What are you reading now?

[Katzelmacher]

I finished Goethe’s Elective Affinities last week. I enjoyed it. It should be better known. There have been several film versions, though none in English. Hardly anyone in Britain seems to know who Goethe was, never mind having read anything by him.

Currently reading Yevgeny Zamyatin’s ‘ground-breaking dystopia’ We.

[Joseph K]

I've read The Sorrows of Young Werther and Faust Part 1 (both in translation alas)... might get round to reading Elective Affinities if I ever finish the many books I already own.

[gurnemanz]

I finished Goethe’s Elective Affinities last week. I enjoyed it. It should be better known. There have been several film versions, though none in English. Hardly anyone in Britain seems to know who Goethe was, never mind having read anything by him.

I did a German BA and have had a copy on my shelf for several decades. It wasn't one we were required to read and rather shamefully I never did. Thanks for the nudge.

I've nearly finished Dresden The Fire and the Darkness by Sinclair Lewis which our daughter gave me for Christmas. Very detailed and thoroughly researched. Dresden was my father-in-law's home town and we have an old print from his family to remind us what the city once looked like.

[Katzelmacher]

I've read The Sorrows of Young Werther and Faust Part 1 (both in translation alas)... might get round to reading Elective Affinities if I ever finish the many books I already own.

I read ....Werther before I read Elective Affinities. I didn’t think it was very good, though I could (sort of) understand the massive appeal it had in its day. Goethe himself had a low opinion of it and was embarrassed that it was the only work of his that ‘ordinary people’ seemed aware of. The way the narrative halts just before the end to make way for W’s (pretty awful, imo) translation of Ossian is unforgivable.

Found it impossible not to imagine Werther as being an Alain de Bouton lookalike....albeit one with hair! :).

[Richard Barrett]

Currently reading Yevgeny Zamyatin’s ‘ground-breaking dystopia’ We.

That's a great piece of work, and much more than a forerunner of other better-known books of that general kind. While of course on one level it's a satire on Soviet bureaucracy, it also expresses the kind of revolutionary spirit that infuses a lot of Russian art, music and literature in the immediate post-1917 period - and its antecedents, like the late Scriabin played by I-330 who remarks that hoping for a "final revolution" is like looking for the largest number.

[richardfinegold]

I am rereading Thomas Mann Doctor Faustus

[Katzelmacher]

I am rereading Thomas Mann Doctor Faustus

I read this about twenty years ago. I can remember beginning it with great enthusiasm but then it become a chore long before the end. I can remember hardly anything about it.

Are you reading the Helen Lowe Porter translation? Her work is no longer held in much esteem, as her knowledge of German was supposedly inadequate (yet she swung the gig for translating TM into English as surely as her dolt of a grandson swung the gig of becoming British Prime Minister - I think mendacity and a disregard for truth must run in that awful family).

John Woods has done excellent translations of Buddenbrooks, The Magic Mountain and Joseph & His Brothers but I don’t think he’s yet got round to Faustus and the others.....

[muzzer]

This is all very useful to know, as am limbering up for The MM this year.

[Leinster Lass]

This is all very useful to know, as am limbering up for The MM this year.

I did start reading 'Der Zauberberg' while at university. Fortunately it wasn't a prescribed text, as it proved to be way beyond me - I could just about cope with 'Tod in Venedig'. You won't be surprised to learn that I also found 'Buddenbrooks' hard going. None of which is in any way intended to discourage anybody - just an acknowledgment of my own academic and intellectual shortcomings. After I expressed some disappointment at the result of my Finals, my tutor was kind enough to comment: 'Oh, there's no need - we had you down for a 2-2 the minute we clapped eyes on you ' - or words to that effect

I'm currently reading 'Armageddon' by Max Hastings. The more military history I read, the more amazed I become that anybody ever won any large-scale conflict. I seem to remember that Montgomery's utterances from his caravan - or did he say 'carawan?' - were respectfully received by many, but just about every military historian I've read doesn't seem to share that enthusiasm, to put it mildly. I find military history fascinating in itself, but it's also my way of honouring the memory of my great-uncle who was killed near the Regina Trench in September 1916 at the age of 20.

[Katzelmacher]

I did start reading 'Der Zauberberg' while at university. Fortunately it wasn't a prescribed text, as it proved to be way beyond me - I could just about cope with 'Tod in Venedig'. You won't be surprised to learn that I also found 'Buddenbrooks' hard going. None of which is in any way intended to discourage anybody - just an acknowledgment of my own academic and intellectual shortcomings. After I expressed some disappointment at the result of my Finals, my tutor was kind enough to comment: 'Oh, there's no need - we had you down for a 2-2 the minute we clapped eyes on you ' - or words to that effect

I'm currently reading 'Armageddon' by Max Hastings. The more military history I read, the more amazed I become that anybody ever won any large-scale conflict. I seem to remember that Montgomery's utterances from his caravan - or did he say 'carawan?' - were respectfully received by many, but just about every military historian I've read doesn't seem to share that enthusiasm, to put it mildly. I find military history fascinating in itself, but it's also my way of honouring the memory of my great-uncle who was killed near the Regina Trench in September 1916 at the age of 20.

You might like to have another try at Buddenbrooks if you go with John Woods’ excellent translation, published by Everyman Library. His version is so much more readable than the awful old Lowe Porter version which you’ll probably have attempted to read. His version of The Magic Mountain is also excellent.

[Leinster Lass]

Like most of my group, I read the prescribed German texts in translation whenever one was available!

[french frank]

Now ploughing through More, History of Richard III which has at least the interest of spotting the bits that Shakespeare yanked out for his play. It was regarded as being a model of 'classical history' and it was good to know the thoughts of the young Soon-Not-To-Be-King when he realised he was about to be smothered. I did like a line about the evil that men do being set in marble and the good written in dust. Did Shakespeare use it, I wonder?

[Leinster Lass]

Now ploughing through More, History of Richard III which has at least the interest of spotting the bits that Shakespeare yanked out for his play. It was regarded as being a model of 'classical history' and it was good to know the thoughts of the young Soon-Not-To-Be-King when he realised he was about to be smothered. I did like a line about the evil that men do being set in marble and the good written in dust. Did Shakespeare use it, I wonder?

The older I get, the more I realize the extent to which Shakespeare enriched, and continues to enrich, our language. I sometimes whether there was/is much point in expecting teenagers to either enjoy, or get much pleasure from, studying his oeuvre - better left until later, perhaps?

[Katzelmacher]

The older I get, the more I realize the extent to which Shakespeare enriched, and continues to enrich, our language. I sometimes whether there was/is much point in expecting teenagers to either enjoy, or get much pleasure from, studying his oeuvre - better left until later, perhaps?

I discovered Shakespeare (Macbeth) when I was eleven. To my surprise, I had no problem with the language. It was perfectly clear to me, as an averagely intelligent child, what was being said and what was going on. Any ‘difficult’ words are dealt with in the index.

No wish to see Shakespeare performed in the theatre or on tv or radio, though, as the present generation of actors have not the first clue about verse-speaking and the current crop of directors (at the RSC, in particular) seem set in their belief that WS was ‘the first Woke guy’.

[Leinster Lass]

I discovered Shakespeare (Macbeth) when I was eleven. To my surprise, I had no problem with the language. It was perfectly clear to me, as an averagely intelligent child, what was being said and what was going on. Any ‘difficult’ words are dealt with in the index.

No wish to see Shakespeare performed in the theatre or on tv or radio, though, as the present generation of actors have not the first clue about verse-speaking and the current crop of directors (at the RSC, in particular) seem set in their belief that WS was ‘the first Woke guy’.

Don't you mean 'The Scottish Play'.
I personally get much more out of Shakespeare from watching a DVD with subtitles. Many years ago I did see Laurence Olivier as Shylock and Paul Schofield as Othello. I find Olivier, with his declamatory style - which I guess is probably decried these days - easier to follow than most modern actors, some of whom tend to mumble, although I did enjoy the recent BBC TV series 'The Hollow Crown'.