And now, Bolitho
So, I'm on a Revolutionary-to-Regency era reading streak, yes? It started, of course, with everything ever written by Jane Austen, multiple times over. Then I read most or all of the novels she mentioned her characters reading, like Belinda and Cecilia. Then I read the entire Richard Sharpe series, and associated fanfic. Then Hornblower fanfic. Then the entire Aubrey-Maturin series, some Marryat novels, and the actual Hornblower novels. Then I tried to get through Moby Dick, but have since abandoned it... Again. And now I've moved on, or perhaps down, to the Bolitho series. I can see where it's not as well crafted as the Hornblower series, or as entertaining as the Aubreyad - the dialogue feels flat, and sometimes clues are introduced and never mentioned again, like the author meant to develop a particular subplot but then forgot about it. But still, the stories are lively, and the ships are shippy. I started with the first novel that introduced Herrick, and liked it, and then went back to the beginning of the series for the cuteness of Plucky Midshipmen in Love. A dark-haired, brilliant, heroic midshipman who doesn't like heights, and his blond-haired, blue-eyed, loyal best friend who keeps having tragic things happen to him... sound familiar? They even sail on the Hotspur together.
So I read the first and second (as far as internal chronology goes) novels on my lovely, dodgy, Russian, free-ebook website - there were lots and lots of typos from imperfect scanning, but I can usually figure out what they mean, so it's okay. But when I looked for the third book chronologically (#02 in the series), I could only find it in... Spanish. I don't remember much of my high school Spanish. When I was blessed enough to briefly visit Barcelona, two years ago when my husband had a business trip there, all I could really manage was "Agua, por favor," accompanied by a violent blush. Spoken Spanish usually flows past too quickly for me to catch any scraps of meaning. But when I scanned the first paragraph of the Spanish Bolitho novel, just in hopes that maybe it was mislabeled and was really in English, I discovered that I could actually kind of understand the gist of it. (About as much as I understand spoken Mandarin, actually. Understanding written Mandarin is a lost cause, as far as I'm concerned.) And since it's an ebook, I can just tap on the words I don't understand to call up a Spanish-English dictionary. It's not as impressive as reading Don Quijote in Spanish, which I had wanted to do because reasons, but maybe I can actually stick with it. We'll see. It's slow going, and I'm already struggling with the temptation to just skip on to the next Bolitho novel I can find in English. But on the other hand, reading a novel in Spanish would be very good for me, don't you think?
So I read the first and second (as far as internal chronology goes) novels on my lovely, dodgy, Russian, free-ebook website - there were lots and lots of typos from imperfect scanning, but I can usually figure out what they mean, so it's okay. But when I looked for the third book chronologically (#02 in the series), I could only find it in... Spanish. I don't remember much of my high school Spanish. When I was blessed enough to briefly visit Barcelona, two years ago when my husband had a business trip there, all I could really manage was "Agua, por favor," accompanied by a violent blush. Spoken Spanish usually flows past too quickly for me to catch any scraps of meaning. But when I scanned the first paragraph of the Spanish Bolitho novel, just in hopes that maybe it was mislabeled and was really in English, I discovered that I could actually kind of understand the gist of it. (About as much as I understand spoken Mandarin, actually. Understanding written Mandarin is a lost cause, as far as I'm concerned.) And since it's an ebook, I can just tap on the words I don't understand to call up a Spanish-English dictionary. It's not as impressive as reading Don Quijote in Spanish, which I had wanted to do because reasons, but maybe I can actually stick with it. We'll see. It's slow going, and I'm already struggling with the temptation to just skip on to the next Bolitho novel I can find in English. But on the other hand, reading a novel in Spanish would be very good for me, don't you think?