Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch
I mostly enjoyed Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, but it's very odd. I read it some years back (wow, thinking about it...quite a few years back, now), and it's....well, it's a comedy of manners, missing the more obvious comedy elements. If you're familiar and comfortable with writers of the Dickensian age/style, you'll get the comedic elements; if not, it mayn't work for you. It's a book that is not easy to categorize.
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Read Dickens? Yes. Truly familiar with Dickens? No, probably not. I'm more encouraged to read the book after your comments.
Quote:
Originally Posted by issybird
I think for books like Don Quixote, i.e., honking huge pre-20th century works not written in English, the quality of the translation is critical. The public domain translations can be impossible, translating archaic language and form into archaic language and form. If you're going to do it, it's worth spending the money on a current translation.
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Seconded. The money you save with a public domain translation may become time wasted in frustration. PD translations aren't necessarily bad but they often read differently from anything modern.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Froide
A Daughter of the Snows, by Jack London. The racism sticks in my craw, e.g.,
"We are a race of doers and fighters, of globe-encirclers and zone-conquerors... All that the other races are not, the Anglo-Saxon, or Teuton if you please, is."
- [swiped the quotation from Wikipedia: A Daughter of the Snows]
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That reminds me of another book I couldn't continue reading: Mark Twain's
The Innocents Abroad
. The narrator's judgments of his fellow travellers were very off-putting to me. It was too long ago for me to give specifics but I don't think I made it even 50 pages into the book.