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Monday, January 3, 2011

French kissing, yes....lotsa French language in a novel, NO!

I went into reading this chunkster absolutely blind.  Ok, maybe not completely, I did read a little bit of the intro but I never looked at chapter 1. I got to about page 50 of the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation of War and Peace last night, and the one semester of French I took in college, oh so many moons ago, is not helping. <insert a giggle and a snort> It's also not helping that all of the French is footnoted and I am reading the book on the Nook. This book is not e-Reader friendly at all. There are footnotes every few lines in the first 20 or so pages -don't remember exactly-so it's not like I can easily flip to the back of the book to look them up. 

Sigh. What to do? 

I was considering purchasing the same volume in hardback, but when I went to look "inside the book" at Amazon, it directed me to the Modern Library version.  Okaaaay.  Actually, I like Modern Library books so I decided to read a little bit of it and guess what, no French! Yay! I can understand the translators wanting to keep the French intact but it really was a hindrance to me, so I think I will have to spring for this translation, otherwise I might never get through it. 




Sunday, January 2, 2011

Happy New Year!

Well it's a new year.  I haven't made any resolutions except to read more.  Off to fire up the Nook and start reading the books for my readalongs.  For details click on them at the left.  Let's hope War and Peace doesn't scare me off. Eeep! Now that the readalong is finally here I am feeling a bit intimidated. I actually searched for some guides for it but then decided that they might be an option if I get really stuck.  Wish me luck!