^^^ When I finished *The Game of Kings/i I did something I never ever do. I picked it up the next day and started rereading it. Ditto second in the series Queens’ Play. I wanted to catch all I had missed.
For anyone starting this series, be patient. I worked through the first 100 pages or so, before pieces started falling into place. My daughter bought the companion book since occasional phrases in Latin, French, Spanish aren’t translated. I didn’t: I just let it flow, though I did look up the historical figures interspersed throughout.
I haven’t read any “great” books in the past few months, but I have read some well-written page-turners that are good enough to recommend:
The Girls by Emma Cline - part coming-of-age story, part historical novel with a Charles Manson-like twist. It’s not the kind of thing I normally read but it sure holds your interest.
Missing, Presumed by Susie Steiner - a police procedural about a Cambridge student who goes missing and the impacts on her family and the police. I especially liked the complexity of the characters, notably the police detective and the mother of the missing girl.
Good As Gone by Amy Gentry - a girl is kidnapped (or is she?) from her home and then returns (or does she?) eight years later. I’m not quite done with it yet, and I think I’ve figured out all the twists, but it’s still good (and a quick read).
Talk about holding your interest… I had a long weekend in D.C. and picked a book from my stack of unread books. Having just re-read The Nightingale, this was another earlier title by the same author, Kristin Hannah, Winter Garden. It really holds your interest as the story unfolds…also about two sisters and so I wonder if that is common to her other books
@Consolation – Just piping in on the Proust translation. For Swann’s Way, I read the new-ish Lydia Davis but listened to the original English translation by Moncrieff on Audible. (I generally switch between audio and paper books when reading anything where audio is available). I’m partial to Davis’s clean prose but the comparison is very interesting. Moncrieff definitely has a beautiful ear for the rhythm of language.
Thanks. My S is a reader of Russian novels, and when he was in HS I discovered the translations of Volokhonsky and Pevear. I could not believe the difference between the living, readable language of their translations and the turgid dreadfulness of the Constance Garnett I had grown up with. I’m interested to know whether there exists such a difference in translations from the French.
I remember translations of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight ranging from wonderfully lively to excruciatingly genteel.
There is an updated/revised/edited version of the Moncrieff translation by Terence Kilmartin. (Both are listed as the translators) I know several professors who teach it.
Strangest book I’ve read this year - “Nutshell” by Ian McEwon. It retells Hamlet from the point of view of an unborn child. After putting aside incredulity (really, an unborn child is the narrator?) it did keep my interest. I love his writing, but am on the fence about whether I liked the book as a whole. Is it genius or is it ridiculous?
Consolation: I found a Moncrieff, 1930s two volume translation in a second hand book store when I was 20 and that’s what I’ve been reading ever since. If only I knew enough French to read Proust rather than Moncrieff and at times, when much younger, I attempted it, but without much success. Thanks for the posts regarding translations… very interesting.
A tip from my cousin who used this method to improve her French – listen to an audio version of Proust in French while reading along in English. I know someone who did that with the Ferrante books, too – listened in Italian with English translation nearby.
I spent one summer reading * Du côté de chez Swann (Swann’s Way)*right before going to bed each night. It took me forever and I remember it being a slog, but I dreamed in French every night. I like the idea of listening in French and reading in English. My French is so rusty now, I’d really have to do that.
I remember a bilingual friend of mine telling me she preferred the French translations of War and Peace because you could tell when characters switched from the formal to the informal you. I purposely got the new translation, that leaves the French bits in French (translated in footnotes). So I at least I get to read a little bit of the book in the original.
@scout59, I was quite impressed with Missing, Presumed as well. I am glad to see that it is the first in a proposed series.
I have read 47 books this year; I will hold out hopes of finishing a couple that I have dangling and make it to 50. Some of the standouts from 2016 were The Nest, The North Water, Eligible, Imagine Me Gone, Not Working, The Pier Falls, This Must Be the Place, The Underground Railroad, Commonwealth, The Gloaming, The Mothers and All That Man Is. On to 2017!
Love your list @GoldenWest! I’m in the middle of The Gloaming now and just chose The North Water for my book club.
I read 50 this year (I spent too much reading time uselessly surfing the web) and my favorites were: Underground Airlines, The Underground Railroad, The Wonder, Commonwealth, Everyone Brave is Forgiven, The Fireman, The Tsar of Love and Techno, Jane Steele and Mischling. And while A Little Life made me crazy and I don’t think it’s a ‘favorite’, it certainly ranks as one of the books I’ve thought about a lot long after finishing it.
