I knew it!!!
t shakes fist (and lexicon) at Dana....
Jayne ,'The Message'
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."
I knew it!!!
t shakes fist (and lexicon) at Dana....
You'll need French if you read Busman's Honeymoon, which comes after Gaudy Night. Sayers assumed her readers were as smart as her.
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
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.
I'm so confused. I didn't realize To Say Nothing of the Dog required so much prior reading!
I'm thinking I need to go back to school before I attempt to read Sayers.
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.
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.
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.
I've always been a bit peeved that (spoilers for Gaudy Night) the culmination of the Peter/Harriet relationship comes in a snippet of untranslated Latin. I forget even what it is, and what it means now. But I found it a bit annoying, and I do have a high tolerance for reading polyglot writers (I am a Dunnett fan, after all).