In many ways I think e-readers are terrifying. I gather they distort much poetry, altering line lengths and all-around removing one from the tangible pleasures of reading (and by extension, the awareness of physicality, of being a body in the actual world made of live things, etc. etc.).
Practically speaking, however, I can pack no more than two pieces of luggage, up to 50 pounds each. That pretty much rules out my Norton anthology of poetry.
So to be as subversive as possible, I vow to download only the mustiest of tomes! LIKE THIS!:
The stairs they strode
streaming redly;
at dark doorways
they dinned and hammered;
into halls of Atli
hewed a pathway;
rushed in roaring,
reeking-handed.
OH EM GEE, J. R. R. Tolkien translated The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun - the Norse myth on which the Germanic Nibelungenlied was based - ??? And I can download it to my Kindle??? So much alliterative verse, blood and darkness and gold, mead halls, and Valkyries - all MINE???
Yes, friends. And then I will feel like this:
(Arthur Rackham, from Der Ring des Nibelungen)
LOVE IT!!!
ReplyDeleteHOW KINDA COOL!!!!
ReplyDeleteWANT. Also saw a guy on the tv who calculated all the ways he consumed energy, from gasoline to cat food to toilet paper, and realized that his 6th largest energy expenditure was on magazine/newspaper subscriptions and books. So actually getting an electronic device, a la kindle or ipad, was a big step in reducing his footprint. So way to save the world!
ReplyDeleteJust be careful not to buy any books with nebulous or contentious copyright agreements, sometimes Amazon will crawl into your kindle in the night and steal your tomes back from you.
In conclusion, WANT that translation immediately.