Comments | failte_aoife: The long overdue book entry

failte_aoife

The long overdue book entry

Nov 03, 2018 11:15

I think part of the reason I haven't written this earlier, is because the most memorable reading experience was Spinning Silver and I feel like I have already shouted at everybody about it and didn't want to repeat myself over and over again. So I keep it short: If you haven't, go read Spinning Silver! It has great female characters that are more ( Read more... )

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Comments 7

hamsterwoman November 3 2018, 20:58:06 UTC

Spinning Silver was wonderful! <3

The complicated pronouns thing -- I think the awkwardness is really just the sign of a writer insufficiently skilled to pull this off. English is especially poor in this regard, yes, but that just means if you're writing in English, you have to pick your battles, and maybe you don't get the full flavor across, but also don't grind narrative to a halt to explain things that probably won't resonate with the reader properly anyway. Like, I thought Yoon Ha Lee did this quite well (with pronoun choices that I believe were based on Korean, although the story had a sci-fi setting), alluding to pronoun flavors that don't exist in English without the narrative turning awkward and clunky, because it was used sparingly and with a light touch.

(I've only ever read one novelette by de Bodard, but found the prose very meh, so I'm maybe less inclined to the benefit of the doubt.

Murder with magic and dog-racing. Murder with magic and very important artefacts.These sound intriguing! Looking forward to your ( ... )

failte_aoife November 8 2018, 10:29:30 UTC

It seems I am not done shouting about Spinning Silver. But while reading I fully expected Miryem's mother to die and that being the catalyst for her journey to start and was so pleasantly surprised when that didn't happen because I am so very tired of that trope in fantasy (and yeah, there are dead moms but I have fewer problems with parents that are already dead at the start of the novel)

but that just means if you're writing in English, you have to pick your battles, and maybe you don't get the full flavor across,You're probably right. I have a vague memory that in the other book by her I read (Tea Master & the Detective) pronouns came also up but it didn't feel as forced. So she can do better. And I have mixed feelings about her prose...Tea Master was hard to get through in parts because she really likes words and using a lot of them, Vanisher's Palace wasn't as extreme in that aspect. And I picked up both because there was something that really interested me (Sherlock Holmes IN SPACE/Beauty and the Beast WITH DRAGONS) but ( ... )

rinkafushi November 9 2018, 11:56:29 UTC

Not being familiar with any of the books mentioned in the entry and convos (or with Vietnamese as a language really), I've seen a lot of perspectives over the years regarding the issue of "how do we translate the complex system of asian politeness forms into indogermanic languages", mostly regarding Japanese of course #weabooproblems ( ... )

failte_aoife November 14 2018, 14:17:41 UTC

I can...vaguely imagine the ire from hardcore fans some translators have to deal with (I...remember the German Sherlock fandom collectively losing their minds over the Du/Sie issue which is sort of the same just...the opposite? and tbh I do have opinions on German dubs almost always going for Sie, until the people in question kissed but that is another issue

The way it was handled in the story as you describe it sounds very frustrating to someone who has no experience whatsover with this part of a language, yeahYup...I mean for the auntie/sis stuff I would have been happy with some Keikaku-note explaining what exactly it means when non-related people say it to each other. Like is it common or does that imply some special trust? And for some other stuff hamsterwoman is probably right when she said that you have to cut your losses because you can't convey everything in a different language ( ... )

rinkafushi November 14 2018, 16:00:54 UTC

The Du/Sie issue, oh yeah :'D It's always fun if you see people arguing about it while completely disregarding for example historical contexts, or regional ones... alas...

(And duh...that one character was always referred to as 'they'. I know about the singular they. The 'and they used a gender-neutral I' was pretty unnecessary BECAUSE THE BOOK ALREADY REFERRED TO THE CHARACTER AS THEY)

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failte_aoife November 15 2018, 13:18:45 UTC

BUT THEY ARE CLEARLY IN LOVE!!! THEY HAVE TO SAY DU!1!!

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