Incoherent Scribblings

Booking Along

Such an appropriate post title: My weekend was all about books in one form or another!

First up, here is the progress that I made on “The Bookshelf” this weekend. I have now added the authors’ names. At first I thought it was odd that Oscar Wilde was a member of this group of female authors (well, if you know anything about Oscar Wilde, maybe not) but then I realized it was Wilder as in Laura Ingalls Wilder, not Oscar Wilde!

And because I am a stickler for accent marks over letters in words (perhaps it has something to do with the fact that my first name has one of those elusive babies) I added the umlaut symbols over Emily (or Charlotte or Anne) Brontë’s name.

I also read this weekend. I finished reading John le Carré’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold for my novel writing class. I must say that out of all the books we have read this semester I was most dissatisfied with this one. Although I did find the glimpse into East Germany in the late 50s/early 60s slightly interesting from a personal point of view, overall I guess spy novels just don’t do anything for me.

Of course, considering that May is nearly here, the semester is quickly coming to an end. This means that tomorrow I have to hand in a portfolio of everything I have written this semester. This includes 45 pages written towards my novel, 16 “elements,” and any other writings that we included in our journal. Next week we hand in our final assignment which includes 15 polished, revised pages that (more or less) comprise a chapter of our novel and a reworked copy of our midterm project: A proposal to a publisher.

When we began the semester Dr. B. warned us that by the end of the term we would be sick of looking at our novel and at this stage I whole heartedly agree! Although I hope to take my novel and turn it into my Master’s project (aka “thesis”), I am also ready to take a bit of a break from it. Right now I feel that the story and the characters are a bit stagnant.

I think I need a new perspective on the manuscript. I am not sure which will help me more though: A month’s break from it or a pitcher of margaritas!

Stitching and Reading

As this was the third weekend of the month, it was stitch-a-thon weekend!

Because I would really like to get “Above the Clouds” and “Poet’s Heart” finished by the end of the year, I chose to work on “Above the Clouds” this month. As you can see, not only am I nearly done with the clouds now, I also tackled some backstitching. I tell you, a happy dance is so close that I can nearly smell it!

I must confess that I didn’t stitch as much as I could have this weekend though: I spent half of the day today finishing one of the books I started back in August while I was jet-setting around going to job interviews.

I was about half-way finished with The Virgin’s Lover by Philippa Gregory when Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows fell into my hands. As a result, the story of the first two years of Elizabeth I’s reign and her affair with Sir Robert Dudley had to wait until Lord Voldemort was thoroughly defeated.

All in all, it was a perfect weekend: Drinks with friends, stitching, and reading. What more could a single girl wish for?

That Book by Nabakov

It has come to my attention that one might mistake my 50 Books in 1001 Days as the only books that I intend to read during my 1001 days. On the contrary: I intend to read the books on that list in conjunction with whatever else I might feel like reading. As a result, I have read a great deal of books in the past few months that were not on my list.

However, I was inspired to head to the library a few days ago and pick up one of the books on my list because of The Police. I was never a big fan of the group, but since they are supposedly back together now I find my radio station playing their music more often and the other morning they played my favorite song that refers to “that book by Nabakov.”

If you don’t already know, that book by Nabakov is Lolita and it is on my list of 50 books to read in 1001 days.

There are many preconceived notions about the book Lolita, but let me clarify a couple of things: There is not one four-letter word, nor one obvious sex scene. While it is true the narrator is what today we call a pedophile, I believe the overlying theme of the book has nothing to do with the difference in age between the characters or pedophilia, but about Humbert Humbert’s love for Lolita. Whether we find his actions “normal” or not, this man is in love with that girl to the point of obsession.

And though she is a child when the books begins, Lolita’s actions throughout the story made it easy to forget her age. She deliberately plays with Humbert and despite the fact that she is merely twelve years old at the beginning of their relationship, I believe she has a very good idea of what she is doing.

By the time the book finishes Lolita is a young woman; married and pregnant with another man’s child and Humbert’s obsession with her has driven him mad.

If one digs deeply, perhaps they can claim the tragic result of the story serves as a type of morality tale, but according to Nabakov himself, he didn’t “intend” anything when he wrote the book: The story is just a story and it doesn’t “mean” anything at all… and that is just fine with me.

Lost in Translation

I was going to write about this a couple of days ago, but I thought that it would make a good topic for “Booking Through Thursday” so I decided to wait until today.

1.) Have you ever read a book in a language other than your native language? How would you describe your experience?

Yes I have. That is what brought these questions about.

First off, I have read books in French, but they were for class when I was studying French, so I am not sure if they really count…

However, what I really wanted to brag about in relation to this question was that I just finished my first non-required, full-length German novel!! OK, technically it was required reading when I started language classes again back in August, but once I finished the class it was no longer required reading and I kept reading it anyway!

The book that I read is called Das Parfum by Patrick Süskind. I had never heard of it before, but apparently it is a well-known piece of modern German literature. It takes place in France some years before the Revolution and is about a man who has an extremely heightened sense of smell. He becomes a perfumer and, in his quest for the perfect perfume, a murder.

The story is not for the faint of heart: In my opinion it is very well-written even though everything about it is unappealing and brutal. I found it to be quite descriptive and though I didn’t like the main character I couldn’t help but wonder what he was going to do next. (As an interesting aside, I find more and more that I enjoy reading books where I intensely dislike the main character, but am intrigued by what he or she will do next.)

As I have mentioned before, I studied literature as an undergraduate and it never ceases to amaze me I unconsciously apply all of the things I learned when I read nowadays. What is more, even though I didn’t understand every single word in this book, for the first time I found that I understood enough that I was able to not only read a German novel, but comprehend it on a literary level.

Finally, for me the best thing about this book was that I actually finished it! By that I mean that now that I have finished a full-length German novel, I am confident that I can do it again and as a result am much more interested in doing so.

2.) Do you read books translated from other languages into your native language? Why or why not?

I have read a few books that were translated from other languages into English, even though to be honest, I didn’t know it at the time. The two that come to mind are The Never Ending Story by Michael Ende (original German) and The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco (original Italian).

I am not about to deny that there are many, many books written in other languages besides English, but I think native English speakers are spoiled because so much is written in English to start with.

In fact, something that surprised me when I came to Germany was how popular English translations of best-sellers like The Da Vinci Code or the Harry Potter books are here. At the physical bookstore, I never have any problems finding the New York Times bestsellers. Finding them in English is another matter though…

Book Worm

I take my seat on the S-Bahn in preparation for my 30 minute journey into town, guiltily pull the new English-language book out of my purse instead of the German one that I have less than a hundred pages to finish, open the cover to page one, and begin to read. I quickly scan the first paragraph and determine that I am intrigued enough to continue, so I settle back and begin to read The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger.

At first the story is merely good, but by the time that I faintly realize that the next stop is my stop I am quite engaged. I put the book back in my purse, disembark from the train, and spend the next couple of hours running my errands.

Eventually I decide it is time to go home and proceed to the station to wait for the train that will return me to my little village outside of Munich. I have about ten minutes before my train arrives, so while I wait I peer into my packages and am satisfied that I have purchased all the items that were on my list. I think that since I started the English book on the way into town, I should be good and read the German book on the way home. But there are still about eight minutes before my train comes and because I must concentrate so hard to read German, obviously not enough time to properly continue reading it.

Therefore, I choose The Time Traveler’s Wife instead, thinking that once I get settled on the train I will replace it with the German book. Seven minutes and 59 seconds later when the train pulls into the station the German book has been forgotten. Niffenegger’s story has my full attention and I don’t even mark my place as I walk to the train: I keep reading and only glance up to verify that I am not about to trip when I embark.

I sit down, hastily arrange my packages, and am quickly reimmersed in Henry and Clare’s story. The journey home is strangely silent and the electronic voice that announces the stops along the way seems tinny and far away. The train makes its stops one after the other, but I am completely oblivious as to how many we have made because I am greedily turning page after page as I follow Henry as he drops from one time into another.

The train stops and seems to be briefly suspended in time. Curious, I glance up and suddenly realize that I have reached my stop. With the book still wide open, I hurriedly finish my sentence as I gather my things and disembark seconds before the train continues on its way.