Re-read for Great Books – I had last read the whole thing in 2010<\/a>. I enjoyed it again, but wow it’s long, and the plot is often very drawn out. I read it in French. Most of the group used the Robin Buss translation and liked it; the few stuck with the Chapman and Hall did not. I attempted my own versions of the quotes in English, and then refined them in collaboration with Jonathan, whose skills in writing, editing, and French helped tremendously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I perked up when the Count offers Franz and Albert an infallible insomnia remedy, but it’s a ball of opium mixed with hashish… I was hoping for a mental exercise!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Such an adolescent fantasy, even libertarian: “mais je ne m’occupe jamais de mon prochain, mais je n’essaye jamais de prot\u00e9ger la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 qui ne me prot\u00e8ge pas, et, je dirai m\u00eame plus, qui g\u00e9n\u00e9ralement ne s’occupe de moi que pour me nuire” and “tout ce qui m’entoure est libre de me quitter, et en me quittant n’aura plus besoin de moi ni de personne; voil\u00e0 peut-\u00eatre pourquoi on ne me quitte pas.” [“But I never worry about my neighbor; and I never try to protect society, which doesn’t protect me, and in fact generally takes notice of me only to cause me harm” and “everyone around me is free to leave me, and upon leaving me will have no further need for me or anyone else; perhaps that is why no one leaves me.”]<\/p>\n\n\n\n I’m on the fence about which words I looked up to record… maybe not food (“clovisse” for example), but more general ones. The Shmoop<\/a> list of references is pretty good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brand names and cultural references<\/p>\n\n\n\n A long paragraph on paintings<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ce salon \u00e9tait tapiss\u00e9 des \u0153uvres des peintres modernes; il y avait des paysages de Dupr\u00e9, aux longs roseaux, aux arbres \u00e9lanc\u00e9s, aux vaches beuglantes et aux ciels merveilleux; il y avait des cavaliers arabes de Delacroix, aux longs burnous blancs, aux ceintures brillantes, aux armes damasquin\u00e9es, dont les chevaux se mordaient avec rage, tandis que les hommes se d\u00e9chiraient avec des masses de fer, des aquarelles de Boulanger, repr\u00e9sentant tout Notre-Dame de Paris<\/em> avec cette vigueur qui fait du peintre l’\u00e9mule du po\u00e8te; il y avait des toiles de Diaz, qui fait les fleurs plus belles que les fleurs, le soleil plus brillant que le soleil; des dessins de Decamps, aussi color\u00e9s que ceux de Salvator Rosa, mais plus po\u00e9tiques; des pastels de Giraud et de Muller, repr\u00e9sentant des enfants aux t\u00eates d’ange, des femmes aux traits de vierge; des croquis arrach\u00e9s \u00e0 l’album du voyage d’Orient de Dauzats, qui avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 crayonn\u00e9s en quelques secondes sur la selle d’un chameau ou sous le d\u00f4me d’une mosqu\u00e9e…<\/p>\n\n\n\n [This salon was covered in works by modern painters: there were landscapes by Dupr\u00e9, with long reeds, tall slender trees, lowing cows, and marvelous skies; there were Arab riders by Delacroix, with long white burnouses, shiny belts, and damascened weapons, whose horses gnashed their teeth in rage while the men tore at each other with iron implements; watercolors by Boulanger, depicting all of Notre-Dame de Paris with the vigor of a painter emulating a poet; there were canvases by Diaz, who makes flowers more beautiful than flowers, the sun more brilliant than the sun; drawings by Decamps, as colorful as Salvator Rosa’s, but more poetic; pastels by Girard and by Muller, showing children with the heads of angels, women with the features of virgins; sketches, ripped from Dauzat’s album of Oriental voyages, that had been scrawled in a few seconds from the saddle of a camel or under the dome of a mosque…]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n J’ai obtenu avec un banquier, mon confr\u00e8re, la concession d’un chemin de fer, seule industrie qui de nos jours pr\u00e9sente ces chances fabuleuses de succ\u00e8s imm\u00e9diat qu’autrefois Law appliqua pour les bons Parisiens, ces \u00e9ternels badauds de la sp\u00e9culation, \u00e0 un Mississippi fantastique. Par mon calcul on doit poss\u00e9der un millioni\u00e8me de rail comme on poss\u00e9dait autrefois un arpent de terre en friche sur les bords de l’Ohio.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIn this book I learned<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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