Book meme - with a twist!

[pitry]

... The twist is that I'm going to copy lost_spook and ignore the rules and just bold what I read. Yes, even Moby Dick. I made it to half the bloody book.

Comments

[pitry]

Charlotte in particularly was intended as cathartic medicine for bookish teenagers!

That is very true... and I have been unable to stomach a Bronte book since I was 12! (funnily enough, I read my 'teenager' books when I was 12-13. When I actually hit the ages most people consider as teenager, I lost patience for them).
and hey, I don't remember anything about the book (including if I've read it or not) and even I know the relationship there isn't romantic, it's creepy!

I agree. Bridget Jones is pretty funny and clever, actually. I think probably a lot of people don't realise it's a reworking of Pride & Prejudice. Although I preferred The Edge of Reason. (Its restating of Anne's famous speech in Persuasion was just priceless. And other things.)
But... how... what... how can people miss the fact it's based on P&P? It's the most famous anecdote about the book! It has Mr Darcy!! I've never read the Edge of Reason. So I don't know....

And I'm so impressed by your reading things in different languages. Is there anything that has been noticeably better or worse in a different language?

Well, I always prefer to read in the original, because even the best translation misses things. Obviously, this is irrelevant here... the main benefit of reading stuff in a language I'm studying that I already know is that the sentences make sense. Like, normal fiction, if I run into some sentence structure I don't know or there's something tricky, I'm often left completely baffled and "well this can't mean this, can it?!" (And then there's the different logic thing. When I was studying Japanese I was convinced I was translating the sentences wrong, and then it turned out I was right most of the time - it was just that I didn't manage to connect it cos I didn't follow the logic.). So if I already know the story, like HP or The Little Prince, I can figure out the difficult sentences cos I can compare to the original, and then try to re-work the sentence and see what I missed and why.

Also, Atonement - the film was shot where I live! You have seen where the penguins are! (They had to airlift them out for the shooting of it.) MY cinema is so old-fashioned it could be used for 1940s Dunkirk cinemas. We saw all the stuff on the beach and I know people who were extras. :-) (I haven't actually seen more than bits of it, but I confess, I quite liked what I read, but I couldn't steal it off my sister at the time.) I have photos - I should post them sometime. Not that that makes it less boring for you, I realise.

LOL, now I'm tempted to go and see how many of these locations we have! ha... some of them... now since we do have the Dunkirk location, now I'm tempted to run a search to find the cinema. :)
And I think the penguins would have improved the film greatly!

Actually, on the subject of Moby Dick, have you ever read Joan Aiken's Nightbirds on the Nantucket?

No, I haven't... but if he's chasing a pink whale, I think I should!!

[lost_spook]

I meant people who haven't read Bridget Jones don't necessarily realise. (I think even a few people who watched the film managed to miss it, despite Colin Firth being Mr Darcy and Bridget working for Pemberley Press.)

Well, I always prefer to read in the original, because even the best translation misses things.

That's what I always imagine. I always feel slightly bad that I can't read the original. Maybe one day when I have more of a brain, I will try and see if I can brush up my French to reading point, but I think I'll have to settle for translations of most things! Using things you know sounds like a useful way to work. (As you know, I am always impressed by your multilingual abilities!)

I'll have to fish out my disc of Atonement photos sometime. It was amazing what a major feature film will do to your seafront - whole plastic/plyboard buildings and a fake bandstand. (Everybody liked that so much, we had to have a real one built after they left). But I am amused that when looking for a place that would look like a run-down, wartime Dunkirk without too much alteration, Redcar fitted the bill! :lol: (And, yes, they could even use the inside of the cinema with only a few tweaks to hide some modern things. Our cinema is on a pier on the seafront.) For quite some time after, I could still see French writing painted on things. And I watched someone filming a fake leg up a fake tree. :-)

Joan Aiken is... actually not quite as funny as she sounds, although I don't mean that in a bad way. She writes these sort of old-fashioned children's AU historical romps, with a neat turn of phrase - and then when you start getting into the plot you suddenly realise it was all about poisoned mince pies and repeatedly saving everyone's lives with a tapestry, or a pink whale and a giant cannon, or putting St Paul's Cathedral on rollers to push it into the Thames (and pulling it back again with elephants), or Queen Guinevere being alive and living in South America. But, if you ever do, you can tell me if she nicked any other aspects, as far as it goes. ;-)

(Edited for silly typos, again. Sorry. I'm more tired than I think I am today.)

[pitry]

I guess the people who miss it have never read/heard of in details of P&P? Otherwise... I really can't see how they missed the "Colin Firth is Mr Darcy" bit...!

That's what I always imagine. I always feel slightly bad that I can't read the original. Maybe one day when I have more of a brain, I will try and see if I can brush up my French to reading point, but I think I'll have to settle for translations of most things! Using things you know sounds like a useful way to work. (As you know, I am always impressed by your multilingual abilities!)

My multilingual abilities just sound impressive. They're a lot more pants than they sound, honestly. But yeah, there are a lot of things that can't be translated - I have never seen a good translation of Pratchett, for example, even by the best translators. But even the others - you know, there's always nuances that will get lost. Of course, I'm sure I'm missing some nuances anyway when I'm trying to read French or Welsh, but I can pretend I don't :)

Atonement. Wait wait wait. Redcar? In our database it's listed as Grimsby... If the girl who tagged it was still working for us, I would have killed her. This isn't the first time we encounter still, 2 years after she stopped working for us, nonsense we need to fix :| I'll really have to go and do some research for that tomorrow. Pah.

saving everyone's lives with a tapestry

I sort of read it the first time round as saving people's lives in a tapestry or something. Now I want a book about people who live in a tapestry.

[lost_spook]

I think they did film some scenes in or around Grimsby, too? But the big battle scene on the beach, and the one in the cinema were unquestionably done here in Redcar. (The sand dunes they leap over were miles away, but the rest is all here - and a history-making unbroken sequence or something, so I understand?)

Now I want a book about people who live in a tapestry.

There probably is one somewhere. :-)

Your multilingual abilities are impressive - to me! Seriously, I really do have so much admiration for people who can not only get by in another language, but really use it, and even write in it.