What are you reading?

[laika]

Re: What are you reading?

You mean on the first 'O' right? That's how I say it, with a long A. Don't know why I thought that was the last syllable--not very sharp today, I guess.

[Faust]

Re: What are you reading?



[quote user="laika"]You mean on the first 'O' right? That's how I say it, with a long A. Don't know why I thought that was the last syllable--not very sharp today, I guess.
[/quote]</p>

Yes, "Na-bo-kov"</p>

It's Ok, I have something brown and knit to brighten up your day :-)</p>

[laika]

Re: What are you reading?



aww, you've already brightened my day anyway. [;)]</p>

One more pronounciation ? Is the V pronounced approximately like an F? Like the way W is in polish?</p>

[Faust]

Re: What are you reading?

[quote user="laika"]

aww, you've already brightened my day anyway. [;)]</p>

One more pronounciation ? Is the V pronounced approximately like an F? Like the way W is in polish?</p>

[/quote]</p>

No. Unless you are some bourgeois ass who ran away from Russia to France and changed the "V" to "FF" [:D] It's not a very stressed "V," but a "V" nonetheless.
</p>

[laika]

Re: What are you reading?

dontbecruel, am I hallucinating, or wasn't there a post of yours with an anecdote about Hemon here? [*-)] I came back today to respond, and it's gone....

[dontbecruel]

Re: What are you reading?

Yeah, sorry, I thought it was a pointless story when I read it back, so I deleted it. Anyway how is Nowhere Man?

[Faust]

Re: What are you reading?



[quote user="dontbecruel"]Yeah, sorry, I thought it was a pointless story when I read it back, so I deleted it. Anyway how is Nowhere Man?
[/quote]</p>

I can put it back if you'd like.</p>

[Seventh]

Re: What are you reading?

[quote user="laika"]

Seventh I was going to recommend this. It's just awesome--one of my favorite recent novels. You can read the first page to get a taste...
</p>

[/quote]</p>

</p>

Sorry Laika, Faust got dibs! [:P]
</p>

I'll definately check out Nowhere Man next after Fear and Loathing. Thanks [:)]</p>


One other book I have been reading:</p>

Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud -- very unusual and cool comic book on the validity and importance of comic art ("juxtaposed pictoral and other images in a deliberate sequence"), takes some pretty heavy ideas and, w/out dumbing them down, makes them understandable in the realm of comic art. Lot of fun to read as well...

</p>

[Fuuma]

Re: What are you reading?

[quote user="Faust"][quote user="laika"]


aww, you've already brightened my day anyway. [;)]</P>


One more pronounciation ? Is the V pronounced approximately like an F? Like the way W is in polish?</P>


[/quote]</P>


No. Unless you are some bourgeois ass who ran away from Russia to France and changed the "V" to "FF" [:D] It's not a very stressed "V," but a "V" nonetheless.
</P>


[/quote]</P>


Hahaha, it's funny how white russians are typically presented asusing that pronunciation in an overly caricatural wayin french litterature and films.</P>

[Faust]

Re: What are you reading?

[quote user="Fuuma"][quote user="Faust"][quote user="laika"]


aww, you've already brightened my day anyway. [;)]</p>


One more pronounciation ? Is the V pronounced approximately like an F? Like the way W is in polish?</p>


[/quote]</p>


No. Unless you are some bourgeois ass who ran away from Russia to France and changed the "V" to "FF" [:D] It's not a very stressed "V," but a "V" nonetheless.
</p>


[/quote]</p>


Hahaha, it's funny how white russians are typically presented asusing that pronunciation in an overly caricatural wayin french litterature and films.</p>

[/quote]</p>

Are there black russians? [:P] Except (well, kind of) Pushkin, that is :-)</p>

Well, France, had a vast influence on Russian aristocracy in late 18th - 19th century. It was considered bad taste to speak Russian - they spoke French instead.</p>

[dontbecruel]

Re: What are you reading?



[quote user="laika"]dontbecruel, am I hallucinating, or wasn't there a post of yours with an anecdote about Hemon here? [*-)] I came back today to respond, and it's gone....
[/quote]</p>

I originally wrote...</p>

"Laika, I haven't read Nowhere Man, but I thought
you might be interested in this: back when I was a
journalist I reviewed Aleksandar Hemon's first book for one of the
British Sunday papers. It was a collection of stories called The
Question Of Bruno. I thought it was a very interesting work, but I was
really put off by what his UK publicist said to me about him to
persuade me to review him. She claimed that Hemon was like Nabokov, a
prodigy who had learned to write perfect, beautful prose in his second
language. When I actually read the book, I discovered that it is
written in slightly stilted, non-grammatical, subtly alien English. I
don't think Hemon himself is unaware of this either. In fact this is
what gives the stories a lot of their character and strange sense of
bewilderment. Anyway, I wrote a review that said as much. I thought it
was quite a complimentary write-up in its own way, but his publishers
were so offended by my suggestion that he writes obviously "foreign"
English they stopped sending me review copies of any of their books."
</p>

[laika]

Re: What are you reading?



[quote user="dontbecruel"]Yeah, sorry, I thought it was a pointless story when I read it back, so I deleted it. Anyway how is Nowhere Man?
[/quote]</p>

I didn't think it was pointless at all. Actually, I wanted to dig up the book before I responded, because it's been a few years since I read it. (No luck with that though) I haven't read Question of Bruno yet, so I can't compare the two, but I agree about the sense of "bewilderment" as you called it--I loved that about Nowhere Man. I never thought of it as a product of his language before, so your review interests me.... I don't find his writing stilted, but there's certainly something beautifully awkward and distinctly foreign about the way he formulates things: </p>

"Had I been dreaming I would have dreamt of being someone else, with a little creature burrowed in my body, clawing at the walls inside my chest--a recurring nightmare.....I straightened my legs, so the blanket ebbed and my right foot rose out of the sludge of darkness like a squat, extinguished lighthouse."
</p>

It's strange and awkward to be sure, but I get the sense that he's preserved something of his native language in the way he writes in English, something that could only become apparent in foreigness. It's like reading the essence of translation, in Walter Benjamin's sense, if that means anything to you.</p>

edit: I wrote this before you re-posted, but I think it's still right....although I think I sound rather muddled. Sorry about that.
</p>

[laika]

Re: What are you reading?

[quote user="Seventh"][quote user="laika"]

Seventh I was going to recommend this. It's just awesome--one of my favorite recent novels. You can read the first page to get a taste...
</p>

[/quote]</p>

</p>

Sorry Laika, Faust got dibs! [:P]
</p>

I'll definately check out Nowhere Man next after Fear and Loathing. Thanks [:)]</p>


One other book I have been reading:</p>

Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud -- very unusual and cool comic book on the validity and importance of comic art ("juxtaposed pictoral and other images in a deliberate sequence"), takes some pretty heavy ideas and, w/out dumbing them down, makes them understandable in the realm of comic art. Lot of fun to read as well...

</p>

[/quote]</p>

Seventh, I'm starting to get freaked out by the overlap in our reading tastes...I have that McCloud book in my pile of things to read, how weird is that?! Are you an aquarian, by chance?
</p>

[dontbecruel]

Re: What are you reading?

Laika, you described his style much better than I did in my original review. Stilted was a bad choice of word on my part. You are quite right that he formulates metaphorical ideas in a way that is quite original and obviously carries something over from another language. Your quotation from Nowhere Man is a good example. I don't think a native English speaker would ever describe something as being "like a squat, extinguished lighthouse" because it negates the two essential facts about lighthouses: they are tall and they are bright, so what part of it exactly IS he comparing his foot to? But at the same time it feels like it means something, the simile is not exactly WRONG, it's just odd; bewildering. I like that.

[Fuuma]

Re: What are you reading?

[quote user="Faust"][quote user="Fuuma"][quote user="Faust"][quote user="laika"]


aww, you've already brightened my day anyway. [;)]</P>


One more pronounciation ? Is the V pronounced approximately like an F? Like the way W is in polish?</P>


[/quote]</P>


No. Unless you are some bourgeois ass who ran away from Russia to France and changed the "V" to "FF" [:D] It's not a very stressed "V," but a "V" nonetheless.
</P>


[/quote]</P>


Hahaha, it's funny how white russians are typically presented asusing that pronunciation in an overly caricatural wayin french litterature and films.</P>


[/quote]</P>


Are there black russians? [:P] Except (well, kind of) Pushkin, that is :-)</P>


Well, France, had a vast influence on Russian aristocracy in late 18th - 19th century. It was considered bad taste to speak Russian - they spoke French instead.</P>


[/quote]</P>


I'm not sure if you're joking or notas it might be a misunderstanding due to my bad translation skills. White russians (les russes blancs) = tsarist russians that fled Russia after 1917 and their descendants. They're often embued with caricatural caracteristics (over the top, drunks, fancy use of those FFF we were discussing,etc)that were then expended to all people of Russian origin, but were most likely due to the eccentricity and pathos of fallen aristocracy.</P>