Translation can make a huge difference. I’m not an expert on the Divine Comedy, but for example the first translation of The Tale Of Genji (which is advertised as just that, “the first translation”) cuts the entire text down from ~1300 pages to less than 400. That’s not so much a “translation”, that’s a translation of a heavily edited, reduced and recompiled version. But they don’t tell you that - they call it “the first translation”.

Other translations were made in times when massive cultural chauvinism was the norm. My translation of the Meditations by Marcus Aurelius has constant references to god, because the good christian fellow who translated it back in 18something decided that when Aurelius speaks of “the gods”, he means capital g God of course. It’s also full of insanely pompous language that was archaic and weird even back then. This is not uncommon with Victorian Age and earlier translations of classics - they just feel like they need to talk all biblical because the work is old, and “forsooth” and “nay” and “thee and thine” are great old words. Nevermind the fact that Marcus Aurelius wrote perfectly normal contemporary (to him) Latin.

So yeah, different translations of the same work can vary massively. I recommend googling around a bit and seeing if there are one or two consensus translations, and going with those.

Such an amazing book. I’ve only seen bits and pieces of the movie, but I’m glad I read the books before that. The movie seems to cut a lot of material and take a lot of liberties.

I think you’re not supposed to like (much less identify with) Johnny Truant. Or Zampano, or Will Navidson. It’s basically a long exercise in unreliable narrators on multiple levels, and I think it would be fair to call it a bit of a metafictional wankfest (I say this with nothing but love). I don’t think that enjoying the story on its own merits is really the point - what he’s going for is that you enjoy the way the story is being told. If that doesn’t work for you (and for many people it won’t) then the book really has nothing else to offer you, I think.

I loved it, but I’m not sure I’d re-read it. I think the main gimmick wouldn’t be as effective the second time around.

That said, if you really want to challenge your perception of what literature as a medium can be, formally, metafictionally, then yeah, this goes to eleven. Infinite Jest is a walk in the park after this.

In order of preference:

1. Somewhere where I know the local language
2. If that’s not possible, somewhere where English is commonly understood
3. Somewhere that’s reasonably safe
4. Somewhere with job opportunities in my field
5. Everything else

Singapore is economically extremely competitive, highly developed, safe, English is pretty well understood, but it’s entirely urbanized and there’s no “lonely beaches” where you can live an isolated beachbum / island lifestyle.

Thailand is still pretty decent in terms of safety for Southeast Asia, but has some political instability that comes up semi-regularly, English will work… soooometimes, and I’m sure there’s decent private healthcare if you can pay for it, but it isn’t economically competitive with Singapore… unless maybe you’re in downtown Bangkok, but there’s no beaches in downtown Bangkok.

If your husband’s family are scattered around Asia, chances are he speaks an Asian language? If that’s the case go somewhere where at least one of you can speak the language fluently. There’s no point in moving to a beach with no job, no services, no social life, and where you can’t talk to anybody.

And think of it this way, whether you’re in Singapore or Bangkok - you’re in Southeast Asia, a bunch of lovely beaches are within like a one hour flight or an overnight bus ride. Maybe you won’t live on the beach, but services and infrastructure just tend to be better in the urban centres.

And the idiot saga of book bans continues, because some fundamentalist dingbats can’t be arsed to parent their own goddamn children, but instead want the “liberty” to inflict their medieval morals on everybody else.

I think I’m understanding a fair bit of it (certainly not everything!), since I usually read a chapter once, look through the various online resources (Pynchonwiki etc.), then read it again, or reread most of it. So it’s not that I can’t make head or tails of it, it’s just… it’s such a strenuous process. It’s intellectually stimulating for sure, but it’s hard to find what I would consider a typical sense of enjoyment in it. It’s more like slowly grinding away at a difficult and monumental task. But maybe I’ll get to a point where it “grips” me and I’ll start reading it purely for enjoyment.

I love it for its role in Japanese literature overall. No Longer Human is basically the definition of a Watashi Shōsetsu. An entire genre came from this (I mean there were others before, but Dazai really gave it the shape it had forever since). But like other works in that genre, it’s kinda rough reading this knowing it’s basically autobiographical, and one can speculate whether Dazai specifically focuses on all the negative stuff and dark thoughts.

And you can always add context outside of the artwork itself! For example when it comes to problematic ideas or language in classics, I have absolutely nothing against printing every new edition with a foreword that comments on the problematic parts and provides context. So many editions of classics already come with commentary, anyway. Update the commentary. Just please don’t edit the work itself.

I think nobody should edit a book after it’s been published - neither the author nor the publisher or estate - except in a handful of very narrow cases:

1. In textbooks obviously to include new information, new research, update statistics etc. Absolutely doesn’t apply to prose.

2. Misspellings and grammatical errors

3. An extant manuscript or older unpublished version is found that clearly shows that the author (who is dead and can’t speak out on it anymore) intended something to be different, but it was misprinted, the author was browbeaten, talked out of it, censored, etc.

I’m absolutely against “updating” prose. I hate "X as a service"ification of things, I like to own books and movies and music, not have a subscription to them. This is that, but worse. And we all know authors (cough JKR cough) who would update their goddamn books every time they’re waiting on a dentist appointment or sitting in traffic.

I’ve been working on it for more than 6 months. I read one chapter, read it again, then give up on the book for 3 weeks. Then I come back to it and read another chapter. It’s a hell of a difficult read.

Disgrace is excellent!

At the top of my wishlist right now are Trespasses by Louise Kennedy, The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion, Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis and Frantumaglia by Elena Ferrante.

I’m pretty proud of reading “An Introduction to Buddhism” by Peter Harvey this summer. It’s only 550 pages, but it’s a lot to absorb. I’ve been reading religious texts recently (just for general knowledge, no religious motivation) - I started with the Tao Te Ching and the Quran - and when I got to the Lotus Sutra, I realized I understood absolutely none of it, so I got the Harvey book first. I did read the Lotus Sutra afterwards, and could finally make some sense of it. But yeah, the Harvey one was a high intensity read. Lots of note-taking, lots of flipping back and reviewing and memorizing and contextualizing.

The Judge is one of my favorite villains of all time… if you can even call him a villain? I’m honestly not sure. He’s certainly brutal, inhuman, arguably even evil, but he feels more like a force of nature than a person motivated by human motives and interests.

“Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent”. My god what a line.

I’m doing the goodreads challenge for the first time this year, and I’ve been ahead of schedule the entire time so no issues about that. But I have thought about doing a more interesting reading challenge next year. I want to try to read books from as many different countries as possible, not just US and Europe again and again, and maybe from all decades from 1800 to now or something like that, plus ideally like at least 40% female authors… something of that kind. Also more nonfiction, more poetry, more plays, not just regular prose fiction all the time. I haven’t quite worked out the details, but I think reading varied literature is a more interesting goal than just reading a lot of books cover to cover.

I mean, the sense of not quite belonging / being new to the party is just part of the expat experience, I think, and you said you don’t want to go back to India. So I’d say your best bet is a country that has a long tradition of immigration, a country with loads of very strong expat communities. In Europe I guess your best bet is France? But honestly I think in your case, it’s probably better to set your sights on the US. You’re not gonna find a significantly different attitude to expats and significantly larger expat community in Scandinavia or southern Europe.

I’ve had this same experience in the Netherlands when I lived there, and I’m now having it in Japan. I don’t think this is unique to the UK. I think to an extent it’s just a part of the expat experience. Of course living in a big city makes it worse, whether London or Tokyo - people live far apart, commutes are long, even if you do meet someone you hit it off with at work or at a bar or online, chances are they live 2 hours away from you. And then part of it is just getting older. I’m in my late 30s, and I realize that a lot of people my age aren’t actively looking for friends anymore - they have families, and the friend group they’ve always had, they’re not out looking to socialize and meet new people. So as an expat over 35 in a huge city, everything is kind of stacked against you. Which is to say yeah, I’m having the same experience… I think it’s pretty common. Probably also part of the reason why expats tend to form these expat communities.

Exactly. Countries spend a lot of money getting someone from birth to tax-paying employment. If you come in as a well-educated foreigner, you’re kind of a lucky catch. They don’t have to pay for your education, the first 20 years of your healthcare, they just get a whole readymade adult willing to work and pay taxes, plus they can withdraw your visa status if you do some sort of crime or become unemployed - they can’t do that with their own citizens. It’s basically the opposite of brain drain. Economically, educated expats are a great deal for a country.

On goodreads, the average number of books pledged for this year’s reading challenge is 43.

There are people who overshoot their target, and there are people who fall short, but since the reading challenge is an “aspiration”, a goal, a challenge to yourself, I think it’s fair to assume that most people aim at a number that is pretty high for them. So the average participant in the reading challenge reads less than 43 books.

Now take into account that goodreads is a community of dedicated readers. So the average for a goodreads user is naturally significantly higher than just for the average person. And even on goodreads, only people who want to read more participate in reading challenges. My guess would be that the average participant in the reading challenge reads maybe 30 to 35 books per year, and that’s on the high end for a goodreads user. Now factor in the millions of people who don’t read at all. There’s plenty of people who just don’t read. So yeah, there’s no way the average is 50 books. I think even 15 is too high. If 30-35 is already high outlier range, I think the national average is probably in the single digits.

I lived in the Netherlands for the past 7 years. Yeah, the housing crisis is real, but if you can stand the climate I think it’s a great place to live nevertheless. I don’t really do well with dark, gloomy, cold weather, so for me it was a real challenge making it through Dutch autumn and winter each year, but I gotta say the infrastructure, the general quality of life, availability of services, salaries and so on are great.

You’re going to have much less options for quality fruit and vegetables though. Also, consider that the Netherlands just had elections, and the anti-immigration anti-expat far right candidate won in a landslide victory, so the political climate may change in the near future. Racism exists in the Netherlands as it does everywhere - I’d say the Netherlands are on the more politically progressive side in Europe, but the recent election has me questioning that.

If you’re also considering other places in Europe, well, Spain has much more agreeable weather (to me at least), but you said the heat in Texas was something you wanted to get away from? Also the quality of food dining out and the availability of fresh ingredients is going to be significantly better in Spain, France, Italy.

I don’t know what field you’re in, but generally salaries are better in the Netherlands, Germany, and the Scandinavian countries, and lower in southern Europe. But then again the cost of living is different as well. I definitely wouldn’t move without having at least visited for a few weeks beforehand, and do a lot of research about job opportunities and salaries.