CHAT: Books, Good & Bad (was Language changes, spelling reform (was Conlangea Dreaming))

jesse stephen bangs wrote:

> I *loved* _The Brothers Karamazov_, although it was certainly one of the
> most difficult books I've ever read.  I haven't yet had the opportunity to
> tackle any other Dead Russian Authors, but I look forward to the next
> opportunity.  BTW, Karamazov was so dense and slow-going that I stopped
> for a weekend and read *all* of _1984_ for a break, then plunged back
> it.  It was definitely worth it, though, since I wrote my free-response
> essay for the AP English test on it.
1984 is an amazing book as well.

Is there a film of The Brothers Karamazov? It would be very interesting
to see what they cut out of it.

> I have one worse.  I attempted to read "After Babel: Aspects of Language
> and Translation" but gave up about halfway through because the author
> would chase tangents ad nauseum and *never* seemed to get to his original
> point.  It was a like a long, dry, stream-of-consciousness on
> languages.  A great subject matter, but terrible book.  Plus, the author
> was fond of quoting long passages in Latin, German, and French without
> translating them, which I found arrogant and irritating.
>
> So, if anyone's thought about reading the above book, don't bother.
>
Can't say I've read it, or even heard of it.

--
Robert