The Reading Room

« first day (2418 days earlier) ← previous day next day → last day (2528 days later) »

BESW

01:42

This interview with Norman Mailer's biographer is really something.

Tweeted by andizeisler on March 22, 2018 at 9:19 PM

6 hours later…

Bookworm

07:38

Q: What does "made notes for a little thesis" mean here?

I would like to know what "made notes for a little thesis" means in the following sentences: Collins made notes for a little thesis pointing out the inferiority of the original mosaics to their photographs. Here was planted the seed of what became his life's harvest. When, many years la...

5 hours later…

Bookworm

12:58

Q: What is pp in books?

Hi I have a bibliographical reference: [Author] [book name]-5th ed.,pp.3-6,ch.3. What do the pp stand for? Thanks I don't recognize this abbreviation.

book-access

Bookworm

13:15

Q: What does "which comes at the two changes of the year" mean here?

I am reading The Great Gatsby, and finding it difficult to grasp the meaning of "which comes at the two changes of the year" in the following sentences: ...One autumn night, five years before, they had been walking down the street when the leaves were falling, and they came to a place where...

meaning the-great-gatsby f-scott-fitzgerald

4 hours later…

Christophe Strobbe

17:13

Has anybody ever compared the English (or German) translation of The Three-Body Problem with the Chinese original? The order of the first few chapters differs from the Chinese version.

user15026

@ChristopheStrobbe Apparently, yes: sites.duke.edu/english386k/…

user15026

(there were other links as well)

user15026

I'm not sure how much depth you're looking for, though

user15026

"Were there any big changes you made to the translation of The Three-Body Problem?
The first book, as originally published in Chinese, actually comes in a different order. It starts out with the police and army officers asking Professor Wang to join them at the Battle Command Center. All the Cultural Revolution episodes happen as flashbacks. That gave the original Three-Body Problem a very Japanese thriller/detective story kind of feel. But Liu Cixin had always intended for the story to actually start with the Cultural Revolution chapters. He had switched the order only because of concern a…

user15026

It's been a good long while since I read that book!

Christophe Strobbe

17:23

@Ash Thanks. That's a good starting point. I may post a question on the main site about this when I have finished reading the book.

Now I understand why the German translation has the chapters in the same order as the English translation.

@Ash When you read the book, were you already familiar with the "Cultural Revolution"?

user15026

I was not, I had to look ssome stuff up

Christophe Strobbe

I suppose most non-Chinese readers would need to look that up.

I've read several books about Chinese history and about Mao Zedong. The Cultural Revolution was a kind of chaos era, to borrow a phrase from the book.

One of the books I read was a collection of eyewitness reports from the Cultural Revolution. What Liu Cixin describes in the book does not even come close to the real cruelty back then.