Recent reading
Jun. 21st, 2020 07:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
regshoeThe Lyon in Mourning, collected by Robert Forbes, volume 1 (1747-8). This is a collection of letters, journals, speeches and other eyewitness accounts from the 1745 Jacobite rising, and is a really fascinating piece of history. Forbes was himself a Jacobite and was imprisoned during the rising, and he seems to have started recording accounts of the '45 for posterity as soon as he got out. The Lyon in Mourning remained secret during his lifetime, and this three-volume edition was published by the Scottish History Society in 1895—the whole thing is long enough that I decided to read it one volume at a time. The first volume is mainly concerned with the battle of Culloden and its aftermath—there are multiple eyewitness accounts of the adventures of Prince Charles in evading the Army, including one from Flora MacDonald herself. Other notable pieces include the last speeches of several Jacobites condemned to execution, some accounts of Charles's voyage to Scotland and the beginning of the rising and various miscellaneous letters, including one written by the Prince after Prestonpans in which he talks about his attitudes towards his own army and his enemies. It's all very interesting, and great to be able to read so much about the Jacobites in their own words—talk about bringing history to life! This book was one of D. K. Broster's sources for The Flight of the Heron (she quotes from it at the beginning of part 3), and I had great fun picking up on the familiar details: I reckon Captain Scott's horse being given to the Prince and Archibald Cameron's movements after Culloden came from here. Altogether very much worth a read, and I'm now planning to give Forbes a cameo in my next FotH fic.
The Girl from the Marsh Croft by Selma Lagerlöf (1908; translated by Velma Swanston Howard, 1910). Another collection of short stories. The title story is a novella about a 'fallen woman', written with a lot of sympathy, and with a really vivid and compelling opening scene—after that it's a much quieter story, but very hopeful. The other stories are Lagerlöf's mixture of mundane and not so mundane life in contemporary Sweden and more exotic settings, all written in a beautiful fairytale prose style—some of them are tales about historical figures like King Gustav III or Pope Leo XIII, which really adds to the folklore-ish feel, and there are loads of the wonderfully vivid, lovely and eerie moments which Lagerlöf is so good at. The fiddler crossing and recrossing the stream in the wood, and the ghostly garden blooming in the forest at Christmas, are especially memorable. The book also includes her account of how she wrote 'Gösta Berling', which is written in much the same fairytale style, about herself in the third person, and is an interesting piece of background on both that novel and the writing process in general. Another really good one, all round! I wanted to read The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, but unfortunately the only public-domain English translation I can find is abridged, which will never do—there are other translations, so I'll have to do some investigating...
Country Stories by Mary Russell Mitford (1837). This is more in the vein of 'Our Village', more or less random sketches and short stories about English rural life in the early nineteenth century. Mitford's arch sense of humour comes through strongly in her distinctive style, and there are some very funny moments, like the mystifyingly replicating 'London visitor' Mr Thompson. Besides this, she absolutely never ends a sentence if she can use a comma instead, and she loves rambling footnotes about history and gardening. (One of the footnotes, about the history of Reading Abbey, rambled so much that it turned into a 15-page appendix—but it was very interesting!) The stories in this collection felt a bit more modern than those in 'Our Village'—I got the sense from them that we're heading into the Victorian period here, rather than only recently out of the Georgian, and the little details of life in the past and the progression of history were all enjoyable.
The Girl from the Marsh Croft by Selma Lagerlöf (1908; translated by Velma Swanston Howard, 1910). Another collection of short stories. The title story is a novella about a 'fallen woman', written with a lot of sympathy, and with a really vivid and compelling opening scene—after that it's a much quieter story, but very hopeful. The other stories are Lagerlöf's mixture of mundane and not so mundane life in contemporary Sweden and more exotic settings, all written in a beautiful fairytale prose style—some of them are tales about historical figures like King Gustav III or Pope Leo XIII, which really adds to the folklore-ish feel, and there are loads of the wonderfully vivid, lovely and eerie moments which Lagerlöf is so good at. The fiddler crossing and recrossing the stream in the wood, and the ghostly garden blooming in the forest at Christmas, are especially memorable. The book also includes her account of how she wrote 'Gösta Berling', which is written in much the same fairytale style, about herself in the third person, and is an interesting piece of background on both that novel and the writing process in general. Another really good one, all round! I wanted to read The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, but unfortunately the only public-domain English translation I can find is abridged, which will never do—there are other translations, so I'll have to do some investigating...
Country Stories by Mary Russell Mitford (1837). This is more in the vein of 'Our Village', more or less random sketches and short stories about English rural life in the early nineteenth century. Mitford's arch sense of humour comes through strongly in her distinctive style, and there are some very funny moments, like the mystifyingly replicating 'London visitor' Mr Thompson. Besides this, she absolutely never ends a sentence if she can use a comma instead, and she loves rambling footnotes about history and gardening. (One of the footnotes, about the history of Reading Abbey, rambled so much that it turned into a 15-page appendix—but it was very interesting!) The stories in this collection felt a bit more modern than those in 'Our Village'—I got the sense from them that we're heading into the Victorian period here, rather than only recently out of the Georgian, and the little details of life in the past and the progression of history were all enjoyable.
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Date: Jun. 21st, 2020 07:48 pm (UTC)Did Selma write about Gurra the Third I must pick her book up at onceAs someone who read Nils Holgersson for school, I really, really wish that I could recommend you some good translation - I can't vouch for the quality of any translation, alas.
Swedish books have to date been extremely secretive about being abridged versions, so you're lucky to have that information beforehand. Nils Holgersson is one of the first edutainment books out there, so not having 'the whole of it' is really missing out on a lot of culture and history.
(If you enjoy Swedish authors and boys' own novels, we have a sort-of Huckleberry Finn imitation named 'Bombi Bitt'. Also, Astrid Lindgren's short stories and fantasy novels, especially 'Mio min Mio' and 'The brothers Lionheart' might interest you.)
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Date: Jun. 22nd, 2020 04:53 am (UTC)Yeah, there's a note at the start where the translator talks about removing 'purely geographical matter' and 'descriptive matter... merely of local interest', and I'm like, aaargh, that's exactly what I want to read! The geography and culture and history are more interesting for not being familiar with them.
Thanks for the recs! I read the Pippi Longstocking books by Astrid Lindgren when I was little, I'll have to check out her other stuff...
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Date: Jun. 21st, 2020 07:51 pm (UTC)Oh, that's excellent! I love historical cameos from real people! Good luck with it, I look forward to reading it! :D
And ohh, it's been ages since I read "The Wonderful Adventures of Nils" (I do remember really liking it when I was in primary school) and now I'm wondering if the spanish edition was also abridged like the english one was. Probably, since I vaguely remember the edition I read, and it was from a book collection meant for kids! I got curious and looked at the english edition, and apparently some cuts were done with Lagerlöf's approval? I guess that's better than getting no approval at all, but I respectfully disagree in that geographical and descriptive matter is "of local interest" :( Give me alllll the landscape descriptions, even if I don't know the places!
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Date: Jun. 22nd, 2020 05:02 am (UTC)I respectfully disagree in that geographical and descriptive matter is "of local interest" :( Give me alllll the landscape descriptions, even if I don't know the places!
Yeah, exactly! I mean, if I'm reading a book from another country in translation then I won't be familiar with the landscapes and geography, so it's more important to have detailed descriptions of them so I can get a good sense of the setting, right?
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Date: Jun. 22nd, 2020 05:26 am (UTC)I totally agree! Translation is delicate enough already, because a change of language is in itself a huge change in the text, but cutting things away is just.... nope. Also, isn't it a bit patronising to assume that a reader from another country won't care about local details? Like you said, details are especially welcome when you're unfamiliar with the setting, so as a reader it makes me feel kind of cheated, because sometimes a translation is the only version I can access, and it feels wrong to have an abridged version (and how many times that must happen, and readers are none the wiser! :( )
(Now I'm thinking of a translation of FOTH without the extensive landscape descriptions and shuddering! Nooo! I hope I won't have nightmares tonight!)
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Date: Jun. 22nd, 2020 04:36 pm (UTC)Oh, unmarked abridged editions are the absolute worst (not just translations, although it's obviously easier to get away with it there). I'm grateful that at least this one said so up front so I could avoid it.
(Now I'm thinking of a translation of FOTH without the extensive landscape descriptions and shuddering! Nooo! I hope I won't have nightmares tonight!)
:O Heaven forbid!
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Date: Jun. 22nd, 2020 05:04 pm (UTC)It would be about five pages long without all the landscape descriptions, hehe... and possibly only appreciated by Keith at the beginning of the book, with his "I hate the f**** Highlands" attitude! ;)
I hope that if it's ever translated, it's by someone who does it justice and preserves its poetic language! <3
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Date: Jun. 22nd, 2020 06:30 pm (UTC)I hope that if it's ever translated, it's by someone who does it justice and preserves its poetic language! <3
I hope so :) I tried to find out whether there are existing translations into any other languages—the book was fairly popular in its day, so you'd think it might have been—but couldn't find anything. Definitely a missed opportunity!
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Date: Jun. 22nd, 2020 08:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Jun. 22nd, 2020 04:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Jun. 22nd, 2020 09:00 pm (UTC)The Wonderful Adventures of Nils is the only Lagerlöf I've read, and I was a child then. I should really read more of her works, especially since I can read them in the original. You know she was queer, right?
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Date: Jun. 23rd, 2020 05:26 am (UTC)I should really read more of her works, especially since I can read them in the original. You know she was queer, right?
Yes, I had heard that she had relationships with other women, though I don't know much about her personal life—but always nice to know that about a fave author :) Anyway, I can highly recommend all the books I've read so far!
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Date: Jun. 23rd, 2020 08:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Jun. 23rd, 2020 08:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Jun. 24th, 2020 04:52 am (UTC)It feels like it all happened yesterday instead of almost 300 years ago.
Yes—all the irrelevant little details you get alongside the big historically important stuff do really make the whole thing feel very immediate.
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Date: Jun. 23rd, 2020 09:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Jun. 27th, 2020 08:25 pm (UTC)