What are you currently reading?

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

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DavidW

Quote from: Dry Brett Kavanaugh on July 18, 2024, 09:50:01 AMThat's been my question. Which do you gents prefer, Katz or P&V?

P&V.  I have the ebook version of the Katz translation and read a bit of it.  It is certainly the easiest to read, but perhaps he took too much liberty modernizing the prose.  To spill the tea, Katz heavily criticizes P&V in his introduction!!

AnotherSpin

Quote from: vers la flamme on July 18, 2024, 10:19:23 AMI was just looking at a copy of it at Kinokuniya in New York this morning but ultimately put it back on the shelf. It appeared to be very good.

The book I did end up getting this morning was a copy of Henry David Thoreau's Walden, which I've never yet read. Any fans here?

Walden has long held an important place in shaping my approach to the world. Fortunately, Thoreau was an influence on me, unlike Dostoevsky. Reading your notes about different translations makes me think that maybe D.'s translations are better than original. I'm almost sure that it was the case, but I probably won't write why I think so, because the moderators will come fast and say that our clean and tidy conversation has run away again.

AnotherSpin

Still, I will quote Valeria Novodvorskaya's thoughts on Dostoevsky, in the original and a quick translation:

"Он показывает, как не надо жить, как не надо мыслить, как не надо общаться. [..] Потому что именно благодаря такому отношению к жизни у народа и интеллигенции, мы и приобрели ту сегодняшнюю помойку, в которой почти с головой утонули. Это - склонность растекаться мыслию по древу, это жуткая неконкретность, это неумение работать, это отсутствие собственного достоинства, вместо которого вялая мечтательность и просто тотальное нежелание отдаться какому-то конкретному делу, больная психика, все эти навороты патологических фантазий, которые свойственны героям Достоевского, это сон разума, который рождает чудовищ. Потому что только больной разум и больная страна, больной этнос мог породить все эти коллизии с князем Мышкиным, с Родионом Раскольниковым, с братьями Карамазовыми. И заметьте, что все эти потрясающие душу прекрасные порывы кончаются банальной уголовщиной. Или, в лучшем случае, безумием, как у князя Мышкина. Здесь нет выхода в разумную деятельность. Здесь тупик. Здесь нет умения здраво смотреть на мир, сделать его пригодным для жизни. Отсутствует даже нормальное отношение к человеку, нормальная дистанция. Есть только два варианта: мы или повисаем на человеке, так, что он от нас отклеиться не может, или стараемся топором его прикончить. Но ведь это совершенно ненормально. Такого рода отношения не должны складываться в человеческом обществе. И, надо отдать нам должное, мы умеем любую гадость объяснить, мы подводим философскую базу подо что угодно. Хотя под уголовщину не надо подводить философскую базу. Есть зло, есть добро, есть десять заповедей, которые нарушать нельзя ни в коем случае. Вот всю эту нашу достоевщину еще Мережковский хорошо объяснял - мол, все это прекрасно для литературы, вы видите, какая у нас прекрасная великая литература, но у нас никчемная, грязная, пошлая, ничтожная жизнь. В результате нашей великой литературы мы живем в неолите. Это все взаимосвязано."

"He shows how not to live, how not to think, how not to communicate. [...] Because it is thanks to this attitude to life among the people and the intelligentsia that we have acquired today's dump, in which we are almost drowning with our heads. This is a tendency to spread their thoughts far and wide, this is a terrible lack of concreteness, this inability to work, this lack of dignity, instead of which there is a sluggish dreaminess and just a total unwillingness to give themselves to any particular cause, a sick psyche, all these twists and turns of pathological fantasies that are typical of Dostoevsky's heroes, this is the dream of the mind that gives birth to monsters. Because only a sick mind and a sick country, a sick ethnos could give birth to all these collisions with Prince Myshkin, with Rodion Raskolnikov, with the Brothers Karamazov. And note that all these soul-shaking beautiful impulses end in banal criminality. Or, at best, madness, as in Prince Myshkin. There is no escape into intelligent activity here. It's a dead end. Here there is no ability to look at the world sensibly, to make it suitable for life. There is no normal attitude to a person, no normal distance. There are only two options: we either hang on a person so that he cannot get off us, or we try to finish him off with an axe. But that's not normal at all. This kind of relationship should not exist in human society. And, to give us credit, we can explain any disgusting thing, we can provide a philosophical basis for anything. Although we don't need a philosophical basis for criminality. There is evil, there is good, there are Ten Commandments, which must not be broken in any case. Merezhkovsky explained all this Dostoevshchina of ours well - he said that all this is fine for literature, you see what a wonderful great literature we have, but our life is worthless, dirty, vulgar, insignificant. As a result of our great literature we are living in neolithic. It's all interconnected."

Florestan

Yeah, right. If you dislike the image, break the mirror.
"Ja, sehr komisch, hahaha,
ist die Sache, hahaha,
drum verzeihn Sie, hahaha,
wenn ich lache, hahaha! "

vers la flamme

Quote from: AnotherSpin on July 18, 2024, 09:55:45 PMWalden has long held an important place in shaping my approach to the world. Fortunately, Thoreau was an influence on me, unlike Dostoevsky. Reading your notes about different translations makes me think that maybe D.'s translations are better than original. I'm almost sure that it was the case, but I probably won't write why I think so, because the moderators will come fast and say that our clean and tidy conversation has run away again.


I believe you; I've heard other Russian authors disparage Dostoevsky's prose (Nabokov, for instance), and I'm not averse to the idea that certain authors may benefit from translation. Crime and Punishment was one of the first "serious" novels I ever read and it holds a special place in my heart for that. I'll defend it no further than to say that :laugh:

Thank you for your feedback on Thoreau. I really am excited to read Walden.

AnotherSpin

Quote from: vers la flamme on July 19, 2024, 03:45:57 AMI believe you; I've heard other Russian authors disparage Dostoevsky's prose (Nabokov, for instance), and I'm not averse to the idea that certain authors may benefit from translation. Crime and Punishment was one of the first "serious" novels I ever read and it holds a special place in my heart for that. I'll defend it no further than to say that :laugh:

Thank you for your feedback on Thoreau. I really am excited to read Walden.

When you read Dostoevsky in the original, his Russian is a very different language from what is spoken now, and its archaic aspect becomes an additional obstacle. Not to mention his ideas. Translators, and the more modern ones at that, speak the same language as the reader, and think as the reader too.

vers la flamme

Finally finished Battle Cry of Freedom, James M. McPherson's epic one-volume history of the American Civil War. When I got this book I naively hoped it would tell me everything I could possibly ever want to know about the Civil War, but it's only sparked an insatiable curiosity to read everything about it I can get my hands on. If anyone cares to recommend books on the subject, from sweeping multi-volume epics to shorter volumes detailing single campaigns, single battles,  biographies of commanders or political leaders in the era, etc., this is an open invitation to do so.

Ganondorf

Quote from: vers la flamme on July 19, 2024, 03:45:57 AMI believe you; I've heard other Russian authors disparage Dostoevsky's prose (Nabokov, for instance), and I'm not averse to the idea that certain authors may benefit from translation. Crime and Punishment was one of the first "serious" novels I ever read and it holds a special place in my heart for that. I'll defend it no further than to say that :laugh:

Thank you for your feedback on Thoreau. I really am excited to read Walden.

I don't have the book right now but I've heard that Dostoevsky forgets at some point at which floor the pawnbroker woman that Raskolnikov murders is supposed to live. It would most likely be fixed anyway on translations and since I cannot read Russian...

I've also heard that Dostoevsky is nightmarishly difficult to translate.

JBS

Quote from: vers la flamme on July 19, 2024, 07:46:18 AMFinally finished Battle Cry of Freedom, James M. McPherson's epic one-volume history of the American Civil War. When I got this book I naively hoped it would tell me everything I could possibly ever want to know about the Civil War, but it's only sparked an insatiable curiosity to read everything about it I can get my hands on. If anyone cares to recommend books on the subject, from sweeping multi-volume epics to shorter volumes detailing single campaigns, single battles,  biographies of commanders or political leaders in the era, etc., this is an open invitation to do so.

There's enough out there on the Civil War that no one can ever read it all. And if you're seriously interested, battlefield tourism awaits.

Here's four that are fairly meaty.


Billy Yank/Johnny Reb are two books, and it may be easier to get them separately.

Hollywood Beach Broadwalk

Mandryka

Quote from: vers la flamme on July 19, 2024, 07:46:18 AMFinally finished Battle Cry of Freedom, James M. McPherson's epic one-volume history of the American Civil War. When I got this book I naively hoped it would tell me everything I could possibly ever want to know about the Civil War, but it's only sparked an insatiable curiosity to read everything about it I can get my hands on. If anyone cares to recommend books on the subject, from sweeping multi-volume epics to shorter volumes detailing single campaigns, single battles,  biographies of commanders or political leaders in the era, etc., this is an open invitation to do so.

Absalom Absalom
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

vers la flamme

Quote from: JBS on July 19, 2024, 09:45:26 AMThere's enough out there on the Civil War that no one can ever read it all. And if you're seriously interested, battlefield tourism awaits.

Billy Yank/Johnny Reb are two books, and it may be easier to get them separately.

Thank you! The Billy Yank and Johnny Reb books were cited extensively in McPherson's book and I would love to read them. Have heard great things about Guelzo's work too. The Farragut book looks fascinating—some of the most interesting things about the book I just read were the brief descriptions of naval campaigns.

Re: Battlefield tourism, I lived in Atlanta for six years; I used to go up to Kennesaw Mountain a lot, where there are still some abandoned Confederate guns and works; Peachtree Creek, even more often. I lived a mile from the place. Now that I'm up north I would love to see Gettysburg.

@Mandryka It's on the list—I have developed a tradition of reading Faulkner in August, so I think I will try and tackle it next month.

Mandryka

Quote from: vers la flamme on July 19, 2024, 10:07:09 AM@Mandryka It's on the list—I have developed a tradition of reading Faulkner in August, so I think I will try and tackle it next month.

What did your family do in the war?
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

vers la flamme

Quote from: Mandryka on July 19, 2024, 10:17:52 AMWhat did your family do in the war?

Fishing in the Maritime Provinces of Canada ;D

Mandryka

Quote from: vers la flamme on July 19, 2024, 10:29:45 AMFishing in the Maritime Provinces of Canada ;D

In fact Canada has a potentially important place in Absalom Absalom -- I say potentially because I don't know enough history to really understand why Faulkner made it so. Quentin's Harvard roommate Shreev is Canadian, and he's right at the heart of the second part of the novel.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

JBS

Quote from: Mandryka on July 19, 2024, 10:37:04 AMIn fact Canada has a potentially important place in Absalom Absalom -- I say potentially because I don't know enough history to really understand why Faulkner made it so. Quentin's Harvard roommate Shreev is Canadian, and he's right at the heart of the second part of the novel.

Canadian based smugglers, spies, and arms/ammo traders had quite a lot to do 1861-65. Especially along the border, and in the Maritimes. Is Shreev's hometown specified? (I've yet to read it.)

Hollywood Beach Broadwalk

Mandryka

#13695
Quote from: JBS on July 19, 2024, 10:55:06 AMIs Shreev's hometown specified? (I've yet to read it.)

Not as far as I remember. One standard comment is that Faulkner wanted someone from a culture which wasn't involved in the war to provide an independent view. But I'm not sure how plausible that is. The whole novel is totally enigmatic and undecipherable.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Dry Brett Kavanaugh

Quote from: vers la flamme on July 19, 2024, 03:45:57 AMI believe you; I've heard other Russian authors disparage Dostoevsky's prose (Nabokov, for instance), and I'm not averse to the idea that certain authors may benefit from translation. Crime and Punishment was one of the first "serious" novels I ever read and it holds a special place in my heart for that. I'll defend it no further than to say that :laugh:

Thank you for your feedback on Thoreau. I really am excited to read Walden.


Great novel, and great, lively characters. I specifically like Svidrigaïlov – nihilistic and wealthy former employer and former pursuer of Dunya. He appears to have some occult ability too.

vers la flamme

Quote from: Dry Brett Kavanaugh on July 19, 2024, 12:00:50 PMGreat novel, and great, lively characters. I specifically like Svidrigaïlov – nihilistic and wealthy former employer and former pursuer of Dunya. He appears to have some occult ability too.

"I'm going to America." One of the best parts in the book. Svidrigaïlov is my favorite character too, along with Porfiry Petrovich, whose interrogations made me feel like I was guilty of murder.

San Antone

Quote from: Mandryka on July 19, 2024, 10:59:51 AMNot as far as I remember. One standard comment is that Faulkner wanted someone from a culture which wasn't involved in the war to provide an independent view. But I'm not sure how plausible that is. The whole novel is totally enigmatic and undecipherable.

Cleanth Brooks has written that Faulkner included Shrevelin McCannon as someone with "myths about the South compounded out of Uncle Tom's Cabin and Strange Fruit."

He goes on to give his interpretation of the purpose of the converstion between Quentin and Shreve:

"For the novel Absalom, Absalom! does not merely tell the story of Thomas Sutpen, but dramatizes the process by which two young men of the twentieth century construct the character of Thomas Sutpen.  Fascinated by the few known events of his life and death, they try, through inference and conjecture and guesswork, to ascertain what manner of man he as.  The novel then has to do not merely with the meaning of Sutpen's career but with the nature of historical truth and with the problem of how we can 'know' the past."

"The past always remains at some level a mystery, but if we are to hope to understand it in any wise, we must enter into it and project ourselves imaginatively into the attidues and emotions of the historical figures.  Both of the boys make this sort of projection, though one would expect it to be easy for Quentin and difficult for Shreve.  Actually, it does not work out this way, for Shreve enters into the reconstruction of the past with ardor.  He finds it, in his lack of any serious emotional commitment, a fascinating game - inn fact, he consistently treats it as a game, saying 'Let me play now.'"

"The novelty of fitting actual human beings into roles that he had earlier connected only with the stage intrigues hm.  At one point he teases Quentin by saying, 'Jesus, the South is fine, isn't it.  It's better than the theatre, isn't it.  It's better than Ben Hur, isn't it. Quentin on the other hand is too much involved - too fully committed to the problems and the issue - actually to enjoy the reconstruction."

Brooks, Cleanth. 1990. William Faulkner : The Yoknapatawpha Country. Louisiana pbk. ed. Baton Rouge, La.: Louisiana State University Press.

San Antone

Here's more on Shreve from a different book:

"Chapter VI moves us immediately to a different time, a different place, a different season, and a new character. Shreve McCannon, a Canadian, is Quentin's roommate at Harvard. Chapters VI-VIII take place as the two of them, sitting up late in their frigid dormitory room, retelling, re-creating, the story of Thomas Sutpen to their mutual narrative satisfaction. Why Faulkner chooses to set so much of Absalom in a land so alien to the land in which Sutpen lived is not completely clear, but obviously he wanted at least one non-southern narrator, one who is not in some way compromised by Sutpen and/or the racial and social history of the South: someone, that is, with some distance on the story, not so directly embroiled in it.

Casting Shreve as a Canadian further removes him from the legacy of sectional antipathy characteristic of the United States; it also opens the closed Mississippi society to outside scrutiny. tiny. Shreve is thus a narrative foil who at times offers a smart-aleck counter-narrative narrative to Quentin's story; his contributions to the narrative at first render the Sutpen saga as a comedy that wallows in the cliches of southern popular culture, then yields to its human if not precisely historical "reality." Shreve becomes, in the telling, genuinely moved and tries to contribute to the story's ry's cohesiveness, supplying plot and motive and even character when necessary sary to keep the narrative moving."

— Reading Faulkner: Absalom, Absalom! by Joseph R. Urgo, Noel Polk