It helps with Gaudy Night if you speak Latin.
t runs away
t but totally not joking
Angel: Eve. So, I guess we should, I don't know, talk? Eve: About what? Angel: About what happened back there with us. Eve: Angel, it's not like this is the first time I've had sex under a mystical influence. I went to U.C. Santa Cruz.
'Life of the Party'
Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
Dana - May 25, 2008 6:19:32 pm PDT #5899 of 28359
I'm terrifically busy with my ennui.
Steph L. - May 25, 2008 6:28:45 pm PDT #5900 of 28359
this mess was yours / now your mess is mine
I knew it!!!
t shakes fist (and lexicon) at Dana....
Connie Neil - May 25, 2008 6:36:33 pm PDT #5901 of 28359
brillig
You'll need French if you read Busman's Honeymoon, which comes after Gaudy Night. Sayers assumed her readers were as smart as her.
Jesse - May 25, 2008 6:39:18 pm PDT #5902 of 28359
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.
I don't think it's about smart; I think it's about being educated in the way of her class and time.
I'm pretty fucking smart, but I took Spanish in school
Ginger - May 25, 2008 6:39:21 pm PDT #5903 of 28359
"It didn't taste good. It tasted soooo horrible. It tasted like....a vodka martini." - Matilda
Latin and Oxford traditions, plus French.
They're all wonderful books, but I think there's plenty to enjoy in To Say Nothing of The Dog without them.
eta: Ha! French crosspost.
Polter-Cow - May 25, 2008 7:26:51 pm PDT #5904 of 28359
What else besides ramen can you scoop? YOU CAN SCOOP THIS WORLD FROM DARKNESS!
I'm so confused. I didn't realize To Say Nothing of the Dog required so much prior reading!
Amy - May 25, 2008 7:31:58 pm PDT #5905 of 28359
Because books.
I'm thinking I need to go back to school before I attempt to read Sayers.
Susan W. - May 25, 2008 7:40:56 pm PDT #5906 of 28359
Good Trouble and Righteous Fights
I'm pretty fucking smart, but I took Spanish in school
Same here. And Sayers is far from the only British author of the slightly older school who tosses in large chunks of untranslated French. I'm always finding it in my research materials, generally when I'm on the bus or in the cafeteria at work and can't page megan or my CP who spent a semester in Paris to enlighten me.
Susan W. - May 25, 2008 7:42:29 pm PDT #5907 of 28359
Good Trouble and Righteous Fights
I'm so confused. I didn't realize To Say Nothing of the Dog required so much prior reading!
See, I'm now envisioning this broad-based liberal arts curriculum whose capstone experience is getting to read To Say Nothing of the Dog.
Hil R. - May 25, 2008 7:44:18 pm PDT #5908 of 28359
Sometimes I think I might just move up to Vermont, open a bookstore or a vegan restaurant. Adam Schlesinger, z''l
I remember nearly throwing the book into the ocean when I spent a week of my summer vacation forcing my way through The Centaur, which was on the summer reading list for AP English, and then he ended it with a paragraph of Greek.