The writer's work is only a kind of optical instrument which he offers the reader to enable him to discern what without this book he might not perhaps have seen in himself.

Brilliant. And the Forster quote is a delicious English parody, an enactment of the kind of sentences Proust writes. Forster was a sly old fox, really.

Thanks for putting me right about the quote. I feel it's just the sort of thing Mrs Wilcox would say, though, don't you?

I feel it's just the sort of thing Mrs Wilcox would say, though, don't you?
Yes, I think so!

I enjoyed your review this morning before work, it brought it all back to me. I didn;t have time to reply though. Also like the Proust quote (and, though a little less, the Forster on Proust quote which to be fair does remind me of the exact experience of reading P very well!). I have either seen that Proust quote elsewhere or its in the Combray (combrai?) section of volume 1? (I neeed to know!)

Mrs Wilcox is fantastic - and Vanessa Redgrave I found just right in the MI production.

Glad you enjoyed the review--I thought about PMing you a link, since you've read it. But you saw it anyway. That Proust quote was from the final volume, so you must've run into it elsewhere.

Ok, I really must watch Howards End! I just hope that Ms. Redgrave's skirts are sufficiently long and trailing.

I seem to recollect the costumes are most satisfactory :)

Thanks about the quote and the thought about the link - i really enjoyed the review, a good start to the day.

I watched Howards End last weekend. When the first scene opened with a shot of Mrs. Wilcox's sufficiently long skirt trailing through the grass, I pumped my fist in the air and shouted, "Yes!", greatly startling my husband. Great film, great cast.

A terrible thing has happened: I have finished In Search of Lost Time. What does one do in a world where one has read all of that wonderful, wonderful work? (Read a bunch of Proustian criticism, maybe Jean Santeuil, too, then reread ISOLT with the smarty-pantses in the Salon Litteraire? Yup, that's the plan.) Review forthcoming--as if one can actually review Proust. Maybe in a couple of weeks, as school started today and I'd do best to focus on that for a little while.

Also finished lately, The Longest Journey by E.M. Forster. Review of that later, too. I'd recommend Howards End, Maurice, and A Room With a View before The Longest Journey, but it was still worth reading (and as his second novel, I thought it was a great improvement over Where Angels Fear to Tread, his debut).

From The Longest Journey:
"It was worth while to grow old and dusty seeking for truth though truth is unattainable, restating questions that have been stated at the beginning of the world. Failure would await him, but not disillusionment. It was worth while reading books, and writing a book or two which few would read, and no one, perhaps, endorse. He was not a hero, and he knew it. His father and sisters, by their steady goodness, had made this life possible. But, all the same, it was not the life of a spoilt child."

Read a few of Forster's short stories this weekend (from Selected Stories, the Penguin edition, which contains the 12 stories that were published during his lifetime). It was the right time for them; The Longest Journey has some autobiographical elements--the protagonist, Rickie, wants to be a writer and pens short stories that have an element of fantasy. So did Forster, apparently. I was pleasantly surprised by how imaginative some of these short stories are, and how similar and different they are to his novels. "The Celestial Omnibus" in particular is a fun little romp.

Forster has been leading me to other things, among them the essays of Montaigne, which I have in the Everyman's Complete Works of Montaigne edition. As the kids on the internet say, "zomg!" Where have you been all my life? He was a favorite of Forster's, but he's not unrelated to my Proust reading, as both are French-y masters of subjectivity. Montaigne's essays are himself writ large, and well-suited to the "reading of oneself" mentioned in the Proust quote a few posts up. Marcel, Michel, and Morgan are totally my guys of the year.

Also reading some stories from Narayan's Malgudi Days. And I delved into Walt Whitman (Leaves of Grass, 1855 version) for the first time yesterday. Hubby and I took the train out of town for the day so that we could see green and not hear cars. It was tremendously restorative. Of course, now I just want to run off into the greenwood with Forster and Whitman and others. There is someone down in the street below who has been leaning on his horn off and on for twenty minutes. Clearly this city does not wish me to be restored for long. Hubby and I also toted Emma with us. We're reading it out loud to each other (and having a great time perfecting our Mr. Woodhouse and Harriet and Mr. Knightley voices).

So I'll pick at lots and lots of little things for a while, indulging my fractured attention span while I get into the swing of things; more on all these things as time goes by. In a few weeks, I think, Les Miserables and A Passage to India are on my plate. My reading year may have started out slowly, but I'm feeling tremendously inspired these last few months.

Whoa! I'm impressed.

I promise to impress you less now that my vacation is over. ;)

*storms of applause and a chorus line of kitties in tuttus*

Congrats on finishing ISOLT!!!!! In reply to your question, what does one read after Proust: read it again IN FRENCH!

Seriously, why not read loads of criticism about it now and really get into it? ALong with Santueil, I would also recommend Gerard Genette's groundbreaking and excellent
Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method (totally useless and recalcitrant touchstone) which is an extended study of narratology, with all the examples taken from Proust.

Alternatively, why not write an opera........

love your review and quote from Forster. love it.

and of course, Walt Whitman, love him too, and Montaigne.... in fact, Medellia, I think you are me!!!!! OMG!!!!

Trippers and askers surround me,
People I meet, the effect upon me of my early life or the ward and city I live in, or the nation,
The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old and new,
My dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues,
The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love,
The sickness of one of my folks or of myself, or ill-doing or loss or lack of money, or depressions or exaltations,
Battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful news, the fitful events;
These come to me days and nights and go from me again,
But they are not the Me myself.
Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,
Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary,
Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest,
Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next,
Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it.
Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with linguists and contenders,
I have no mockings or arguments, I witness and wait.

Congratulations!

#105 tomcatmurr: My French translation skills are dreadful, I'm afraid. I have Spanish and, to a lesser extent, Italian, both of which have been pretty un-useful in my academic and reading life, while French would actually be terrifically useful. I really ought to take a reading course in spring or summer.

Thanks for the nudge on the Genette. I have it checked out from the library already, so I'll make sure it's toward the top of the pile. Maybe I'll pop on over to Book Culture, looks like they have a reasonably-priced copy in stock. Then I can deface it with notes and dogearings like I like to do.

and of course, Walt Whitman, love him too, and Montaigne.... in fact, Medellia, I think you are me!!!!! OMG!!!!
:) LolaWalser also recently decided that she and I are the same person, so we three shall make a glorious Trinity.

Thanks for the Whitman, I did indeed read that very passage next to a whispering stream in the woods. Wonderful.

#107 wandering_star: Thanks!

Yay congrats Medellia!

we started at similar times and you have left me in the starting blocks.

Could it be like painting the forth bridge? when you finish you need to start again? (I think its the right bridge, mayeb the golden gate for americans?)

Glad you found the Howards End forcks sufficiently flowing - I don't think I have seen it since I read the book and look forward to my next chance. MI are normally pretty good at that side of things.

Montaigne has been near the top of my TBR list and yet consistently bypassed for about 5 years.

Tony: Could it be like painting the forth bridge? when you finish you need to start again? (I think its the right bridge, mayeb the golden gate for americans?)
Ah! A cultural reference that flew past me. Thank you, Google. Apparently they say that the task will end soon, for a while, anyway (ruiners!):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/7250560.stm

Pick up Montaigne sometime if you get the chance. He can be had in very small doses--many of his essays are very short, and all are delightful, as near as I can tell so far. For years I avoided Montaigne as I passed him on the bookstore shelves simply because his was a giant honking book with the word "ESSAYS" on the spine. Lord, I do hope that I'm getting slightly less silly as each year passes.

Speaking of short, delightful things, I read a fun little story from Forster earlier, called "Co-ordination." It unraveled in the last few pages and didn't say much of anything, I'm afraid, but the opening few pages were great. It opens with some pairs of schoolgirls playing a piano duet version of Beethoven's "Eroica" Symphony for their music teacher, Miss Haddon. All played badly, and Ellen was the worst until Dolores and Violet came. This is followed by a hilarious scene of Beethoven in Heaven, with his clerks, who apparently record all Beethoven-related activity that happens on Earth.
--------
Beethoven interrupted. "Who is this Miss Haddon," he asked, "whose name recurs like the beat of a drum?"

"She has interpreted you for many years."

"And her orchestra?"

"They are maidens of the upper middle class, who perform the "Eroica" in her presence every day and all day. The sound of it never ceases. It floats out of the window like a continual incense, and is heard up and down the street."

"Do they perform with insight?"

Since Beethoven is deaf, the clerk could reply, "With most intimate insight. There was a time when Ellen was farther from your spirit than the rest, but that has not been the case since Dolores and Violet arrived."

"New comrades have inspired her. I understand."

The clerk was silent.
----------

This was followed by an equally funny bit with Napoleon. The clerks tell him that several of the schoolgirls were reciting Wordsworth's "Once did she hold the gorgeous East in fee," and that Dolores and Violet attempted to recite it, but failed.

"The poet there celebrates my conquest of the Venetian Republic," said the Emperor, "and the greatness of the theme overcame Violet and Dolores. It is natural that they should fail."

LOl sounds wonderful!

'It is natural that they should fail', I love it -- but but but was Nap in heaven?

Yes I must improve my Montaigne efforts - i think the size of the book puts me off, I have so many big books that are unread or that I am only a minute few hundred of pages into. How are you on Pascal? I love his wager - hmm have I mentioned that before?

I thikn I had heard about he Forth bridge getting finished and have chosen not to believe it! (or remember it)

Yep, Napoleon was in Heaven. Forster's Heavens are never quite what you expect. He has another interesting short-short called "Mr Andrews," in which a respectable English Christian and a polygamous infidel-killing Muslim enter Heaven because they each pray that the other will be admitted. But once they enter, they find that they create their heavenly experience according to their imagination and expectation and not their hopes. Because they can't imagine anything infinitely good or beautiful, they cannot experience it; they are limited to white flowing robes and scads of dark-eyed maidens, respectively.

I read some Pascal back in my high school days and loved him. I picked up his Pensees for a dollar this summer, but haven't (re)read him yet. His wager always sounded to me like the kind of thing you'd come up with while chatting with some friends over a few beers. Which is not at all to disparage it--indeed, I have a high respect for beer talk.

I am 200 pages into Les Miserables and enjoying it very much. It's a very big book, but easy to nibble at little bits here and there when I can.

Today: Variations on a theme:

"We are all patchwork, and so shapeless and diverse in composition that each bit, each moment, plays its own game."

"I give my soul now one face, now another, according to which direction I turn it. If I speak of myself in different ways, that is because I look at myself in different ways. All contradictions may be found in me by some twist and in some fashion . . . And whoever studies himself really attentively finds in himself, yes, even in his judgment, this gyration and discord. I have nothing to say about myself absolutely, simply, and solidly, without confusion and without mixture, or in one word."

--both from Michel de Montaigne

"Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)"

--Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself"

"I was not one single man, but the march-past of a composite army manned, depending on the time of day, by passionate, indifferent or jealous men--jealous men who were never jealous of the same woman."
--Marcel Proust, from The Fugitive

"No matter how we go about it, we cannot be all of ourselves at once. Narrow light beams of perception and of recollection illuminate the present and the past in vivid fragments. The clarity of those fragments is sometimes very great. They may even overlap and reinforce one another. However, to summon our entire self into simultaneous existence lies beyond our powers. We live by synecdoche, by cycles of being."
--Roger Shattuck, from Proust's Way

Love the Variations. When may we expect the music for it? The LT Choral Society is waiting anxiously.

Great post, Medellia!

*gasp* I had your OTHER thread starred, Medellia, and thought you'd dropped off the LT earth way back in March! And now I find you've been here all along! I am sending you a glare from the other side of the world... and looking forward to catching up on this thread soon as I can :)

#116 urania1: *little scream* *duck* My compositional plate is full at the moment. Don't make me break out into a cold sweat again!

#117: Thanks, cat.

#118 ChocolateMuse: Awwww, I'm sorry. :) Yeah, I found that I just wasn't any good at keeping up two threads at once. I kept thinking I'd update my other thread--you know, later--and of course never got around to it. I didn't get around to Psmith either, yet, but school's starting to pick up and I think I may need some Wodehouse soon. :-p

I see you recently added Les Mis to your library! As you can see in #115, I've started reading it myself, and I think it's wonderful. But I've been stalled the last week or so. There'll be a group read Dec - Feb in Le Salon Litteraire, if you're interested.

In the meantime I'm continuing to pick at little bits from the many volumes I have mentioned above. I'm also getting Halloween season started early with The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton. They're of the (Henry) Jamesian psychological ghost story type, and much more interesting than any other spooky tales I've read. You have the married man who seems to be having an affair with a dead woman, the man who is haunted by a pair of horrible ghostly eyes when he does something kind (but insincere) for another person, the old millionaire whose ghostly double reveals to an outsider his hidden malice, a house haunted by dogs, and the unhappily married woman who, upon meeting her true soul mate in the afterlife, decides that she must wait for her husband and be bonded to him for eternity, for he would never be happy without her. Oh, and lots of adultery. I have five of these stories left, and I'm particularly interested to read "Pomegranate Seed," in which a man receives letters from his dead wife. (Makes me think of Kelly Link's "Lily, Lily, Carnation, Rose.")

Anybody else read literary ghost stories? Any stories I should definitely read this season? I just ordered The Ghost Stories of Henry James, Elizabeth Gaskell's Tales of Mystery and the Macabre, and a volume of Le Fanu's ghost stories. Plus I have the Virago Book of Ghost Stories. (Made it almost a month without buying books. Then the perfect storm of Lois's thread, a hankering for ghost stories, and seeing new books from my favorite authors--Kazuo Ishiguro! Richard Powers! Richard Russo!--made me cave. OK, I need to make it another month now...)

Ooh, that's definitely going on the wishlist...

>119 Medellia:,

I recently read this ghost story about a composer who had a great composition task that she should have accomplished a long time ago. She fell into the clutches of a bookseller who turned out to be none other than the ghost of . . .

I think we should all ponder the aforementioned story from time to time. Methinks I see a lesson in there somewhere.

urania goes off to contemplate the beauties of her navel and to meditate on the ineffable mysteries of life

Meddy, have you read M. R. James? I finished his Collected ghost stories in a gorgeous Folio edition recently--recommended!

#121: :) (Or, uh, :-p )

#122: Yep! I did James during October of last year--he's great--and I have been lusting after that Folio edition. *sigh* I haven't renewed yet. I'm hoping they'll up the offer to something I can't resist.

#119 I've read The Turn of the Screw, but nothing else I can think of. Unless the Haunting of Hill House is considered literary.

>119 Medellia: I seem to lean towards the Gothic rather than the ghost.

Hi Medellia - I have been reading a lot of Michel de Montaigne quotes recently which has me interested in his works. Jenny Diski is obsessed with him, as I read through her stuff recently.

Ghost stories? Methinks another obsession is looming on LT. That James set of stories sounds like fun.

I also lost you on the other group!!

Medellia, (can I also call you Meddy? It's so lovely)

Check out Fantastic Tales edited and introduced by Italo Calvino. Not strictly ghost stories but an excellent compendium of the spooky, the uncanny and the generally creepy.

#124 solla: My only experience with Shirley Jackson is "The Lottery"--I've considered buying We Have Always Lived in the Castle before. I like those Penguin deluxe editions.

#125 Lois: Gothic is usually ok in my book, too, so if there's something I just must read, let me know!

#126 kiwidoc: Yes, sorry to fall off the radar. I haven't read Jenny Diski--do you have anything to recommend? I see also that she's married to Ian Patterson, who was responsible for the Penguin Proust translations that I have enjoyed so much this past year.

#127 tomcat: Feel free to call me Meddy--and oooooooh, I am so excited about that Calvino! My heart goes pitter-patter for his works, so I imagine I'll enjoy the introduction as much as the stories.

Yes Medellia - I recently read The Sixties by Diski, which is really a personal memoir, commentary about that period. Of course I was barely alive then, but I did enjoy it, although it is a very English take. Her book On trying to keep still has all the Montaigne quotes, but I did not enjoy that one so much. She writes a lot for LRB and NYBR etc. and her social commentary is caustically witty.

#128 Well, I think the Haunting of Hill House is a pretty enjoyable and creepy(in a good sense) read.

#119 Thanks - I just had a look around in Le Salon Litteraire, and though I like the idea, I retreated rather hurriedly. The discussions there are a little... formidable? I don't go to LT to be competitive, and I think I prefer the fuzzy and friendly atmosphere of the Challenge threads. However, I will keep lurking in Le Salon and see what I think over time. I do want to read Les Mis - and Proust also, and I imagine a shared read of them would be helpful.

#131 - I have an idea what you mean, but there are actually quite a few of us non-formidable types lurking around the salon. I suspect you haven't yet run into PekoeTheCat. You can read a review by her here: http://www.librarything.com/profile_reviews.php?view=PekoeTheCat

Seriously, you'd be welcome, and I would enjoy reading any comments you had about your reactions to the books.

I find the Salon not competitive at all, but friendly and interesting. I always learn something from the salonistas and the humour is great. Now, the Literary Snobs group, THAT is horribly competitive.

Meddy, did you see this? I think it will be right up your boulevard.

http://www.librarything.com/work/902859/reviews/27163730

#131: I also understand your finding it formidable, I feel myself a child among the giant brains there sometimes, but I agree with Murr & solla--I don't feel a competitive vibe. In addition to the erudite commentary, there's a whole lot of silly fun and friendship, and we're all learning from each other. But if it doesn't do it for you, then continue to lurk and enjoy--I admit to being a longtime lurker there. Only recently have I popped my head up more often.

#134: Exciting! I must have it. I agree with Makifat's review, all books are best taken with a pot of tea this time of year. (Whisky is hubby's domain.)

While I'm here, the update: I finished The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton. Good stuff, recommended. Now reading a story here and there from the Virago Book of Ghost Stories.

I read two books by Jonathan Carroll this week--thanks to Lois for the recommendation. They make good palate cleansers, as they're entertaining stories, but nothing deep or difficult. I enjoyed The Ghost in Love more than Sleeping in Flame--the latter starts off as a realistic narrative (not Carroll's strong suit), and the crazy fantastic elements didn't enter until I was already a bit bored.

The Ghost in Love is a fun story--Ben hits his head on curb and doesn't die like he's supposed to, due to a virus in Heaven's computer. His ghost (a woman named Ling) is told to stick around and watch him. Other crazy things start happening--his dog learns to talk after he sees "a piece of his past" on the street, Ben begins to find himself transported into another woman's body, and so forth. It kept my interest all the way through. I'll admit I did occasionally wish, as I often do with this type of novel, that the plot & premise had been handed over to a writer with a fancier hand at prose and more of a philosophical bent. Carroll has stated that he's out to write a great story and not transmit something profound, but gosh, if you're going to bother writing about life and love and death, I wish you'd go for something a little more.

Last night I read half of Jamilia, which I also found on Lois's thread. It's very short, so I expect I'll polish off the rest today. I was reading under the influence last night, so I might re-read the first half today as well.

under the influence of what? Catnip? Herring? Vodka? All three?

Influence of the vodka type--more specifically, cachaça, sugar, and lime. Also influence of the 20th century solo piano type, as I had just returned from a concert down the street. A nice strong caipirinha renders Wolfgang Rihm almost listenable!

I have heard two performances of Jonathan Harvey's wonderful Tombeau de Messiaen in the last two weeks. Let me recommend it to avant-garde classical music fans.

Thanks, I'll hang around more and try not to be intimidated :)

I am stressed out this week, so I have found myself rewatching the 1983 adaptation of Jane Eyre, with Timothy Dalton and Zelah Clarke. (Hooray for Timothy Dalton!) Have also been rereading my favorite passages. Jane Eyre is good comfort food.

Have also been reading more of Les Miserables. For a book with so many characters facing so many dire problems, it's surprisingly comfort-foodish as well. Anybody watched any (non-musical) adaptations of Les Mis? After I finish the book (it'll still be a while), I may be ready for a film version, if there are any good ones. And I'll watch the musical which, believe it or not, I've never seen or heard.

Jane Eyre and Les Miserables are two of my favorites (sadly I don't have any film recommendations). I find them both comfortingly hopeful in tone.

>140 Medellia: gawd, I have that Jane Eyre adaptation on VHS! yummy. Love that one. I have the very young Timothy Dalton in a rather dreadful Wuthering Heights adaptation also.

Seems there was an adaptation of Les Miserables I used to see every once in a while, I forget who is in it now...(or what era it was...)

...and there is the later adaptation of Jane Eyre with Toby Stevens, who is eye candy too.

I have only seen one adaptation of Les Mis, and it's unusual for me to recommend this kind of film because it deviates quite a bit from the events of the book, and I am generally a very firm purist. It's the Liam Neeson version, a two-hour film.

Yes, Neeson is too young to play Valjean. Yes, they had to cut out all kinds of backstory. Yes, they tweaked some things (like Valjean breaking parole instead of stealing again after leaving Monseigneur Bienvenu). Yes, they hinted that Valjean and Fantine *might* have fallen in love. Yes, a lot of things had to be rushed (like the relationship between Cosette and Marius). Yes to all this :(

But somehow I love it anyways. The music (by Basil Poledouris) is absolutely breathtaking, one of my all-time favorite film scores. It ranges from epic to sweetly intimate, and the melodies are very memorable. I think I love the music more than the actual film. This is making me want to play it today at work...

I think they stayed faithful to the basic spirit of the book. Uma Thurman does a great job as Fantine, and Geoffrey Rush *is* Javert. Chillingly so. I also like Neeson a lot as Valjean, despite his age and two jarring moments in the script.

There are other adaptations out there, but I'm not familiar with them. I'd like to see more versions too. But anyhow, there are my quick thoughts on the Neeson Les Mis. If you watch it, I hope you don't hate it! It's just a good film in its own right, and no two-hour movie could possibly hope to cover the whole of the book. For what it is, I like it.

Meddy, if you're a fan of Jane Eyre, you gotta read John Sutherland's essay "Can Jane Eyre Be Happy?" Oh, oh, apparently there's a whole book with that title (I read it in a Folio collection)... Can Jane Eyre Be Happy? More Puzzles in Classic Fiction.

Dalton was great and perfectly Sturm-und-Drangy as Rochester, but way too pretty for some of the lines ("oh, so you think I'm ugly, Miss Eyre" or whatever it was).

Have you seen the movie with George C. Scott and Susannah Yorke? And there's one with Orson Welles too.

ETA: Welles! Decidedly not pretty! And so right--there's the menace, the egotism, the rapacity... not to mention the manly manliness straight girls inexplicably like.

Lois, I've heard that Wuthering Heights is pretty bad. Once hubby & I finish reading Emma to each other, we plan to move on to WH. Maybe afterward we'll give the Dalton a try--if it's too bad we could "Mystery Science Theater 3000" it.

Kiwidoc, I didn't get on with the 2006 adaptation at all, but then I'm a purist! They changed the dialogue, which gets on my nerves, and replaced it with some really awful lines. The cast seemed competent, and the cinematography beautiful, but I just couldn't take it...

Thanks, wisewoman! I'll give it a try next month, probably, and adjust my frame of mind accordingly. Only two hours for Les Mis!! Heavens. After 5+ hours of the 1983 Jane Eyre, I thought, "Well, it could have been a little longer... after all, they cut out this line, and this one..."

Lola, that book looks like fun! I did a search on Amazon and found out that it was a follow-up to his similar book, Is Heathcliff a Murderer?. I have them both on my wishlist now.

You're right, Timothy Dalton is too pretty to be Rochester (also too tall), though he does at least match the description of being dark with very defined facial features. Ah, but he can't help being gorgeous. :) Of the adaptations I've seen, Michael Jayston in the 1973 version comes closest to lacking physical beauty, though he's not dark and craggy like I expect.

I haven't seen the Scott/Yorke or the Orson Welles versions. They're on my "TBW" list. There's another one I haven't seen, with Ciaran Hinds, but I hear it's awful.

Medellia, you haven't read Wuthering Heights yet? I've actually read a book you haven't? *grins* I adored it, though it seems that is not a common reaction. Full thoughts here: http://www.librarything.com/review/14524980 (though be warned it's a bit spoilery).

I look forward to your thoughts on that adaptation of Les Mis!

Actually, I read Wuthering Heights in high school... but I don't count anything I read in my adolescent days as something I've read. :) I hated it, but I hated a lot of great lit then--how often I want to go back and kick my teenage self. Hubby insists (and insisted at the time) that I wasn't giving it a fair shot and that I'd be really interested in the structure at the very least. Since I do remember much of the plot, I'll go read your review! You won't be spoiling anything.

I doubt I'm more well-read than you; in fact, I despair at how many years I wasted on a literary diet of 90% crap. I'm young yet, but I think to myself, I could get hit by a bus tomorrow and then I will never read War and Peace! The Brothers Karamazov! Middlemarch! Madame Bovary! Most of Shakespeare! *sigh*

Zomg must go read Hugo now!

I could get hit by a bus tomorrow and then I will never read War and Peace! The Brothers Karamazov!

Medellia, you wicked and foolish woman, you should never say things like that. Now spit on the floor and knock on wood three times.

Murrushka,

It could be worse. I could be run over by a bus tomorrow having wasted the last week on The Octopus and not having finishing Crime and Punishment. I am weeping already.

Murr - Wow, you really are me! ;) (OK, I didn't spit on the floor. I'm the one who does the cleaning around here. But I did knock on wood when I wrote that.)

Ha, urania, bless your heart for sticking with The Octopus. I bailed before it ever began. Glanced at a few pages online, turned up my nose, and did not look back.

It would have been better if it had actually been about an octopus. They're interesting creatures. I had a dream last night about the movie Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, which I watched, MST3K style, with my brother-in-law this past summer when I visited TX. They left it open for a sequel!

You guys are all a crack up! Medellia, I completely forgot you started your thread up again. I was lurking over in WWs thread and saw you'd linked yours here.

>139 ChocolateMuse:...Chocolate Muse, nice to meet you. Hi, I'm Enrique. I want you to know that it pains me deeply that tomcat, solla, urania, lola, wisewoman and medellia undoubtedly too, have "scared you away" (for lack of perhaps a more accurate descriptive) from the salon with their erudition. I want you to know that in no way do I support their "scare-away" tactics, and I'll be speaking to each privately very soon, I can assure you, so that their brainy breaches of etiquette can be quickly corrected....

I agree with WW that that 1998 version of Les Miz is a good version. I've seen three others but only one came close to the Neeson and Clair Danes version.

Confessional: I read the first 54 pages of the Octopus and then quit. I can't believe you stuck w/it Urania! Wise decision, those of you who didn't partake. Really cool seeing so many of my favorite people here!

We've been slandered, Chocolate. This is obviously a diversionary tactic by Enrique to divert attention from his 3000 book library which one of his personas claimed to be superior to any other. Please repudiate these tactics, as the scarlet E he has affixed to my chest is really beginning to hurt.

how could I possibly scare anyone away? I am a tiny, cute, cat. Miaow.

>154 tomcatMurr:, it's the tiny, cute ones you have to watch out for. They snuggle their way in and then scratch up the furniture!

#152: tomcat, solla, urania, lola, wisewoman and medellia undoubtedly too, have "scared you away"
"Undoubtedly"? Well, I never--!

(Why was it so hard to find a picture of a fainting dowager? Isn't this what Google is supposed to be for?)

I know it's really cool seeing your favorite people here! We've been waiting for you for, like, forever! Now the party can begin!

Thanks for your endorsement of the '98 Les Mis. I'll take it under advisement.

#154:

Murr? Is that you?

The very picture as I live and breathe!

I don't know if you guys have ever seen the animated movie The Emperor's New Groove... at one point the villain is turned into a fluffy kitten and starts declaiming her evil plots in a squeaky little voice. This conversation is reminding me of that :P

Murr, I didn't know you were an alien kitty! (promises now to stop hijacking Medellia's thread!)

Oh, please, hijack away. It draws attention away from the fact that I haven't gotten enough reading done lately. ;)

ww, that in turn makes me think of one of The Onion's finest moments:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/51603

hahahah
now that is more me. Thinking of Murder everyday.....

>156 Medellia:,

Where did you find that picture of Great Aunt Martha - still in a catatonic state (thank god)?

Take 'em off the rack Enrique, I'm almost convinced. There's something about kitten pictures that somehow takes the intellectual edge off things. Now, if only WW would stop being so scary, I could probably handle the rest of you.

It must be the vicious guard dog in my profile pic. Or maybe the sunglasses, hmm.

all right all right; everybody's off the hook, except solla and her scarlet E - I like that!

Medellia, I just picked up Julie Rose's recent trans. of Les Miz, is that the one you've been reading? I read both intros and the chronology and I love the notes. I think I'll take your advice and join over here soon and use Club Read not so much as a reading journal per se but a place to keep notes on Hugo & his work, starting out at least.

urania- Google knows all. :)

#165 'Rique: Nope, I went with my own instincts & your thumbs up and am reading the MacAfee/Fahnestock translation. (Sorry, wisewoman, I know you prefer the Wilbour! I do own it and will read it someday.) But I'll be rereading Les Mis along with the rest of you good folks in December, and I plan to read the Julie Rose then.

Have you looked through the Rose translation? The flavor looks quite a bit different to me. A great deal wordier than the M/F, sentence to sentence. The dialogue has more individual flavor, which I may like, though some of it strikes me as jarringly slangy. The notes look good. Jean Valjean's name, for example, I don't know if you saw that--I never would've thought of it if they hadn't spelled it out for me, that "the val- of Jean Valjean suggests 'John is worth John,' or 'John is as good as any other John.' " Nice!

Yes, join us, 'Rique! One of us! One of us!

ChocolateMuse- There's something about kitten pictures that somehow takes the intellectual edge off things.

Are you sure? Because this guy looks like a pretty formidable brain:

Hahaha! That is SO gorgeous. It looks like the formidable brain is a bit too much for that small head.

Is it on purpose, do you think, that it doesn't actually say 'Edumacation'?

I am going to look for the Wilbour translation of Les Mis, if that's the one that wrapped wisewoman in its world for a few blissful weeks like she was saying on another thread. You're all allowed to raise the intellectual pressure back up from kittens to arguments about translations... I think I'm almost ready for it.

lolcats have syntax and spelling idiosyncrasies unique to their universe...
http://icanhascheezburger.com/ has become an institution - now w/ "physical" books to their doings. Though over the last yr, lolspeak has become somewhat less standardized.

John is worth John — fascinating.

Yes, Wilbour's translation is my favorite. I am pretty sure that's the one that calls the Thenardiérs' inn a "greasy spoon." Perfect.

#168/169: Yes, isn't it funny that we can look at that lolspeak and say, "Edumaction? I think they meant edumacation!" :)

#170: Actually, I believe that Julie Rose's new translation is the one that used the phrase "greasy spoon." I remember because Graham Robb took issue with it in this article:
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/articl...

Those who are interested in some commentary & criticism of the various translations of Les Mis, with a particular focus on the Rose, you might give the article above a whirl.

>165 absurdeist:, yes, Enrique do, it will be great to follow your thoughts on Les Mis!

Is Rose's tranlsation in paperback yet?

#172: Is Rose's tranlsation in paperback yet?

Yep. Just spotted it in the bookstore a few weeks ago.

> 171, Thanks, I think, Medellia - I read that article and now I can't decide which translation to use.... Maybe I should read them both in tandem... (joking, honest, only joking).

Thanks for posting the article on Les Mis translations, Medellia.

Fascinating to see how the two authors took a piece of Hugo's work and gave such different slants. I want to read any translation without censorship or 'tasteful' editing. If Hugo wrote it slangy, then that is how I want it.

I have the Rose translation.

Great link Medellia!

I just got the Rose translation in pb and like it, though I really like the Wilbour translation too (what I've read of it) and the first time around was the Signet pb translation (two translators on that one, forget their names) which I also thought was a great trans. - not that I necessarily know what makes a translation great or not - but it flowed and read well. I hear the Rose translation is the most colloquial of the three, and it includes minor swear words like "hell" that the other translators "cleaned up."

174...excellent idea! Read them side by side. We look forward, don't we everyone, to hearing your exegetical comparison contrasts!

Can't help but pipe in and ask: what is all this translation speak? Just read the original. ;)

#174 ChocolateMuse: I had considered reading Rose & MacAfee/Fahnestock side by side, but I figured instead I'd read once through the latter now, and then read the former with the group in December.

#175 kiwidoc: Yes, with all the types of translations and individual tastes, I bet most readers here will agree on glaring at the the Norman Denny translation, with his little "improvements" to the text (ie, dropping out little bits here and there wherever he pleases). Quelle horreur!

#177: Ooh, dirty words! Very exciting. I like the Signet translation (MacAfee/Fahnestock)--it's great for a first read, very straightforward and clear. The Wilbour has more poetry to it, though.

#178 lilisin: :-)~ Even if my French translation skills were up to snuff (they're not), I suspect that 1000+ pages would do me in. *le sigh*

...is Enrique poking fun at poor li'l me... or is he actually serious...??? Shall I have to tell him I don't even know what 'exegetical' means?

>179 Medellia: Medellia, your scholarship and devotion astound me. I intend to read Les Mis once, just once, fall madly in love with it, and then move onto something else, namely Moby Dick, and fall in love with that. This matter of reading every possible translation of something as massively huge as Les Mis sounds to me something like marriage for life.

Oh well, vive l'amour and all that huh... I hereby hand over the onus of exegetical comparison contrasts to Medellia with good grace. *leans back in chair and closes eyes...*

*opens one eye* I like what you say about Wilbour and poetry. I'm inclining back towards that one now.

179...so far, I've come across the before mentioned "hell," and today at lunch, are you ready?..."bastard"! Woo-hoo! The Rose translation rocks!

180...sorry 'bout the ambiguity. I was poking fun.

#180 ChocolateMuse: The best way to handle our dear 'Rique is to just assume that there is an implied "winky face" after each of his sentences. Occasionally this is not the case, but it'll be a rare enough occurrence that you won't have to worry about it.

( ;) )

Medellia, your scholarship and devotion astound me.

Clearly, I have you fooled!

Wilbour! Wilbour! Wilbour! :)

Though I will say, the greasy spoon line does make me curious about Rose. Thanks for correcting me there, Medellia; I must have gotten mixed up from another discussion elsewhere.

As for marriage for life, it can't be avoided with a book like Les Mis. However, that doesn't mean you have to read it nonstop. Annually should be quite enough ;)

Hmm, for some reason I can't get Medellia's article to load. I will have to try again on a different computer.

A comparison of three translations of a passage from Les Miserables that both 'Rique and I favor:

"Il se penchait sur ce qui gémit et sur ce qui expie. L'univers lui apparaissait comme une immense maladie; il sentait partout de la fièvre, il auscultait partout de la souffrance, et, sans chercher à deviner l'énigme, il tâchait de panser la plaie. Le redoutable spectacle des choses créées développait en lui l'attendrissement; il n'était occupé qu'à trouver pour lui-même et à inspirer aux autres la meilleure manière de plaindre et de soulager. Ce qui existe était pour ce bon et rare prêtre un sujet permanent de tristesse cherchant à consoler."
(original French)

"He inclined toward the distressed and the repentent. The universe appeared to him a vast disease; he perceived fever everywhere, he auscultated suffering everywhere, and, without essaying to solve the enigma, he endeavored to stanch the wound. The formidable spectacle of created things developed a tenderness in him he was always busy in finding for himself, and inspiring others with the best way of sympathizing and solacing; the whole world was to this good and rare priest a permanent subject of sadness seeking to be consoled."
(Wilbour)

"He inclined toward the distressed and the repentent. The universe appeared to him a vast disease; he perceived fever everywhere, he auscultated suffering everywhere, and, without trying to solve the enigma, he endeavored to stanch the wound. The formidable spectacle of created things prompted a tenderness in him; he was always busy finding for himself and inspiring in others the best way of sympathizing and comforting; the whole world was to this good and rare priest a permanent subject of sadness seeking to be consoled."
(MacAfee/Fahnestock)

"He gravitated toward those in pain and those who wished for atonement. The world seemed to him like one massive disease; he could feel fever everywhere; everywhere he heard the rattle and wheeze of suffering in people's chests with his special stethoscope and, without seeking to solve the enigma, he tried to stanch the wound. The awesome spectacle of things as they are produced in him compassion; his sole concern was to find for himself and to help others to find the best way to sympathize and bring relief. All that exists was for this good and rare priest constant grounds for the sadness that seeks to console."
(Rose)

MacAfee/Fahnestock is essentially the Wilbour translation with modernized language. I was sorry that they changed "sympathizing and solacing" to "sympathizing and comforting," a good example of how they sometimes remove a certain gracefulness from the Wilbour text. ("kneeling in the shadows" becomes "kneeling in the dark" elsewhere, and so forth) On the other hand, M/F's choice of punctuation in the final sentence is much better; Wilbour seems to have missed the semicolon somehow.

The Rose, again, I have mixed feelings about. Is it just me, or does it seem clunky? Especially the last couple of of sentences. "All that exists was" grates on me, but it seems to follow the original French, perhaps? It does make clear the meaning of "auscultated," though the phrase "special stethoscope" strikes me as ridiculous. But there are some nice word choices-- "awesome" instead of "formidable" made the connotation very clear for me, for example.
---------------------------
edited to add one more translation by Norman Denny (Penguin classics version)
***I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS TRANSLATION***--see message 205 for more
"His heart was given to all suffering and expiation. The world to him was like an immense malady. He sensed fever everywhere, sought out affliction and without seeking to answer the riddle did what he could to heal the wound. The awesome spectacle of things as they were enhanced his tenderness; he was concerned only to find for himself and inspire in others the best means of comfort and relief. The theme of all existing things was for that good and rare priest distress in need of consolation."

As a native French speaker the MacAfee is to me the best. I would avoid the Rose at all costs as, to use your word, it seems clunky.

Oh my goodness, I am laughing aloud at "special stethoscope"!

#185: Thank you very much for your input, lilisin, that's good to know. And good to know that it's not just me with the Rose. Maybe I'll post a passage with some dialogue at some point to compare and contrast--I suspect that if there's any strength to the Rose translation, it would lie there.

It's a pain, because the Rose edition has 100+ pages of really excellent notes; MacAfee/Fahnestock has none and neither does my Wilbour, which is an Everyman's edition.

I basically see the Rose's main goal to be easing the flow of the prose as it pertains to English grammar structures. While the other two are really trying to stick to the original flow of the French. I can see the advantages of reading the Rose to some, but, if you're really looking for the closest to what is actually written in French, the other two are best.

The only thing really glaring with the Rose was some additional unecessary words like the stethoscope. But if you're not reading that along with the original, you really wouldn't notice.

And at the end of the day, after reading all four texts, I still come away with the same idea and feeling.

Stop pooh-pooing Rose pronto! I just spent an inordinate amount of cash acquiring it, even in pb that thing is expensive; even with a 30% off coupon from Borders too, it's still expensive, and now I'm feeling like a fool for purchasing it!

One thing it has that no one can take away from it: A glowing blurb on the cover from Jeanette Winterson!:

"Rich and gorgeous. This is the translation to read . . . If you are flying, just carry it under your arm as you board, or better still, rebook your holiday and go by train, slowly, page by page."

I will say that the picture of Cosette on the cover is far less evocative; far less sad and tragic in its appeal; than the iconic covers on the Wilbour & MacAfee/Fahnestock editions.

I must say I like the 'rattle and wheeze' image in the Rose, even though it's a bit of a liberty on the translator's part. The Rose seems less dense, easier to understand on first reading. But, since the result of this leads to "special stethoscopes", well I think I'll stick to Wilbour. And why change 'universe' to 'world'? Why shrink things like that? Seems unnecessary heresy to me.

>180 ChocolateMuse: - I was kind of poking fun at myself there - I should have used a winking smiley too (actually I tried to do a suspicious smiley from glitter graphics, but it didn't work). Please excuse my wierd Aussie sense of humour, which, understandably, no one else gets (probably not even other Aussies).

And now I know what 'exegetical' means - thanks for educating me 'Rique... maybe if I learn a word a day I might end up being found worthy to actually join and post in Le Salon.

#188 lilisin: But if you're not reading that along with the original, you really wouldn't notice.
Yes, and that's always just what I fear in translations--all those digressions from the text that you just don't know about! Still, you're right, all the translations leave the reader with the same ideas.

#189 'Rique: Hey, I maintain that for a true lover of Les Mis, the Rose is still worth getting for the notes. And I'm sure the text will have its good moments.

You reminded me, I should read some more Winterson one of these days.

ChocolateMuse: maybe if I learn a word a day I might end up being found worthy to actually join and post in Le Salon.

Ha! Now that you've come to our attention, you think you're going to escape joining the Salon? You jolly well are not! We'll play this like children on long car rides: "Have you joined yet? Have you joined yet? Have you joined yet? Have you joined yet? Have you joined yet?..." You'll give in eventually. ;)

Indeed! Have you joined yet, Chocolate Muse? Here's another word for you: Join. We like Aussies! And, we like Australian lit too, don't we? (Everybody nods, I can see it). Patrick White, Christina Stead, Elliott Perlman, the list could go on forever....

And...The Church is one of my all time favorite rock bands. Aussies from down under. Not to mention INXS!

I think I'll hold off for a while and bask in all the attention. This is all quite pleasant. Thanks guys, keep it up...

I was going to give you Aussies your props for Australian shepherds, but Wikipedia informs me that they didn't actually originate in Australia. We had a few when I was growing up; they're great dogs, sweet and clever. My brother recently got a mini Aussie shepherd puppy, and this little gal is ridiculously cute:

What an adorable pup - is this your brother's actual dog?

Reading the three translations, and from a very uneducated and unschooled opinion, I like the Rose the least. I think I would be keen to read the McAfee. Where did Rose get the stethoscope from? It seems like an interpretation rather than a translation.

Ridiculously cute is right! I do believe that Australia is in fact responsible for the kelpie:



Medellia, you should re-name this The Kitten and Puppy Picture Thread.

Btw, re-reading my thread above, I now feel the need to point out that #194 is another sample of my lamentable sense of humour and that I am not really the egomaniac I appear.

I hate that picture of Cosette on the cover. It just screams "Les Mis" at me, the detestable and vile musical.

So interesting to see the three versions side by side like that with the French. I think I also prefer the Wlbour. it has more grace to it. The Rose, I dunno, Rique, that special stethescope just worries me (what's so special about it, what is an unspecial stethescope?)

#196 kiwidoc: Yep, that's his dog. I hear she has a personality to match the pic. Apparently the "stethoscope" bit is an attempt to clarify the meaning of the word "auscultate"--I did have to look that one up in my Compact OED while I was reading MacAfee. ("to listen to the sounds of the organs, such as the heart or lungs, usu. with a stethoscope," or something like that) I honor her intention, I guess, but I think she got too fancy and bungled it.

You could tell me, do modern doctors know the word auscultate? Is it still in use?

#197 ChocolateMuse:
Awwww, look at that kelpie. So cute. Kitten and puppy pictures are as necessary to life as books and music.

#198 Murr: The Rose, I dunno, Rique, that special stethescope just worries me (what's so special about it
It hears your soul.

Anybody in here a Simpsons fan? While reading Les Mis and contemplating the musical (I've not seen it), I find myself thinking of The Simpsons and the episode where they put on a musical of A Streetcar Named Desire. Final song here, lo-fi but still funny:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-278208542406493817&ei=GrDhSsmxD4SSr...

I think I got the gist of "auscultate" from context. The "au" prefix made me think of "audio/auditory," and coming after "perceive" it wasn't too hard to understand it meant sensing something audibly. I like books that stretch my vocabulary.

Not a fan of the Broadway musical, Murr? What didn't you like about it?

Auscultate? Yes - I was trained with this word and still use it. One of the essentials for examination - observe, palpate, percuss, auscultate.

If a colleague said to me: "When I auscultated the chest I heard...... rather than when I listened to the chest......" I wouldn't think twice, but I am not sure what the med students are being taught now. We don't use leeches anymore, though.

Medicine is good for Latin words and their derivatives.

wisewoman - I picked up the idea of "heard" from context, but I was glad I looked it up to get the full meaning. It's such a strange choice, such an odd image! I notice this a lot in Les Mis, these weird little metaphors and similes scattered through.

Thanks, kiwidoc. And I'm sure we all thank you for getting rid of the leeches. I've wondered before whether it's funny for you docs when you read classic literature--with the leeches and brain fevers and humors and so forth.

Yay, I found you! After our interchanges on other threads, I wanted to find one of yours I could star and keep up with, but your 50 Book Challenge looked dormant at best. I followed a link of wisewoman's that purported to contain a comparison Les Mis translations, and voila! here I am.

I echo everyone's thanks for said comparison; it was really helpful to me in that I had read the Fahnestock/MacAffe and was wondering if the Wilbour would be significantly different. I see that it isn't particularly - simply less modern and more elegant, which is fine by me.

>198 tomcatMurr:, I second wisewoman's question: how is the musical detestable and vile? I think it's wonderful, although I'm pretty much a sucker for any adaptation of this story. Although the Eponine fangurls can get annoying....

>198 tomcatMurr:...and I third WWs inquiry! Explain yourself, tomcat!

Hi, ncgraham! Glad you found me--yes, dormant at best and, I fear, dead at worst. I was not good at keeping up with two threads.

For the curious, by the way, I found the translation of this passage in the Norman Denny (Penguin classics) translation. As mentioned above, ***I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS TRANSLATION,*** as Norman Denny is naughty and decided that he could just cut out little bits wherever he thought Hugo was getting long-winded, or when he wrote a metaphor that Denny didn't like, and so forth. (He also moved two long passages, one of them the Waterloo section, into an appendix! Bah.) Graham Robb referred to Denny's translation as "translation as censorship" and "swiss cheese." I think his decision to get rid of some figurative language is clear in this passage, as he gets rid of both the word and the meaning of "auscultated":

"His heart was given to all suffering and expiation. The world to him was like an immense malady. He sensed fever everywhere, sought out affliction and without seeking to answer the riddle did what he could to heal the wound. The awesome spectacle of things as they were enhanced his tenderness; he was concerned only to find for himself and inspire in others the best means of comfort and relief. The theme of all existing things was for that good and rare priest distress in need of consolation."

205 -

This new translation is so exciting! I feel like I'm reading a suspense novel.

Oh wait, it's supposed to be translating Hugo's work. Off to the bin it goes! It's been a while since I've seen a translation totally kill the author's voice.

#206: Ha! Nicely put.

Gee whiz, I want to take out a red pen and write a big "awk" next to some of those sentences. The construction is so odd!

I just realized that the MacAfee is the version I read when I read this way back when in middle school and before I started reading primarily in French. So now I can recommend this version from personal experience. Its quite lovely and everytime someone reads Les Mis I recommend it.

On that note, the Signet Classics translation of Don Quixote is also quite excellent if you haven't read that yet. I compared that one to other translations and to the original as well and found that one to be quite excellent.

Someday I should reread Les Mis in French... and Don Quixote in Spanish. But till then I'll just read other stuff. :)

Curse Count

So far, I'm 30+ pages into the Julie Rose translation, and there's been one "hell" and two "bastards".

You certainly won't find that salty lingo in the MacAfee nor the Wilbour translations. Hmmpphhh!

Lilisin, that's good to know about the Quixote. Maybe someday I'll tackle it. (At least I'm fairly well equipped to judge Spanish translations--I won't have go badgering you about those. :)

'Rique, that's an average of one curse for every ten pages. If it keeps up at that rate, at 1194 pages you'll see ~120 curse words in the text! Unless the notes at the back also have curse words (and I hope and pray that they do). Then there'll be even more.

I really wondering if 'Hell' can be classified as a 'current' curse word, Enrique? Perhaps it was in 1862 when the novel was published.

That's an interesting point, kiwidoc. Yeah, I personally don't really consider it a curse word today. In the U.S.A., back in 1862, I'm pretty sure it would've been considered a curse word, but in France at that time, I truly have no idea. Though I'd wager it wasn't, if push came to shove, in 19th century French society. I wish I spoke French because I'd like to know if Hugo really was saying "hell" in the original text of Les Mis, and, if so, if he was, why did Macafee & Wilbour edit "hell" out of their translations?

Hey hey hey, I thought we were supposed to start reading in December? No cheating!

Thanks lilisin for the Don Quixote recommendation!

Hm. Well, if it's any evidence, I wasn't allowed to say "hell" when I was growing up, and in front of us kids, my mother used "heck" or, on rare occasions, "h-e-double hockeysticks." I never tried, but I doubt it would've been acceptable when I was going to school. Of course the usual exemptions for using the word "Hell" in its proper "dictionary" sense applied.

(I feel obliged to quote Jane Eyre here, from young Jane's conversation with Mr. Brocklehurst:
'And what is hell? Can you tell me that?' 'A pit full of fire.'

'And should you like to fall into that pit, and to be burning there for ever?'

'No, sir.'

'What must you do to avoid it?'

I deliberated a moment; my answer, when it did come, was objectionable: 'I must keep in good health, and not die.')

To be fair to MacAfee, his translation is essentially the Wilbour, but with some "modernization" of language here and there. I don't know how much he revisited the original text in the process of translating, but a complete overhaul wasn't his project. If Wilbour did remove some salty language, I wouldn't be surprised--19th century British sensibilities and such, you know.

Well, wisewoman, since 'Rique has roped me into being a "co-leader" for this Grand Cirque, I figured I better get a jump on things. ;) Actually, it may be good that I'm getting a head start--turns out I'm going to have a deadline for a composition in mid-Jan, so around Dec & Jan I'm probably going to be pretty swamped. I'll still be able to make contributions if I get ready now.

See how well I rationalize?

You can never, ever go wrong quoting Jane Eyre. Aaaaahhhhh...

We never say "hell" either in that context. "H-E-doublehockeysticks" is kind of funny though, Medellia.

Your rationalization works. But I have no such excuse, besides the general busyness of the season. So you feel roped too? :P

I'm starting to think that Julie Rose was drunk at the wheel when she translated Les Mis. I looked up some of the "hell" incidents and saw no evidence for the use of the word "hell" or any other word that cried out to be translated similarly. Instead of "what the hell is this?," Rose's choice when Valjean picks up from under his foot the coin that Petite-Gervais lost, it looks to me as though the sentence is just a straightforward, "What is that?" ("Qu'est-ce que c'est que ça?" Is there some kind of intensification here that I don't understand?)

As for "he was a brazen bastard" for "C'était un hardi misérable," I'm not sure I see any reason why "bold devil" or "bold wretch" wouldn't suffice. Hm.

...Lilisin? ;)

Of course I feel roped! We're like that poor calf. :) 'Rique, you would be truly astounded at how many hours of my life I have spent watching calf roping.

Been to a few Texas rodeos have you?

You know, if this Rose is just making "$hit" up like that, that's very disturbing, and I'm going to have to switch back to Wilbour, and use Rose for the notes. That's ridiculous her making up stuff like that!

Thanks for researching that Medellia!

Thanks for that research/clarification, Medellia. I am really miffed that a translator would take those sort of freedoms with a great piece of work. Defo not going on my pile. Les Mis doesn't need intensification, surely?

Sounds like you had a very upstanding upbringing - those d--n hockey sticks seen to come up a lot as substitute blasphemes. I'm afraid, when I hear teens and movie scripts with every second word an f--k or c--t or s--t, it makes me cringe internally. Crude speech is always in evolution (the big no no word was 'bloody' when I was a teen).

>185 lilisin:, Oh no, I just bought the Rose translation....

#223: Well, you're still better off than if you had bought the Denny translation, which apparently many English speakers do. And the Rose has more "color" and vibrancy to it than Wilbour or MacAfee. Some people are certainly apt to like that. To me it appears more "colorful" than seems fully warranted and takes more liberties with the translation than I would like, but hey, you're in a roomful of picky readers here. :)

If worse comes to worse and the Rose doesn't work out for you, you could pick up the MacAfee translation (Signet paperback) for eight bucks...

I've really enjoyed everyone's thoughts on translations. I have wanting to get some facing page translation editions for some time. Anyone have any recommendations? (Sorry to hijack Medellia.)

Speaking of Texas, I'm currently here for the weekend! And on that note I want to catch up on this conversation (and help out with that question of translating words to "hell") but alas, I must wait till I'm back in Colorado tomorrow and bored at work. :)

#222 kiwidoc: Yes, I had a fine upstanding upbringing. :) Casual cursing doesn't bother me as much as some people I know, but I confess I'm sometimes shocked at the television that my husband watches, and the sheer volume of curse words.

#225 janepriceestrada: I don't have any prose recommendations, but for poetry there are a number of facing page editions of Neruda. I usually pay more attention to the Spanish because I don't like the translations very much, but The Essential Neruda has some good translations. (Where is my Neruda?? I haven't seen those books in ages, nor have I catalogued them, I see...) There's also Selected Poems of Victor Hugo: A Bilingual Edition, which I don't own but have browsed in the bookstore.

#226 lilisin: My condolences! (No great Texan, I. ;) No worries, we'll let you travel and be at leisure.

ahhh, relief. Decision made. Wilbour it will be, if I can find it. My local bookshop has only the *gasp* Denny translation! Unsuspecting people might think that's the only translation there is!

*drumroll* *trumpet fanfare* ChocolateMuse, aka Rena, has now officially joined Le Salon Litteraire. The celebrations may continue until midnight tonight, and then the riot police will come through to break it up.

Time to celebrate Chocolate Muse becoming a salonista!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwEMxYggoKQ

O bliss! O joy! O frabjous day! Wilbour hath prevailed and Rena is now safely in our clutches! I am sure Mondays are not usually supposed to start out this good.

dontcha love their dinky white pumps?

#228/229: Well done, both! A classic Simpsons moment from 1994:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=av8NTy5WkFc

In reading news, this weekend hubby & I finished reading Emma to each other. He now understands Austen's merits quite well. This is the second book we've read aloud to each other, and I'm really enjoying it. I feel so wonderfully 19th century. And I'm pleased to be urging my husband into more reading than he would otherwise do. He's a lapsed English major who gets lost in the work world. I don't think he has read more than a book or two a year for the past several years. So I figure this way, if we get through ~4 books a year, in 10 years that'll be ~40 books he otherwise wouldn't have read!

Yesterday we started Wuthering Heights--as mentioned above, his choice for our next book. We read for a long time and made it 1/3 of the way through. Am I supposed to be laughing this hard? Certainly one must laugh at Mr Lockwood--that opening where he makes faces at the dogs and they end up chasing him around the table is pretty great. Or when Joseph is praying in the midst of a storm for himself to be spared and everyone else smote. But I find that the whole book strikes me as really funny in a Cold Comfort Farm kind of way--in fact, Wuthering Heights was the book that was foremost in my mind as I read Cold Comfort Farm. (I was surprised, wisewoman, that you disliked one and liked the other--my stars, if any book I've read had such consistently unlikeable characters, it's Wuthering Heights. If I had to take them seriously, however much I might end up admiring the author's skill, this would be a trudge.)

Teenagers clearly have a lousy sense of humor. I don't remember cracking a smile at the book as a youngster. And I didn't have any appreciation for the narrative control or the color of the book and characters at the time. I remember finding Joseph's dialect pretty much incomprehensible at the time, and now, reading it aloud or hearing it, I find that I get the gist of almost all of it without glancing at the endnotes. (Reading Joseph's dialect also causes the two of us to dissolve into fits of giggles.) Perhaps I should've tried reading it aloud at the time.

Ok, more thoughts on WH later. Time to read some Hugo!

I remember Wuthering Heights as one strange monster of a book--AWSM! There was nothing like it in English lit before it appeared. As for the characters and the plot--hm, well, NOTHING is over the top to an opera lover, so.

Speaking of the translations of the Les Miz above, Meddy, especially that "brazen bastard" phrase--you know, it doesn't sound so totally wrong to me, but--is it Valjean speaking, by the way, or some other lowlife? Or is it just the narration? Anyway, it occurs to me that--setting aside obvious mistakes in interpretation--there's a lot of room for a difference between translations based on how translators read (based again on all the personal quirks that go into different people)--in this case, characters. One person's bold wretch is another's brazen bastard--and it may very well be the same person. More a difference in colour than pitch.

Lola my dear: "Brazen bastard" was just narration, a description of a bandit who was terrorizing the countryside. "Bold wretch" and "brazen bastard" seem worlds apart to me--if not blue and yellow, then, ah, blue and red?--but you know I'm coming from "decent American" sensibilities. ;)

You make me want to go listen to Wozzeck.

Well, I was thinking more of "hardi"--"brazen" is one of the meanings, or nuances. In that regard, it's hard to say either is "wrong"--it's not like calling a house a chicken shed or something. Wretch and bastard--think of the pains of translators who have to render the Anglo endearment of "bastard" (You bastard little kitty, mwah mwah mwah) in other languages! In fact, I can see where that sort of "bastard" could sometimes end up being "miserable" in French ("poor bastard!"--"oh le miséreux!") I'm not arguing for or against either of the translations, just remarking that to me it's a difference in nuance, not meaning.

What, Wozzeck? Dire Germanic realism! I think Emily was closer to verismo. :)

*is now imagining WH in a variety of operatic guises, everything from baroque to bel canto to verismo*

Oh dear.

You two may be amused to know that I have discovered that there are at least two opera versions of Wuthering Heights out there--one by Carlisle Floyd (don't know him) and the other by Bernard Hermann, the guy who wrote the film scores to "Psycho," "Vertigo," "Citizen Kane," and a bunch of other stuff. Hermann also apparently wrote a cantata--Moby Dick.

...I'll let you two check them out first. ;)

edited to correct gender assumptions!

*is, in fact, male*

I knew about the Hermann Wuthering Heights; it was his second adaptation of a Bronte novel, as he also wrote the film score to the 1944 version of Jane Eyre. As for Floyd, he is best known for his operas Of Mice and Men and most notably Susannah, which includes the lovely aria "Ain't it a Pretty Night?"

EDIT: You know, I was just thinking that Hardy's novels are rather operatically over-the-top as well, and sure enough, it looks as though Far From the Madding Crowd, The Mayor of Casterbridge, and (surprise, surprise) Tess of the d'Urbervilles have all made it to the opera house. Interestingly, Tess' original run was interrupted by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius!!!

Apologies! I have edited my post above. I'll pay attention to the film score, then, when I get around to the '44 Jane Eyre. I know a little about Susannah but haven't listened to it, so I suppose I can place Floyd on the fringes of my radar after all.

I'd give Herrmann a listen, he was a good musician.

IIRC, the first recording of Susannah came out in mid-nineties or so--I got it and released it into the wild again, probably for no better reason than that I have somewhat of an allergy to *cough, cough* opera in English. I know, I know, I really don't want to appear small-minded (or eared, in this case), but I don't know, maybe it's my imprinting on the Italians (actually, everyone BUT the English--operatically speaking), and I certainly recognise the supreme fit of English and non-classical genres, but... opera in English gives me the heebie jeebies. The way the language is distorted, the melodic lines of expression broken... I know oodles of beautiful pieces in English, folk songs, spirituals etc. where the vocal range is almost operatic, but it doesn't bother me so. Is it that opera in English tends to be modernist? I can't stand the (frequent, alas) recordings of foreign operas in English either, but that is partly because I'm so used to the originals. Anyone else with this "problem"? It's not like I must have harmony and tonality or death...

Generally, I don't cotton well to opera in English, but I suspect that has more to do with the fact that I find American & British music to be less to my taste. (There are exceptions to the English rule--The Rake's Progress, for example, or Feldman's Neither, if you'll call it an opera.) Then again, I don't generally have problems with English oratorios or song cycles, so perhaps it is just a strange mental block related to opera. I've never bothered listening to foreign opera in English, heresy, heresy!

I had a listen to some clips from Susannah on YouTube, and as with much American music, it struck me as very bland. Just not to my taste. I'm not the opera fan that you two are--I think I lack a love of dramatic flair (oh, how I loathed Tess of the d'Urbervilles as a youngster--I should probably give that one a try again, but, *pout*, I don't wanna!), and I like a more intimate setting where voice is concerned. I'd a thousand times rather listen to song cycles, ideally with chamber ensemble or, failing that, piano, than opera.

Have either of you listened to Oliver Knussen's Where the Wild Things Are? I've been thinking since the movie came out that I ought to give it a whirl. My grandmother used to read us the story when I was a kid.

I find American & British music to be less to my taste

*small voice*: me tooo

I don't like Hardy (except for some of his poetry). I feel like I'd love him as a person, so it grieves me to say it, but nope, can't like his novels.

Do not know Knussen, will investigate. And, possibly because I was deprived of Sendak as a kid, I never warmed to his graphic style and therefore his books. (I do plan on seeing the movie.)

I'm still logging operas, but I have even more solo vocal, lieder etc. Mainly, it's about the voice. Love human voice. Fave instrument.

Back from Texas! Actually I was back yesterday but I was suffering from this sleep stupor that it took great effort just to get through work, let alone, reply to LT entries.

227 -
Speaking of Texas, as a native Austinite I can't help but love Texas. Texas, my Texas! :)

But granted, I'm a French Texan. So obviously with everything I say there is room for interpretation. ;)

219 -
Back to the question of translation!
I looked up some of the "hell" incidents and saw no evidence for the use of the word "hell" or any other word that cried out to be translated similarly. Instead of "what the hell is this?," Rose's choice when Valjean picks up from under his foot the coin that Petite-Gervais lost, it looks to me as though the sentence is just a straightforward, "What is that?" ("Qu'est-ce que c'est que ça?" Is there some kind of intensification here that I don't understand?)

"Qu'est-ce que c'est que ça?" does mean "What is that?" but depending on inflection, it can go from an innocent childlike tone to a "What the hell!?" to questionable doubt. So how you translate, if you want to indicate that inflection, is going to depend on context.


As for "he was a brazen bastard" for "C'était un hardi misérable," I'm not sure I see any reason why "bold devil" or "bold wretch" wouldn't suffice. Hm.

Really, both would work. Personal preference of the translator I'd say. I'd probably use the word "audacious" here.

ETA: I apologize for any really weird wording in there. I'm still a little sleep deprived.

#244 lilisin: As I recently told another LTer, if I had been born nearer to Austin I might've made a better Texan. But, as the old saying goes, "The bad thing about Austin is that it's surrounded by Texas!"

Thanks Lola & lilisin both for your expert opinions. (Also thanks to Lola for your feelings on Hardy--I feel as though I've been let off the hook there, if the Divine Ms. Lola hasn't taken to Hardy either. ;)

The time has come: I have started a new thread here:
http://www.librarything.com/topic/75878

Please join me there for book talk punctuated with kittens and puppies.