des livres du vendredi
17 July 2019 19:51![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
landofnowhereNew Grub Street, George Gissing. Got a good way into in, then put on hold because it was being a downer. The Reardon plotline kind of the less sentimentalized version of I Capture the Castle. Edwin Reardon is a one-hit wonder of an author who finds himself in a downward spiral of poverty, depression, writer's block, and failing marriage.
Les Fiancés de L'Hiver by Christelle Dabos. French YA fantasy whose English translation was recently reviewed by @skygiants (I would link, but I don't know how to link it in a form that would hide spoilers behind their cut). So far good language practice and interesting worldbuilding, and curious to see where it goes. I can't tell if it's actually slow-paced or if I'm just being slowed down by the foreign language. It is interesting reading speculative fiction in a foreign language, because defamiliarization is one of tools of the genre, as is using familiar things in unfamiliar ways, but reading a foreign language I can't tell which things are confusing/unfamiliar because of the setting and which are because of my lack of vocabulary. At least my French is good enough to tell what's going on, so far.
(Reading Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell in French translation -- I got about a third of the way through before setting aside indefinitely -- is interesting in a different way, but that's a subject for another time.)
Les Fiancés de L'Hiver by Christelle Dabos. French YA fantasy whose English translation was recently reviewed by @skygiants (I would link, but I don't know how to link it in a form that would hide spoilers behind their cut). So far good language practice and interesting worldbuilding, and curious to see where it goes. I can't tell if it's actually slow-paced or if I'm just being slowed down by the foreign language. It is interesting reading speculative fiction in a foreign language, because defamiliarization is one of tools of the genre, as is using familiar things in unfamiliar ways, but reading a foreign language I can't tell which things are confusing/unfamiliar because of the setting and which are because of my lack of vocabulary. At least my French is good enough to tell what's going on, so far.
(Reading Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell in French translation -- I got about a third of the way through before setting aside indefinitely -- is interesting in a different way, but that's a subject for another time.)