what are you reading right now? - Page 26

Blackboar · 01-09-2003, 01:43 PM

At the momene I'm reading the Silmarillion and Changing Emma at the same time.

Andúril · 01-09-2003, 02:37 PM

At the same time:

An Introduction to the New Testament. Raymond E. Brown.
A Marginal Jew - I. John P. Meier.
The Lord of the Rings
An Invitation to Theology. UNISA.

Huan · 01-10-2003, 03:38 AM

Crickhollow, in that case may I ask whose translation of Beowulf? Please not Seamus Heaney's!

And Chaucer too, eh? That isn't remotely as foreign to a modern English reader as Beowulf, so no worries there. Unlike Beowulf, I'm a bit more relunctant to admit to my favorite line in Canterbury Tales; it's in the Miller's Tale. Okay, here goes:
And with his mouthe he kissed her naked erse.
I know it's tacky, but read it in context. What a yarn that Miller's Tale!

***Earniel*** · 01-10-2003, 07:41 AM

What's wrong with Seamus Heaney's translation?

Eruviel Greenleaf · 01-11-2003, 04:14 AM

A historical fantasy called Little Sister, made worth reading mainly because there are Tengu in it.

Actually, I finished veeery early this morning, but I'm reading it again. . .it's pretty short and I love the tengu character!
It's where the new quote in my signature is from: "I am a tengu. Impiety is my nature."

Huan · 01-11-2003, 04:27 AM

Earniel wrote: What's wrong with Seamus Heaney's translation?

Okay, Professor Tolkien I think would agree with me on this: most Beowulf/ Old English lovers will never see a "translation" of Beowulf that they like. Translation in quotes because the thing is written in English! The ad copy on the dust jacket always insists that any given translation holds true to the original feel and style of the Old English, but the translators invariably insist on throwing in Latinate or Greek-derived words when the original English, which is still in common usage, would do. Foe example, translators always insist that they must change the word "folc," that is, folk, to nation or people, or modern readers wouldn't get it. Nonsense! Folk means now all the things it meant then. If the original English works, even poetically with a modicum of thought given to it by the reader, use that.
Case in point, my favorite sequence in Beowulf:
com on wanre niht scrithan sceadugenga. Sceotend swaefon, tha thaet hornreced healdan scoldon, ealle buton anum.
Almost literal translation, attempting to preserve the English:
came in the wan night the slithering shadow-walker. The archers (literally "shooters") were sleeping, they that should hold the gabled house, all but one.
ealle buton anum=all but one. Word for word, unchanged from then to now. But Heaney says "all except one." EXCEPT. Latin where the original English would do. "Asleep at their posts," for "sweafon," merely "sleeping." Okay, call me picky, but I tell ya, Tolkien would have made the same objections. Translators always get too darn flowery with Beowulf and then insist that they're "preserving the spirit of the original."

***Earniel*** · 01-11-2003, 05:06 AM

I see, thanks for explaining.

Radagast The Brown · 01-11-2003, 11:03 AM

The wing of the Dragon - Margaret Weaz and Tracy Hickman.
Diamara - Maggie Fiury

sun-star · 01-11-2003, 05:33 PM

Today I finished Le Morte d'Arthur, which I started two months ago (I need more time to read!

). I think it's spolied me for every other King Arthur story though. I have to read German novels for school (currently tackling Kafka - help!) but when I get some time, I can finally start the CS Lewis books I got for Xmas. That'll be the day

**crickhollow** · 01-11-2003, 07:23 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Huan
Crickhollow, in that case may I ask whose translation of Beowulf? Please not Seamus Heaney's!

And Chaucer too, eh? That isn't remotely as foreign to a modern English reader as Beowulf, so no worries there. Unlike Beowulf, I'm a bit more relunctant to admit to my favorite line in Canterbury Tales; it's in the Miller's Tale. Okay, here goes:
And with his mouthe he kissed her naked erse.
I know it's tacky, but read it in context. What a yarn that Miller's Tale!

err...translation. let's see...nope, not Heaney's. it's apparently a *new* translation (c. 2000) by R.M. Liuzza.
Nope, Chaucer's much easier than Beowulf, and I'm not worried about that one at all. Middle English version of course--no translations allowed

I was always somewhat partial to the Pardoner's Tale...

Huan · 01-12-2003, 02:00 AM

Pardoner's Tale: isn't that the one where the three thieves meet Death? And they kill each other under a tree? Re. Beowulf: Liuzza. Never heard of him. Shrug.
Sun-star: Malory has spoiled you for all Arthurian stories? Have you read Chretien de Troyes' Arthurian Romances? They are much more coherent. Malory wrote kind of off the top of his head while he was in prison, didn't even bother apparently to check what he had written thirty pages ago. But Chretien shows a real sense of design. The Knight of the Cart (Launcelot) is especially nice.

**crickhollow** · 01-12-2003, 04:47 AM

Indeed, that is the Pardoner's Tale. I don't know why I like that one...I suppose merely because it's the one that I know best. by the end of the semester, after we've picked the Tales to death, I may change my mind.
Sun-star: What Huan said. Lancelot follows more closely the modern scheme for fiction (hero, adversary, climax, revelation...etc) I love Gawain, too

. Wait, Gawain isn't DeTroyes. I like it anyway.

Dúnedain · 01-12-2003, 03:08 PM

I am re-reading Return of the King and The Sil

Once I am done I am going to go pick of the HoMe series and Unfinished Tales....

Huan · 01-12-2003, 06:42 PM

Crickhollow, actually Gawain is in that same Chretien story, The Knight of Cart. Lancelot (we don't know it's him yet, the author keeps us guessing) encounters a dwarf driving a cart. In those days, carts were used to carry criminals, so no innocent person would dream of getting in one; the dishonor would be too great. But Lancelot is riding after a knight who abducted Guinevere and he's lost his horse, so he hops in the cart to get going faster. Gawain comes riding along on the same quest, and the dwarf tells him that if he's as big a fool as this other knight he can also hitch a ride. "I've got a horse," Gawain says. It's a nifty story.
Gawain also appears in another Chretien tale. I can't remember which one, but in it he finds himself unarmed and beset by angry villagers a la Frankenstein, so he has to use a chess board as his shield. Hilarious.

**crickhollow** · 01-12-2003, 10:47 PM

yeah, I remember that he was in there, I should have said 'Gawain and the Green Knight' instead of just Gawain. There's one tale, I think it's Chretien but I'm not sure, that's about this really naive guy who didn't know what a knight was, and then meets one in the forest and wants to become one...makes it to Arthur's court, Kay hits some serving girl who laughs when the youth makes fun of him. He ends up trying to hunt down this Red Knight who has been taunting Arthurs court, and he fights him and takes his armour...on and on...does it ring a bell? I can't remember the name. I got a big kick out of it because the youth was so stupid

Huan · 01-13-2003, 12:11 AM

The youth in question is Sir Percival. Yeah, that opening is priceless. The rest of the story is about his quest for the Grail.

**crickhollow** · 01-13-2003, 02:46 PM

thank you! that's been bothering me for days.

Starr Polish · 01-14-2003, 01:52 AM

Ahh, bliss. An entire period of school (about forty-five minutes) dedicated to reading!

Starting tomorrow I will be reading "The Agony and the Ecstacy". But, I have a dilemma! Should I read "Farenheit 451", "Dune", "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" or "Brave New World" for my science-fiction novel? Help me decide! The minimum books required this semester (18 weeks) is six. Not a challenge, but help!

I could read "The Hobbit" for my British Literature requirement.

BeardofPants · 01-14-2003, 02:01 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Starr Polish
Starting tomorrow I will be reading "The Agony and the Ecstacy". But, I have a dilemma! Should I read "Farenheit 451", "Dune", "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" or "Brave New World" for my science-fiction novel?

Dune! Dune! Dune! Dune!! Dune!!! Dune!!!!

Eruviel Greenleaf · 01-14-2003, 03:26 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Starr Polish
Starting tomorrow I will be reading "The Agony and the Ecstacy". But, I have a dilemma! Should I read "Farenheit 451", "Dune", "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" or "Brave New World" for my science-fiction novel? Help me decide! The minimum books required this semester (18 weeks) is six. Not a challenge, but help!

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy would be my suggestion

42! 42!

01-09-2003, 02:37 PM	#502
Andúril The Original Corruptor Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 2,881	At the same time: An Introduction to the New Testament. Raymond E. Brown. A Marginal Jew - I. John P. Meier. The Lord of the Rings An Invitation to Theology. UNISA.

01-10-2003, 07:41 AM	#504
*Earniel* The Chocoholic Sea Elf Administrator Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: N?n in Eilph (Belgium) Posts: 14,363	What's wrong with Seamus Heaney's translation? __________________ We are not things.

01-11-2003, 04:14 AM	#505
Eruviel Greenleaf Alcoholic Villain-Fancying Elf Pirate Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Lyonesse Posts: 4,547	A historical fantasy called Little Sister, made worth reading mainly because there are Tengu in it. Actually, I finished veeery early this morning, but I'm reading it again. . .it's pretty short and I love the tengu character! It's where the new quote in my signature is from: "I am a tengu. Impiety is my nature." __________________ Eruviel Greenleaf in a past life. "Whoever has come to understand the world has found only a corpse, and whoever has found a corpse is superior to the world." -The Gospel of Thomas SQUAWK!

01-11-2003, 05:06 AM	#507
*Earniel* The Chocoholic Sea Elf Administrator Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: N?n in Eilph (Belgium) Posts: 14,363	I see, thanks for explaining. __________________ We are not things.

01-11-2003, 11:03 AM	#508
Radagast The Brown Elf Lord Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Israel Posts: 6,975	The wing of the Dragon - Margaret Weaz and Tracy Hickman. Diamara - Maggie Fiury __________________ Lalala... poof! AboutNewJersey.com - New Jersey Travel and Tourism Guide

01-09-2003, 01:43 PM	#501
Blackboar Legolas's beloved sister and Queen of the Wood Elves of Mirkwood Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Under the hill at Bag-end, Hobbiton the Shire Or Rivendell,I can't remember!!!!!!!!!! Posts: 1,086	At the momene I'm reading the Silmarillion and Changing Emma at the same time.

01-10-2003, 03:38 AM	#503
Huan Elven Warrior Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Oxford, MS Posts: 274	Crickhollow, in that case may I ask whose translation of Beowulf? Please not Seamus Heaney's! And Chaucer too, eh? That isn't remotely as foreign to a modern English reader as Beowulf, so no worries there. Unlike Beowulf, I'm a bit more relunctant to admit to my favorite line in Canterbury Tales; it's in the Miller's Tale. Okay, here goes: And with his mouthe he kissed her naked erse. I know it's tacky, but read it in context. What a yarn that Miller's Tale!

01-11-2003, 04:27 AM	#506
Huan Elven Warrior Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Oxford, MS Posts: 274	Earniel wrote: What's wrong with Seamus Heaney's translation? Okay, Professor Tolkien I think would agree with me on this: most Beowulf/ Old English lovers will never see a "translation" of Beowulf that they like. Translation in quotes because the thing is written in English! The ad copy on the dust jacket always insists that any given translation holds true to the original feel and style of the Old English, but the translators invariably insist on throwing in Latinate or Greek-derived words when the original English, which is still in common usage, would do. Foe example, translators always insist that they must change the word "folc," that is, folk, to nation or people, or modern readers wouldn't get it. Nonsense! Folk means now all the things it meant then. If the original English works, even poetically with a modicum of thought given to it by the reader, use that. Case in point, my favorite sequence in Beowulf: com on wanre niht scrithan sceadugenga. Sceotend swaefon, tha thaet hornreced healdan scoldon, ealle buton anum. Almost literal translation, attempting to preserve the English: came in the wan night the slithering shadow-walker. The archers (literally "shooters") were sleeping, they that should hold the gabled house, all but one. ealle buton anum=all but one. Word for word, unchanged from then to now. But Heaney says "all except one." EXCEPT. Latin where the original English would do. "Asleep at their posts," for "sweafon," merely "sleeping." Okay, call me picky, but I tell ya, Tolkien would have made the same objections. Translators always get too darn flowery with Beowulf and then insist that they're "preserving the spirit of the original."

01-11-2003, 05:33 PM	#509
sun-star Lady of Letters Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Either Oxford or Kent, England Posts: 2,476	Today I finished Le Morte d'Arthur, which I started two months ago (I need more time to read! ). I think it's spolied me for every other King Arthur story though. I have to read German novels for school (currently tackling Kafka - help!) but when I get some time, I can finally start the CS Lewis books I got for Xmas. That'll be the day __________________ And all the time the waves, the waves, the waves Chase, intersect and flatten on the sand As they have done for centuries, as they will For centuries to come, when not a soul Is left to picnic on the blazing rocks, When England is not England, when mankind Has blown himself to pieces. Still the sea, Consolingly disastrous, will return While the strange starfish, hugely magnified, Waits in the jewelled basin of a pool. Last edited by sun-star : 01-11-2003 at 05:34 PM.

01-12-2003, 02:00 AM	#511
Huan Elven Warrior Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Oxford, MS Posts: 274	Pardoner's Tale: isn't that the one where the three thieves meet Death? And they kill each other under a tree? Re. Beowulf: Liuzza. Never heard of him. Shrug. Sun-star: Malory has spoiled you for all Arthurian stories? Have you read Chretien de Troyes' Arthurian Romances? They are much more coherent. Malory wrote kind of off the top of his head while he was in prison, didn't even bother apparently to check what he had written thirty pages ago. But Chretien shows a real sense of design. The Knight of the Cart (Launcelot) is especially nice.

01-12-2003, 04:47 AM	#512
crickhollow The Buckleberry Fairy/Captain Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Washington State again (I miss Texas). Posts: 1,345	Indeed, that is the Pardoner's Tale. I don't know why I like that one...I suppose merely because it's the one that I know best. by the end of the semester, after we've picked the Tales to death, I may change my mind. Sun-star: What Huan said. Lancelot follows more closely the modern scheme for fiction (hero, adversary, climax, revelation...etc) I love Gawain, too . Wait, Gawain isn't DeTroyes. I like it anyway. __________________ A day will come at last when I Shall take the hidden paths that run West of the Moon, East of the Sun.

01-12-2003, 03:08 PM	#513
Dúnedain High King of Númenórë Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Númenórë <--United States of America Posts: 1,947	I am re-reading Return of the King and The Sil Once I am done I am going to go pick of the HoMe series and Unfinished Tales.... __________________ 'Et Eärello Endorenna utúlien. Sinome maruvan ar Hildinyar tenn' Ambar-metta!' - And those were the words that Elendil spoke when he came up out of the Sea on the wings of the wind: 'Out of the Great Sea to Middle-earth I am come. In this place will I abide, and my heirs, unto the ending of the world.' 'Then Tuor arrayed himself in the hauberk, and set the helm upon his head, and he girt himself with the sword; black were sheath and belt with clasps of silver. Thus armed he went forth from Turgon's hall, and stood upon the high terraces of Taras in the red light of the sun. None were there to see him, as he gazed westward, gleaming in silver and gold, and he knew not that in that hour he appeared as one of the Mighty of the West, and fit to be father of the kings of the Kings of Men beyond the Sea, as it was indeed his doom to be; but in the taking of those arms a change came upon Tuor son of Huor, and his heart grew great within him. And as he stepped down from the doors the swans did him reverence, and plucking each a great feather from their wings they proffered them to him, laying their long necks upon the stone before his feet; and he took the seven feathers and set them in the crest of his helm, and straightway the swans arose and flew north in the sunset, and Tuor saw them no more.' -Of Tuor and his Coming to Gondolin "Oh. Forgive me, fairest of all males of Entmoot...Back down, all ye other wannabe fairest males! Dunedain is the fairest!" --Linaewen

01-12-2003, 06:42 PM	#514
Huan Elven Warrior Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Oxford, MS Posts: 274	Crickhollow, actually Gawain is in that same Chretien story, The Knight of Cart. Lancelot (we don't know it's him yet, the author keeps us guessing) encounters a dwarf driving a cart. In those days, carts were used to carry criminals, so no innocent person would dream of getting in one; the dishonor would be too great. But Lancelot is riding after a knight who abducted Guinevere and he's lost his horse, so he hops in the cart to get going faster. Gawain comes riding along on the same quest, and the dwarf tells him that if he's as big a fool as this other knight he can also hitch a ride. "I've got a horse," Gawain says. It's a nifty story. Gawain also appears in another Chretien tale. I can't remember which one, but in it he finds himself unarmed and beset by angry villagers a la Frankenstein, so he has to use a chess board as his shield. Hilarious.

01-12-2003, 10:47 PM	#515
crickhollow The Buckleberry Fairy/Captain Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Washington State again (I miss Texas). Posts: 1,345	yeah, I remember that he was in there, I should have said 'Gawain and the Green Knight' instead of just Gawain. There's one tale, I think it's Chretien but I'm not sure, that's about this really naive guy who didn't know what a knight was, and then meets one in the forest and wants to become one...makes it to Arthur's court, Kay hits some serving girl who laughs when the youth makes fun of him. He ends up trying to hunt down this Red Knight who has been taunting Arthurs court, and he fights him and takes his armour...on and on...does it ring a bell? I can't remember the name. I got a big kick out of it because the youth was so stupid __________________ A day will come at last when I Shall take the hidden paths that run West of the Moon, East of the Sun.

01-13-2003, 12:11 AM	#516
Huan Elven Warrior Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Oxford, MS Posts: 274	The youth in question is Sir Percival. Yeah, that opening is priceless. The rest of the story is about his quest for the Grail.

01-13-2003, 02:46 PM	#517
crickhollow The Buckleberry Fairy/Captain Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Washington State again (I miss Texas). Posts: 1,345	thank you! that's been bothering me for days. __________________ A day will come at last when I Shall take the hidden paths that run West of the Moon, East of the Sun.

01-14-2003, 01:52 AM	#518
Starr Polish Elf Lord Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Slow down and I sail on the river, slow down and I walk to the hill Posts: 2,389	Ahh, bliss. An entire period of school (about forty-five minutes) dedicated to reading! Starting tomorrow I will be reading "The Agony and the Ecstacy". But, I have a dilemma! Should I read "Farenheit 451", "Dune", "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" or "Brave New World" for my science-fiction novel? Help me decide! The minimum books required this semester (18 weeks) is six. Not a challenge, but help! I could read "The Hobbit" for my British Literature requirement. __________________ “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.” –Bertrand Russell

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