What are you currently reading?

Started by facehugger, April 07, 2007, 12:36:10 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 5 Guests are viewing this topic.

J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: Harry on May 07, 2008, 09:38:39 AM
Well I have a abhorrence for any kind of violence, and somehow this one is making a impression on me.
It has a very realistic imprint on me.....
Maybe its the combination of the drama of Karamazov, and the Hochstamm Riesling I am drinking, after a very stressful working day, with people that were far to energetic for my taste.
Melancholy is also doing its job, and the constant worry for the health of my wife too....... :-\

You're a sensitive soul, Harry, that's all. I remember reading The Brothers Karamazov, and having to stop because it moved and distressed me so much, I couldn't read on. That was 10 years ago, and I still don't want to read it...

Sorry to hear about your wife.  :(
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

Harry

Quote from: Jezetha on May 07, 2008, 09:48:23 AM
You're a sensitive soul, Harry, that's all. I remember reading The Brothers Karamazov, and having to stop because it moved and distressed me so much, I couldn't read on. That was 10 years ago, and I still don't want to read it...

Sorry to hear about your wife.  :(

Yes, that is what this book is doing also to me.....
Thank you Johan for the words about my wife.
We have all our crosses to bear, this one is light, and I am glad that God allows me to carry it.
Still my emotions are a different matter.....

Cato

In keeping with my new personal rule of only reading books with more than 700 pages   :o    I have begun reading the only thing from Thomas Mann which I have not completely read from beginning to end.  Decades ago I read one-fourth of it in English, and glanced at the German, but have never gone through the entire opus.

Namely, the tetralogy Joseph and His Brothers in the new translation by John Woods.  The previous Loewe-Porter version was much too King-James-ish in my opinion, and although (as I recall) the German is deliberately unusual, the style is not rooted in the 1600's.

So far, it is typical of later Thomas Mann: over-written yet puckishly ironic.

Harry: stay optimistic!  You may, however, find Dostoyevsky more necessary at such a time than one might think.
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

karlhenning

To be sure, though, I'd suggest enjoying Dostoyevsky and Riesling separately  :)

Haffner

Brothers... is a tremendous work. But I think the Idiot is my favorite by Dostoevsky.

J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: Cato on May 07, 2008, 09:59:00 AM
Namely, the tetralogy Joseph and His Brothers in the new translation by John Woods.  The previous Loewe-Porter version was much too King-James-ish in my opinion, and although (as I recall) the German is deliberately unusual, the style is not rooted in the 1600's.

So far, it is typical of later Thomas Mann: over-written yet puckishly ironic.

Is this John E. Woods, the brilliant translator of another German writer I care for more than Thomas Mann, sorry to say - Arno Schmidt?
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

Cato

Quote from: Jezetha on May 07, 2008, 10:03:07 AM
Is this John E. Woods, the brilliant translator of another German writer I care for more than Thomas Mann, sorry to say - Arno Schmidt?

Yes, John E. Woods!  Apparently just a mean, lean, German translating machine!
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: Cato on May 07, 2008, 10:13:52 AM
Yes, John E. Woods!  Apparently just a mean, lean, German translating machine!

Yes! The man clearly isn't afraid of anything a demanding German prose-writer can throw at him... Lucky Schmidt, lucky Mann.
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

Kullervo

Quote from: Cato on May 07, 2008, 09:59:00 AM
In keeping with my new personal rule of only reading books with more than 700 pages   :o    I have begun reading the only thing from Thomas Mann which I have not completely read from beginning to end.  Decades ago I read one-fourth of it in English, and glanced at the German, but have never gone through the entire opus.

Namely, the tetralogy Joseph and His Brothers in the new translation by John Woods.  The previous Loewe-Porter version was much too King-James-ish in my opinion, and although (as I recall) the German is deliberately unusual, the style is not rooted in the 1600's.

So far, it is typical of later Thomas Mann: over-written yet puckishly ironic.



I have this in the same translation but have yet to read it. It used to it intimidate me, but after Proust I think I will tackle it.

Kullervo

Quote from: Jezetha on May 07, 2008, 10:03:07 AM
[...] another German writer I care for more than Thomas Mann, sorry to say - Arno Schmidt?

:o What would you recommend by him?

J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: Corey on May 07, 2008, 11:05:49 AM
:o What would you recommend by him?


I checked Wikipedia and found these translations:

The Egghead Republic - 1979 (Die Gelehrtenrepublik, trans. Michael Horovitz)
Evening Edged in Gold - 1980 (Abend mit Goldrand, trans. John E. Woods)
Scenes from the Life of a Faun - 1983 (Aus dem Leben eines Fauns, trans. John E. Woods)
Collected Early Fiction, 1949-1964, in four volumes (all trans. John E. Woods):
Collected Novellas - 1994
Nobodaddy's Children - 1995
Collected Stories - 1996
Two Novels - 1997 (The Stony Heart and B/Moondocks)

I suggest - if it's available that is - you read 'Nobodaddy's Children'. It's three novellas that are interconnected. Schmidt wrote them in what I consider his best period, the 1950s. Schmidt's style is fascinating - allusive, funny, filled with wonderful metaphors. One novella is set in the Nazi era (Scenes from the life of a Faun), the second in the Germany of the early post-war years (Brand's Heath) and the last one in Germany after a nuclear disaster where most of Europe has been destroyed (Black Mirrors) - you follow the last man surviving, who resembles Schmidt very much in his misanthropy, he cycles around, ransacks a library (!) among other things, and then - suddenly - meets another survivor... All novellas are written in the first person, and they read like a combination of 'monologue intérieur' and diary, which adds to the immediacy. Reality is built in an impressionistic, pointilliste way. Schmidt called himself a 'Mosaikarbeiter' (mosaic worker).

I read Schmidt in German, but I have read John E. Wood's translation of the 'Faun', too. I can vouch for his deftness and accuracy.

I think those three novellas could also be among those 'Collected Novellas', by the way. I remember they were published by the Dalkey Archive Press. Perhaps you can find something in your local library...
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

Florestan

Quote from: karlhenning on May 07, 2008, 10:01:16 AM
To be sure, though, I'd suggest enjoying Dostoyevsky and Riesling separately  :)

Yes, Dostoevsky goes better with vodka, preferably drank in a ramshackle back slum.   ;D

Harry, The Brothers Karamazov is a Christmas carol compared to The House of The Dead:D
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Harry

Quote from: karlhenning on May 07, 2008, 10:01:16 AM
To be sure, though, I'd suggest enjoying Dostoyevsky and Riesling separately  :)

Yes, you are right, to this conclusion I came too, after seeing the bottom of the second bottle. :P ;D

val

"Anthropologie de la Globalisation"  / Marc Abélès

Didn't like it. A review of several perspectives of the concept of anthropology, more than an anthropology essay about globalisation.

Harry

Quote from: Florestan on May 07, 2008, 10:51:52 PM
Yes, Dostoevsky goes better with vodka, preferably drank in a ramshackle back slum.   ;D

Harry, The Brothers Karamazov is a Christmas carol compared to The House of The Dead:D

Well some good woman friend brought from Kiev, a fine bottle of Vodka for me! Only for moi!
Though tis a tad hard to find a ramshackle back slum, to enjoy that, and the odds are when I find it, that I will not drink it alone. ;D
The brothers are...well unsettling to say the least!
Good morning Andrei

J.Z. Herrenberg

Morning, all!

I don't drink, and still Dostoevski managed/manages to unsettle me...
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

Harry

Quote from: Jezetha on May 07, 2008, 11:36:28 PM
Morning, all!

I don't drink, and still Dostoevski managed/manages to unsettle me...

True, too, but then all he has written unsettles me in some sort of way, if I think of the story of Marmeladov and the imprints of the horses hoofs, well.........

Cato

I once read 3 Dostoyevsky novels in a weekend, and starting carrying an ax around while glowering morosely.   :o

I think I even morosed gloweringly!   0:)

But now everything is better: that CD of von Suppe overtures solved all my problems!   0:)
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: Cato on May 08, 2008, 04:06:45 AM
I once read 3 Dostoyevsky novels in a weekend, and starting carrying an ax around while glowering morosely.   :o

I am glad there wasn't an elderly woman pawnbroker in the vicinity.

O was there... ?!  :o
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

Harry

Quote from: Jezetha on May 08, 2008, 04:18:00 AM
I am glad there wasn't an elderly woman pawnbroker in the vicinity.

O was there... ?!  :o

And you know what he was thinking, right? :o
And where he eventually ended his old life, and started a new one, but still he had to pay dearly.