Last night I finally finished reading Last of the Dandies : The Scandalous Life and Escapades of Count D'Orsay. While I enjoyed it, I was a bit peeved by one conceit of the author: the book is filled with all sorts of excerpts in French, but none of them have been translated into English, anywhere in the book. I feel like a semi-literate moron for complaining about it, but I do think that it was a little presumptuous of the author to assume that all of his potential readers are bilingual.

The next book I'm carting around to read is Die Upon a Kiss by Barbara Hambly. Of course, it is only just now that I discover it's the fifth book in a series that I've never read. (I picked it up on a whim at Half-Price Books.)

I was naughty and let myself indulge at Borders. I wandered and picked up whatever caught my fancy. Ended up with 'Little Children' by Tom Perrotta, 'The Jane Austen Book Club' by Karen Joy Fowler, 'Behaving Like Adults' by Anna Maxted, and 'Girls in Trouble' by Caroline Leavitt. Whee!

I do think that it was a little presumptuous of the author to assume that all of his potential readers are bilingual.

Ooooh, I HATE that.

Are the excerpts crucial to the understanding of the plot? If so, jackass. At best, they'll still be naggy to many.

Is it a Britiish book, Jilli? I notice no translations of French in books published there--maybe because it's assumed everyone knows at least enough French to get by and to imply they don't is to insult the reader's intelligence? I have found it vastly frustrating in the past.

Die Upon a Kiss by Barbara Hambly

Oh, the mysteries set in early 1800s New Orleans. I read one of them but couldn't read the others because I couldn't shake my knowledge of what history was like for blacks in the south later in the century, I couldn't just immerse myself in the period, fascinating though it is.

Is it a Britiish book, Jilli? I notice no translations of French in books published there

Sayers is horrible for that.

I admire those mysteries greatly, but they only get more and more heartbreaking.

Is it a Britiish book, Jilli?

Yep.

I notice no translations of French in books published there--maybe because it's assumed everyone knows at least enough French to get by and to imply they don't is to insult the reader's intelligence?

Hmmph. That's probably the case with this book. I did ask Pete if it was common for UK-published books not to translate any sections in French, but he wasn't sure.

The other non-fiction book I'm currently reading (Courtesans : Money, Sex and Fame in the Nineteenth Century, by Katie Hickman) DOES provide translations for the great whopping chunks of French that are part of it. Of course, I'm not sure if that book was originally published in the UK or not.

I have found it vastly frustrating in the past.

I almost stopped reading the dratted thing because of it.

I admire those mysteries greatly, but they only get more and more heartbreaking.

Should I not bother reading this one since I haven't read the first four?