So I've started reading "Le Morte d'Arthur"...

Post by **Hound** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 6:47 am

...and this is really hard to get into. I've found a site that gives very brief summaries of what the hell I'm reading which is helping a bit but I'm still having to pause every so often to look up some archaic word or another to find out exactly what's being said which doesn't in the least make for a pleasurable reading experience.

I want to read this book, I'm just finding the old english dialect a bit challenging and therefor frustrating.

How the hell you British folk managed to understand eachother 500 years ago is a mystery to me. Well, how the hell you Brits manage to understand eachother now is sometimes a mystery to me too though...

Hmmm, I don't know that this post has any point other than me ranting about the new book I'm reading but feel free to comment if you care to.

Notabot · Post by **Notabot** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 2:57 pm

Probably not quite to the same extent as yours, but the first couple chapters of "A Clockwork Orange" were brutal because of the nadsat translations. Every sentence or so meant I had to turn back to the glossary. After just a little bit, though, it got much easier and I didn't need the glossary anymore. In fact, I found nadsat creeping into my daily language. Perchance ye shalt find the same.
Yeah, that's probably not real Olde English.

Grapple · Post by **Grapple** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 3:03 pm

Isn't there a modernized version?

Post by **Hound** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 3:49 pm

Well, technically the edition I'm reading has been modified already so that the spellings of the words are already modernized. Which is to say they aren't spelled like they are some completely other language than english.

There is a a book written by John Steinbeck, "The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights", that is based upon the Winchester Manuscripts of Thomas Malory, which is a variant version of the original text which "Le Morte d'Arthur" also is. It's all very confusing. Anyway, the Steinbeck book apparently translates and paraphrases the stories into text that is more comtemporary. However from what I've read Steinbeck's version isn't just a direct translation of the work. He "added a more heavily psychological structure and background, modernizing the original novel, and changing the language, not to make it easier for modern readers, but to find the tone and structure with which Malory approached readers of his time, and find the corresponding tone and structure of today." Which I'm not sure how I feel about.

Having already purchased one version of these stories I'd prefer not to spend my money on another.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 4:01 pm

Hound wrote:How the hell you British folk managed to understand eachother 500 years ago is a mystery to me.

We didn't, hence time between invasions of France was spent thumping each other.

Post by **Hound** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 4:20 pm

Haha!

"Whatest didst sayeth he?"

"Hmm, I thinketh 'Invadest France'."

"Again?"

"Well, it hast been awhile..."

"Alright, let us anon"

"What?"

RID Scourge · Post by **RID Scourge** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 4:55 pm

When I was younger I wanted to pick up Morte d'Arthur, but school made me hate reading (taking baby steps to get back there by reading comics and newspapers/magazines.

May try some of the easier Fantasy like those D&D books I stockpiled when it starts getting harder to find trades of comics I want (the magazines wouldn't last 5 minutes in my bag while commuting. So I collect strictly trades if I can help it). Maybe someday I'll read at that level again.

Steinbeck? I didn't really like him all that much in high school. Didn't help that he was crammed down our throat. I didn't think the plots were bad, but I didn't like his style. I probably should give him another whirl though. Might like it a bit more now that I'm a bit more mature than I was back then.

Though you still couldn't pay me to read Wuthering Heights. That might be the most agonizing chapter I ever read. I ended up just getting the cliff notes.

Clogs · Post by **Clogs** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 5:27 pm

Hound wrote:...and this is really hard to get into...I want to read this book, I'm just finding the old english dialect a bit challenging and therefor frustrating.

Hmmm, I don't know that this post has any point other than me ranting about the new book I'm reading but feel free to comment if you care to.

It's a bit of a bitch to read, isn't it? I have two versions, one of which is 'modernised', and both are agony to stagger through. Mallory was evil sic. Give up and go read The Once and Future King by T H White - it's much more fun.

Though you still couldn't pay me to read Wuthering Heights. That might be the most agonizing chapter I ever read. I ended up just getting the cliff notes.

RID Scourge: did you read only Charpter 1? If so, that was the Gothic Horror bit and is passable for the time written. The last chapter also has a very Gothic influence. The rest of the book is fluff.

RID Scourge · Post by **RID Scourge** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 6:24 pm

I might have tried to read a bit more, but it seemed to be a bit long on words and pages per chapter which rendered it unreadable for me.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 7:19 pm

Clogs wrote:Give up and go read The Once and Future King by T H White - it's much more fun.

Or just watch the Boorman film, which has Nicol Williamson out of his mind on acid, and Liam Neeson as a thankless extra.

electro girl · Post by **electro girl** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 7:37 pm

Hound wrote:Haha!

"Whatest didst sayeth he?"

"Hmm, I thinketh 'Invadest France'."

"Again?"

"Well, it hast been awhile..."

"Alright, let us anon"

"What?"

Thor? Is that you?

I had a hard time settleing into Tom Browns school days so in reading that book you're taking on more than I probarbly could.

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 7:48 pm

Cliffjumper wrote:Or just watch the Boorman film, which has Nicol Williamson out of his mind on acid, and Liam Neeson as a thankless extra.

Or the Disney version, which has talking animals.

The least enjoyable book I've ever read (and yes, twas a school one ) is Tess of the bloody D'Urbervilles. Though Silas ****ing Marner came very close.

Clogs · Post by **Clogs** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 1:18 pm

inflatable dalek wrote:Or the Disney version, which has talking animals.

inflatable dalek wrote:The least enjoyable book I've ever read (and yes, twas a school one ) is Tess of the bloody D'Urbervilles. Though Silas ****ing Marner came very close.

Managed to avoid both by a providential twist of fate - and two English teachers realising I'd probably become a danger to society if ordered to read them. I ended up with Gulliver's Travels, a long, meandering, social-critial 3-part book written by a man who thought the full stop was an endangered species. Also, had to read some phamplet, repeated over two parts, called Oliver Twist. And flaming Wuthering Heights....

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 1:59 pm

Clogs wrote:a long, meandering, social-critial 3-part book written by a man who thought the full stop was an endangered species.

Probably due a film trilogy helmed by Peter Jackson in that case...

Halfshell · Post by **Halfshell** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 2:18 pm

inflatable dalek wrote:Though Silas ****ing Marner came very close.

So glad it wasn't just me.

I remember a stand-in English teacher giving us that to read. Forty minutes of hell later I remember looking around the class and seeing that not one of us had gotten past about page three...

Crime and Punishment is also a good one. There are sentences in there that last for several chapters. Fortunately the fact I was reading it for a bet meant I was able to just give up.

Clogs · Post by **Clogs** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 4:50 pm

... and Brighton Rock.

I don't know anyone who's ever managed to read the whole thing... We were set the book at secondary school in some misguided effort to give us a background in fine C20th literature.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 4:52 pm

I love Brighton Rock.

Post by **Hound** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 5:46 pm

I can't even remember which books we had to read in school. Except Lord of the Flies which I thought was fantastic. I remember we had a choice between that and Dante's Inferno.

I know we had to read some Shakespear, though I forget which ones...

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 5:58 pm

We did do Silas Marner, mainly through the medium of the BBC version. Aside from that, all I remember is the foodstuff "lardcakes", which was then the nickname of any fat kid in your class for the rest of term. We might have done "Of Mice and Men" as well - if we did, I've repressed it, and the only Lenny I know and respect is Lenny Leonard.

Mind, I'm not 100% sure what school I went to most of the time. Anything before 2003 is a bit sketchy.

AndyTurnbull · Post by **AndyTurnbull** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 6:51 pm

Ah Of Mice and Men we did that in school as well. It wasn't so bad. The real tedium came when we had to do the works of Philip Larkin and Arthur Miller's The Death of a Salesman. Bloody awful they were.

Andy