Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die discussion
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Which LIST book did you just finish?
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Between the 2006 edition and the 2008 edition, the editors reduced the number of books from mostly American and British authors (such as Atwood, Auster, Ballard, Banks, Banville, Beckett, Dickens, Hardy, Lawrence, Roth, Wells, and Woolf) and of some Nobel Prize winners.
Karen wrote: "Frances wrote: "Thank you Karen! I checked and Bookdepository has temporarily halted shipments to my country for now, but I have someone who facilitates my book shipments from Amazon. I also notice..."Thank you for this, Karen! And to everyone! This has been so helpful!
My apologies to the group for derailing the topic 🚃🤗
Frances wrote: "Oh wow. Worth buying definitely.......Hmmmm.....now to just decide which edition to get..."I bought the original edition, long before I joined Goodreads. I keep everything in a spreadsheet and have added the later additions as and when. Of course this group has the comprehensive list of books too! I agree with the comments about the books having extra info.
Have you checked Amazon Marketplace? I bought a 2nd hand, but perfect copy of the 1001 Children's version for a fraction of the price.
Aileen wrote: "Frances wrote: "Oh wow. Worth buying definitely.......Hmmmm.....now to just decide which edition to get..."I bought the original edition, long before I joined Goodreads. I keep everything in a sp..."
Thank you, Aileen! I was able to order an original edition from Amazon through a friend. It was their last copy.
I found a site that has a spreadsheet that lists all the changes in the editions. I’ll figure out how to post it here.
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Misleading title since it is all about Gretrude Stein and not about Alice at all.
just updated my blog, the world according to cosmos with my reading list for 2020 - so far I have read 50 books including a number on the list. Just finished reading George Elliot's Adam Bede which I believe is on the list. Currently reading CS Lewis, the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in Spanish, and Clark Ashton Smith, the abominations of Yondo,
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The Fables of Aesop: And Others, with Designs on Wood by Aesop, Edited by Thomas Bewickfinished 9/8/2020
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One volume to go!!
Grande Sertão: Veredas by João Guimarães Rosa. It goes as 'The Devil to Pay in the Backlands' in English even though there is no devil or payment in the actual title but hey, translating this was surely a task so I won't begrudge it too much (it still annoys me, though. Probably not the translator's fault either as these decisions often depend on the publisher.)It is Aquilino Ribeiro on steroids. I loved it.
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May I know which version of the list you are following (the most updated vs original)? And why? I'm a newbie at this. Thank you!
Nocturnalux wrote: "Grande Sertão: Veredas by João Guimarães Rosa. It goes as 'The Devil to Pay in the Backlands' in English even though there is no devil or payment in the actual title ..."Is Grande Sertão a place name? Veredas looks to me like Truth--which leads me to think that the title was supposed to imply, 'this is what really happened here at that time'. I suppose I could have googled all this--hope you don't mind me asking.
Frances wrote: "May I know which version of the list you are following (the most updated vs original)? And why? I'm a newbie at this. Thank you!"Frances, this group covers all versions of the list. That's why there are now over 1300 books on the main bookshelf. You will also find separate shelves for the books added after the first edition. Hope this helps!
Aileen wrote: "Frances wrote: "May I know which version of the list you are following (the most updated vs original)? And why? I'm a newbie at this. Thank you!"Frances, this group covers all versions of the lis..."
Thank you, Aileen! 🤗
Bryan "They call me the Doge" wrote: "Is Grande Sertão a place name? Veredas looks to me like Truth--which leads me to think that the title was supposed to imply, 'this is what really happened here at that time'. I suppose I could have googled all this--hope you don't mind me asking."It's not exactly a place name, no. 'Grande' is just an adjective for 'big' and 'sertão' refers to the very wide region to the North, still very much full of wilderness to this day. So while it does have something to do with a location it's not a specific place.
'Veredas' has nothing to do with 'truth', it refers to the trails that herds of cattle would form on this sprawling wild region. These would be meandering paths at times difficult to follow that do not follow a straight line but weave onto themselves, retrace portions of their trajectory and not too rarely get one lost. They are a metaphor for human life and reappear through the novel.
To be fair, so does talk of the devil but it did not make it to the title. Still a bit better than a French translation that took as its title of the character's name.
Nocturnalux wrote: "It's not exactly a place name, no..."Thank you. That's a much better answer than I would have gotten from Google.
So Backlands doesn't sound too terrible for Grande Sertão. But the other is an interesting choice--"The Devil to Pay" for your description of Veredas. It's not an idiom you hear very much anymore, but to me, it signifies that, in the instance signified, that life is a constant struggle--that or some kind of bargain has been made that didn't turn out as expected, maybe both. It's seems like a very '1940-ish' turn of phrase (or earlier). I wouldn't be surprised that if it were retranslated today, the translator would pick a different phrase--or else leave it as the original.
In either case, it's a hard book to track down in English.
Diane wrote: "Finished The Circle by Dave Eggers."What did you think? I listened to an audio recording of that a while back--it wasn't a bad book, I didn't think, but Eggers does seem to beat the reader over the head with his point. Still, it didn't really seem like a must-read book to me. I tend to feel that way about most of the new additions though--it's just too soon to evaluate them properly.
Finished: H Is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald - 4 stars - My Review
Are there many non-fiction books on the list? I could not think of another one, but I haven't investigated thoroughly.
Bryan "They call me the Doge" wrote: "Diane wrote: "Finished The Circle by Dave Eggers."What did you think? I listened to an audio recording of that a while back--it wasn't a bad book, I didn't think, b..."
I read it last year and liked it but am surprised it made the list. Perhaps it is due to the idea that corporate tech conglomerates are becoming more pervasive, with the corresponding privacy issues for our society in general.
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What did you think? I listened to an audio recording of that a while back--it wasn't a bad book, I didn't think, b..."
It was enjoyable enough, but it didn't seem innovative enough to merit it's spot on the list. I completely agree with you concerning the new books. I don't think a book should be included unless it's stood the test of time, even if it is a few years.
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H Is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald - 4 stars - My Review
Are there many non-fiction books on the list? I could not think of another one, but I haven't inv..."
Hi Joy. This came up recently. So I started a new thread. Check it out here.
Infinite Jest. I hated it so much. It was really, really gross. Lots of very disturbing images that I can't get out of my head, and I wish I hadn't read it.
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The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje.
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
Bryan "They call me the Doge" wrote: "Thank you. That's a much better answer than I would have gotten from Google."No problem, it is always a pleasure when I can shed some light on things pertaining to my language.
About the subtitle to this, the notion of life as struggle and in particular as ever mutable is most definitely at the core of this immense novel. But at the same time, it applies more literally as questions of the existence or non-existence of the devil (with its many, many names, most of which are exclusive or at least mostly used in this part of Brazil) and to whether one can sell one's soul or not. There is no unified point of view on this, the narrator affirms one thing then denies it only to later reaffirm and so forth. That too is very much integral to the way the novel was conceived and structured: in fact, the 'veredas', hark back to meandering, to making no clear and direct progress between points.
The translator (or whoever fixed the title) very likely wanted to bring attention to this angle. In fact, the very description of the English translation flat-out says as much: "The English title refers to a later episode in the book involving an attempt to make a deal with the Devil."
I suspect that since the English translation was done with an American audience in mind who is much more likely to be curious about devils in general than their European counterparts.
The Portuguese edition does not even mention the devil in the description, let alone featuring it on the very title.
But as far as translated titles go, it's not even remotely the most free translation I have seen. Take Saramago's 'Memorial do Convento' that got translated as 'Baltasar and Blimunda'. One needs no knowledge of Portuguese to see that the title has been greatly changed, so much so that I thought these were entirely different books until I checked.
In this case, odds are that selling the book as a potential love story- two characters on the title with a nice alliteration to it- while American audiences only have a vague idea of what a 'Convent' even is (or so the publishers assume). This is speculation on my part but very obviously someone decided that the title shouldn't be translated as such as much as changed altogether.
It's an interesting subject--why publishers might feel the need to tweak or completely alter titles...I'm sure they do it mostly because it'll help sell their books, but the decision process is probably a matter of personal whim. I think it works the same no matter what the original language is--I remember reading a similar situation as your Saramago example, where the English attempted to render it as exactly as possible, while the French gave up and titled it after one of the character's names.Machado Assis' book Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas is another one that gets mangled--I have it on my shelf at home as Epitaph of a Small Winner. That's a book that is nominally high on my TBR pile. When I get to it, I'll have to see if the title change works or not.
Another thing that just occurred to me--it's possible that some retitling might happen because another, completely unrelated, book is selling extremely well, and a publisher might take advantage of that momentary publicity by insinuating that his translated work is somehow similar to the current flash-in-the-pan.
Just finished A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing by Eimear McBride.I am not a fan. I did finish it, but probably will not read anything else this author writes in the future. This is a brutal book. I never thought I'd say a book was brutal, but this one is. It is pure, in-your-face brutality.
Ellinor wrote: "Finished Austerlitz, my final Sebald on the list. I‘ll miss him."Which of Sebald’s books did you like best, Ellinor? I’ve never read any of his books.
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Which of Sebald’s books did you like best, Ellinor? I’ve never read any of his books."
I think I liked The Emigrants best, closely followed by The Rings of Saturn. Austerlitz has many great parts but I didn‘t like the bits when he talks about architecture that much. Vertigo was my least favorite.
I tried reading that a long time ago and was not very interested. I still have my copy though--maybe it was a wrong time, wrong book thing. Did you like it?
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See my comments on this thread: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
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Bryan "They call me the Doge" wrote: "Another thing that just occurred to me--it's possible that some retitling might happen because another, completely unrelated, book is selling extremely well, and a publisher might take advantage of that momentary publicity by insinuating that his translated work is somehow similar to the current flash-in-the-pan."That is a very interesting point and one I had not considered. It would not at all surprise me if something like that went on.
I also think that it matters when the title was settled on. The English translation of the Saramago book goes all the way to 1998, which would mean it was either published right around he won the Nobel or right before. Either way, Saramago was not a household name in those days. He was already highly famous in Portugal but not worldwide, at least not with the same projection the American publishers had in mind.
So a title that sounds a bit off to American readers, by an author whose name is not immediately recognized, is much more likely to get altogether changed than that of an established author.
More recent Saramago books get much more literal translations. If posthumous works are released, I expect they are much more likely to have their titles actually translated as opposed to changed.
Meanwhile, I finished Nightwood by Djuna Barnes.
Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die
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Thank you everyone for your input!