12 Comments

Speaking of foreigners with a good view, Wang Huning's writings are also very poignant on American culture.

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Is the Septology good? I saw a tacky adaptation of the Poetic Edda that Fosse did a few years ago and have been staying far away since.

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It's one of the best books I have read in a long time! IMO one of the very best 21st century novels so far.

FYI I read his essays and found them "meh" so I think he is just inconsistent. But Septology is amazing.

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Let me know if you read it, I will be very curious what you think

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And it looks well translated! I have skimmed the first page of the Norwegian a year ago, and I got the same feeling from the translation, so that's good. Have ordered the first part.

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That’s good to know. FYI I liked the Transit edition a lot which has all the books in one -- it doesn’t really make sense to separate the books to me

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Looking at the translation and original side by side, the one thing I notice is that the translation sounds more modern. So for example in the opening he mentions the painting standing by the door between the bedroom and the hall door, but that's not what he's saying. He's saying "kammaret" and "farstun", which is not how you would say it these days ("soveværelset" and "dagligstuen" would be the equivalent of the English translation; I don't know what the right archaic sounding versions would be in English: the bedroom of a small old cottage and the hall where you put the buckets for the pigs).

There are a lot of tasty old words like that, some I've never heard before: the English is actually easier for me to read in this case, because it uses more normal words. Where the translation says "hook" the original says "knaggen" and who knows what that means. But it sounds great.

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Would love to hear more about how you experience games

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Complex topic that one :) but will file it under essay ideas

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Have you seen the tree of life?

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I have! Are you a fan?

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A friend recently showed it to me. It was a part of the world I didn't existed.

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