Le Baron's casual reading log

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Le Baron
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Le Baron's casual reading log

Postby Le Baron » Thu May 13, 2021 2:03 am

I don't much bother logging actual language learning. It feels to me like going on holiday and spending all the time taking photos or filming, instead of looking and experiencing. I find that hard to do, I'd rather put all the effort into actual learning.

Logging what I read may be useful though. Even if just for myself as a record. A mix of novels and non-fiction, maybe a few instruction manuals for obsolete equipment (I'm joking), largely in languages I can actually read at a functional level and some dabblings in languages I'm actively learning.

Mostly I read for sheer pleasure and reading bandes dessinées is something I find both pleasurable and useful in one go. I recall that I got functional in Dutch while reading strip books. It may have been correlation more than causation, but I'm convinced it added to the understanding because of the direct visual cues, the natural dialogue with high-frequency use of common formulations.

They were strips like the eccentric Nero, Kiekeboe, Franka, Claire and Sjors en Sjimmie. Earlier than that in French Tintin, Iznogoud, Michel Vaillant, Blake & Mortimer and a favourite Victor Sackville. It was pleasant, later on, to be able to then read many of those same Franco-Begian comics in Dutch, already knowing the characters, but with them speaking a different language. So yes I still read comics as a way into a language.

However the last 4-5 months have been regular books. Sometimes I don't differentiate between translated literature so long as it is in the target language:

Dutch: Het Gevaar (Jos Vandeloo). Mieke Maaike's Obscene Jeugd (Louis Paul Boon) which is frankly quite pornographic in a literary way. A novel recently published by a friend of mine called Autobiografie Van Een Fictie. It has a very novel plot. He's still waiting for my views on it. Lastly De Postbode Belt Altijd Tweemaal which is of course the famous American novel by James M Cain.

French: Some adventure type thing called Vigilex: ou le secret de M. Philbert. Fast cars, stolen jewellery. Obscure thing which I found in a 2nd-hand shop.
A couple of months ago I went through Le vieux nègre et la médaille by Ferdinand Oyo. You may know he was more politician than writer despite producing a few books which have stood the test of time. He was a Camaroon diplomat, culture secretary; acting president of the UN security council and UNICEF Chairman. The book is a good read, though I was tripped-up by unfamiliar words and constructions. I'd probably have to read it again to fully appreciate it.
A few days ago I started Knock (Jules Romain, 1923). I'm not far into it. It's a real source of words I either didn't know or had long forgotten.

German: Wo Warst Du, Adam? (Heinrich Boll - anti war novel). Good book. I need to read it again though because I was looking things up and getting sidetracked. A very slim volume, but with the most densely-printed pages with tiny letters! I started Süskind's Das Parfum, but my head wasn't in it so I abandoned it. I'll pick that up again sometime.

Lesser languages I'm still learning: Spanish I got a bit too adventurous and read through (with a little difficulty, but I urged myself on) a B1+ 'Easy Reader' of El Carnaval by Francisco García Pavón. I did okay. Let's say it "needs work".

I also have a Swahili reader I've been going through. This is really easy stuff for beginners and I'm trying to read it regularly...alas.I have more work to do

I have a tendency to squander some free time watching foreign-language films rather than reading.
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Le Baron
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Re: Le Baron's casual reading log

Postby Le Baron » Sat May 22, 2021 3:02 pm

German. I'm about a third of the way into Hermann Hesse's Gertrud. I'm probably not in the mood for it because It's not holding my interest as it should. It's nothing against Hesse because I like his books. Especially Knulp, which I've never read in German (only Ralph Manheim's English translation) so I might look for that.

French. On and off I've been reading Les Carnets du Major Thompson (Pierre Daninos). These were well-known 'humorist' books in France in the 50s/60s and are an amusing, if fairly stereotyped (through French eyes) image of the 'Englishman' and the English in a 1954 sort of way. There are a string of sequels, but this is the only one I have. I admit to having to look up words in the dictionary and some sentence constructions.

Dutch. Some years ago my wife gave me a book (ages ago actually) and suggested I read it, she had found it 'hilarious' she said. I didn't start it until 2014 and only read half of it. Now I've read the other half and it's not even that long. :)
It's in Dutch, translated from French, originally L'anti-Macho, by Sophie Perrier: De Mannen van Nederland. It's based upon interviews with about 35 women from other countries who live in NL and have/had a relationship with a Dutchman. Some praise Dutchmen to high heaven, because they are obviously their type and come from places where men are highly 'traditional' and do bugger-all around the house. Others are gravely disappointed by how boring and hopeless at romance they are.

There's actually a lot of interesting perspectives that help you understand not only 'de Nederlandse man', but how Dutch people in general think. A lot of this I've already absorbed implicitly over time, but it's interesting to see it expressed explicitly. In my experience it also applies to quite a lot of 'Nederlandse vrouwen'; especially the inability to say "I love you" with passion. The openness of the society, often leads to a lack of excitement usually brought on by pushing at boundaries. In NL you break rules in different ways, which is probably why people are obsessed with setting off fireworks. :lol:
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Le Baron
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Re: Le Baron's casual reading log

Postby Le Baron » Sat May 29, 2021 8:17 pm

I ordered a few actual paper books the other day, from a resource where they are rather cheap - often under a fiver and with free delivery. It's something I haven't done for some time. Also I tend to borrow literature from the library or from friends and most of the rest is via "free" electronic resources. I only buy non-fiction books and only when it's impossible to borrow them.

I was thinking about what Carmody wrote regarding the generally gloomy nature of French literature and someone I was talking to (irl) suggested a book by the Canadian-French writer Jacques Poulin. That particular book was unavailable, but I saw another of his called Le vieux chagrin (I know! The title doesn't look promising!) and the story appealed to me. Another of his was there which had some good reviews, L'anglais n'est pas une langue magique. I ordered both and I'm looking forward to reading them.

Since Last Sunday I also have a copy of Isabel Allende's La casa de los espiritus. This was sent to me all the way from Chile by a friend who studied music here at the conservatory and went back home some years back. Allende is also Chilean. This friend is optimistic about my progress. I think the book is far above my level and so I don't think I can even start it without it crashing to a halt. Right now I'm still on 'easy readers' for Spanish. 2021 has been busy for me up to this point and hasn't allowed as much study (that's my excuse anyway). Has anyone else here read this book?

Forgot to mention I also started De Pupil by Harry Mulisch.
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Re: Le Baron's casual reading log

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Sun May 30, 2021 6:17 pm

Le Baron wrote:Since Last Sunday I also have a copy of Isabel Allende's La casa de los espiritus. This was sent to me all the way from Chile by a friend who studied music here at the conservatory and went back home some years back. Allende is also Chilean. This friend is optimistic about my progress. I think the book is far above my level and so I don't think I can even start it without it crashing to a halt. Right now I'm still on 'easy readers' for Spanish. 2021 has been busy for me up to this point and hasn't allowed as much study (that's my excuse anyway). Has anyone else here read this book?

Forgot to mention I also started De Pupil by Harry Mulisch.

To start with last things first, please give us an update on your opinion of Mulish's book when you finish.

Only recently did I finish with La casa de los espíritus. I used a mix reading and listening. Mostly both, but here and there I got out of sync and only read or only listened to short parts of it. My first encounter with Allende was her Stories of Eva Luna, read in English, which I liked a lot, and then Eva Luna, which I liked not so much.

So what La casa de los espíritus held in store for me made me a bit leery, but much to my great pleasure, it blew me away. I need to explain that I love magical realism, and that Cien años de soledad by Gabriel García Márquez is one of my all-time favorite novels. For me it ranks with War and Peace and The Brothers Karamazov and The Tale of Genji and perhaps a couple more whose titles escape me for the moment as a broad-reaching and profound portrait of a time and a place and a society. Allende's fertile imagination has peopled the book with an extraordinary number of different characters, and she manages the points of view and manipulates the difficult mechanisms of magical realism with the mastery of García Márquez.

Having said all that, it must also be said that the novel takes a bit of a turn in regards to point of view and focus at about 3/4 of the way through, and the novel becomes a more personal but still fictional recollection so to speak of her own experiences and the experiences of her family in Chile in the 70s. The change disappointed me a bit until I came to accept the autobiographical nature of the last part of the novel.

As for its level of difficulty, I never feel competent to say one way or another. When I read Cien años de soledad, I was in way over my head, but the story fascinated me so much that I plowed on looking up word after word and writing the definitions in the margins--no Kindle at that time--until I finished.
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Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson

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Le Baron
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Re: Le Baron's casual reading log

Postby Le Baron » Mon May 31, 2021 1:17 pm

MorkTheFiddle wrote:To start with last things first, please give us an update on your opinion of Mulish's book when you finish.

I'll do that. It may be some time though, because I circulate books in the pile. Unless it gets really gripping then it could be a mere week! You know how it goes.

MorkTheFiddle wrote:So what La casa de los espíritus held in store for me made me a bit leery, but much to my great pleasure, it blew me away. I need to explain that I love magical realism, and that Cien años de soledad by Gabriel García Márquez is one of my all-time favorite novels. For me it ranks with War and Peace and The Brothers Karamazov and The Tale of Genji and perhaps a couple more whose titles escape me for the moment as a broad-reaching and profound portrait of a time and a place and a society. Allende's fertile imagination has peopled the book with an extraordinary number of different characters, and she manages the points of view and manipulates the difficult mechanisms of magical realism with the mastery of García Márquez.

This may be an obstacle for me, because although I can tolerate magic realism (I like Salman Rushdie) I prefer 'ordinary realism' (whatever that is) and get fatigued by a writer meandering about with fantasy ideas and pretending they are 'normal'. That said I've read plenty so-called 'speculative fiction' which can contain similar elements. The only thing I can do is give it a shot and you've done a job of selling its qualities to me. The autobiographical elements and Chile in the 70s will probably interest me more.

MorkTheFiddle wrote:As for its level of difficulty, I never feel competent to say one way or another. When I read Cien años de soledad, I was in way over my head, but the story fascinated me so much that I plowed on looking up word after word and writing the definitions in the margins--no Kindle at that time--until I finished.

I suspect you are far in advance of me regarding Spanish reading (and Spanish everything else very likely). I'm always that the books will equally fascinate me as you describe and facilitate learning.
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Le Baron
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Re: Le Baron's casual reading log

Postby Le Baron » Sun Jun 06, 2021 12:55 am

Since the books I ordered haven't arrived yet I've been dawdling through the Mulisch book. I haven't managed to get going properly because the week was busy and I was falling asleep before getting to the end of even a paragraph!

I did finish the Gertrud. Like a lot of Hesse's books, or his earlier books at least, there is a long 'coming of age' section. The rest is a basically a sort of love triangle and it makes me wonder if it was actually loosely inspired by Gustav Mahler's relationship with his wife Alma (although she obviously married Mahler and not someone else). I don't know whether he knew him.

Also finished Les Carnets du Major Thompson. Amusing book and I learned quite a few words. I forgot that I'd started Knock by Jules Romain and that's because it fell off the table and down the back of the bed and I'd totally forgotten I was reading it. I found it yesterday when I vacuumed there. Bottom of the pile for that one, I don't want to make work for myself.
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Le Baron
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Re: Le Baron's casual reading log

Postby Le Baron » Mon Jun 07, 2021 1:00 pm

Back at rdearman's log there was talk about having piles of books to get through, including those donated from people or perhaps picked up cheap 2nd-hand where you get what's on offer in the L2 in question. So many of these are above my grade right now that I don't even want to look at them, never mind attempt to read them.

Among the donations I've had (of withdrawn books from the librarian at Instituto Cervantes) there have been a number of books that are beyond my level, but I appreciate them nonetheless. They fit nicely in a box in the storage.

I did recently get a really good, full-size English-Spanish dictionary (Collins-Noguer). Since it was printed in 1974 (though it looks much newer) it's quite old; though this has never really been a problem for me. My Concise OED is from the 1950s and always performs admirably.
I also got one of those cardboard verb conjugation wheels, a rueda de verbos. A useful little gadget when you're reading and encounter a strange conjugation of a known verb. With little cut-out windows telling you the presente, perfecto, imperfecto, indefinido... I could have done with one of these for other languages. These things cost between €5-€10. Maybe I can make one for Swahili.
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Le Baron
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Re: Le Baron's casual reading log

Postby Le Baron » Tue Jun 15, 2021 12:05 am

The Jacques Poulin books have still not arrived. I did get another book which arrived a few days ago: a Bescherelle El arte de conjugar en Espanol. This is a second-hand book. They sell largely used books and often overstock that previously went unsold and has been sitting in storage for years. It was described as being 'very good, minimal-to- no wear'. That's not exactly how I perceived it when it arrived.

All the corners were knocked and all the four corners opposite the spine side are worn through to the boards! The back endpaper was also loose running into the spine and looked to me like new ones had been recently glued-in because there is glue residue. Very dishonest. I complained and because I'm keeping the book and can repair it, I accepted a 75% refund. Ah well.

I've only read a third of the Harry Mulisch book and I only got that far because I spent a weekend at home sitting in the garden under a parasol. It's another book I have to be in the mood for. I got sidetracked reading The Kenneth Williams Letters, which are hilarious and easy to read.

That said I did start another Dutch book. I'm convinced I've already read it, but every page seems new, so I'll just go on. It's De geschiedenis van mijn kaalheid (The history of my baldness) by Marek van der Jagt. There's a story to this book and author. There is no 'Marek van der Jagt', it's actually an alter-ego of novelist/journalist Arnon Grunberg. His novels Blauwe Maandagen and De Heilige Antonio were perhaps the first two full-length Dutch novels I read straight through. The van der Jagt book won the same literary prize Grunberg had previously won! Under the same name he wrote a curious, short book called Otto Weininger, of bestaat de Jood? which a monograph essay of 'the self-hating Jew'. I have a copy of that somewhere.

Incidentally if anyone is intermediate in Dutch and looking for Dutch books in a style easy to read which are engaging, try the handful of books written by Frans Pointl. Especially 'De kip die over the soep vloog', 'De Heer slaapt met watjes in zijn oren' and 'De Hospita's'. He wrote in an accessible style with a sense of humour Those books did a lot for my Dutch vocab.

I did actually read through a Spanish 'easy reader'. El Carnaval by Francisco Garcia Pavon. Whilst listening to Boccherini string trios, and 20th century string trios by Alan Rawsthorne and Jean Françaix. The latter is played by Jascha Heifetz and Gregor Piatigorsky (with Joseph de Pasquale taking the viola). If you haven't heard it it's worth a spin.

This is my 'progress', such as it is.
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Re: Le Baron's casual reading log

Postby Le Baron » Sat Jun 19, 2021 8:14 pm

Newspaper and magazine stuff.

I went through the Friday edition of Allgemeine Zeitung (neighbour gives me this two to three times a fortnight, though I don't always read it). I also get a couple of gossip magazines which are equivalent to the sort of thing called 'Panorama' here. Stuff about celebrity woes which I find largely uninteresting. It can be good for a laugh for light reading.

I used to have a subscription to Le Monde Diplomatique, but a kind person from the language café lets me have it after they've read it. This is always a good read, they've been on the button for years. I also have Courrier Internationale, which we all chip in for and then share. It's had a lot of doomsday Covid-based articles in the last year and they get tiresome, but in general I like this world news omnibus in French. The others also chip in for L'Express, but I can't read that garbage. It promotes incoherent neoliberal economics and has been teetering into Covid conspiracy theories for the last year. The letters page is a joke written by idiots. The others kindly pass it on to me after reading it, but I usually just throw it away.
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Le Baron
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Re: Le Baron's casual reading log

Postby Le Baron » Tue Jun 29, 2021 11:17 pm

Well, my package of books never turned up and I've had to lodge a complaint. They get back to you pretty sharpish, so I'll have to see what happens. These are one-off 2nd-hand books, so replacements won't be easy.

In the meantime I finished the Marek van der Jagt. Good book worthy of its literary win. I'm also halfway through Damals war es Friedrich by Hans Pieter Richter. It's essentially a 'children's' or 'young adult's' book and on the back of the book it has:
dtv pocket. Die Reihe für Jugendliche, die mitdenken wollen.

I think this elevates it enough for me to claim I read something above a children's book...that's my story anyway.

I had a bit more time for reading because I pulled a muscle in my neck and then a few days later the upper back...agony. But propped-up in bed with on several pillows it was an excuse to just read. So I read a few short stories from a French edition of Agatha Christie stories which were a tie-in with them being broadcast on France 3 around 1982. It's probably daft reading Agatha Christie in another language, though strangely I read more of it than I did with Lord Edgeware Dies in English.

If I can mention some of the music I've listened to while reading (and daydreaming whilst reading) it's been as follows: an old LP of the Budapest String Quartet playing the often-coupled quartets by Debussy and Ravel. Also today Rip, Rig & Panic (1965) by the Roland Kirk quartet. Anyone here who is familiar with Roland Kirk will appreciate his eccentric and avant garde approach to bebop jazz.
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