I would never have thought of excruciatingly boring in a good way either but for your comment (supra) indicating that the Jelinek was not so. Suggesting, I interpolated, the very possibility.
It's just terrible, lame and very hasty Russian translation.I thought that the main point of the novel--that Austria is dead and rotting from the inside--could have been captured just as capably and just as well--in half the amount of pages it took Jelinek to get her point across, ?
There is no such thing as otherwise, I think. I just said, the Russian translation is crap. I prefer German original. But I didn't complete it too. Although there were some glimpses of meaning. In Russian text - no one.So, otherwise, the book is good?
I was thinking about the middle part of Bolano's 2666.
I've been reading Adiós mariquita linda recently and thinking how hard it would be to translate, with Lemebel's extremely idiosyncratic and inventive use of language. The edition (Chilean, I think) I'm reading even includes a glossary.
I have "My tender matador" on my TBR list. Now should prepare myself for battle with language)))
From memory, that one's actually quite simple linguistically (it's a beautiful novel though – simplicity is not poverty). It's a totally different style from his essays and reportage, which are full of all sorts of fireworks.
Second epilogue, I suppose, not the first. The philosophical-historical one, not the one that ends on a never resolved cliffhanger to a 1,500 book. Dammit I want to know what happened to Pierre and Nikolyenka during the Decembrist revolt!^Or Tolstoy's epilogue to War & Peace?
Already pre-ordered. I have been waiting for this book to appear in English since I was in high school (so 2006ish).
Looks like your eighteen years of patience will finally pay off.
I don't like Murakami but this cover made me want to read this one. And the title too! the city and its uncertain walls is quite poetic...
