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German reading group!

  Tags: Book Club | Reading | German
 Language Learning Forum : Books, Literature & Reading Post Reply
76 messages over 10 pages: 1 2 3 4 57 ... 6 ... 9 10 Next >>
frenkeld
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6958 days ago

2042 posts - 2719 votes 
Speaks: Russian*, English
Studies: German

 
 Message 41 of 76
11 April 2012 at 3:26pm | IP Logged 
The book is from the 1920's, so it's old, but not ancient. My impression is that 150 years old is the boundary where it starts getting seriously old. It would've been easier to read something modern, but then it wouldn't be freely available to everyone, which I felt was important for a thread like this. And, uh, as for "superfluous stylistic filigree", I thought something called literature is allowed to indulge in it. :) Personally, I find his writing style quite perky.


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geoffw
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4703 days ago

1134 posts - 1865 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish
Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian

 
 Message 42 of 76
11 April 2012 at 3:52pm | IP Logged 
frenkeld wrote:
The book is from the 1920's, so it's old, but not ancient. My impression is that 150 years old is the boundary where it starts getting seriously old. It would've been easier to read something modern, but then it wouldn't be freely available to everyone, which I felt was important for a thread like this. And, uh, as for "superfluous stylistic filigree", I thought something called literature is allowed to indulge in it. :) Personally, I find his writing style quite perky.



Agreed on all points.

Maybe I was letting off some steam stemming from my frustration at having to work harder to read than usual, but it's definitely worthwhile reading this, and it's not like anyone is being forced to read anything. Plus, it doesn't look like this is a very long book anyhow, so soon enough I can start griping about a different book instead. :-)
2 persons have voted this message useful



geoffw
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4703 days ago

1134 posts - 1865 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish
Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian

 
 Message 43 of 76
20 April 2012 at 1:27pm | IP Logged 
Are people still reading this book? I'm a little more than half way through it now. My suspicions have been steadily rising pretty much since the beginning, and I'm beginning to think I've figured out where the plot is going, but I don't want to ruin anything for people...
1 person has voted this message useful



sofiapofia
Pentaglot
Groupie
United Kingdom
Joined 4956 days ago

88 posts - 103 votes 
Speaks: Swedish, Hindi, Portuguese, English*, Marathi
Studies: German, Danish, Sanskrit, Icelandic

 
 Message 44 of 76
21 April 2012 at 5:55pm | IP Logged 
geoffw wrote:
Are people still reading this book? I'm a little more than half way
through it now. My suspicions have been steadily rising pretty much since the beginning,
and I'm beginning to think I've figured out where the plot is going, but I don't want to
ruin anything for people...


I stopped after the fourth chapter, I hate reading on a computer. I've switched to
reading Der Verlorene instead and I'm almost done with it. I have ordered Der
Frauenmörder and will get back to it next week.
1 person has voted this message useful



Flarioca
Heptaglot
Senior Member
Brazil
Joined 5897 days ago

635 posts - 816 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, Esperanto, French, EnglishC2, Spanish, German, Italian
Studies: Catalan, Mandarin

 
 Message 45 of 76
21 April 2012 at 6:22pm | IP Logged 
I'm reading at a slower pace, hoping that more people will get to the same chapters and we'll debate
language and story line.
1 person has voted this message useful



geoffw
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4703 days ago

1134 posts - 1865 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish
Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian

 
 Message 46 of 76
24 April 2012 at 2:51pm | IP Logged 
OK, I went ahead and finished it.

One comment about language: I noticed the use of the word "Jargon" at position 268 or so in the Kindle version, in the chapter "Selma Cohen..." For those who don't know, that was a (possibly somewhat derogatory, but I'm not sure) way of referring to Yiddish, presumably referring to the fact that it is mutually intelligible with standard German except for a subset of the vocabulary that consists of loanwords primarily from Hebrew (and some from Russian, Polish, and a few other places).
2 persons have voted this message useful



Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6612 days ago

9753 posts - 15779 votes 
4 sounds
Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish

 
 Message 47 of 76
24 April 2012 at 5:41pm | IP Logged 
Oh, interesting <333
I've abandoned it for now as it doesn't count for the super challenge :DDD
edit: and as I'm going to Poland soon, I'll concentrate on Polish first. Realistically, I'll start reading it at least in a month:D

Edited by Serpent on 24 April 2012 at 5:43pm

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geoffw
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4703 days ago

1134 posts - 1865 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish
Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian

 
 Message 48 of 76
24 April 2012 at 5:44pm | IP Logged 
Serpent wrote:
Oh, interesting <333
I've abandoned it for now as it doesn't count for the super challenge :DDD


That's why I zoomed through to the end. I'm trying to finish all my previously started books (I was reading 7 or so at a time--I'm down to about 4 now) so I can start new ones in May.


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