Saturday, October 29, 2011

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?

3 comments:

  1. Of Ukrainian...
    You can watch documental "Убить в себе русского" and learn many things from it.

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  2. That sounds brutal. Is it nationalistic?

    ReplyDelete
  3. No. Rather vice versa.
    Yes, that sounds brutal like whole our life now.

    ReplyDelete