Please note: I was trying out different themes for the site and a few recent comments got deleted. My apologies for this mistake.
I’ve posted before on the LitWits Workshops my oldest son has attended and it looks like I’ll do so again. We read Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell and he attended the workshop on it. For anyone not familiar with the story it’s a Robinson Crusoe-like tale based on the Lone Woman of […]
I seem to be reviewing the translation of Angel Guerra through footnotes, and the strange thing is I’m completely fine with that. Previous entries include Benito Pérez Galdós and his mother Hitting the jackpot on cross-references in Galdós novels More fun with footnotes in Angel Guerra, naturally I’ve said very little about the story so […]
Trans-Atlantyk by Witold Gombrowicz An Alternate Translation by Danuta Borchardt Yale University Press ISBN 978-0-300-17530-1The need for a new English translation of this novel has been well documented, but I’ll point to Michael Orthofer’s post at ‘the complete review’ for how bad the previous effort was regarded. So is this translation a success? I’m not […]
Trans-Atlantyk by Witold Gombrowicz An Alternate Translation by Danuta Borchardt Yale University Press ISBN 978-0-300-17530-1I haven’t read much lately and obviously have posted even less, so I’ll try and correct that with a few posts on the recent translation of Trans-Atlantyk of Witold Gombrowicz. This post will look at some comments about the book by […]
So I’ve signed up for another MOOC since I enjoyed the one on Hamlet so much. (More on that later.) So this one is titled Shakespeare and His World and is led by Professor Jonathan Bate, in conjunction with the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. From the course description: Each week, Professor Bate will examine a particular […]
There’s a footnote on page 95 of Angel Guerra (Pérez, Galdós Benito. A Translation of “Angel Guerra” by Benito Pérez Galdós. Lewiston (N.Y.: E. Mellen Press, 1990.), translated by Karen O. Austin, where Angel signals he is supporting his seven-year-old daughter’s anarchy instead of imposing order, as the governess has requested. Angel’s phrase, translated, is Let […]
One of the many remarkable qualities of Galdós is his use of characters across many of his novels. I’ve mentioned one of these repeating characters before, the Madrid doctor Alejandro Miquis. I’m reading Angel Guerra (Pérez, Galdós Benito. A Translation of “Angel Guerra” by Benito Pérez Galdós. Lewiston [N.Y.: E. Mellen Press, 1990.), translated by […]
This post and at least one more will be based on footnotes in the translation of Angel Guerra I’m currently reading (Pérez, Galdós Benito. A Translation of “Angel Guerra” by Benito Pérez Galdós. Lewiston [N.Y.: E. Mellen Press, 1990.). The translation is by Karen O. Austin. I updated my post on Doña Perfecta with this […]
I have been reading Carry On, Mr. Bowditch by Jean Lee Latham with the boys and they are really enjoying it. OK, I have been, too. It’s the story of Nathaniel Bowditch and his contributions to ocean navigation. It’s also a great story for kids since Bowditch had to overcome so much in his life. […]
More online musing on the online Hamlet course I’m taking… In the upcoming week’s class there is a major focus on Hamlet as a negative character as well as looking at the “To be or not to be” soliloquy. The best performances I’ve seen of that scene is when the actor makes it clear that […]
Seventeen years ago was a “Plan B” first Valentine’s Day weekend with my then-girlfriend, now wife. Yeah, we get sappy here sometimes. Sorry about that. But you never know when life is shooting down your first and “best” plan while better things lie in wait. For more details, I’ll forward you to this post. In […]
A few notes on the online Hamlet course I’m taking… The Argumentative Old Git had a good post on the three different versions of Hamlet. We took a closer look at the First Quarto (Q1) and despite all its deficiencies the order of its scenes resolve some issues raised in the Second Quarto and First […]
Doña Perfecta by Benito Pérez Galdós Translation and introduction by Harriet de Onís Barron’s Educational Series, Inc. (Hauppauge, New York), 1960 ISBN 0-8120-0057-9 My erratic posting on Galdós’ novels resumes…hopefully I’ll have most of his English translations reviewed by the end of the year. Doña Perfecta (1876) may be one of Galdós’ most read English […]
Some out-loud musing on this week’s topic in the online course on Hamlet: melancholy and madness… For such a major component of the play (not to mention a topic that has been examined so often), I didn’t realize ‘melancholy’ was only used twice in the play. Although it was published about two decades after Hamlet […]
The Volga Rises in Europe by Curzio Malaparte Translated by David Moore Birlinn Limited: Edinburgh (1951) ISBN 0-7394-1930-7 I enjoyed Curzio Malaparte’s novel Kaputt and his recently translated writings. When I stumbled across this collection of dispatches he wrote during World War II I grabbed it without a second thought, wanting to see some examples […]
We are a couple of chapters away from finishing The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, just in time for the class the oldest boy is taking. The ladies at LitWits have posted resources pages at their site (update: Tom Sawyer booklet not consistently available) and on their Pinterest board. Be sure to check out their other book resources […]
Front page of the San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 30, 1900 Source: Sudden Death: Boys Fell to Their Doom in S.F.’s Forgotten Disaster (SF Weekly News)I took the boys to a history class today where Tobin Gilman talked about his book 19th Century San Jose in a Bottle. During the talk Gilman touched on the “Thanksgiving […]
Renata Adler’s “Letter from Selma”, about the civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, is available at The New Yorker. The real magicians of Latin America looks at Machado de Assis and “the publication by Dalkey Archive Presshttps://dalkeyarchive.store/products/selected-stories?_pos=1&_psq=machado&_ss=e&_v=1.0 [scheduled for March] of a book simply titled Stories, which contains 13 of Machado’s stories, 10 […]
The End of the Old Times by Vladislav Vančura Translated by Edith Pargeter Artia Pocket Books (Prague: 1965) Something I get the feeling that when I say a book is a delight to read people seem to think I mean “lightweight” and “popular,” or possibly “frivolous.” I guess I’m sensitive because what’s available by Vladislav […]
I haven’t had much time for browsing this week, so only a couple of articles… The upcoming translation of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis by Susan Bernofsky has been well publicized. Here is an excerpt. And Creative Review has an article on the book’s covers. I missed this when originally published, but I completely agree with […]