What are you currently reading?

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

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Mandryka

#10100
Quote from: AlberichUndHagen on September 06, 2020, 05:34:13 AM
Yes, I read it in Finnish. Joyce is one of those writers I would never dare to attempt to read in english.

So can you really say melonsmelonous in Finnish? I mean, do smell and melon share the same sound? What do they do to translate it? Go and look it up, I won't be able to sleep if I don't know. It's in Episode 17 "Ithaca".

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

AlberichUndHagen

No, Joyce is particularly hard to translate in Finnish.

AlberichUndHagen

Oh, and I actually have already returned the book into library. Sorry!

aligreto

Quote from: AlberichUndHagen on September 06, 2020, 05:39:11 AM
No, Joyce is particularly hard to translate in Finnish.

Joyce can be sometimes difficult to read in English let alone in a Finnish translation. You did very admirably well to persist and complete the book in the circumstances. Well done!

AlberichUndHagen


steve ridgway

"He kissed the plump mellow yellow smellow melons of her rump, on each plump melonous hemisphere, in their mellow yellow furrow, with obscure prolonged provocative melonsmelonous osculation".

I like that bit! :-* :P

LKB

 Currently rereading Stranger to the Ground, by Richard Bach.

The writing in this work of Bach's is quite interesting. He seems to be refining his craft as the book progresses, using a variety of tools with varying degrees of success. Those who are only familiar with Bach's later work would do well to acquaint themselves with this early effort.

::),

LKB
Mit Flügeln, die ich mir errungen...


aligreto

Quote from: LKB on September 06, 2020, 07:54:34 AM
Currently rereading Stranger to the Ground, by Richard Bach.

The writing in this work of Bach's is quite interesting. He seems to be refining his craft as the book progresses, using a variety of tools with varying degrees of success. Those who are only familiar with Bach's later work would do well to acquaint themselves with this early effort.

::),

LKB

Cheers, LBK. Every composers ultimate success is always a journey, not least the Master's. 

AlberichUndHagen

#10109
About 4/5 through Anna Karenina. Some fifty pages back I especially liked the part where Dolly is on her way to visit the adulterers Anna and Vronsky and with her sympathetic thoughts directed towards Anna and her situation there seems to be an implication of Dolly wanting to cheat on Stiva (if the word cheat can be used in this context considering Stiva is unfaithful towards Dolly almost all the time) or perhaps a suppressed wish to separate from him. And then there comes this wonderfully allegorical touch of Dolly and her carriage arriving at the point where the road separates from the main road to road going Vozdvizhenskoe (the estate of Vronsky and Anna, the adulterers). It seems to be allegorical way to describe the danger of entertaining thoughts about cheating and that the main road is the socially acceptable way of staying faithful - and the road that separates from the main one towards the adulterer's estate seems to be the one Dolly is in danger at heading towards, the road of cheating. Once again, I think Dolly has a very good reason to be bitter towards Stiva and his numerous love affairs but I guess this is Tolstoy expressing the "turn the other cheek" way of thinking. Or perhaps I am starting to apply the allegorical thoughts to almost everything nowadays. It just felt appropriate how that part came right after such thoughts by Dolly. Although I don't believe for a moment that Dolly will give way to a temptation.

Anyway,I am enjoying Anna Karenina immensely. There is wonderful wit, irony, psychological observation, humor and it's a coherent whole. Even though I do not enjoy Levin as much as I did before (I think Karenin is the most interesting character).

I have never read Flaubert's Madame Bovary but from what I know about it, do you guys think it had influence on Anna Karenina?

j winter

Quote from: AlberichUndHagen on September 02, 2020, 10:11:59 AM
Late response but Roughing it is one of my personal favorites from Twain. My first exposure to Twain's books was in elementary school when I read Tom Sawyer, which I didn't like (and still don't). In middle school I read Huckleberry Finn which I liked a lot more. Roughing it however is even better. One of the most amazing descriptions of Wild West I've ever read. I don't  mind the fragmentary style of the book, I think it fits the tone perfectly and Twain is extraordinarily droll. I'm pretty sure though that Twain has more than a little bit exaggerated the facts...

For Twain I definitely seem to prefer the travel writing (Innocents Abroad, etc.) and the shorter pieces to the novels, other than Huck Finn.  Droll is the perfect word, he's a delightful traveling companion wherever he's going.

Just finished revisiting a sampling of Hemingway's short stories, and a 1st trip through Green Hills of Africa.  Based partly on Ernest's strong recommendation in the latter, I'm next trying Tolstoy's The Cossacks...


The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils.
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus.
Let no such man be trusted.

-- William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

aligreto

I have read two more books from my Somerset Maugham collection [stock image from Google but very similar to my collection]





Mrs. Craddock: This is a wonderful study of a young, self-willed and determined woman and her struggle through life, and particularly her expectations from her marriage.

The Merry-Go-Round: This novel takes one fairly centre character and a few peripheral characters in the Mrs. Craddock novel and explores them and their world in more detail. The links and cross references were interesting.

SimonNZ

#10112
Finished:



Obama: An Oral History was disappointingly light, with every important moment whizzing by with only three or four brief comments from insiders, most of which I'd heard before,  and nothing covered in exhaustive detail. On the evidence of this it might have needed a ten volume set to have been worthwhile.

The Murakami, despite some early uncertainty and a couple of rough patches, proved one of his best, and justified its near 700 pages.. The descriptions of Art and of the work-in-progress artworks were, imo, especially well done.


Started:


Scion7

When, a few months before his death, Rachmaninov lamented that he no longer had the "strength and fire" to compose, friends reminded him of the Symphonic Dances, so charged with fire and strength. "Yes," he admitted. "I don't know how that happened. That was probably my last flicker."

aligreto

Amis: That Uncertain Feeling





This is the story of a married, indolent and self centred librarian, his affair with a young married woman and the consequences that inevitably come as a result. It is witty, amusing, entertaining and is also full of biting satire on Welsh nationalism.

MN Dave

"The effect of music is so very much more powerful and penetrating than is that of the other arts, for these others speak only of the shadow, but music of the essence." — Arthur Schopenhauer

Florestan

Just started



Far from the Madding Crowd

So far so good.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Scion7

When, a few months before his death, Rachmaninov lamented that he no longer had the "strength and fire" to compose, friends reminded him of the Symphonic Dances, so charged with fire and strength. "Yes," he admitted. "I don't know how that happened. That was probably my last flicker."

AlberichUndHagen


Dry Brett Kavanaugh

Quote from: aligreto on August 23, 2020, 01:42:58 AM
Gogol: Diary of a Madman and Other Stories





These stories are filled with eccentric and interesting characters.

I love them. You may like stories by E.T.A. Hoffman as well.