Speaking of Hungarian names that no one can pronounce, just look at my last name (see the end of the "Legacy" section). It's just three letters, no diacritics. There is a similar German surname with an H between the U and N that no one in America ever pronounces wrong. But my name? Half the people I meet thinks it rhymes with "gun." Fortunately, since more and more people with unusual names move to this country and people have to learn how to pronounce them, I'm having less of a problem with it now than when I was in grade school. But, along with this, a lot of people think I am from a southeast Asian country because it's also a common Korean name!
Anyway, back to the books...
If you're brain couldn't handle "Dune," I can understand that. The books are so richly detailed and involved that it's impossible to get it the first time you read them. When I went through the series for the first time, I didn't have a clue what was going on in the third book and after. Then I went through the whole series a second time and it all made sense. It turns out, there are some things there that are impossible to understand if you haven't read the whole book already! Like, in "Children of Dune," there is an early scene where a place called Shuloch is mentioned. This word is not uttered again until well over halfway in the book, and by the time you've gotten there, you have of course totally forgotten that name so when it comes up again it seems new to you. Then, after you've finished the whole book, you read it again and when you are at that aformentioned scene in the beginning, you actually recognize the name Shuloch and you start to feel like you've had an amazing epiphany because it's finally making sense.
I'm trying to think of a sci-fi series I really liked as a kid. I read so many. Heinlein, of course -- a lot of his books were thematically related and shared a lot of the same characters, even if they weren't actually a series, per se. Stand-outs that I really liked were (of course) Stranger in a Strange Land, Friday, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and The Number of the Beast.
I like Larry Niven a lot, too, although I took some of his extrapolations on evolution with a grain of salt (he was really stuck in that man-as-hunter mode). The Ringworld series was pretty fascinating. The Protector theme was very interesting -- the idea that the changes that take place in old age were meant to be precursors to a transformation into a superhuman protector form that had to be catalyzed by the consumption of an extraterrestrial plant; without the plant, they just lead to deterioration and death. His real forte was coming up with truly unique and well-thought out alien species that were entirely odd and unusual; not just bipedal quasi-humans. The Pierson's puppeteers were a real standout -- three-legged aliens with two heads and a brain kept sensibly in the torso, who made a virtue out of extreme cowardice.
The helium-based Outsiders were another leap of creativity:
The kzin were fun, but really just mean, overgrown cats.
His collaborations like Footfall were pretty cool. I liked Dream Park. The Mote In God's Eye was okay, but not quite as good, in my opinion.
I liked him because he was all about hard science -- he explained things like tidal forces and antimatter reactions and did the math on the page. Sure, he fooled around with faster-than-light drives, but it was forgiveable since he posited that they weren't a human invention, but alien technology bought from the Outsiders. He didn't try to explain how it worked because no one knew how it worked.
John Varley had a cool series -- Titan, Wizard, and Demon -- that took place on a small world that was itself conscious. And increasingly mentally unstable. Not to mention cold-blooded, calculating, and obsessed with old movies. And it liked to invent its own species. And how can you not love a badass female NASA captain with a name like Cirocco Jones? _________________ An apple a day....
Erich Maria Remarque
George (?) Orwell
Herbert Wells
Agatha Christie
Richard Bach
Mikhail Bulgakov
Vladimir Nabokov
Jule Vern
Alexandre Dumas
I don't read a lot and I don't like 19th century literature, i.e. classics, though I liked "children books" by Jule verne and dumas, but other franch authors especially Balzak were more like a pain during school years alongside with Dostoyesvsky and Tolstoy... _________________
I'm with you, Wanderin -- the only classics I ever actually enjoyed in school were A Tale of Two Cities and Shakespeare. _________________ An apple a day....
Location: San Francisco, Noord-Kalifornië, Noord-Amerika
Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 9:28 pm Post subject:
I think I enjoyed just about every book I read in school. But I hated writing about them, so I got pretty bad grades in English.
In the 7th grade (average age is 12), my English teacher started the term off by reading a chapter of Tom Sawyer. It was "The Master's Gilded Dome", and he read it so well that the class was in hysterics and couldn't wait to read the rest of the book.
It's hard to like something when you're not reading it willingly. Here's most the books I had to read in high school (Allen, TX), roughly in order:
The Scarlet Pimpernel (liked it)
The Count of Monte Cristo (liked it but didn't read it fast enough to keep up with quizzes and assignments)
Jane Eyre (probably would've liked it if I had been a girl)
Of Mice and Men (it was alright)
To Kill a Mockingbird (quite interesting)
Huckleberry Finn (it was OK but I would never have read it if I didn't have to)
Wuthering Heights (I didn't like it then because it didn't make any sense to me. And I must say, the frequent appearance of the word "ejaculate" was hilarious to the bunch of teenagers we were)
The Scarlet Letter (...eh.)
Siddhartha (It was alright except I had a lot of trouble coming up with stuff to put in those "response journal" assignments)
Their Eyes Were Watching God (not bad, but, once again, I probably wouldn't have read it if I had a choice)
The Grapes of Wrath (pretty good, and I think that even though I didn't enjoy writing those one-page papers on the "interchapters" I was able to pull together a lot of creativity for them.)
Brave New World (fascinating but some parts were just plain weird)
Frankenstein (fascinating)
In college I also had to read Madame Bovary, which I didn't much care for, and Things Fall Apart by Chinoua Achebe which was interesting but just not my thing.
To Kill a Mockingbird is an all-time classic, hands down. You might have to be an American to really have it resonate for you, though. But it's a 20th century novel (the author's first and last novel, too -- she won a Pulitzer prize and never wrote another book. I think she was a journalist by trade.)
Pride and Prejudice -- despised every single page. You might need to be English to enjoy that one....
Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer -- couldn't get into them. I also had to read Things Fall Apart in college -- didn't do much for me, either.
Of Mice and Men I read on my own, actually -- my parents had tones of books around the house, so sometimes I read Great Literature quite inadvertently! I had no idea Candide was in that category -- all I remember was giggling when they ate the old woman's butt. I loved Le Mort d'Arthur when I was about 10 -- had no idea it was so old!
I remember reading ALL of the Little House on the Prairie books -- I had no idea you could make houses out of sod or that fever and ague was really malaria. I found them fascinating as a kid -- living out of a wagon, building your own house, growing all your own food, facing wild animals and harsh winters and seeing such marvels as the first railroads and such tragedy as the long lines of Indians being herded away by the army.
But I hated the TV show! Michael Landon was SO not Pa!
I read many of Marguerite Henry's horse books, where she would follow the life of a famous horse (often highly colored) and give you a sense of place and history at the same time. Misty of Chincoteague and Stormy, Misty's Foal were two favorites (Stormy was born in her owner's kitchen -- they had had to evacuate the island of Chincoteague during a bad hurricane, so they had sheltered their heavily-pregnant mare in the only place they could think of where she would be safe -- in the house!)
Brighty of the Grand Canyon was another one I really liked -- unlike Misty, who was a real pony, Brighty was a fictional protagonist whose story was really about the Grand Canyon itself, just as seen through the eyes of an animal, rather than from a human perspective. Brighty was a semi-feral burro named after the park's Bright Angel Falls, and through his travels and antics I was first introduced to such exotic (to an east coast kid) fauna as ringtail cats and mountain lions.
I snaked this cover art from Dawntreader Books, which reminds me that I also read the complete Chronicles of Narnia, including, of course, the Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I think my favorites were actually the Magician's Nephew (the prequel to the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe), because I loved the image of a magical Wood Between the Worlds, which was a quiet, sleepy place where nothing ever happned -- but if you jumped into the various puddles beneath the trees, you could be transported to other worlds, and Prince Caspian. _________________ An apple a day....
Location: San Francisco, Noord-Kalifornië, Noord-Amerika
Posted: Thu Aug 16, 2007 9:20 am Post subject:
Uriel wrote:
Pride and Prejudice -- despised every single page. You might need to be English to enjoy that one....
No, I'm an Amurrican, born and bred. And so are all of my Austen-loving friends.
Quote:
I remember reading ALL of the Little House on the Prairie books -- I had no idea you could make houses out of sod or that fever and ague was really malaria. I found them fascinating as a kid -- living out of a wagon, building your own house, growing all your own food, facing wild animals and harsh winters and seeing such marvels as the first railroads and such tragedy as the long lines of Indians being herded away by the army.
Not to mention introducing subject matter not typically mentioned in books for young girls, such as a massacre and a lynching. Yeah, I read them all, too. I think that was typical -- if you liked one Little House book, then you had to read the whole series. I read them when I was 10, the same age at which I read A Streetcare Named Desire, The Rose Tattoo and a collection of short stories by well-known Southern writers (e.g., Faulkner, Caldwell, Capote). I was just going through my mother's entire library. The children's books were all from the public library.
Quote:
But I hated the TV show! Michael Landon was SO not Pa!
And the California hills were SO not the plains of Oklahoma, southwestern Minnesota or North Dakota! And the dialogue was so often not 19th-century! I was appalled when I heard Pa say, "Laura! Get your little butt over here right now!" Aaagh!
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn featured an alcoholic father, a mother who played favorites with her children, and a shopkeeper who molested little girls! Heartwarming stuff.... _________________ An apple a day....
Pride and Prejudice -- despised every single page. You might need to be English to enjoy that one....
Then I'm English, too - LOL! Although I'm not a Jane Austin enthusiast, I enjoy reading her books, especially P&P. Sometimes the constant whining of women and the palaver over marriage get on my nerves, but I think Jane Austin felt the same - that's why she wrote about her characters the way she did.
Uriel wrote:
Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer -- couldn't get into them.
I liked them, especially Huck Finn - that's where I got my entire knowledge of
AAVE! Imagine what my AAVE is like.
Uriel wrote:
Of Mice and Men I read on my own, actually -- my parents had tones of books around the house, so sometimes I read Great Literature quite inadvertently!
I enjoyed reading Of Mice and Men. However, it was the most lacklustre performance I've ever had the misfortune to sit through in the theatre, because the actors were dreadful.
Uriel wrote:
I had no idea Candide was in that category --
It definitely is.
Uriel wrote:
all I remember was giggling when they ate the old woman's butt.
_________________ Az alvástól megéhezem. Az evéstől elálmosodom. Az élet szép.
Wanderin, have you read any books by Orwell and Remarque, other than 1984 and All Quiet on the Western Front?
It's been a while since I read a novel, but after the subject of reading came up at work yesterday I went to the library and borrowed a copy of American Psycho. The guy at work I talked to said it was the most unpleasant novel he'd ever read. Also, my friend's girlfriend couldn't even finish it, so gross she thought it was. I've seen the movie twice and it shall be interesting to read this satire.
I've read both, and they're both great. They're often misused though--Orwell was a socialist, but strongly opposed to Stalinism and totalitarianism in general. He wrote a lot of good essays too: "Politics and the English Language" is a classic, and should be required reading in any writing class. I've only read one of his other novels Keep the Aspidistra Flying. Very depressing. It's about a young man who decides that having a good job and money is stupid, and decides to find the worst job he can and live as badly as possible. I think he says he's living on 3 pounds a week at one point (though that was a lot more in the sixties). _________________ L'homme est comme Dieu l'a fait et un peu pire/ L'homme est le seul animal qui détruit pour le plaisir
I liked them, especially Huck Finn - that's where I got my entire knowledge of AAVE! Imagine what my AAVE is like.
Uh ... pretty 19th century, I would imagine! You won't get far in a majore US city with that stuff!
I just spent my mom's $100 gift card to Barnes and Noble today. I'll have to report back on what I bought. Some of them were purchased mainly for the pictures ( I like to have a lot of reference photos for inspiration), but I did take a gamble on spending $30 on the CD version of CS Lewis's Screwtape Letters. Supposed to be about a minor demon reporting back to Our Father Below. I say that I'm taking a chance because although I enjoyed the Narnia books, I could never get through his "adult" stuff -- Perelandra and Out of the Silent Planet, etc. It wasn't the religious allusions that bothered me, it was the stilted writing style. But the back promises me that it's funny, and it better be!
That's how I pick fiction by the way -- I flip through books at random, and if any of the dialogue or exposition grabs me, I give it a shot. If it looks dry and tedious, I move on. I find that lately, most fantasy and sci-fi tends to fall into the dull & tedious realm. And if they insist on using a lot of bizarre spellings whose pronunciations are anyone's guess, Tolkienesque -eth endings, or apostrophes and other punctuation in a plain old name, I just can't hang. Lame.
I wanted to get 1776 on CD, but the price tag defeated me! You know what cheapskates we are -- that's how the whole mess got started in the first place, right? -- not wanting to pay all those taxes! _________________ An apple a day....
I liked them, especially Huck Finn - that's where I got my entire knowledge of AAVE! Imagine what my AAVE is like.
Uh ... pretty 19th century, I would imagine! You won't get far in a majore US city with that stuff!
Nah, it's not that far from Fifty Cent. When I read rap-lyrics (once in a blue moon) I understand them more or less or at least I think so. But I have a hard time making out what they say when hearing these songs. Both me and my mum have an extraordinary ability to understand *only* the taboo words.
I could never in my life pronounce AAVE, though. What my accent has with AAVE in common is non-rhoticity. That made me think that I speak AAVE based on the American Accent Map Survey (or whatever), which said that I had a New York accent. Of course, non-rhoticity only applies to my English accent - I can assurrrrre you that my Hungarrrrian prrronunciation is extrrrremly rrrrrhotic to the point of being almost errrrrotic or sometimes errrrratic.
Unfortunately, I've never read Narnia. Nor have I seen the film. I read a book that was somewhat similar to Narnia when I was a child - I can only recall that they went into that wardrobe like they did in Narnia and similar things happened to them. Probably it was Narnia - I don't know. _________________ Az alvástól megéhezem. Az evéstől elálmosodom. Az élet szép.
----> Liz:
I read two books of the "Narnia" series: "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" and "The Horse and His Boy". Both in English.
Well, If I had read them when I was a child I would have probably love the books. Now, well...
Anyway, I try to choose children books from time to time because the vocabulary is fairly simple and I don't need to look up in a dictionary every second sentence
KSa -
Well, I'm positive that I liked the book, whatever it was. I just can't recall the exact content. _________________ Az alvástól megéhezem. Az evéstől elálmosodom. Az élet szép.
I could never in my life pronounce AAVE, though. What my accent has with AAVE in common is non-rhoticity. That made me think that I speak AAVE based on the American Accent Map Survey (or whatever), which said that I had a New York accent. Of course, non-rhoticity only applies to my English accent - I can assurrrrre you that my Hungarrrrian prrronunciation is extrrrremly rrrrrhotic to the point of being almost errrrrotic or sometimes errrrratic.
Don't worry. White people aren't supposed to speak AAVE. Here, if you talked like that, you would be labeled with the pejorative term "wigger" (white nigger), which basically means "a white person trying to act black", and whites will shun you as low-class, sell-out, or uneducated, and more often than not, blacks will shun you as a "wanna-be". And it's very difficult to sound like a natural AAVE speaker, if you haven't grown up speaking like that. And outside of academic circles, most people here don't really know what "AAVE" is. Some just call it "Ebonics", but it's not really thought of as a dialect with that status, but more like a "style" used by people who are unlettered and unfamiliar with English (standard) grammar, namely poor black people, who are often unedcuated because of historical economic circumstances as you can imagine. _________________ Operation Northwoods - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods
Favorite languages = English/Spanish
Followed by Italian/French/Dutch
Don't worry. White people aren't supposed to speak AAVE. Here, if you talked like that, you would be labeled with the pejorative term "wigger" (white nigger), which basically means "a white person trying to act black", and whites will shun you as low-class, sell-out, or uneducated, and more often than not, blacks will shun you as a "wanna-be". And it's very difficult to sound like a natural AAVE speaker, if you haven't grown up speaking like that. And outside of academic circles, most people here don't really know what "AAVE" is.
Porthos, I know. I was kidding. I hope you don't believe that I want to use AAVE when I'm in the US and that I think that you are supposed to speak like that.
Porthos wrote:
Some just call it "Ebonics", but it's not really thought of as a dialect with that status, but more like a "style" used by people who are unlettered and unfamiliar with English (standard) grammar, namely poor black people, who are often unedcuated because of historical economic circumstances as you can imagine.
It is a dialect.
_________________ Az alvástól megéhezem. Az evéstől elálmosodom. Az élet szép.
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Although I'm not a Jane Austin enthusiast, I enjoy reading her books, especially P&P. Sometimes the constant whining of women and the palaver over marriage get on my nerves, but I think Jane Austin felt the same - that's why she wrote about her characters the way she did.
