Big Books

Clinamenic

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
Speaking of reading, I may take a stab at Phenomenology of Spirit next, just finished The Prince. Also have Moby Dick and Road to Serfdom as top picks. Anyone have any preferences among these?
 
C

catalog

Well-known member
I liked Don quixote when I read it, but not quite as much as I thought I would. Its one of those that gets much better as you go on. Particularly past half way when all the postmodern stuff is happening with him meeting people who've heard about him.
 
Benny Bunter

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
Just got up to the famous windmills part, loving it so far. I'll probably finish it a lot faster than I first thought. Once you get used to the deliberately archaic/chivalrous way Quijote speaks, the Spanish is very accessible, much more modern than, say, Shakespeare's English compared to now.

The nice little bite-sized chapters help a lot too.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Benny B said:
Just got up to the famous windmills part, loving it so far. I'll probably finish it a lot faster than I first thought. Once you get used to the deliberately archaic/chivalrous way Quijote speaks, the Spanish is very accessible, much more modern than, say, Shakespeare's English compared to now.

The nice little bite-sized chapters help a lot too.
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I wonder why English has changed so much more than Spanish has in that time? Given that Cervantes and Shakespeare were almost exact contemporaries (died the same year, Wikipedia tells me).

The translation of DQ that I read way back was, I think, made about 100 years after the book was first published, so it probably gave it roughly the right feeling of 'oldness' - at least, that's what I thought at the time, but given what you've just written, I wonder if the translation nonetheless sounded 'older' relative to modern English than the original would sound compared to modern Spanish?
 
Benny Bunter

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
Mr. Tea said:
I wonder if the translation nonetheless sounded 'older' relative to modern English than the original would sound compared to modern Spanish?
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Obviously I haven't read it, but probably yeah. Looks like it's been translated loads of times into English, and I suppose there's lots of different approaches you could take. Quijote himself is the only character that speaks old Castilian, the rest speak early modern Spanish, so representing that in English must be the biggest challenge. I've heard Edith Grossman's translation from 2003 is supposed to be really good, but no translation will ever please everybody.

I might be overstating it a bit with the Shakespeare comparison cos he was writing mainly in verse, which makes it harder for modern readers, but Cervantes' prose does seem really modern to me. Not sure why it's changed less than English since then, but I get the sense Cervantes language is even more central to Spanish than Shakespeare's is to English.
 
Benny Bunter

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
120 pages in now and already thinking is probably the best book I've ever read. Mad to think how 'the first modern novel' is also the best, like it's all downhill from there, but it really is that good. And it's not hard to read at all. Despite its age it's really accesible and just a good laugh on every page.

Highlights so far, apart from all the laughs, have been Quijote's sentimental speech to the goatherds about the golden age in chapter XI and the beautiful Marcela's speech in chapter XIV where she rejects all her suitors, fucks up that dickhead's funeral, then disappears into the woods - amazing stuff.

But it's brutal how the don and Sancho, who you fall in love with so deeply, get the shit kicked out of them in practically every chapter. I'm rooting for them so much.
 
C

catalog

Well-known member
I've got about 20 pages into c&p cos that luke Turner one can wait and it's good. I love how he just introduces a character and then that character proceeds to say their whole life story, uninterrupted, for 20 pages. So talking about the drunk whose daughter has become a prostitute. He's good at describing people too, think he says somewhere how the guys face shined like oil
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
catalog said:
I've got about 20 pages into c&p cos that luke Turner one can wait and it's good. I love how he just introduces a character and then that character proceeds to say their whole life story, uninterrupted, for 20 pages. So talking about the drunk whose daughter has become a prostitute. He's good at describing people too, think he says somewhere how the guys face shined like oil
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Yes! The bartender in the grotty little bar, whose face appeared "smeared with oil, like a huge iron lock", something like that.

Funny how that line really stuck with me and clearly jumped out at you, too.
 
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C

catalog

Well-known member
"He wore a paddiovka, a black satin waistcoat horribly grease-marked, and no neckcloth. His face seemed to shine with oil."
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I'm sure the translation I read mentioned an iron lock, but that might have been thrown in by the translator for all I know.
 
C

catalog

Well-known member
Interesting, I've got the Penguin popular classics version, and can't even see a translator listed on the colophon or title page, which is a bit odd. Could be a duff one.
 
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