Wednesday, October 9, 2013

A Project?

I'm not generally very good at reading projects and challenges but sometimes it feels like a good idea and I've got one brewing. I enjoyed making my way through Trollope's Barchester chronicles in conjunction with Mrs Oliphant's Carlingford chronicles and am still enjoying the Palliser books (half way through; it might be time for volume 4 soon, reading them in order and with the intention of working my way through the lot has definitely encouraged me to tackle books that might have looked off puttingly chunky otherwise (and which in fairness wouldn't have worked as well independently). I've also found it helpful to have no particular time scale in mind - I'm not sure it's a good idea to rip through a series of books in a matter of weeks or months which were years in the writing (to much of a good thing isn't always a good thing) also it doesn't feel helpful to pile pressure on to an activity that's meant to be fun.

The project I have in mind is to tackle Zola's Rougon-Macquart series, it seems like a good idea for a few reasons. I've never read much literature in translation; something that bothers me more when I think about the classics than about contemporary fiction (which I don't read a lot of anyway so I don't feel that I'm being particularly prejudiced there) and Zola is probably as good a place to start as anywhere in a quest to broaden that particular horizon. He's also a writer who I see referenced enough to make me feel particularly ignorant for not being better acquainted with him and one whose work should be cheap if not free on Kindle when nice paperbacks prove hard to find. Also I already have a copy of 'The Fortune of the Rougons' to get started with and it's undeniably the time of year to line up something Victorian and classic so really there's nothing holding me back.. Watch this space.


6 comments:

  1. Exciting! I have only read one of the Rougon-Macquart books (Germinal) but I was so impressed by it and look forward to reading the other books one day.

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    1. I have a Wilkie Collins to read first but then it's book one and we'll see how it goes...

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  2. A fine project, one I should work on myself. I have read two, both on the short side, and not among the best known, both a lot of fun.

    Guy Savage wrote an outstanding post a couple of years ago about the old Zola translations, the "free" ones. You likely saw it. It is worth revisiting (I just revisited it myself).

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    1. That is an outstanding post and I hadn't read it before so thank you. It will be quite interesting to see how different translations from different times compare. I'm always a bit doubtful about reading things in translation - I'm never sure who I'm reading but as I'll never read it in the original language I think it's time to get over that prejudice.

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  3. Oh, always tempted by a crazy challenge...you lost me at "Zola..." I will be watching from afar.

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    1. I might not get very far Thomas but there are a few in the series that sound like I should read them so I'll give it a go.

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