What 📔book are you reading right now?

[Rivendell_librarian]

Under Western Eyes by Joseph Conrad

wow! Now critics might say "not much happens" but this is a novel of ideas, of character, of guilt - not action, though there is some dramatic action at both the beginning and end. There's some similarity with Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment and Conrad's Lord Jim. It's definitely a good idea not to read the Introduction before reading the book, as not knowing the denoument means you enjoy the great tension in this book. The main character (Razumov) has a similar name as well. In the author's note, Conrad coins the term "banality" in a way similar to Arendt - had Arendt read this novel?

Conrad's family background is relevant, being an ethnic Pole who was born in Ukraine and whose father was a Polish nationalist at a time when Poland (or Ukraine) did not exist. His father was imprisoned in Russia and then exiled, dying of TB when Joseph was still young. His mother also died of TB at this time. But rather than follow in his father's footsteps Joseph Conrad chose to go to Marseille and go to sea - eventually joining the British Merchant Navy - and the rest is history. However, there is no sign of the sea here but I think this is one of Conrad's best novels

I struggled with Crime and Punishment. Imo this novel is better with some beautiful prose.

 

[Olorgando]

I struggled with Crime and Punishment. Imo this novel is better with some beautiful prose.

I'm wondering if part of this has to do with Joseph Conrad writing in English, while I'm guessing that you read Dostoevsky in translation. Perhaps @HALETH✒🗡 can provide some insights on the fidelity of the translations of the great Russian writers into English.

 

[HALETH✒🗡]

Perhaps @HALETH✒🗡 can provide some insights on the fidelity of the translations of the great Russian writers into English.

I'll be happy to do so but maybe a few days later if you don't mind. I'm going to take two English language exams this week and I'm quite busy with the preparation now.

 

[Persephone]

GOOD OMENS

 

[Elassar]

I have just finished the Hobbit for about the millionth time

 

[Rivendell_librarian]

Seems like I'm not the first person to see a connection between Conrad's novel and Arendt's famous phrase

Jstor

 

[Lómelindë Lindórië]

Still getting lost in The Silmarillion just like how Elwe got lost in Nan Elmoth...

 

[Elassar]

I am now starting the children of hurin again

 

[Olorgando]

Re-reading Jared Diamond's 2005 book "Collapse".

 

[Persephone]

Re-reading Jared Diamond's 2005 book "Collapse".

never heard of Jared Diamond... will have to check him out

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

I read Guns, Germs, and Steel, for which he won a Pulitzer. I also read The Third Chimpanzee.

 

[Olorgando]

I read Guns, Germs, and Steel, for which he won a Pulitzer. I also read The Third Chimpanzee.

Got both of those, GG&S in both the original and in the German translation - because the German translation had an entirely different title. The original was an older edition, the translation a newer, expanded edition (Diamond seems to release revised and expanded editions of most of his books after a few years), so I kept both. And I also have his later book, the 2013 (English edition) "The World Until Yesterday" ... which was published in German (again with a different title) in 2012!

 

[Fëanor_7]

Not been around here for a long while

I've been on something of a Philip K. Dick spree and am currently reading 'The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick'

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

You were here in January-- but welcome back, anyway! 🙂

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

I also read The Third Chimpanzee

I just remembered that it was here that I read-- aside from the "we're alone in the universe" idea -- the most depressing hypothesis as to why we have no evidence for alien life I've heard.

 

[Fëanor_7]

You were here in January-- but welcome back, anyway! 🙂

Really? I must've completely forgotten, thought it had been a few years!

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Well, it was the first time since 2018. 😃

 

[Elbereth Vala Varda]

Really? I must've completely forgotten, thought it had been a few years!

Well, Alatulië nanci anyways! Glad you came back to TTF!

 

[Radaghast]

The Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson. It's been kind of a slog and, with 80-ish pages left to go, I still have almost no idea what's going on All I can seem to manage is a few pages a day.

Is there anyone here who has read this book or series (Malazan Book of the Fallen)?

 

[Olorgando]

Finished reading my 2012 German translation of Douglas A. Anderson's 2002 second edition (original 1988) of his "Annotated Hobbit" a few days ago.
Funny thing is, I'd read the complete annotation part several years ago.
Now there are two German translations of The Hobbit, one from 1957 and one from 1997. For that reasons, the annotations are more extensive than Anderson's, as differences in the two translations are noted. So I'm not quite certain if the version in this book is purely either of the translations, or a combination.

What I noticed is that, due to the German language having kept the differentiation between the formal and the familiar "you" (the latter was "thou", used by JRRT only in one scene in LoTR, IIRC), the formal "Sie" (which also happens to mean "they" ... oh well ... ) is used quite often. Which I found rather too "modern", as the earlier translation of LoTR (1969-70) which I have circumvented this difference much better. (The same author who did the 1997 translation of TH did the same for LoTR in an edition of 2000, which, however, drew some heavy criticism for using 1990's German "slang" that just grated considering the hypothetical time-setting of the events.)