Case (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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fandomsecrets2014-05-23 07:13 pm
case) wrote in fandomsecrets2014-05-23 07:13 pm
[ SECRET POST #2698 ]
⌈ Secret Post #2698 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
01.
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02.
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03.
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04. http://i.imgur.com/x1ReEav.png
[Curvy; linked for porn, illustrated]
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05. http://i.imgur.com/CEL6gFP.jpg
[linked for gore and stuff]
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06. [SPOILERS for Captain America: The Winter Soldier]
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07. [SPOILERS for Godzilla 2014]
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08. [SPOILERS for Wreck-it Ralph]
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09. [WARNING for rape]
http://i.imgur.com/uGSGQZF.jpg
[Starfighter, porn from it]
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10. [WARNING for rape]
[Daughter of Smoke and Bone]
Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 000 secrets from Secret Submission Post #385.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 1 (I don't think this really counts) - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
Re: Small/Obscure Fandoms That Need More Love
I can't say I wish there were a fandom, per se, but should you ever wish to talk about anything War and Peace in particular, you can count on me to come. I studied Tolstoy's works for a space and his characterization+worldbuilding are certainly one of the most interesting things in the history of literature.
Re: Small/Obscure Fandoms That Need More Love
(Anonymous) 2014-05-24 05:02 am (UTC)(link)War and Peace is one of my favorite things, not even "favorite books" just, "favorite things in the known universe." I didn't even read it for the first time until about five years ago, and it's completely taken over my life (well, along with all the other things that have completely taken over my life :)). I love all the characters (ALL OF THEM) except maybe the one Life-Lesson Bearing Peasant, (though I think even Platon of the anvilicious name isn't as bad as he could have been, as Lesson-Bearing Peasants go) and Tolstoy's ability to narrate the experience of consciousness never stops being exhilarating to me, whether the experience is hilarious or heart-crushing.
It's one of those books that I love for being big as much as I love it for every other thing; I get a happy feeling when I'm only 300 pages in and I realize there's still so much left! So many bends in the emotional roller-coaster! So many revelations that won't quite take! It's such a generous book. (When I try to tell people who haven't read it this, they don't get it. Until they read it!)
Ok, I am going to stop babbling about War and Peace for a second, maybe? Soon. Maybe if my incredibly dumb War and Peace secret gets posted next week, there will be more to talk about :\
btw: Does "studied" mean that you read it in Russian (and French)? I've only read it in English (and slightly less French)
(I've always wondered how the French translation of War and Peace handles the Russian / French divide -- it seems like an interesting translation problem. Do you know anything about it?)
Re: Small/Obscure Fandoms That Need More Love
To answer your last questions first: yes, I read it in Russian with untranslated French fragments. Though I find that some of the English translations are superb, I cannot help but regret the fact that English does not have the kind of suffix/ending system Russian has. Suffixes and endings are INCREDIBLE linguistic devices and they can give one adjective a range of subtlest meanings that can no longer be discerned when suffixes are taken away.
Fortunately, this particular text does not have much suffix/ending experimentation in it (I find this is more characteristic of modernist and postmodernist literature), but I think it's a shame the English translations cannot convey how refined, smooth, and nineteenth-century Tolstoy's language is.
Though I'm really curious as to what you think as regards the linguistic aspect of the translation(s) you've read. Did it have a distinct flavour? Are there some specifically "Tolstoy" things you've noticed?
I feel like Tolstoy is lucky in that, the minor semantical alterations notwithstanding (as I have said, I do not think they skew the reader's perception of the novel in any major way), the main peculiarity of his language - namely, his syntax - IS translatable. Russians call some sentences "Tolstoy sentences" when they have a complex syntactic structure and go on for approximately a bazillion lines. Curiously, I've found that some English Victorian authors - Ouida in particular - do the same thing, but Victorian language is customarily described as "flowery", while dragging every sentence for a page was NOT characteristic of the Russian literature of that time. Maybe Tolstoy experienced the influence of English writers? :D
Re:the French translation. The ones I've seen were translated by Russians and they had simply left the French pieces untranslated while noting that the pieces in question were this way in the original. Which is a bit disappointing, really, because I should think this merits a more interesting solution :/ But admittedly I myself don't see what else they could do. Manipulating these fragments and changing the language would, I feel, detract from the historical/cultural spirit of the Russian text.
Now as to the actual plot of the novel and the fannish flailing :D
and Tolstoy's ability to narrate the experience of consciousness never stops being exhilarating to me, whether the experience is hilarious or heart-crushing.
It's one of those books that I love for being big as much as I love it for every other thing; I get a happy feeling when I'm only 300 pages in and I realize there's still so much left! So many bends in the emotional roller-coaster! So many revelations that won't quite take! It's such a generous book. (When I try to tell people who haven't read it this, they don't get it. Until they read it!)
Very well put. I can totally get behind all of that. It has always been my opinion that the reason Tolstoy (and some other writers usually classified as "geniuses") is so good is because he's able to narrate LIFE. He's able to take the events that attract us and excite our delight or fear or sadness IRL and edit them so that their fictional counterparts would result in the same emotions. In essence, Tolstoy's writing isn't "just like life", it's like the edited version of life that goes on in people's heads. People's being bored by realistic literature is due to the fact that this literature strives to reflect what life is like OBJECTIVELY - with all its moments of dullness, of shame, of pointlessness - but Tolstoy is what I'd call a "subjective realist", recounting to us the parts of life that matter in a way that makes them sound logical and meaningful. Which is essentially the same process we ourselves initiate when creating memories.
When reading War and Peace I actually tend to forget the text isn't real life. It's uncanny. And the fact that it's huge and that it is not a "conceptual", "prove-a-thing" narrative (well, only a small part of it is) - the fact that every page just means more "bends in the emotional roller-coaster" - makes it all the more convincing.
I think that's what Tolstoy wanted to do, too. To reflect human life as it can be and as it should be. (...while judging everyone hard in the process).
Hope I made sense and that this wasn't too tl;dr.
Also, YAY WAR AND PEACE SECRET. I'm eager to see it even if it's dumb.
War and Peace is one of my favorite things, not even "favorite books" just, "favorite things in the known universe." I didn't even read it for the first time until about five years ago, and it's completely taken over my life
That's great. I'm sure the old grumbly bastard would be elated <3
Re: Small/Obscure Fandoms That Need More Love
(Anonymous) 2014-05-24 06:51 pm (UTC)(link)I would kind of like for there to be some experiment with the French translation, even if it didn't ultimately work out that well -- but I really have no idea what would work. Oh, well.
I'll have to think about Tolstoyan language in English. I definitely felt like it has some distinct flavors in all of the transaltions I've looked at. (and I think the complex syntactic structure ends up contributing to the "experience of consciousness" thing to some extent, when it's digressive the way thoughts are digressive). There's a particular move I have in mind, but I'm not sure how to describe it & will have to sit down and look at some sentences.
Unfortunately (?) I first read it in a particular translation which I haven't been able to find again and stupidly didn't bother to write down the name of (the paperback was a used copy that fell apart after I read it 5 times on a long trip). But I will try to get back to you in a different thread.