а в остальном, прекрасная маркиза, всё хорошо

[furiosity]

I made a pact with myself a few weeks ago that I would re-read all the English books I loved when I was younger in the original -- I read most of them in Russian translation back in the day. I found myself unable to really talk about them with people, because all the character/place names are familiar to me the way they're spelled/pronounced in

Comments

[phieosophy]

Yes, I know just what you're talking about, only my experience was sort-of in reverse. I'm basically able to fluently read french now, and I've read the French versions of some things that I've read previously in English, and even though the translations are fantastic on their own, reading the originals has been stunning. They're just BETTER.

[furiosity]

They just are, aren't they? It's a little bit amazing -- I'm so glad I decided to do this, because it's like falling in love all over again. I wish I could learn French so I could read Dumas and Druon and Verne and and and [...] in the originals, but I'm too old to really pick up another language without immersion. :\

[phieosophy]

The obvious solution is to move to France.

[furiosity]

Well, yes. But. >.>

[oboros]

The complete Sherlock Holmes! Is it the one in newspaper layout with the pictures that were published with the stories? My dad gave that book to my in um... 8th grade and told me to read out loud to myself (which I did, most of the time) to help my pronunciation.

Considering that was... mmm 24 years ago I'm sure if I re-read the entire works it would be like reading a new book again. Perhaps I should do just that.

[furiosity]

Is it the one in newspaper layout with the pictures that were published with the stories?
Yes! That's the one! It's MASSIVE and so awesome. :D I will definitely be re-reading it in English, again and again -- I just love those stories so much. one of them gave me an idea for my evil!Draco story but we won't talk about that

[oboros]

'bout what? but wow I just had a flash to the scene in The Revenant on the cliff. Sherlock Draco! He's so clever.

[furiosity]

omg I didn't even think of that -- seriously, I totally was not thinking Moriarty vs Holmes when I wrote that scene. Damn subconscious influences! D:

[pir8fancier]

Not exactly, but funny that you mention Hemingway. When my father was in a nursing home, toward the end I would to visit him and since he was so compromised physically and mentally he wasn't able to talk, I would read to him. Right before he died, I picked up a book of Hemingway's short stories to read to him (he had just contracted the pneumonia that would kill him). I started story after story because the death imagery was completely overwhelming and as depressing as hell. I *knew* my father was dying, and it just slayed me. I had never read the stories quite like that, with death looking over my shoulder (and his).

[furiosity]

That must have been so terrible for you. :(

I do wonder if you'll pick up something new every time you read something, even if your situation in life changes only a little. When I read as a kid, I was almost always reading for story -- I believed at the time that all stories existed for their own sake, and "what happened" was the most important thing, so I often used to skip internal monologue and scene-setting because nothing happened in them. There was this one story about an old man with two goats, a cat, and the pigeons, and I remember distinctly finding it hilarious back then, absurd but funny. I was reading it earlier today and it very nearly made me cry.

[pir8fancier]

Sometimes I wonder if you do yourself a real disservice by going back. It's like revisiting some place you lived as a child. It will never be the same. You can't stopper time, and I think you're bound to be disappointed or confused. Either it's exactly like it was (and that's horrifying in a way) or it's completely different from your memory (and then you start questioning yourself.

[chuffing]

Yes, I have totally had that happen. I went back and reread some of my faves a few years ago and they were all so different than I'd remembered. Not necessarily bad, but like I had surpassed the themes, if that makes sense. I loved them again, but in a wholly different way than I had previously.

Hemingway is definitely meant to be read in English. As far as I know, it was a goal of his to write as cleanly as people speak. It worked for him, but for a lot of people it's just too sparse. I love his work, but I do prefer Fitzgerald for the time period, which is a lot more pretentious and overdone. Dramatics are more fun for me. Shocking, right? ;) Have you read Hemingway's The Garden of Eden? It's one of my faves of his.

Also, one of my absolutely favourite depressing lines in a book ever was from Snows of Kilamanjiro, when Henry {I think?} says, "Death travels "in pairs, on bicycles, and moves absolutely silently on the pavement." I thought that was really powerful for some reason.

[furiosity]

I think that's what makes reading so appealing to me, that you can read and re-read and never really be bored. Unless it's bad, but that's another story.

I like how sparse it is, but then it's a sort of style I aspire to, so yeah. >.> I don't remember if I've read The Garden of Eden in Russian -- I'm definitely going to in English, though. Fitzgerald is also on my list! I will probably end up babbling about him sooner or later. :">

It's so strange that you would mention Snows, because when I was reading the italicised bits with his memories, I thought of you because it reminded me vaguely of how you write. And that line, yeah -- there were a bunch of amazing sentences in that story; I am already making plans to re-read this whole collection right after I'm done with it because at the moment I'm just like "omg this is shiny om nom nom nom" and not really pausing as much to smell the flowers, so to speak.

[elizardbits]

Oh man. I gimped my way wretchedly through a fuckton of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky in Russian during high school. The head of the foreign language department, a mad Czech who spoke 33 languages and read/wrote an additional 12 dead languages (and who had eyebrows that put Thufir Hawat to shame) decreed that reading 19th century Russian literature in anything else than the original language was a vile and unspeakable crime worthy of immediate death and compounded by threats of revocation of all college recommendation letters. (bully

[furiosity]

omg, I know!!! I tried reading Notes from the Underground in English once but I got so frustrated because I kept going "BUT THIS IS NOT-- BUTBUT-- BUT OMG--" -- Crime and Punishment is like my favourite book EVAR and I maintain it must be read in the original. Even though I didn't even try reading it in English or Hungarian, like, ever. It'd probably be even worse in Hungarian.

Your mad Czech dude sounds totally awesome in that "omg hold me I'm scared" kind of way of awesomeness. Also, I had no idea you spoke/were familiar with Russian. YOU HAVE SO MANY TALENTS. *_*

YOU CAN HAS CAKE AND A PONY.

[elizardbits]

Ha. My dad tried to teach me Hungarian for like, a zillion years, and it was a tragic failure. Literally EVERY other language I've ever studied was incredibly simple for me to learn (ok, not eivissenc or mallorquin. meh.), but Hungarian? DOOM.

The mad Czech convinced the school board to let me take language classes and/or private study for ALL my electives, so his awesomeness was unparalleled. (Like his eyebrows.) I ended up doing French, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, and German (and Spanish, for the lulz & the easy A) for 3 1/2 years. This was immediately followed by my OMG I DID NOT GET INTO MIT breakdown, which involved a lot of class-cutting with wild abandon, and totally ruined what was probably my only chance to learn random Mesopotamian dialects. Srsly.