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Lilly's colorful language menu & mixed corpse challenge
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Lilly wrote: "Irphen wrote: "Haha, I feel you are being drowned by the suggestions so I will leave it with this! ;-)"Thank you so much for your many recommendations, Irphen - this is great! I feel lucky that s..."
My pleasure!^^
Yes, I understand it takes more time to read in Dutch for you. I'm pretty slow as well when I'm reading Spanish for exemple! ;-) Haha, I know the problem, there are so many tempting books and you can't read them all in a year or even two! But it's nice indeed to have ideas for books to read sometime later^^
Well I never read Clockwork Orange so I can't say if it is similar or not. But for sure Schijnbewenngen is a safer option ;-)
Irphen wrote: "Lilly wrote: "Irphen wrote: "Haha, I feel you are being drowned by the suggestions so I will leave it with this! ;-)"Thank you so much for your many recommendations, Irphen - this is great! I fee..."
Yes, anticipation is the good part of having too many books on your list! I'm really eager for those books and even though I can't read them all straight away, planning to read them still makes me bouncy :)
I think I will add Dracula to my corpse challenge - reread. I have not read the book for quite a number of years, probably not since 2012/3, although often wanting to. I really used to love Dracula when I was younger. - Seeing this book on Irphen's list has inspired me to take it up again. Also, it might be a good opportunity to purchase my own copy. - The battered Wordsworth edition on my shelf actually belongs to my mother, I just never returned it :D
FINALIZED CHALLENGEThe new year is beginning and here is the final version of my first Old and New tbr challenge:
My colorful language menu 2021
Swedish
(New School Classics)
1. Ronja rövardotter
2. Mio, min Mio
Dutch
(New School Classics)
3. Harry Potter en de Gevangene van Azkaban
4. De tuinen van Dorr
5. Kinderen van Moeder Aarde
French
6. Bonjour tristesse (New School Classics)
7. Les Belles images (New School Classics)
8. Des Fleurs Pour Zoe (Wild Card, published 2010)
Italian
9. 100 colpi di spazzola prima di andare a dormire
(Wild Card, published 2003)
German
(New School Classics)
10. All the ballads by Friedrich Schiller
I am still trying to find an edition that contains only the ballads, not the poems.
English
(New School Classics)
11. Maurice
12. The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun
Historic Languages
(Old School Classics)
13. Troilus and Criseyde by Geoffrey Chaucer
read from the following edition: The Riverside Chaucer
14. Sermo Lupi ad Anglos - by Lupus Wulfstan
hopefully in this edition: The Homilies of Wulfstan
Alternates
Two of the above books are my alternates, but I am not going to pinpoint them, as succeding at the challenge basically means reading 12 out of 14.
FINALIZED CHALLENGEThe new year has begun and I am still struggling to decide which books to strip from my list. So here is the final version of my second Old and New tbr challenge:
My mixed corpse challenge
My goal is to clear out some ‘corpses’ from my tbr list, especially those belonging to the category of Old School Classics.
Stack corpses
Old School Classics:
1. Journey to the Centre of the Earth
2. King Solomon's Mines
3. Ivanhoe
4. The Count of Monte Cristo
5. Mary Barton
6. Middlemarch
7. Treasure Island
New School Classics:
8. The Ringmaster's Daughter
Wild Cards:
9. 100 colpi di spazzola prima di andare a dormire
10. Des Fleurs Pour Zoe
Rereading corpses
New School Classics:
11. The Shadow Rising
12. Toad Triumphant
13. Dubliners
Unbought corpses
14. Brideshead Revisited (New School Classics)
Fresh corpses
Here are some books that have been on my tbr list for 5 years or less:
New School Classics:
15. Two on a Tower
16. Where Angels Fear to Tread
Wild Card:
17. At the Edge of the Orchard
Half hearted corpses
18. The Elder Gods
Unfound corpses/ Alternates
Four more books from the stacks under my bed or under the far end of my writing desk will be my alternates, though I have no idea what they are. Anything down there has not been touched for several years and is either a stack corpse or a long due reread.
I know this is not the normal way with the rules, reading 12 out of 14, but I do not want to take any books off my list and I also want to give those untouched stacks a chance throughout the year. - So, who cares about the rules, this is supposed to be personal. I’m aiming for a 16 or 18 out of 22, but really, I just want to read as many of those books as possible.
Mod
Sara wrote: "Good luck with the final list. I think it is fine to discard the rules and make this challenge personal, after all you are adding to the difficulty, not subtracting. Happy reading."Thank you Sara!
Although the majority of these books have been around my flat for a while, I am at the moment rather eager to read them. So I did not want to shorten the list and limit my choices - I am after all planning for a whole year. :)
Lilly wrote: "I think I will add Dracula to my corpse challenge - reread. I have not read the book for quite a number of years, probably not since 2012/3, although often wanting to. I really used..."I'm glad it inspired you to do this reread! ;-) If you want we can try and do a buddy read for it, I was thinking about reading it somewhere around february/march.
Haha, could indeed be a good idea to get your own copie! ;-p I actually have one with a personal cover a friend made for me which is very nice^^
Oh and Kinderen van Moeder Aarde is a very good choose if you want my opinion! ;-) ( one of my faves by Thea Beckman )
Yes, a buddy read would be nice :) I actually just commented on your thread :D I'm often a bit chaotic in my reading style and it can take quite a quile for me to get through a book, but as everything is slowed down by the lockdown, my reading should be more calculabel ... just wanted to warn you ...
How nice that you have your personalized copy :) Is your friend an artist or illustrator?
I'm definitely exited to go read Kinderen van Moeder Aarde :)
At the moment I am still trying to wrap up some 2020 reads I did not finish on time - plus reading some unnecessary romance. So it's possible that I won't start on my challenges for another week ...
January is almost over and I am still a little undeceided which book I should read first for my challenges. I have now ordered Kinderen van Moeder Aarde and The Homilies of Wulfstan for my colorful language challenge, but it is equally possible that I will start with something from my stacks for the corpse challenge.
'Kinderen van Moeder Aarde' has now arrived, but 'Wulfstan' will take a while shipping ... For my corpse challenge I have decided to start with Dubliners.
It is part of my 'rereading corpses'. I originally bought and read this edition for a seminar in 2013. After the seminar I thought it would be nice to read the collection at a more leasurely pace. It has been on the rereading stack next to my bed ever since.
My critical edition also contains a number of explanatory chapters and essays and I think I will read those along after the corresponding story.
I fear I have been totally neglective of this thread. When I decided on my two challenges at the end of december, I was expecting to get a year 2021 full of reading opportunities and varying amounts of reading time (depending on the pandemic), but over all a good reading year. In reality this year turned out to be a desaster with illness, visits to the doctor, and several surgeries (two really big, scary ones, one smaller) eating up most of my reading time since spring and the year as well. (Did this year even have a summer?) When I did not even manage to pick up a book for two months, I knew it was bad. But I did start on several of my projects early in the year, and I've picked one of them up again during the last weeks.
I will not be able to complete my corpse stack challenge this year, and I think I will not try now. But I'm hoping to still get some of these non-english exciting books on my list finished, so this thread will be focusing on the colorful language challenge for what still remains of the year. - I've really been wanting to tell you of some of my experiences so far ...
Let me start with my Swedish readings, which is, I think, the part of the challenge where I persisted the most. Last autumn I had already been wanting to read Ronja rövardotter and Mio, min Mio by Astrid Lindgren, but got delayed in ordering them; so I added them to my language challenge. I do not know how things are in your country, but here I cannot order them from the bookshops directly, but have to buy them from a Swedish store. If you are interested in reading Swedish, but face the same problem, I recommend an online shop called Bokus (GR does not let me link the shop). They have a good variety of books, accept international credit card, and ship fast.
When I actually ordered (early in 2021), I was very tempted to order more than just those two books I'd been planning to read (I got those in the beautiful hardcover versions with the original illustrations). I ended up also ordering Bröderna Lejonhjärta (also by Astrid Lindgren) in the cheaper paperback version and, so tempting, Harry Potter och de vises sten, which is again in hardcover.
Can you blame me? The Swedish edition is one of those few HP translations that still use their own artwork instead of the international cover versions that make the books now look the same in many languages. And the Swedish hardcover version is really exceptionally pretty. (GR does not let me link the books.) I totally fell in love with that design and as a collector of various HP translations had to order it.
Here is some feedback on the quality of the books, I was really excited when they arrived: The two hardcover editions of Astrid Lindgren are very good quality, good paper and well bound. They show the traditional cover and illustrations; you might know these from some translated hardcover versions. The shipping went also really well and there were only very few tiny scratches and dents on my books. I had partly ordered the pocket version of Bröderna Lejonhjärta out of curiosity. The Pocket catalogue of Rabén&Sjögren offers a lot of choices, both for books from Sweden and those translated into Swedish, especially for classics, I think, and are at the same time very affordable. So I wanted to see what the quality is like: the pocket book is well bound and made with paper that has a normal thickness (unlike many English classic paperbacks now, that have been switched to very thin paper; or French paperbacks as well). I was very impressed with the quality of my books, even this cheap one. If you want nice, lasting books, you should probably read in Swedish ;)
Finally, let me rapture a little more about that Harry Potter translation. The actual book is even more beautiful than you would expect from the picture: The writing on the front cover is all in silver, with some silver inlays as part of the picture. The back cover is in dark blue, the text also in silver inlays. And in the lower half is an additional drawing, also made with those silver inlays. When you open the book, the endpaper is bluish-black with white star drawings and the title in white (same star/night design on the endpaper at the back). Now here's what makes this edition so magical: every time at the beginning of a chapter, one black page with white stars precedes the chapter, and before the table of contents is also a white page with black stars. This book is sooo beautiful, I am totally in love. I have no other edition that has been designed so carefully. - And I hope you can forgive my longish raptures on this thread.
I just need to say that I am somewhat annoyed at not being able to link the Swedish Harry Potter books on Bokus. I really wanted to show you the beautiful designs and the shop. But here is the series on GR (It's just more work to list all the books seperately):
Now let me tell you about my reading experience: I decided to start with Mio, min Mio The book is written for small children, so I figured it should be manageable. This is also one of my favorite books from my early childhood and had a strong impact on me, right to the present. Princes riding on white horses through dark forests? Still thinking of Mio when I come across images like that. So this really should have been the best choice to start my reading in Swedish, right?
I also bought a digital audiobook from Bokus to go with the printbook. I don't really like audiobooks and I only buy one like once every ten years or so. But in this case I felt like I would really need this: Swedish pronunciation can be quite tricky and certain letters will change their pronunciation according to the environment. I wanted to prevent myself from making too many pronunciation mistakes while reading and then remembering words wrongly. (This happened to me several times when I first started reading in other languages and is really hard to correct.) So my plan was to read a passage from the hardcover, then listen to it on the audiobook while reading along, noting the correct pronunciation for those words I had problems with.
Now I really must point out that my Swedish is very bad. I am, due to the pandemic, self-taught, relying on my audiomaterial and course books. So I've been missing out on speaking practice and would not 'survive' in Sweden. My passive language skills are somewhat better, but still very basic. And I really must stress that I usually wait longer before I start reading in a new language. I have never tried to start reading at such a low level as in this case.
Usually I am the type of reader who just picks up meaning from the context and reads on, even though not understanding some words. I have always been content to dive into reading a new language that way. The pictures I get from the book are a little less colorful, but I get the majority of what is being said.
Now, reading Mio, I erred from this practice for the very first time. For some reason, I felt like I really needed to understand more words and went looking them up. I have never tried this way of reading before. Look something up from memory, just to be sure, yes. Look a word up I've come across too many times and still don't get, yes. Pause and look a word or two up, because they seem to be really central ans I feel like I'm not fully getting them from the context, yes. I've done all that. But I've never before tried to read something so slowly, looking up so so many words. I know some of you generally look up a lot of words in foreign languages and I respect that. Whatever works for you. But this mode of reading did not really work for me, and I would guess that the amount of words I was looking up would have been excessive for anyone of you, too. For some reason I felt obsessed with a need to get all the details. There is actually a lot going on in every sentence, no unnecessary descriptives, everything is very compact and efficient.
Maybe it is just that Mio was not the best choice to start my reading. Simple sentences, yes, but the text still felt very hard to me. Or maybe it was just my own obsessiveness in the way I was reading, not being able to let go and just dive into the book the way I had done in every other foreign language I'd started to read. I guess part of me felt that I could not handle reading in Swedish yet. I kept rereading the same passages, making progress only so so very slowly. The whole progress was rather frustrating.
I also tried to use my audiobook at the same time, but that was even more difficult. Being bad at Swedish I still need to read very slowly, whereas the audio goes at a native pace. Even having read the passage before, it was very difficult to keep up reading along. I would listen to the same very small passage over and over again, until I felt that I got it all.
Learn from my mistakes. I would not recommend to try an audiobook too soon, when you're just starting to read in a language. I also remember from my other languages that I started watching movies only so much later than reading. It is just hard to follow the fast pace of a native speaker.
In the end it was not my struggle or slow pace that made me stop reading Mio. I went to the hospital and had my first surgery. After I came back home I did not feel up to the difficult reading for a while, so let it rest.
In july, before my second (bigger) surgery, I felt like I really wanted to go back to my Swedish readings, but did not feel very motivated with Mio, min Mio. But I also had that very beautiful, very tempting edition of Harry Potter och de vises sten lying on the book stack on my bed. I am so totally in love with that edition and I had been wanting to read it ever since the parcel arrived. But I had forbidden myself to start with that one, because a) it did not have an audiobook, b) it was not a native Swedish book, and c) Mio was written for younger children than HP, so I felt it would be the better start. Well, we know how that turned out. So I gave in to temptation and gave my Swedish reading another try with HP. - Oh, and d) that book is also not on my challenge list. :D I feel that reading a HP translation was now finally the right choice. I have used this book to start reading other languages and it has always worked well for me. I probably have a special connection to HP when it comes to reading in foreign languages, as the first book was also the very first book I ever read in a language that was not native to me.
Starting with this book I did not have reservations on reading on without looking so many things up. I was still struggling very much, often feeling as if I could not do it. But when I came to a sentence or passage that I felt I did not understand at all, I just went back and read it very slowly and deliberately, giving every word its space, and then enough of the words would start making sense and give me the rough meaning of the sentences. In this way I struggled on, now making progress a few pages at a time, which was already a lot faster than what I had managed with 'Mio, min Mio'. Still, I was often in doubt. Was there sense in what I was doing? Was I pushing too hard while I was simply not ready to read in this language? I remembered starting to read in my other languages and how hard it had been every time. Whenever I first start reading a new language it is always as if the text is at an odd angle, not quite making sense, like I really need to squeeze the meaning out of it. The brain really needs a while to adapt to a new language (or even to one that we have not used in a long time and have to a great part forgotten). The first two chapters are always the hardest. I remembered that. After a while the brain adapts and reading becomes a lot easier. So I made myself push on - and things became easier some time in the second chapter.
I managed to get as far as two chapters in, and then I had to go to the hospital. But I had managed to build a more positive association with reading Swedish, I was feeling that I was beginning to get somewhere, and I was eager to continue. But I did not want to bring this beautiful book to the hospital and have it spoiled. So I accepted another break in my Swedish reading project. A long one, again.
About three weeks ago I started to think a lot about this project again, wanting to get back to it. I was a little hesitant. I had been getting better at reading, but how would I do after this long break? After a while, I decided to give it a go. At first, I was really struggling again, but as I kept reading, the improvements I had already made earlier this summer came back. So far I've progressed to the end of chapter four, reading that last one in one session. Reading in Swedish is of course still difficult and I do miss out on some details. But I feel great about my progress now and think I can really manage this book. - I'm also definitely going back to buy the following books of this Swedish edition; the covers are just too beautiful, and as a collector I really want them.
I think I really need to make a brief note about my position towards translations, as some of you might be confused about my reading HP in translation: I generally have not the best opinion of translations. This is especially the case for those really very very bad German translations from the 90s and very early 2000s. I'd better not tell you what they've done to many great fantasy books. It's not just the mistakes and bad wordwise translations that are sometimes only understandable if you speak English and try to apply what error was made. It is also the whole tone of the novel that has so often been totally changed. A gripping story in the original is in translation suddenly killing you, because it seems to be going absolutely nowhere. And so on ... Nowadays translations are still, in my opinion, problematic, btw. I don't want to burden you with all that. Suffice to say that I decided at a young age that I would be better off reading the original.
Of course, that is not always possible, as I only speak a few languages. I think English translations are generally not as bad as German ones, so I do use them when I cannot read the original.
But I think, whenever possible, the original language is to be preferred to get the best possible chance to dip into the world created by the author.
However, I do also read translations unnecessarily and for fun. If I already know the book, I feel there is no disadvantage in doing so. I am aware how the translation I am reading at that moment differs from the original and I can reflect on that.
I sometimes use translations to get started with a new language I am not good at reading. That can be really helpful. There are also a few books that I like to collect in various languages and see how they turned out. My opinions on those translations really vary a lot ...
Sorry for this long aside. I just felt like I needed to clarify my position.
So sorry to hear that you struggled with your health this year, Lily. Illness is debilitating, and after surgery it will be a long while before you feel up to much.I am in awe of your attempt to read Swedish and teaching yourself the language at the same time. It feels great to understand the words, but very slow going which saps one's enthusiasm.
I agree that translations matter. I read quite a lot in translation and one can feel when it doesn't quite work.
Hope you feel better and can start reading again soon.
Thank you for your kind words, Carolien :) I've really been wanting to get into a proper Swedish class, but due to the pandemic I do not have any options for that. So during 2020 I decided that I would just buy a course book with audios and get started, as I did not want to wait for the end of the pandemic. I'm finding it difficult to learn Swedish on my own, the pronunciation is especially hard, so I will definitely need to enter a speaking class or tandem once the situation allows it.
I think Mio, min Mio just wasn't the right starting point for me. It makes such a lot of difference if you can begin with a book that suits your reading attempts well.
I've also been upset by the fact that I haven't been able to get any more Dutch classes since july 2020. I feel like I've been forgetting so much. Which is part of the reasons why I've been wanting to read Kinderen van Moeder Aarde badly, which is also on my challenge list. (I read a little in Dutch early this year, but have not been able to since.) I actually bought a hardcover edition in january and it's been lying on my stack since. Been thinking a lot about it at the end of september, but then decided I wanted to go on with my Swedish reading first, and I'm worried I would mix up my languages.
I'm actually now reading my second book since the surgeries (one in september), so I feel like I'm finally getting back somewhere.
Thank you for your wellwishes. :)
Mod
You are very impressive in reading books in the original language. I can only read in English, so it is translation or nothing. I am in awe of the translators...must be a very difficult thing to do and still maintain the flow of language and nuances. Some are very successful, and some not so much.
I do hope 2022 will be a stellar reading year for you and all full of good health. Skal!
Thank you, Sara. :) I could really use a good year after the last one ... I am sorry to hear that you also had to go through surgery and hope you are doing well now.
I try to read books in the languages I larned/am learning. But somedays I notice how limited my point of view still is, as I really only feel comfortable reading in a few languages, missing out on so many other great cultures. The challenge was also an attempt to push myself to read at least a certain amount in languages I am less comfortable with.
I totally agree with you that the abilities of the translator make all the difference. I am also under the impression that different countries have different habits dealing with translation and might be putting varying amounts of effort into them. But that might also partly depend on the publishing house.
For example, older German tranlations, from the 90s especially, all used to transfer their books into the same 'standard' style - they all read pretty much the same, all style from the original authors being lost. Things have gotten a little better at least.
I don't know how things are in America, but over here part of the problem with tranlations is that they aren't done by people who are really good at the language. Usually those people who speak the language really well and could easily make adequate translations drift towards 'nicer' jobs. Meanwhile companies and publishers take for translation whom they can get - often people who speak the language only on a medium level. Enough to get by, but often not sufficient for the finer difficulties of translating both fictional and non-fictional texts. I guess a way to make those translations better, would be to make those jobs more attractive ...
I've done translation classes in my studies, some years ago, both translating into English and from it. Maybe that is part of the reasons why I am always so hard on translators. I look at translated texts and I get the feeling that those who did them are not even aware of the translation difficulties we talked about in class. But then a lot of translators never went to university and wouldn't pass some of the admittance tests for studying English ...
I don't think that translations are particularly hard when you speak the language well enough. There are always some tricky passages, sentences, or just hard to translate words that will take up some extra time. But other sentences can be translated quite easily and directly. I would say that it is more a matter of time to work through a translation several times to make it really smooth. At least that is the case with non-fictional texts. Literary texts have, of course, that extra difficulty of style. I think the hard part is not the translation itself, but getting your language skills to the level where you can actually do a translation well.
Sorry, I'm not trying to slight any translators, whichever their skill, I just think that the real problem is in the system.
Mod
The translations we have are generally quite good, but you are correct that the difficulty is more with capturing style and nuance in a fictional text than with the accuracy of transposing the words themselves. You have certainly given me a different view of the job and an added appreciation of its challenges!
Catching up on Classics (and lots more!)
Books mentioned in this topic
Kinderen van Moeder Aarde (other topics)Mio, min Mio (other topics)
Harry Potter och de vises sten (other topics)
Mio, min Mio (other topics)
Mio, min Mio (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Astrid Lindgren (other topics)Friedrich Schiller (other topics)
Thea Beckman (other topics)
Paul Biegel (other topics)
Floortje Zwigtman (other topics)
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Thank you, Carolien!
Finding books that are out of print can be pretty hard. I also have certain series collections going, where I've been trying to track down some of the books for the last decade and half. - So I would consider your forgotten copy a very lucky find. :)