So What Are you Reading?: Generations
- Thread starter captcalhoun
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I'm still working my way though ST: The Badlands Book 2, and I was surprised to find out that the Voyager story actually takes part right before and during Caretaker. The first few chapters are focused on Chakotay and the Maquis, and starts before Caretaker, then the last chapter is basically a novelization of the first scene. The rest of the story is set on Voyager right after they leave DS9, so it's actually between scenes in Caretaker.
Still reading my late mother's 1946 translation of The Arabian Nights. (I'm currently in the middle of the Aladdin tale.) The language, as I said before, is rather quaint. In a few places, it would also, judged by present-day standards, be considered rather racist.
But it is also rather refreshing that both in the present opus, and also in the 1966 Bobbsey Twins novel, The Bobbsey Twins Camel Adventure, there is not a trace of the Islamophobia that is so distressingly common in present-day America: Muslims are treated as no more inherently threatening than, say, Lutherans.
But it is also rather refreshing that both in the present opus, and also in the 1966 Bobbsey Twins novel, The Bobbsey Twins Camel Adventure, there is not a trace of the Islamophobia that is so distressingly common in present-day America: Muslims are treated as no more inherently threatening than, say, Lutherans.
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Ohhh, yeah. I have a 1954 paperback that I got from somewhere, a selection of tales from Richard Burton's 1885 translation (with the selling point being that the selection was "Unexpurgated" and focused on the sexier ones that were scandalous at the time), and parts of it were hellaciously racist, never mentioning a black person without calling them hideous or something of the sort. I'm not sure how much of that came from Burton as opposed to being in the original text.
Definitely not that racist. So I'm guessing that if it's from the Burton translation, it's probably been heavily edited (not surprising, given that Grosset & Dunlap was the same publisher that did all the Stratemeyer children's novels [Bobbsey Twins, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and a bunch of lesser-known series]).
This particular one-volume edition includes a 13-page setup of the Sheherazade frame (which doesn't appear to surface again until its resolution in the last page and a half of the book), and the following tales:
The Merchant and the Genie
The Fisherman and the Genie
The King and the Physician
Further Adventures of the Fisherman and the Genie
The Young King of the Black Isles
The Enchanted Horse
Sinbad
The Three Sisters
Prince Ahmed and Periebanou
Ali Baba
Aladdin
Abou Hassan
Codadad and his Brothers
This particular one-volume edition includes a 13-page setup of the Sheherazade frame (which doesn't appear to surface again until its resolution in the last page and a half of the book), and the following tales:
The Merchant and the Genie
The Fisherman and the Genie
The King and the Physician
Further Adventures of the Fisherman and the Genie
The Young King of the Black Isles
The Enchanted Horse
Sinbad
The Three Sisters
Prince Ahmed and Periebanou
Ali Baba
Aladdin
Abou Hassan
Codadad and his Brothers
^The thing about Sinbad, Ali Baba, and Aladdin is that they weren't actually in the One Thousand Nights and a Night in its original form. They were added to it by Antoine Galland in the French translation that introduced the work to Europeans. Sinbad was a separate work of folklore in the Islamic world, and Aladdin and Ali Baba appear to have been invented in the 18th century and may have been authored by Hanna Diyab, one of Galland's sources, or else were original to Galland. So all of the tales that Westerners associate most strongly with the so-called Arabian Nights are not actually part of that work at all.
Ironic, isn't it?
But not uncommon. A lot of things we associate with foreign cultures are actually the result of more local attempts to interpret foreign cultures, like a lot of "ethnic" foods that were invented in America or Britain by immigrant communities rather than being native to the cultures they're associated with.
Yes. The Americanized version of gyro meat is, by all accounts, not quite the same thing as you'd find in Greece. And I recently read of the experiences of travel writers (I think it was Elizabeth Harryman and Paul Lasley, in their column in Westways, but I could be mistaken) having difficulties obtaining a pepperoni pizza in Italy. And of course, "chicken tikka masala" is something that was cooked up for British tastes.
Of course, the most obvious case of mislabeled cuisine would be "Mongolian Barbecue." Why is it called that, when it's neither Mongolian nor barbecue, and why the cockamamie story about Genghis Khan's Mongol Hordes using their big round shields as giant woks, and cooking for anybody who surrendered without a fight? Because "Mongolian Barbecue" is a much catchier name than "Taiwanese teppanyaki."
I finished The Captain's Oath last night (another excellent novel from @Christopher), and have just started Witch Hat Atelier, vol.1, by Kamome Shirahama.
Then there's the anomaly of fortune cookies, which were invented by a Japanese-American chef based on a pair of traditional Japanese dishes, but have somehow ended up being equated with Chinese restaurant food. I think those are both examples of how Westerners have traditionally lumped together everything "Oriental" from the Mideast to the Pacific Islands as a single undifferentiated mass. (Like when Chinese-stereotype characters in '60s TV would say "Ah so" and invert their L and R sounds, which are based on Japanese. Or the way Jonny Quest's stereotyped Hindu mystic character Hajji was named for a Muslim honorific.)
It's the lesser of Haldeman's two Trek novels, not as good as Planet of Judgment, but yeah, I'd say it's at least above average for Bantam (although that's not really saying much).
Well, I would regard World Without End as being part of Bantam's rut of having every other novel being yet another variation on "Kirk & Co. play fast and loose with a situation they don't understand, and get slapped."
The Starless World,
World Without End,
Perry's Planet,
and the ever-popular Devil World.
And yes, I'd completely forgotten fortune cookies (ne of the origin claims for them is from the Japanese Tea Garden, in Golden Gate Park). And not being a Johnny Quest fan, I'd forgotten about Hadji.
And of course, "Swiss steak" has nothing to do with Switzerland, but "chicken fried steak" may indeed have originated with German and Austrian immigrants approximating Wiener schnitzel with the meat of a more mature bovid. (And of course, that brings up my pet peeve about the biggest hot dog chain in America naming itself after a dish it doesn't actually serve!)
The Starless World,
World Without End,
Perry's Planet,
and the ever-popular Devil World.
And yes, I'd completely forgotten fortune cookies (ne of the origin claims for them is from the Japanese Tea Garden, in Golden Gate Park). And not being a Johnny Quest fan, I'd forgotten about Hadji.
And of course, "Swiss steak" has nothing to do with Switzerland, but "chicken fried steak" may indeed have originated with German and Austrian immigrants approximating Wiener schnitzel with the meat of a more mature bovid. (And of course, that brings up my pet peeve about the biggest hot dog chain in America naming itself after a dish it doesn't actually serve!)
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There's a hot dog chain in America? In my experience, it's hard to find fast food places that even serve hot dogs, except for chili dogs (which are big in Cincinnati). So I don't know what you're referring to here.
Sonic always has them.
NAthan's Famous, if you can find one around you. Krystals has the little ones.
I once found a McDonald's in the middle of South Carolina that had them but they were pretty awful.
I've also been reading through it in small bits at a time, story or night as a cut off point for daily reading. I'm borrowing volume 1 of a 4-volume copy belonging to my dad. My dad's copy is a translation of a translation: from the original into French, this is set is an English translation of the French translation. A translation of a translation is always a good sign...I guess.
At the same time, I recently bought a modern translation that was done in 2008 and published by Penguin in three volumes. Periodically I'll look at the modern translation if the wording is confusing in my Dad's copy, and the 2008 version helps to clarify; the poetry is rendered more effectively and coherent in the 2008 translation as well. There are a couple of small things in the 2008 translation that maybe went missing during the process of the other translation.
I'm mainly sticking with my dad's copy out of nostalgia, and it's worded a little quaintly without overdoing it, giving a feel of ancient stories. I also like that my dad's copy uses Allah and Sulaiman; the 2008 translation would use God and Solomon. If I'm reading 1001 Nights, I want it to retain something of a Middle-Eastern and Arabic quality. I know Allah is God, but it's a little disappointing that the 2008 dissolves away some of that exotic aspect.
My main book right now is Stephen King's The Shining. When I'm done with that, I'm going to bump Enterprise: The First Adventure back one slot, and read The Captain's Oath in it's place. The timing of it's release is great, I've been looking forward to the idea of the first adventure of the Enterprise under Kirk's command, both books would fulfill that expectation. For once, I'd like the chance to be able to read the most current ST TOS book and be on the same page with other fans here, rather than being perpetually 30-40 years behind everyone else. Just this once.
Certainly better than the Phoenix novels....of course that's not hard to do
Planet of Judgment is still in my summer reading pile so it's good to know that should be better. I also still have Perry's Planet and Devil World, and I want to do a re-read of the Galactic Whirlpool this summer.
I figured if I could get through the Phoenix novels I can get through anything
I can't imagine any Star Trek book being much worse. 
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