Le Baron's casual reading log

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Le Baron
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Re: Le Baron's casual reading log

Postby Le Baron » Tue Jul 13, 2021 12:15 am

I finished Damals war es Friedrich before the weekend. A good little book. Started Les Caves du Vatican by Andre Gide, then abandoned it a day later. Capricious I know, but you have to be hooked by a book to be able to read without effort. Bottom of the pile.

I picked up the Harry Mulisch again. This time it seems more interesting, and I'm comfortable in Dutch so I'm going back to that. I also started reading something I may well have already read (maybe in English) but can't remember: Emil und die Detektive. Hasn't almost everyone already read this? This is one to read just before bed, or in bed.

For study purposes I'm being bold. I've been slowly reading through a very slim volume in Spanish about Che Guevara. I actually have a much larger book about Guevara by a Horacio Daniel Rodriguez, which I'd like to read, but can't yet. I have it in the 'pile' in the hope that I will be reading it soon.

It's officially my birthday today (though it will really take place 'tomorrow'). Who knows I might even get a cake?
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Re: Le Baron's casual reading log

Postby iguanamon » Tue Jul 13, 2021 1:10 am

Happy Birthday! y ¡Feliz Cumpleaños!

Hope your day, was/will be filled with happiness, Le Baron!
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DaveAgain
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Re: Le Baron's casual reading log

Postby DaveAgain » Tue Jul 13, 2021 5:31 am

Happy Birthday Le Baron! :-)
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Le Baron
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Re: Le Baron's casual reading log

Postby Le Baron » Tue Jul 13, 2021 1:34 pm

Thanks a lot! I got two cards ...one from the local socialist party and one from the vet. The last one had advertising on the back of it. Ah well. :lol:
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Le Baron
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Re: Le Baron's casual reading log

Postby Le Baron » Thu Jul 29, 2021 10:27 pm

I finished the Spanish book, but since I already know how the Spanish Civil War turned out I feel like I cheated....not really.

A couple of days ago I began Jacques Poulin's Le Vieux Chagrin. I'm 78 pages in. Some of the chapters are exceptionally short, some just 2.5 pages (sides). It means I can cover a few chapters before going to bed. Nothing worse than a book where the chapter seems to be going on and on and your eyelids are dropping. The prose is surprisingly clear for a French novel, whose sentences tend to be quite tortuous and winding. Up to now nothing of note has occurred in the plot and yet it's enjoyable.

I'm also reading an English novel by Julian Barnes, a writer whose works I like a lot. A Sense Of An Ending. It's probably more of a novella.

I haven't read that much English non-fiction for a while so I've also been perusing a book about language and languages by novelist/composer/polyglot Anthony Burgess, of Clockwork Orange fame. The book is called A Mouthful Of Air. It is formed from essays on languages and parts of languages. There's an amusing one called Should We Learn Foreign Languages? Should we indeed... It's an exercise in amateur linguistics (since he wasn't a 'professional'), but so much more entertaining than the average linguistics book; which should really have a health warning.

Since Mrs Baron is in Amsterdam for a few days I've had fewer chores to do, so I expect to finish some books more quickly. I have the novella Bint lined-up, by the 1930s Dutch writer Ferdinand Bordewijk. His novel Karakter was among the first handful of 'real' literary novels I read in Dutch. It's been some time since I read anything else of his. I expect to learn some new words...learning words never ends when you attempt literary fiction.
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Re: Le Baron's casual reading log

Postby DaveAgain » Sat Jul 31, 2021 2:21 pm

Le Baron wrote:I haven't read that much English non-fiction for a while so I've also been perusing a book about language and languages by novelist/composer/polyglot Anthony Burgess, of Clockwork Orange fame. The book is called A Mouthful Of Air. It is formed from essays on languages and parts of languages. There's an amusing one called Should We Learn Foreign Languages? Should we indeed... It's an exercise in amateur linguistics (since he wasn't a 'professional'), but so much more entertaining than the average linguistics book; which should really have a health warning.
What was Mr Burgess' case in favour of learning foreign languages?
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Le Baron
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Re: Le Baron's casual reading log

Postby Le Baron » Sat Jul 31, 2021 3:05 pm

DaveAgain wrote:What was Mr Burgess' case in favour of learning foreign languages?


The book is from 1992, but I suspect that essay is older. Burgess, whose real 'heyday' was in another generation, spends some time talking about the reasons for learning classical languages. These are few, apart from the key reason: knowing the minds of the ancients; yet he also says since it is the facts most people require, a good translation will suffice. Apart from poetry which he considers untranslatable.

Then the general argument that the majority of second language learners are not in formal schooling for it and only get the desire when they are adults and have less time and energy to devote to it: hence the high rate of failure/dropout. Then he says that 'primers' on modern languages (which is what makes me suspect he was writing from memory rather than 1992 standards) tend to be impractical. Offering no words for please/thank you, bus stop and Aspirin, but lots of words to describe 'postillions struck by lightning'. He's wise enough to remark that the best books don't rejoice in grammar as the main study, but rather as a skeleton on which to flesh out language.

He assumes you will be at least visiting the country of your target language. That writing knowledge is hardly even necessary, reading knowledge minimal, but he insists that you'll need the ability to speak and listen. I agree yet, although he doesn't say it explicitly, he doesn't seem to think reading is the source of vocabulary. His main emphasis is on mastering pronunciation, arguing FIGS and associated languages employ vowel sounds found in regional British English, rather than RP they are usually taught from. Which I again agree with. Then he goes on a vague trip about using tangled mnemonics for learning vocabulary when you can't rely on cognates or inspired guesswork. And that he used it when learning Malay.

I think it's fair to say he gives no real reason for why anyone should learn a foreign language.
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Le Baron
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Re: Le Baron's casual reading log

Postby Le Baron » Tue Aug 03, 2021 6:45 pm

I think I underestimated F. Bordewijk's Bint as a quick and easy. It's not that I couldn't read it (and it's only 70 pages anyway), but that there were actually some unknown bits and pieces in there, for me at least. Obviously literature isn't quite like everyday language and it is easy to forget and not recognise words used in ways they aren't under non-literary circumstances.

For example I know the word tooien as meaning decorate in the sense of e.g. decorating a Christmas tree de kerstboom tooien, but I'd never heard it as just tooi to mean 'finery' or generally 'attire'. Which is preposterous given my day job.

Also some words which aren't used so much now, like kwitantie, which is a proof of payment. Een schuld kwijten is to discharge a debt. Also kwijten van... is to be 'acquitted', which also means 'discharge. You find parts of the associated word family elsewhere like kwijtschelding, which is when you are relieved of the need to pay a certain debt. It's often employed when people can't pay council tax or those people with 'creative accounting' who can pay things, but don't want to.

For general receipts people tend to just say 'een bon/bonnetje' of the type you get in the supermarket; even when it's one of those little hand-written receipts at a small shop. Specifically a kwitantie was more useful before internet banking where you can just get easy access to your bank details and prove you paid something.

It reminds me that no matter how comfortable I am in the language, I'm never as comfortable as a native whose lexical intuition and long exposure to vocabulary is wholly on another level.
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Le Baron
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Re: Le Baron's casual reading log

Postby Le Baron » Fri Aug 06, 2021 1:28 pm

There was a strange coincidence when I went to the second hand shop yesterday. They have a large book selection (€1, but they often only charge 25-50 cents) and lots of German, French, Spanish, Italian and a smattering of others.

Some months back I ordered a book from a place and then they sent an email saying it had to be cancelled because they were 'out of stock' (which means they sold the one book they had). Yesterday I was perusing the shelves at the second-hand charity shop and I saw that exact book, in a different binding but the same book. So yes, I got that one for 50 cents. La Fille de mon meilleur ami by Yves Ravey.
I also found both Dora Bruder and Rue des boutiques obscures by Patrick Modiano. The first was a welcome find because only a week or so ago I read the review of it in another thread by kanewai.

€1,50 is a good price for three useful books. All three join the French pile.
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Le Baron
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Re: Le Baron's casual reading log

Postby Le Baron » Mon Aug 09, 2021 5:04 pm

I am actually, officially, on holiday. Since the weekend just gone. Unfortunately I am finding it quite difficult to get out of the work mindset; even though I don't have to work. It doesn't help that I have a home workshop. I have to wait until I can go off to the cottage I booked (I chose a domestic holiday). So at home it's hard not to do the things I would normally do.

This is a mistake when you're on holiday, because the time seems to move more quickly when you only do things you would usually do. To get the feeling of long days you have to do things where you can't reasonably predict the outcome. That means visiting places where the journey there is unfamiliar, eating in unknown restaurants, seeing unfamiliar things. So I've been cleaning and rearranging things I haven't had the time to do until now. Finding books I'd forgotten about. Making the surroundings appear different. It helps a little. et, bien, ce n'est pas exactement comme d'habitude, car j'ai fais la grasse mat' ce matin !

It's very rainy here. I've tried and failed to hang out washing three times. Every time I bring it in the sun comes out. When I put it out it rains like a b'stard! It was like a monsoon half an hour ago. So I made a risotto and baked some Turkish bread called Bazlama (which I'm sure I must have misspelled!).

So I added a new book to the reading schedule: Meine schöne Mörderin. Below you can see the cover and a page from inside. It has the slimmest margins I've ever seen in a book! So those 123 pages would probably be over 200 in a regular formatted book.

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