What 📔book are you reading right now?

[Eriol]

And then the much-celebrated 'Don Quixote' what does everyone thing of this novel?

It is everything it is made out to be -- a great, very great novel. Enjoy .

 

[joxy]

Thanks Ireth. I'm convinced that T took your word and just played around a little with the ending to produce his word. I'm wondering now if anything else of his was directly from Finnish - can anyone think of any examples?
Inderjit: I had no idea there was such a stronghold of intellect in Wolverhampton! From Lermontov to Cervantes in a single step - that'll be quite an adventure, and quite a contrast! Give me a good laugh with the Don anytime, and leave those miserable Russians to their introspection. Not that Cervantes doesn't have a lot of important stuff to say; he just does it with a sense of humour - and readably.

 

[Rhiannon]

I have an illustrated, children's version of The Iliad and The Odyssey, so I'm familiar with the story and all of the gods, but I haven't quite gotten around to reading the actual poem yet. Or the Aenid, or Beowulf, for that matter. I read The Song of Roland, but it's in nice, short little sections.

So far my only encounter with Russian lit has been Anna Karenina, which I gave a good, solid chance to get interesting. After four hundred pages of thinking 'what the heck is wrong with these people?' I realized that I did not care at all what happened to any of them and I returned the book to the library.

I'm only reading it in short bursts, but I'm loving Love in the Time of Cholera so far, and to balance it out (and help me get in the right mind-set for the speech I'm doing) I'm planning to re-read CS Lewis' The Abolition of Man.

 

[Ireth Telrúnya]

Here are some examples of similarities between Finnish and Quenya words. I found them in a website of a Finnish Tolkien fan. It seems that Tolkien has specifically taken some words and either altered their meaning a bit and it's especially the stems of the words that are similar. By the way, this ä-letter is pronounced like "a" in American English "can". Also, double consonats, e.g. 'kk', are to be stressed and not taken for granted, and the same goes for vowels, e.g. 'aa'; all vowels are pronounced, e.g. 'ie' is pronounced '[ee-eh]' etc.; and the letter 'j' is pronounced as a consonantal 'y'. And a single letter 'a' is always pronuonced as in 'arm'.
The first is the Quenya word and the second is the Finnish one.


Quenya--------------Finnish
-anta-_='gives' | _anta-= 'give'
-aurinka= 'sunlit, sunny' | _aurinko='Sun'
_kantl= 'a large harp', _/ kantele='harp' |
_kava-= 'dig' | _kaiva-= 'dig'
_kulu= 'gold' | _kulta= 'gold'
_kumpo_='pile' | _kumpu= 'hillock, hump'
_kú_='Crescent Moon' | _kuu='moon'
_Ó ='be, exist' | stem _o-= 'be, exist' (olla=be, exist)
_pelto= 'hedge, hedged field' | _pelto= 'field'
_pínea= 'small' | _pieni='small'
_qualme= 'death', _qualma= 'deadly' | _kalma (older a bit archaic word) = 'death, dead person'
_táma='this' | _tämä= 'this'
_tie= 'line, direction, route, road' | _tie='route, road'
_tereva='piercing, acute, shrill, sharp' | _terävä= 'acute, sharp'
_tulu-='move, come' | _tul-(tulla) = 'come'
_tunto='notice, regard, perception' | _tunto='perception'
_vene='small boat, vessel, dish' | _vene= 'small boat'
_ya(n)= 'and' | _ja= 'and'

 

[Lantarion]

Ireth that is simply STUNNING!!! I had noticed a lot of those myself, but many were unknown to me.. And they are so close too!! Hooray for the Finnish language!
Also, one that I have seen is the word 'sword'; it isn't quite as obivous though.

Quenya___________Finnish
macil_______________miekka

 

[Ireth Telrúnya]

Oh, I didn't know you moderators here can also modify these posts.. Thanks for that additional clarification. And to the guy from whom I got those..
Well, just thinking about pronunciation between English and Finnish... For example the Finnish word "tie" means "road" and in English it means a piece of men's clothing. In English I hear it is pronounced like [thai] but our "tie" must be said something like (if I can demonstrate it in letters at all...) [teah] and without no aspiration in the letter "t".

I don't know if anyone is interested of this piece of information about "tie", though...

Oh, I guess I should learn more Quenya..

 

[Lantarion]

Yeah Ireth, I find it interesting.. It actually goes to show how completely stupid English pronunciation is! Phonetic spelling and pronunciation is an inherent linguistic quality, I feel, and English just defies that completely! But it does offer a beautifully poetic and diverse language too.

The finnish word tie is pronounced as two syllables: [tee-eh]. Just as in Quenya.

 

[Beleg]

I am extremely thankful to Eriol for pointing me towards the direction of the 'Riftwar' series, which I am enjoying at the current moment.
After that I intend to read 'Women are from Venus, Men are from Mars.'

Eh and occasional book or two of Agatha Christie and Perry Mason mysteries is often thrown into the mix.

 

[Niniel]

I am extremely thankful to Eriol for pointing me towards the direction of the 'Riftwar' series, which I am enjoying at the current moment.

I noticed you liked them, by your MSN name... I have just read all of them (the Riftwar trilogy, Prince of the Blood, The King's buccaneer and the Krondor trilogy). I liked them a lot, though they're of course not as good as LOTR (some of them are really too bloody for my taste).

 

[Ireth Telrúnya]

Well, English spelling is much better than for example French spelling! That is a language that has huge load of letters and words and when they are pronounced, it seems there was only one word there.

Yesterday I tried to remind myself of the Finnish grammar of these inessive, ablative, allative, adessive, illative, elative and found out that I really couldn't put them together with the right forms...well, good that I know them anyway...

Ablative and allative are in Quenya too. But I think they are a bit broader and different than the ones in Finnish.

 

[Ol'gaffer]

I just finished reading Neil Gaimans American Gods and now I'm starting to read Bruce Campbells Autobiography "If Chins Could Kill" again.

 

[My_Precious]

"The Queen of Sorcery" by David Eddings. I wonder how come I haven't read his Belgariad books before. They are interesting, funny, and keep you reading til 2 am.

 

[Rhiannon]

Well, as wonderful as I thought Love in the Time of Cholera was, it didn't break my reading slump. Still didn't get past page thirty. So I've moved on to The Sorcerer and the Gentleman, which has an extremely promising first sentence that I would quote for you except that I'm too lazy to go get the book and come back. I'm already thirty pages in, so we'll see if I manage to make headway.

I've had more reader's block in the past year than I think I've had my whole life combined. It's truly dreadful.

 

[Inderjit S]

Well I have nearly finished 'Love in the Time of Chlorea' and it is indeed a beautiful book.

But as for Don Quixote, it has to be one of the greatest books ever written. One cannot help but weep at Quixote's realisation (on his deathbed) that he was indeed rather mad and it is a shame that he had to die so soon after becoming sane again.

But you still cannot beat the scene when he mistakes two herds of sheep for two opposing armies and he proceeds to rout the unfortunate sheep.

 

[Rhiannon]

Well I have nearly finished 'Love in the Time of Chlorea' and it is indeed a beautiful book.

It's gorgeous. I just can't seem to concentrate well enough to read magical realism right now. So straight up fantasy it is--my genre of choice since I was five

 

[Dengen-Goroth]

Maybe I'm wrong in this assessment, but I don't believe there's very much of the 'magical' in Love in the Time of Cholera. It is quite apart from 100 Years of Solitude in that aspect, and it certainly doesn't need it to shine! Rhiannon, give it another go whenever you can- it really gets rolling past page 30

Just started on The Sound and the Fury by Faulkner, should make for a good read.

 

[Rhiannon]

Maybe I'm wrong in this assessment, but I don't believe there's very much of the 'magical' in Love in the Time of Cholera. It is quite apart from 100 Years of Solitude in that aspect, and it certainly doesn't need it to shine! Rhiannon, give it another go whenever you can- it really gets rolling past page 30

From what I understand, Love in the Time of Cholera is still considered a part of the magical realism genre, though not as good an example as One Hundred Years of Solitude. Hopefully I'll soon get my brain back and be able to concentrate on things more complicated than Terry Pratchet

 

[Kementari]

I just finnished reading Shirley by Charlotte Bronte and I just have to say Wow, what a great book. Not only it is sweet romantic and complexly and poetically written it really deals alot with society on the whole in a philosofic way, much more than Jane Eyre. Charlotte Bronte obviously had great perception of human actions and feelings

 

[Inderjit S]

Tried to read Stendhal's 'The Charterhouse of Parma'-not very impressed, though the first 100 pages or so, which deal with the battle of Waterloo are great it starts to get boring when we hear about Fabrizios aunt's private/social life and how she and her lover, Conte move to Parma and then then all the subsuqent incest and murder, get's surprisingly boorish.

Also read Dostoevsky's 'The Brother Karmazov', which was brilliant, one of the best books I've ever read. Hope 'Crime and Punishment' is as good. Currently reading Edith Whaton's 'The Custom of The Country'.

 

[Lantarion]

I'm still reading Puig's 'Kiss of the Spider Woman'.. It really is an extremely interesting and scintillating novel, I recommend it to anybody who doesn't have trouble with borderline psychotic stream of consciousness thoughts in the text from time to time.. Seriously though, it's a good read.