Monday, March 18, 2013

It's Monday--What Are You Reading?

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Sheila at Book Journey hosts this weekly meme: "This is a great way to plan out your reading week and see what others are currently reading as well… you never know where that next “must read” book will come from!"

Here's what I'm reading:

Hugo's opus about the "miserable ones" of this world.  It's not just about misery, though.  It's about sin and redemption, and doing right, even when that means great personal sacrifice.  It's also an intermittently page-turning adventure story.  The opening chapters about the good Bishop of Digne  are unforgettable, and set the tone for the rest of the book.  I'm a little more than halfway through.

Playwright, dissident writer, and independent Czechoslovakia's first president, Vaclav Havel wrote essays that influenced not only the Czech independence movement, but those of other Soviet-bloc countries, including Poland's Solidarity movement.  To be honest, I'm finding the style a bit dry, but the impact these essays and letters had, and the courage it must have taken to write them, was enormous.  These documents dissect the peculiar nature of the totalitarian system Havel lived under, and reveal the train of logic that inspired the dissident movements.  

I've never read any of the Harry Potter books in English.  But in German, this one is enough of a challenge that it's taking me quite a long time to get through.  This is the first book (Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone).  I'm almost halfway through now, and have gotten into enough of a "groove" that I can get through a chapter or so a day.  As always, I don't know every word, but I've improved enough that I can understand the story without resorting to the dictionary too often. 


7 comments:

  1. Les Miserables is on my "need to read" list, it sounds amazing. I haven't seen the movie or the musical, I'm debating if I should read the book first or not...

    loved all the HP books, for sure worth the reading!

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    1. I always like to read the book first, if possible. It makes the movie experience richer. Although sometimes I only discover a book after seeing its movie adaptation, and then I enjoy getting the "back story" of the people and events in the movie. Something to be said for both.

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  2. Harry Potter in german....so curious why you choose this combination?

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    1. I don't remember exactly. It was in my pile of books in German, which I collect rather haphazardly, as I come across them. I have a few classics, such as Der Tod in Venedig and Faust, but I don't feel ready to tackle them yet. I'm sticking to easier stuff now in an effort to build my vocabulary (if the sentence structure is not too complex, then I can focus on just learning the nouns and verbs).

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    2. Good plan....

      love this quote I found in Victor Hugo's love letters to his mistress...

      Time can never hang heavy when
      one is laboring honestly; study carries more
      flowers than thorns.

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  3. Curious...how is Open Letters by Vaclav Havel? It sounds like something I would like!

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    1. It's giving me a picture of Havel, whose name I had heard, but about whom I didn't know much before. I have to confess that I've stalled in my reading of it--I'm having a hard time with the style. It's what I have always called in my own mind "European intellectual-speak," meaning dry and unnecessarily complicated. I'm really torn, because the material is so compelling, and it opens a window on life behind the Iron Curtain; how can it be such a boring read? I'll probably cut my losses, write a post soon on what I have read so far, and move on.

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