Wednesday Reading Meme

[osprey_archer]

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

C. S. Forester’s Hornblower and the Atropos, tragically low on gay pining (no Lt. Bush in this book) but chock full of adventure and Hornblower being extremely hard on himself at all times. We also spend a couple of chapters with Hornblower and Maria together, travelling across England on one of the newfangled canals (I believe that Forester found a detailed description of canal travel in his researches and just had to share, and I am HERE for it), and I think it’s probably for the best that their marriage involves long, long stretches of Hornblower being away at sea, as they clearly find each other very annoying when together.

Forester also appears to have found a detailed description of “how to blow things up underwater in the early 1800s,” and again I am HERE for it. Thank you for building a large proportion of your plot around this knowledge, sir.

I also finished Isaac Bashevis Singer’s A Day of Pleasure: Stories of a Boy Growing Up in Warsaw, stories of his boyhood before and during World War I, written in Yiddish and translated by a variety of people. I bought this at the Yiddish Book Center and found it interesting, but probably would have done better to purchase one of his short story collections instead. There were too many! I simply couldn’t choose!

What I’m Reading Now

Just started Sartre’s Nausea. So far, so much navel-gazing.

What I Plan to Read Next

HOUSTON my hold on Elisa Malisova and Kateryna Sylvanova's Pioneer Summer has ARRIVED at the library! Yesss please let this tale of gay Young Pioneers in the late Soviet Union live up to all my hopes and dreams.

Comments

[chestnut_pod]

I also finished Isaac Bashevis Singer’s A Day of Pleasure: Stories of a Boy Growing Up in Warsaw, stories of his boyhood before and during World War I, written in Yiddish and translated by a variety of people -- What I would love to read is a comprehensive essay collection of all his translators explaining what an incredibly weird translation experience Bashevis always was.

[osprey_archer]

I recently read Hooked which had an afterword by the translator on her translation choices, and now I want all translations to end with a similar afterword. Tell me how the sausage is made, translators!

In this particular case, I think a lot of the chapters were individually published first, and then only later brought together as a book, hence the large number of translators.

[regshoe]

The 'taking every opportunity to show off the obscure historical research' was my favourite thing about Atropos. The canal is so cool! (The pearl diving and underwater explosions are kind of horrifying but also cool!)

[osprey_archer]

I love a good infodump and Forester delivers an AMAZING infodump.

[asakiyume]

Hahaha, so great that C. S. Forester's deep dives are all to your liking. Traveling on England's canals is something that I've always thought would be fun!

So far, so much navel-gazing. --LOL, somehow I'm not surprised (although why aren't I? I actually don't have a very good impression of what Sartre's like, beyond that he's an existentialist).

please let this tale of gay Young Pioneers in the late Soviet Union live up to all my hopes and dreams. --May your wishes be fulfilled!

[lucymonster]

Just started Sartre’s Nausea. So far, so much navel-gazing.

It is like that for the ENTIRE book, fyi.