Mixing it up.

Thanks to the wonder that is Goodreads, I got interested in reading the classic The Island of Doctor Moreau by H.G. Wells. It was found among the recommendations for me based on previous Science Fiction and Classics that I have rated. At the same time, I have too many "ordinary" books to read so this one would have to wait... unless I read it in another language!

So I thought Ukrainian. But, if I read it in Ukrainian, it will take me a year. So why not French? A bit too easy perhaps. Russian? Yes, that would do it. Although Hungarian, which would take me five years, would be cool as well.

So I decided to mix it. A couple of pages in each language here and there, and I will print the whole thing piece by piece and mix it together in all my languages (which is why I need it as a text document). I wonder what this will do to my overall feeling of the book, how I perceive it once read, and in what language I will remember it. It will be a nice experiment.

The problem? I only have the book in Ukrainian and French. A friend has been looking for it in Hungarian for me, but haven't been able to find it. Even though the original is out of copyright, the translation may not be, etc. If anyone with awesome Hungarian searching powers is out there and can find it in the depths of the Internet, please (please) do. I figure finding it in Russian will be easy. Oh! German! I will include German! Any German e-book sites out there?

Popping by to say hello.

This is a poor excuse for a post, but I'm incredibly busy these days and never find the time to write about anything. There are some things that must be said though.

1) Ukrainian is a very sweet language, and I really enjoy writing semi-retarded texts in it.
2) Linguistics has the potential of being interesting.

Furthermore, I have discovered the site Goodreads thanks to Thom. I find it very practical and it further motivates me to try to squeeze in some reading every now and then. If you sign up, feel free to add me. I am especially hoping to discover some new french literature soon. Hopefully that means discovering that some book I already own is awesome.

I'm quite happy to announce that there is a new very impressive Swedish author out there, and her name is Åsa Linderborg. If you get the chance to read her debut novel, do it. There's actually a Russia-Soviet link in it that I had no idea about when I bought the book.

Åsa Linderborg. Foto: Scanpix

With regards to reading, I read this article today, "Zoran Živkovic and the plight of non-English authors", which was very interesting. The title says it all. Luckily, I'm quite sure I don't conform to the norm ;)