![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Revisions, books, and Germany, 6 pm
Sep. 1st, 2007 10:19 pmFeeling pretty good about revisions thus far. I have one more thread that needs to be addressed, then I'll do what I can to tighten the text as much as I can. I know it's better; I don't know if it's enough. But I need a breather for a few days to ponder how to incorporate this one last thread. I think I will read. I've got a book by Dimitri Clou (Im Zeichen des Ypsilons, which I picked up from the YA fantasy shelf), as well as Cornelia Funke's Tintenblut (Inkspell). I got halfway through that one last year while packing up to move here, but there were too many interruptions. The book seemed to sag a bit in the middle, partly because there are a huge number of characters to keep straight, and because I was reading in German. (Oh yeah, and the moving thing.) I'm sure it goes faster in English. Physically the book is lovely (the line illustrations were done by Funke herself, and it has that ribbon bookmark that Melissa Marr likes so much). And the last book comes out at the end of September, so I'd better get cracking.
Also, I was in the bookstore yesterday and glanced at Eva Ibbotson's lovely Star of Kazan in the original English. They changed the names in the translation! The von Tannenbergs live in Norrland, not in Großpriesnetz! And the neighbors with the father who wants to be a monument are the Eggharts, not the Eckharts! It's true that Norrland is completely un-German, and you really do spell it Eck- not Egg (the pronunciation would be the same). Now I shall have to read it again in English and compare. But maybe I'll own it in German. It just sounds more natural.
And finally, here is what you can experience in Germany at 6 pm in the summer:
See: the neighborhood 10-year-olds learning to ride unicycles. They're getting pretty good.
Hear: Church bells bonging all over town. Also, lots of Turkish (Turks are to Germany what Mexicans are to the US, including foodwise. Yum!)
Smell: That fantastic, universal smell of barbecue (happy Labor Day, by the way), as well as the less happy smell of tobacco (definitely a smell I associate with Germany--but ew!)
Feel: layers and layers of birch seeds. At least, I think they're from birches. If you're wet because you just hopped out of the pool with your toddler and are huddling on a bench, they are very itchy on your back.
Taste: fresh bread that's crisp-chewy on the outside, and soft in the middle. Yum.
Also, I was in the bookstore yesterday and glanced at Eva Ibbotson's lovely Star of Kazan in the original English. They changed the names in the translation! The von Tannenbergs live in Norrland, not in Großpriesnetz! And the neighbors with the father who wants to be a monument are the Eggharts, not the Eckharts! It's true that Norrland is completely un-German, and you really do spell it Eck- not Egg (the pronunciation would be the same). Now I shall have to read it again in English and compare. But maybe I'll own it in German. It just sounds more natural.
And finally, here is what you can experience in Germany at 6 pm in the summer:
See: the neighborhood 10-year-olds learning to ride unicycles. They're getting pretty good.
Hear: Church bells bonging all over town. Also, lots of Turkish (Turks are to Germany what Mexicans are to the US, including foodwise. Yum!)
Smell: That fantastic, universal smell of barbecue (happy Labor Day, by the way), as well as the less happy smell of tobacco (definitely a smell I associate with Germany--but ew!)
Feel: layers and layers of birch seeds. At least, I think they're from birches. If you're wet because you just hopped out of the pool with your toddler and are huddling on a bench, they are very itchy on your back.
Taste: fresh bread that's crisp-chewy on the outside, and soft in the middle. Yum.
