Mork the Fiddle's 2019 Log

[MorkTheFiddle]

In French, determining who are "important" French poets and locating and organizing audio versions of their poetry. I limit myself to the 19th and 20th centuries. Hugo and his Contemplations are a good beginning. There is a complete reading--at least, I think it is complete--of Les Contemplations, the Gallimard paperback edition of which is almost 400 pages, not counting introduction and notes. Another important body of poetry is Les Fleurs du mal by Baudelaire. Since however I am still in the process of finding and organizing, it's hard to say whom else I have.

And there is also Roy Lewis' On Reading French Verse: A Study of French Form. Crucial for me, because French verse just does not work like English verse.

France Culture did one programme of a dramatic reading of some of Apolllinaire's poems, "Poèmes à Lou".

C’était en mai 2003. Jean-Louis Trintignant, fou de poésie, créait le spectacle Poèmes à Lou d’Apollinaire avec sa fille Marie Trintignant. Quelques mois plus tard, Marie Trintignant mourait à Vilnius dans des conditions dramatiques. C’est un document exceptionnel que nous vous proposons de redécouvrir ce soir : l’enregistrement à Nanterre des poèmes à Lou par le père et la fille. C’est tout simplement bouleversant car quelques semaines plus tard, Marie ne serait plus là. Plus tard, en 2005, Jean-Louis Trintignant a repris ce spectacle seul, en hommage à sa fille.
Voici donc pour terminer cette soirée un long fragment des Poèmes à Lou de Guillaume Apollinaire. Daniel Mille accompagne à l’accordéon cette lecture.

Thank you for this. I was unaware of the violent death of Trintignant's daughter. I will certainly listen in to their reading.

[MorkTheFiddle]

Apparently cyber demons devoured my last post here. The time has come, I think, for me to set aside setting goals and just read whatever I want to read and listen to and watch whatever I want to read or listen to or watch. My vocabulary in French and Spanish is good enough. My listening skills are not, but will improve with time and application. Ancient Greek is not at all where I want it, but continued reading is the solution there. Somewhere in the last month I hit a good spot where words and their meanings became easier to understand. I expect that to continue.
For the record my major reading in Spanish is still Fortunata y Jacinta by Pérez Galdós and in Ancient Greek Book 2 of The Histories by Herodotus.
In French a return to my Anki deck Engagement for the movie Un long dimanche de fiançailles (A Very Long Engagement). Recent changes in Anki caused the template to fail, so I shifted to something I like better. Using the browse function of Anki, I browse the Engagement, Previewing each card. For the sound, I control the sound using WorkAudioBook to listen to an mp3 made of the movie soundtrack. Bonus: I figured out how to shorten or lengthen snippets of the text in WorkAudioBook.
Now to post this to fend off the cyber demons!

[Carmody]

MorkTheFiddle » Tue Nov 03, 2020 8:50 am

Apparently cyber demons devoured my last post here. The time has come, I think, for me to set aside setting goals and just read whatever I want to read and listen to and watch whatever I want to read or listen to or watch. My vocabulary in French and Spanish is good enough. My listening skills are not, but will improve with time and application. Ancient Greek is not at all where I want it, but continued reading is the solution there. Somewhere in the last month I hit a good spot where words and their meanings became easier to understand. I expect that to continue.

Thank you; thank you thank you! Why can't more people do as we do........and have fun.

[MorkTheFiddle]

Ancient Greek
Reading Book 2 of The Histories by Herodotus: bits and pieces of lore about Egypt.
Received and read a bit of Ἁρειος Πώτηρ καἱ ἡ φιλοσόφου λίθος,* translated by Andrew Wilson and published by Andrew Wilson, based on a favorable remark in Textkit. So far worked out only the first paragraph. No previous reading of the Potter series at all, so it's not easy.
* Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

French
Watched a Chabrol movie from the 60s, Que la bête meure, with English subtitles, thinking of it as a possible candidate for subs2srs and ANKI, but I did not French subs and besides the movie is not that interesting.
Sticking with the bête theme, and on an encouraging word about Zola from Kanewai, began again reading La bête humaine. Haven't got far, yet, but so far so good.
One of the stories of Anna Gavalda that I scanned for LWT somehow got lost, so I rescanned it and reloaded it into LWT. Not so much to learn the vocabulary but rather to have a way to sync story and mp3. Gavalda reads her own stories. She keeps up a brisk pace.
Worked through the subs2rs/ANKI version of Un long dimanche de fiançailles (2004), up to the point when Jody Foster appears (55 min?). Without the subtitles I am clueless.

Spanish
Discovered to my pleasant surprise an ANKI version of Pan on my computer. It has been a while since I watched the movie, so I decided to watch it again before tackling word studies from it. Just managed a few minutes yesterday, but I think so far I like it better this time around.

In the Spanish translation of La Novela de Genji that I am reading, I reached Location 20162 out of 26783 Locations, or 71% of the book. The novel maintains both high interest and a high quality.

Wishing there were an audio version of La Regenta, by Alas (aka Clarín).

[coldrainwater]

You might get your wish. My first google search did show a Librivox (con voz humana) version of La Regenta (ambos tomos) read by Epachuko. It is under the Librivox Audiobooks youtube channel. The was almost certainly one of my top reads in Spanish.

[MorkTheFiddle]

You might get your wish. My first google search did show a Librivox (con voz humana) version of La Regenta (ambos tomos) read by Epachuko. It is under the Librivox Audiobooks youtube channel. The was almost certainly one of my top reads in Spanish.

Thanks. Now I am doubly in your debt. Your comments in your log first alerted me to this novel. There is also a TV mini-series from 1995.

The Librivox version seemingly is lost in the infinitite scroll, but there is another Youtube fersion.I listened to the first 12 minutes of it. The male voice is not professional but acceptable. I note his 'r's' are very soft. I have not watched the mini-series. Here are both
Audiobook
La Regenta Audiobook
Mini-series


Thanks again.

[MorkTheFiddle]

Progress Report

Reading Histories of Herodotus Book 2.
Reading and listening to an audiobook of Fortunata y Jacinta by Benito Pérez Galdós.
Reading and listening to an audiobook of La bête humaine by Emile Zola.

[MorkTheFiddle]

Progress Report

Finished Histories of Herodotus Book 2. Book 2 was my last unread chapter of Herodotus, who is overall my favorite Ancient Greek writer.

Gave up reading and listening to an audiobook of Fortunata y Jacinta by Benito Pérez Galdós. All the data about the textile industry in Madrid wore me out, so I skipped back to La Regenta by Leopoldo Alas, often referred to by his pen name of Clarín. La Regenta has been referred to as a Spanish Madame Bovary. From the little that I have read so far, I have to say that it is much more than that.

Reading and listening to an audiobook of La bête humaine by Emile Zola. Some of the incidents are hair-raising.

Still reading, little by little, The Tale of Genji and Book 1 of a Modern French translation of Montaigne's Essays. Often deep in philosophic thought, from time to time Montaigne lets his hair down. Currently I am reading his thoughts about smells, including body odors and how smells linger in his thick mustache.

[Carmody]

Congratulations, you certainly sound as if you can do it all!

[MorkTheFiddle]

Congratulations, you certainly sound as if you can do it all!

Thanks you, my good man. I try.

The second edition of The Oxford Classical Dictionary concludes its article about Herodotus with these remarks:

Herodotus has suffered the fate which befell Mozart. His charm, wit, and effortless ease have diverted attention from the note of profound sadness and pity sounded not seldom in his History.

From the 2d Edition, edd. N. G. L. Hammond and H. H. Scullard, Oxford University Press, 1984, page 509.

This sort of thing keeps me going.