Same procedure as every year, in a good way

[selenak]

Last but one day of the Frankfurt Book Fair, and as you may have gathered by my lj silence, I was busy as hell. Attending the world's largest book fair means a constant state between being hyper and being exhausted, some strange amalgan - at least for me it does.

Tidbits and a few impressions:

- the poor Brits bitched about the Booker Prize organizers for scheduling said price on Tuesday evening which was the official opening of the Frankfurt Book Fair, which meant those publishers who had authors nominated had to jet to and thro

- though what most people really were talking about on Wednesday was Orhan Parmuk versus President Gul of Turkey, Turkey being the guest of honour for this year's fair; Gul said Turkey was proud of Parmuk in his speech, Parmuk said that was nice but ongoing censorship (which includes making it impossible to access YouTube on the internet from Turkey), that paragraph making "insults to Turkdom" illegal which was and is used against writers aplenty (including Parmuk) etc. were what they really should be talking about

- Paul Krugman's German publisher is way faster than his American one: the Germans had his book prominently featured basically as soon as the Nobel prize was awarded, whereas the guys in hall 8, where all the English original publications reside, totally missed out on this

- the pavillon reserved for Turkey had the standups with the photos and biographies of Turkish writers forming the decorative pattern popular in Muslim countries, which was neat; also, the variety of writers and poets throughout the last hundred years who were displayed were amazing, and a lot of them women

- the history lover in me geeked out about the replica of the Celsius library from Ephesus most, though; I've been there

- book-wise, I've been presented with the new Lennon biography by Philip Norman (will review once I've read it), found a new biography of Livia (as in wife of Augustus, the Livia) where the writer without quoting any source supporting this speculates the Tiberius-Julia fallout may have been because Julia killed the baby she had with Tiberius (something even the Roman writers who totally spouted the "that loose, loose woman and her profligate ways" condemnation did not suggest - and the Livia biographer doesn't even give a reason for accusing Julia of infanticide other than "maybe she disdained Tiberius so much; she certainly complained about him to her father" (see me headdesking here); browsed through an interesting French book called "Marthe and Mathilde" about the author's two grandmothers from Alsace (I think that's the English name for the Elsaß) and how they coped with the constant switch between being French and being German; read one of the best officially published media tie-ins in years, Karen Traviss' novelization of the animated Clone Wars, which has, hands down, the best Anakin characterisation on the printed page, plus her usual great job with the clones; spotted Bernard Cornwall's new novel Azincourt, which looks quite good at a quick glance safe for the involuntarily funny part on the fly jacket where the readers are told that the battle of Agincourt is heralded as the victory of the common man over the nobility (I'd say it was the victory of feudal king A over feudal king B, with A demonstrating that he had a way better use of the weapons of the day by using the longbows, but by no stretch of my large imagination can I call Henry V. invading France under a flimsy pretext "the victory of the common man")

- had a very interesting encounter with Petra Reski, who wrote a book about the Mafia getting much praise from everyone from critics to Donna Leon; when asked whether she's not afraid for herself after what happens these days with Roberto Savioni said that she isn't translated into Italian, which apparantly means she's not of much hostile interest to the people she's writing about

- for some reason, the photo of Obama and McCain - you know the one I mean: in a word: tongue - ended up pinned up on a lot of booths, no matter what the publishers in question were selling...

- tomorrow: Anselm Kiefer, or, we're all waiting for the explanation of a non-writer being awared the German booktrade award...

Comments

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's Alsace in English usually.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[shezan.livejournal.com]

There's McCain-Obama slash? WITH TONGUES?

[selenak.livejournal.com]

You somehow missed this picture? It definitely made the papers here:

[tebasile7.livejournal.com]

Sounds like you had an interesting time! I haven`t been there in years, we used to go with our Deutsch-LK teacher (who had written a book called "Grüne an der Macht" about the Green party being part of the actual government years before it actually happened) and I went on the puplic days a cuple of times when I studied in Giessen.
Have been to busy since then, but perhaps I should go again somtime and try to get into translating veterinary textbooks...they you usually are are nearly unreadable word by word translations, that are full of wince-inducing Angilismen *shudder* ;-)
Do you know if the French book is going to be translated? I´ve lived near the Alsace most of my life and would like to read it, but my French is nearly non existant these days.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

It's already translated: Marthe und Mathilde (http://www.amazon.de/Marthe-Mathilde-zwischen-Frankreich-Deutschland/dp/349800655X)!

[tebasile7.livejournal.com]

Thank you!
Will probably have to wait for the paperback unless my finances improve.

[artaxastra.livejournal.com]

You just have to ask yourself HOW? But it's real. I saw it live. One of those things that has me increasingly wondering about McCain's health. His hands did not seem steady either.

[wychwood]

Although, actually, when I went and watched the video clip it seemed much less bizarre than the still photos made it look! *g*

selenak - I didn't know you guys called it the Elsaß (and is the ß still used because it's an archaic name?). I do remember lots and LOTS about Alsace-Lorraine in history at school, with all the post-WWI treaty hassles...

[selenak.livejournal.com]

No, we use the ß because I'm 39 and only just finished university in '94 before the neue Rechtschreibung got introduced. *g* So - daß not dass, Elsaß not Elsass, muß not muss etc. as far as I am concerned, unless I'm using an international keyboard which doesn't have the ß. But Elsaß or Elsass, that's what we call it.

[wychwood]

Hahaha :) I just wondered! Because, actually, I was surprised by how rarely I see the esset, even in writing from people who were clearly adult before the changes. I started learning German shortly before the neue Rechtschreibung, though I still have to remind myself not to write "daß" (that word particularly, actually, because it's much harder to confuse with "das" than "dass" is :) ).