New Library Books

[erastes]

So - I finished the Trollope and I did like it, for all its length and interminable slowness. As so little happened I can't really say anything about it, but the ending was a surprise. I'll probably try Trollope again, perhaps the Barchester Chronicles.

So "I went to the library and I got:"

English Passengers by Matthew Kneale
Eragon by Christopher Paolini (yeah, I know... I know... I said I wouldn't bother but you can't really spork if you haven't read...)
The Seventh Son by Reay Tannahill
Sharpe's Triumph by Bernard Cornwell
Web by John Wyndham
The Rules of Magic by Annie Dalton
Black Sheep by Georgette Heyer (cough... how did that get in there?)
The Algebraist by Iain M Banks

*giggles*

Rather amusing range.

Anyone read? Anyone want to comment?

Comments

[fleurrochard]

To be fair, I have to add though, that I've read almost all of her books in the German translation.

[ter369.livejournal.com]

To be fair, I have to add though, that I've read almost all of her books in the German translation.

My best friend from high school (from the USA) who attended university in Germany also read Heyer and Star Trek novels in German. They're her comfort reads and this helped her keep using the language.

What the translation is missing is the slang and style of language that characterizes the Regency. I suppose if that's gone, the events might seem reduced to trashy romance elements -- but not trashy in the sex-on-the-page way, because that didn't show up in the genre until the 1980s.

Heyer's manner of writing is efficient and straightforward, while her characters' manner of speaking defines them and could only take place in that period. I think that might not travel through translation.

[fleurrochard]

What the translation is missing is the slang and style of language that characterizes the Regency. I suppose if that's gone, the events might seem reduced to trashy romance elements

Actually I said I wouldn't call her books trashy. ;) I only added that I've only read the translations because I can't really say something about her original writing style (i.e. English.)

Heyer's manner of writing is efficient and straightforward, while her characters' manner of speaking defines them and could only take place in that period. I think that might not travel through translation.

Yes, it might not travel through translations (it has to be difficult to translate that), but I actually think that it has traveled through. Her characters' voices are certainly very distinct even in the translation. (But then the German publisher is one of the better ones. That probably helped.)