Unexpected break!

I’m sorry the blog has been so INCREDIBLY quiet lately. My poor laptop has been feeling poorly for a while now and one day a few weeks ago it finally went and died on me. Thankfully I have an awesome IT-guy (aka Dad) who hooked the laptop up to some sort of life support and managed to extract the content of my hard drive and then install it in a new laptop. Therefore all I have lost is time, and I haven’t actually lost that either, as I have managed to read/listen to quite a few books in the the computer was at the Spa. So look for some reviews after the weekend.

In other news I have started back at my teaching job and it has been a drama filled week and I am exhausted. Hopefully things will settle down now that the students come back (my new motto in life is: “it will all work out in the end”).

I am aiming for a  book filled, quiet autumn….yeah I believe in Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny too . I am excited about BBAW and I am hoping to get into some serious blogging, with Banned Book Week hopefully featuring in my teaching as well as in my blogging. As well as some stuff for the Nordic Challenge (with a fun announcement coming there). I’m really looking forward to it all now.

Copyright ©2011 Zee from Notes from the North. This post was originally posted by Zee from Notes from the North. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Norway

Today as yesterday and the day before, and tomorrow we are all Norwegian.

I am watching the beauty and dignity of the Norwegian people and I am proud to call them my brothers and sisters. And my heart breaks for them.

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Copyright ©2011 Zee from Notes from the North. This post was originally posted by Zee from Notes from the North. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Harry Potter Re-Read: Translation Edition (Translation Thursday)

As many of you probably know by now I speak and read both English and Swedish fluently. I’ve always spoken Swedish fluently and understood English fluently but didn’t start speaking English regularly until I was in my teens, the same goes for reading in English. What does this have to do with Harry Potter? Well, one might think that I would be able to comment on the translation of the books into Swedish. I can’t. I’ve only read one short passage out of a Harry Potter book in Swedish and that was for a translation module in grad school.

Anymore I actively avoid reading books that are originally published in English in Swedish translation. Translation is great. It is an art in itself. But things can change in translation. There is a reason why we have the expression “lost in translation”. I fully agree with Laura Watkinson in the interview I posted on June 27th, words can have many meanings and unless you know what the author intended then translation can be tricky. My classmates and I could have pitched battles regarding our interpretations of words and translations. I occasionally take on some translation work. It. Is. Hard.

However, despite knowing that it is hard, poor translations annoy the living daylights out of me. Often when watching American tv shows the character will say one thing, and the translation will be the opposite. And this is my fear about reading the translated Harry Potter books. I love these books so very much. What if the translator has done a poor job?! (Absolutely not saying they have. I’ve read two pages and they were fine, I have no rational basis for my fear…but you know ). One day maybe I will be brave enough

Copyright ©2011 Zee from Notes from the North. This post was originally posted by Zee from Notes from the North. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Happy Birthday USA!!!

_{Image: Vietnam Veterans Memorial}

My recommendations for 4th of July reads:

1776 and John Adams both by David McCullough. Both books tell the story of the beginning of the USA. They are engaging and interesting reads and I really can’t recommend them enough. 

Copyright ©2011 Zee from Notes from the North. This post was originally posted by Zee from Notes from the North. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

TSS: Winners and 2nd Quarter Round-Up

In today’s Sunday Salon I’ve got a mixture of items.

First off, drumroll please! The winner of the 2nd quarter Nordic Challenge is:

Jo V @ Bibliojunkie for her review of The Orange Girl by Jostein Gaarder

Congratulations!!

Jo V can you please contact me to let me know which of the bundles (classic; children’s; fiction or mystery) you would like. I’ll let you know which books are available for you to choose from. My contact details can be found in the About tab above

Now on to my 2nd Quarter wrap-up:

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April was a very good reading month for me, I managed 11 books. Most of them on my Kindle. A lot of the books were re-reads though.

A Fountain Filled With Blood by Julia Spencer-Fleming (reviewed in 2010)

One Was A Soldier by Julia Spencer-Fleming

Out of the Deep I Cry by Julia Spencer-Fleming (reviewed in 2010)

To Darkness and To Death  by Julia Spencer-Fleming (reviewed in 2010)

The Help by Kathryn Stockett (audiobook)

All Mortal Flesh by Julia Spencer-Fleming (reviewed in 2010)

I Shall Not Want by Julia Spencer-Fleming (reviewed in 2010)

Ett UFO gör entre (A UFO Makes an Entrance) by Jonas Gardell

Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The Dowry Bride by Shobhan Bantwal

Damia’s Children by Anne McCaffrey

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May wasn’t quite as good as April, I read 7 books, but considering the fact that May is one of the busier months at work I’m still very happy with my tally.

Lyon’s Pride by Anne McCaffrey

The Tower and The Hive by Anne McCaffrey

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri (Audiobook)

A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf

Tomorrow Pamplona by Jan Van Mersbergen

Tales from Suburbia by Shaun Tan

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In June my reading numbers went down and since I was off a lot I have no real excuse. My speed is picking up in July so I am feeling better about that though.

Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen (audiobook)

I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett

God Dies by the Nile by Nawal El Saadawi

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling (Audiobook Reviewed in 2010)

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling (Not reviewed at this time.

With so many re-reads this quarter I have a hard time picking a favourite, but I will say that I HIGHLY recommend Water for Elephants in audio. It rocked my socks!

May and June were also busy months here at Notes from the North with a 30 Day Bookish Challenge to celebrate me turning 30, ArmchairBEA and Audiobook Week. In addition to that I hosted the Peirene Press’s Tomorrow Pamplona Blog Tour with an interview with the books translator Laura Watkinson. I’ve also started to re-read all the Harry Potter books (as you can see above) before the release of the next movie. I have a bunch of posts that will hopefully go up in the next few days (this has been a hectic week here as my sister got married yesterday and I’m working almost full time at my summer job). With the 30 Day feature I really got up my blogging steam but I seem to have lost it in the last week, I would like to write more so I hope to find my mojo once things slow down here a bit. Looking forward to the next quarter (which will mean a lot of changes for me personally but hopefully not disturb the blog to much).

Copyright ©2011 Zee from Notes from the North. This post was originally posted by Zee from Notes from the North. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Nordic Challenge 3rd Quarter Reviews (July-September)

Here is the post to link your reviews for the third quarter of 2011 (July-September). Please provide a link to the review not just your blog. Entries that just link to the blog will be deleted.

Since I know people who will be joining this challenge read a wide variety of books I have decided to offer 4 different bundles for the winner to choose from:

Classics bundle; Children's bundle; Mystery bundle; Fiction bundle

Please note that you can pick ONE of the above bundles. Books included in bundle depends on availability at the time.

I will draw the winner using Random.org one of the first days in October. Please check back in October to see if you have won. I will attempt to contact you directly if you have contact information on your blog. If the winner has not replied back to me by October 30th I will pick a new winner.

Copyright ©2011 Zee from Notes from the North. This post was originally posted by Zee from Notes from the North. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Tomorrow Pamplona Blog Tour 2011, Gig 10

As part of the launch for Tomorrow Pamplona by Jan Van Mersbergen the ladies at Peirene Press asked me to take part in an interview tour with Jan and the translator Laura Watkinson, and I agreed without a second thought. In a twist to the normal interview tours where many interviewers ask the same questions the ladies have decided that the interviewers could submit one question each to either Jan or Laura or both. If you want to read the rest of the answers check out the tour page at Peirene Press

My question for Laura was: “Translations can be tricky because of the many different meanings that words have in different languages. How did you solve these issues in your translations?”

I translate from European languages, so perhaps I’m less exposed to such issues than translators who deal with cultures that are very different from the English-speaking world. Generally, I feel that European cultures have far more similarities than differences and that our literary and linguistic expressions reflect this similarity. Perhaps this makes life easier for someone who translates from Dutch, for example.

However, I have come across a few tricky expressions during my time as a translator: words or expressions that you can translate into English literally, but which just don’t sound right, or words that can be rendered in more than one way in English. Usually, the context makes the meaning clear, so it’s not a problem, but occasionally you just have to make a decision or, of course, ask the author. I can’t think of any examples from Tomorrow Pamplona, but another piece I worked on included the Dutch word ‘bank’, which can mean ‘bench’ or ‘sofa’ (or, indeed, ‘bank’, as in Lloyds and TSB). Given the context, I’d pictured a sofa, but when the author read the translation, he explained why this particular ‘bank’ was actually a bench.

One famous example of an ‘untranslatable’ Dutch word is ‘gezellig’, which can be used to talk about all sorts of situations and people when you’re together and having fun. The Van Dale Dutch-English dictionary suggests: enjoyable, pleasant, entertaining, sociable, companionable, convivial... So there are plenty of options, but sometimes it’s tricky to find the right one. If the word were actually untranslatable, however, that would imply that we’re unable to describe such situations in English, which clearly isn’t the case. It’s not untranslatable – it just has many, many different translations, all depending on the context and the translator.

Thank you Laura for visiting Notes from the North! I found your answer to be very interesting, especially regarding the issue with words with several meanings, and the issues regarding similar cultures making it easier to translate.

If you haven’t already make sure you check out Iris on Books’ Month of Dutch Literature.

Copyright ©2011 Zee from Notes from the North. This post was originally posted by Zee from Notes from the North. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.