The Reading Room

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2:33 AM

@verbose I'm not saying that we'll get flooded. I'm just wondering if we could somehow combine them to one good question.

@Tsundoku For translations, which reduces the selection to about ten books probably.

Tsundoku

@b_jonas That's what I suspected. That makes it a lot more difficult.

b_jonas

And it's definitely spelled "Christine", the library catalog says so

Tsundoku

Oh, that was a typo in my link.

@b_jonas I found exactly three English translations on Amazon.co.uk: Fly Away Home, The Cucumber King and The Factory-Made Boy: The Hilarious Adventures of a Factory-Made Boy. I assume you're not intrested in French or Spanish translations - I also saw a few of those.

Fly Away Home is probably the translation of her autobiographical novel Maikäfer flieg!, which is one of her best known books.

b_jonas

@Tsundoku I won't read English translations, but that's useful to know, those might be the most popular ones.

Tsundoku

I don't know anything about Hungarian translations, which would be even harder to find, I guess.

b_jonas

2:47 AM

They're here, the hard part is finding out what the original title of each of these is saman.fszek.hu/WebPac/…

They were lazy to put them into the catalog

Some of them are marked as "for beginner readers" so they're probably not what I want. That leaves very few, so I guess there's not much point asking for a recommendation.

But there are a few translations not in the FSzEK catalot

but even then there won't be too many.

Tsundoku

I see. And the Hungarian Wikipedia page isn't too helpful, either: hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

The catalogue hasn't even been updated with the year of the author's death.

Ah, so now there's a Stack Overflow keyboard. It has only the most essential keys.

1 hour later…

verbose

4:19 AM

@b_jonas yes, I agree they could be combined into one good question, but I also think the question as it stands is fine, and could attract an answer that answers the combined question.

7 hours later…

Bookworm

11:37 AM

Q: In the chapter "The Last Lesson" by Alphonse Daudet, what does the following signify/symbolise/ mean?

The last lesson Link to the text In the lesson, what does wachter's words "don't go to fast bub, you .......plenty of time" signify? What role does the old hauser have in the read? IS there any relation between the piegeons and the words "would they make the pigeons sing in German?" Trumpets...

short-stories

Rand al'Thor

12:16 PM

Two weeks after the hectoquerial day, our QPD figure on Area 51 is back down to 4 :-(

2 hours later…

verbose

1:48 PM

@Bookworm I know @Randal'Thor had a chat with the OP, but I still think the three questions have nothing to do with each other. They ought to be posted as three separate questions ....

verbose

2:01 PM

Also, I had a tough time finding a good copy of Macaulay's Minute online when I was writing that lotos-eaters answer, so I finally set up a substack and posted a decent text of the Minute there. I also moved my three Medium posts there.

1 hour later…

Tsundoku

3:11 PM

@verbose Wouldn't that lead to a lot of repetition in the three answers? In my opinion, all of that is connected by a common theme.

2 hours later…

bobble

4:58 PM

We don't use individual book tags for books in a series, right?

I just found the-last-battle

Tsundoku

Indeed; that tag can be removed.

2 hours later…

Bookworm

7:02 PM

Q: What does "Bool-var" mean in "In the Midst of the Alarms"?

In In the Midst of Alarms (1894) by Robert Barr, Yates was defeated in a friendly fight by his friend, professor Renmark, and he was astonished by the fighting skill of this quiet educated professor Oh, I say, Renny, that wasn’t fair. That was a kick.” “No, it wasn’t. It is merely a little Frenc...

meaning robert-barr in-the-midst-of-alarms

Tsundoku

7:16 PM

@Bookworm A boolean variable, surely? :-P

2 hours later…

Tsundoku

9:13 PM

Update on unanswered questions: "1,082 questions with no upvoted or accepted answers " This number is still going down.

verbose

@Tsundoku having read your answer I retract my comment. Great answer.

Tsundoku

@verbose Thanks. By the way, there is something you may wish add to your answer about After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie.

verbose

Surprised that that Daudet story is still being used in English textbooks in India. I read it in my older sister’s textbook when I was in middle school and she in high school. Then it turned up in my ninth-grade textbook. And here we are, several decades later, and it’s still in Indian textbooks. (It’s not the same textbook; my school didn’t use NCERT texts.)

Tsundoku

I admit that I hadn't read it before today.

verbose

Quite apart from the weirdness of using a story translated from French to teach English. Especially considering we had French lessons too ....

Tsundoku

9:23 PM

I can understand why schools in France read it but I don't know why it would be included in textbooks in India, which was never even a French colony.

As if there weren't any good short stories in English around.

verbose

@Tsundoku parts of India were indeed colonized by the French, which is why French is still taught in high school in India i guess. (So is Portuguese). Pondicherry is, I’m told, still vaguely French in ambience. I’ven’t been there but I know people who own a house there.

@Tsundoku that link just goes to the question. What should I add?

Tsundoku

@verbose See my comment below the question about the meaning of "à la fin".

Bookworm

Q: How could the victor be vanquished in the same time?

In In the Midst of Alarms (1894) by Robert Barr, the author was describing the wife of a Canadian old farmer: As he rose the door from the main portion of the house opened, and there entered a woman hardly yet past middle age, who had once been undoubtedly handsome, but on whose worn and faded f...

in-the-midst-of-alarms robert-barr

Tsundoku

10:14 PM

For the next topic challenge we still have a tie between two proposals: Gargantua and Pantagruel versus The Mahabharata and its Adaptations. If the tie is not broken, the oldest proposal "wins".

verbose

@Tsundoku oh, ah. But the question says “at the end,” not “to the end.” I am not sure I see a difference between “at the end” and “eventually” or “ultimately”?

well okay I guess I do but it’s pretty subtle

Tsundoku

@verbose The question contains both translations.

@Bookworm The Isle of the Blessed question is still on HNQ.

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