Some fun things in the Dutch version
The Dutch version of Good Omens has some nice extra's for those who look at it trough their slash goggles.
The cover is not gay, though. But the non-woodcut version is good-looking.
For starters, there's the Arrangement, which is introduced into the story with the words "their little Agreement". In Dutch, agreement would translate quite nicely to afspraak. But there's the trouble of little. You see, in Dutch, the usual way to indicate that something is small, the way to go is to make it sound cuter by sticking -je, -tje, or something similar behind it. So in Dutch, there is "dit was omtrent 1020, toen ze net hun Afspraakje hadden gemaakt". So far so good, right?
Except that the word "afspraakje" is never used to describe agreements of a business-like nature. It is, only and ever, as far as I know, used to refer to a romantic date.
Then there's the way "Really, my dear." when Crowley sinks a duck gets translated. Now, there's several options, of course. For example, a simple and sturdy "Werkelijk, m'n beste." would have given an old-fashioned, stuffy feel. Instead, we have "Foei, lieve jongen." which sounds like a somewhat old-fashioned and completely ineffective way of someone who's never raised a child telling off a person far younger than themselves off. To use it against someone of the same age as yourself would be demeaning. Actually, the only time I ever heard the term "lieve jongens", basically, "sweet boys", used by an adult male referring to other adult males, was by some literature writing depressed gay writer in reference to his male harem.
So yeah.
That's what you get for giving me a decent education.
The version of the Dutch cover that does not have the wood-cut look:
[IMG]http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u72/Nimmenstjer/HogeOmens.jpg[/IMG]
(If the image does not show up, just copy the link between the IMG and brackets)
So basically what we see here is apparently a rock wall as a background, a quite lovely painting of the Archangel St. Micheal of ass-kicking smiting a pile of demons with the demons etc. lacking, and a painting of a demon in the same style who has dark hair and tiny horns and some fairly nice bat-wings.
Now the fact that we have a depiction of a buff Aziraphale in something skintight and a shirtless Crowley does of course not distract from the complete inaccuracy of using a painting of St. Michael sans sword and giving Crowley horns and bat wings, even though that piece of cloth looks like it could just fall off if that belt was...
I can't believe I very nearly finished that sentence in a serious tone of voice.
The cover is not gay, though. But the non-woodcut version is good-looking.
For starters, there's the Arrangement, which is introduced into the story with the words "their little Agreement". In Dutch, agreement would translate quite nicely to afspraak. But there's the trouble of little. You see, in Dutch, the usual way to indicate that something is small, the way to go is to make it sound cuter by sticking -je, -tje, or something similar behind it. So in Dutch, there is "dit was omtrent 1020, toen ze net hun Afspraakje hadden gemaakt". So far so good, right?
Except that the word "afspraakje" is never used to describe agreements of a business-like nature. It is, only and ever, as far as I know, used to refer to a romantic date.
Then there's the way "Really, my dear." when Crowley sinks a duck gets translated. Now, there's several options, of course. For example, a simple and sturdy "Werkelijk, m'n beste." would have given an old-fashioned, stuffy feel. Instead, we have "Foei, lieve jongen." which sounds like a somewhat old-fashioned and completely ineffective way of someone who's never raised a child telling off a person far younger than themselves off. To use it against someone of the same age as yourself would be demeaning. Actually, the only time I ever heard the term "lieve jongens", basically, "sweet boys", used by an adult male referring to other adult males, was by some literature writing depressed gay writer in reference to his male harem.
So yeah.
That's what you get for giving me a decent education.
The version of the Dutch cover that does not have the wood-cut look:
[IMG]http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u72/Nimmenstjer/HogeOmens.jpg[/IMG]
![http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u72/Nimmenstjer/HogeOmens.jpg[/IMG]](http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u72/Nimmenstjer/HogeOmens.jpg[/IMG]){kind=link}
(If the image does not show up, just copy the link between the IMG and brackets)
So basically what we see here is apparently a rock wall as a background, a quite lovely painting of the Archangel St. Micheal of ass-kicking smiting a pile of demons with the demons etc. lacking, and a painting of a demon in the same style who has dark hair and tiny horns and some fairly nice bat-wings.
Now the fact that we have a depiction of a buff Aziraphale in something skintight and a shirtless Crowley does of course not distract from the complete inaccuracy of using a painting of St. Michael sans sword and giving Crowley horns and bat wings, even though that piece of cloth looks like it could just fall off if that belt was...
I can't believe I very nearly finished that sentence in a serious tone of voice.