What are you missing out on?

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Last night I was reading 'thirty-seven small songs and thirteen silences' by Jan Zwicky? It's ever so great, I recommend it pretty wholly.

But I was thinking: there are bits in it, and in some other poetry (robert hass especially?), where they talk about trees, and plants, by their names, and I don't know what they are. I don't even know if the things they're flowers or bushes or trees, let alone guess at the associations, and I basically skip over the lines.

What do you feel you miss out on in writers you really like?

― Gravel Puzzleworth, Monday, 16 April 2007 10:46 (eighteen years ago)

This is funny for me because I always (or almost always) read in a different language from my own, so if I stop and think about what I miss out, there must be tons of words and connection i don't really know the exact meaning of (or their resonance)..but I guess this is part of the charm of reading in another language, there is a whole world of personal associations that do not belong to words only but to their signifier that we imagine

― misshajim, Monday, 16 April 2007 11:23 (eighteen years ago)

I really sense this when reading Japanese fiction (or even non-fiction). That there is a part taht I will never comprehend. And even though I hate to admit it, when I read Russian fiction (that is a critique on R.politics, like Master & Margarita) then my friend is right when she says I will never (fully) comprehend. But that's great because I will search on the net all about Russian history and so discover what it was like.

― nathalie, Monday, 16 April 2007 12:00 (eighteen years ago)

(Also, I never read in my own language. I dunno why, but it bores me somehow. I also like the *distance* of a second language.)

― nathalie, Monday, 16 April 2007 12:02 (eighteen years ago)

I'm start to think that one can only read poetry in a second language. And that one can only read poetry badly.

This is completely bogus but it's a fun theory to play with.

― Casuistry, Monday, 16 April 2007 22:58 (eighteen years ago)

When people (Julian Barnes is the worst offender) insert large chunks of untranslated French I feel very much as though I'm missing out.

Also, anything to makes reference to sport or sporting terms tends to leave me mystified.

― James Morrison, Monday, 16 April 2007 23:33 (eighteen years ago)

chris otm

― James Redd and the Blecchs, Tuesday, 17 April 2007 01:00 (eighteen years ago)

anything to do with math in any way

― deeznuts, Thursday, 19 April 2007 18:49 (eighteen years ago)

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