Daily Archives: 2. Dezember 2014

Reading Together #3

My Advent Calendar has started yesterday and I feel like doing this again, so you get another instalment of Weltenwanderers and SchlunzenbüchersGemeinsam Lesen“ (Reading Together).

Each Tuesday one of them asks four questions, with the first three always being the same about the book one is currently reading and the fourth a new one by either of them. All questions below are obviously translated from today’s German post.

1. Which Book are you currently reading and which page are you on?

I’m still reading „A Game of Thrones“ by George R.R. Martin, one of the books I had chosen as A book someone else picked for me for BiblioSmiles’s Summer Book Challenge.
I’m currently on page 259, so I managed to read about 200 pages since last Tuesday, by mostly reading in the bus and finishing the chapters I started afterwards.
Sometimes I continued reading regardless of that, but I’ll get to that later.

2. What is the first sentence on your current page?

Jon was showing Dareon how best to deliver a sidestroke when the new recruit entered the practice yard.

or in German:

Jon zeigte Dareon wie man am Besten einen Seitenhieb ausführte als der neue Recruit das Trainingsfeld betrat.

For some odd reason I again stopped at a Jon-chapter, even though those are some of the most interesting ones…

3. What do you desperately need to tell about your current book? (Thoughts, Feelings, a Quote, whatever you want!)

The book is awfully captivating and there is pretty much a need to continue reading and sometimes I succumb to it, even though there are other things that I need to be doing.
I just want to know what will happen next…
And even though I know I should not get too attached to the characters, do I already have a couple of favourites. With my luck in these kind of things will pretty much all of them die.
I also couldn’t help myself watching the show after I read the chapters…
With a little search I found this chart that showed which chapters were portrayed in which episode.
From previous experiences do I know that things are changed and added in picturizations, but I was quite appalled at how different the show is from the book.
Some things are toned down („It should have been you.„), others are accentuated (the sex-scenes that are mostly only mentioned so far or don’t exist) and still others were dropped entirely (Ghost attacking Tyrion) or portrayed quite differently (Eddard using a mere dagger, when it should have been Ice).
I can’t say that the show isn’t impressive and well done, but its the little things that still bug me and make the watching less enjoyable.

4. In which perspective is your current book written? Do you prefer it when reading or does it not matter? (omniscient, personal or I-perspective)

At first I thought the book would be written in I-perspective from each character that got a chapter, but I soon learned it wasn’t that easy.
While it is a partly omniscient narrator and it doesn’t feel like a complete personal narrator either, does it mainly focus on what the current character knows and experiences, yet it is no I-perspective, as the character is still referred to in the third person.
It is an interesting perspective to say the least.

The perspective I prefer most would be the omniscient narrator that has still insight into the characters thoughts. So Martins style covers this pretty much.
What I can’t cope with is the You-perspective, the reader-include. I prefer enjoying the story as a spectator, not as a participant…
The I-narrator can be interesting, but also quite annoying at times, so it isn’t that high on my list either.
The book is written in present tense, but somehow, when I myself write I prefer using the past, though I don’t really care about that.

Additional thoughts

You can obviously participate in these questions by either using my translated or the original German version.
By now I do believe it is highly likely that I participate again next week or some other week.
It is just too good a way to talk about my current read without adding a Goodreads Widget to my sidebar or waiting until I finally manage to get a review done.
On a completely different note: This is my 150th post. 😀
I didn’t anticipated this to happen in this year as well.
Then again, I’m not good with predictions as I  have learned.
PoiSonPaiNter
© For the cover, the quote and the banner belong to their rightful owners.

Advent Calendar: Door/Türchen #2

© EdMooney Photography

Den ganzen Weg vom Kloster hierher quälte ihn nur ein Gedanke
‚Es war doch nur ein dummer Scherz gewesen.‘
Er hatte nicht gewollt, dass der Abt so erzürnt darüber war.
Sie waren ein großes Kloster und nicht immer bekam jeder eine interessante Aufgabe. Als er abgestellt war die Habite zu reinigen wurde ihm so langweilig, dass er sich einen Streich mit seinen Mitbrüdern erlaubte.
Er hatte sich daran erinnert wie die Frauen in seinem Heimatdorf die Wäsche gebleicht hatten und ähnlich hatte er es nun mit den ihm anvertrauten Habiten gemacht.
Ein schwefliges Gebräu zum Wasser gemischt und schwups waren die einfachen schwarzen Habite grau. Er fand sie jetzt passender zum eintönigen Leben eines Mönchen.
Grau, trist, langweilig.
Der Abt aber fand, dass er eine Schande für ihre Gemeinschaft war und schickte ihn fort, um in einer abgelegenen Kirche Buße zu tun und dabei den dortigen Pfarrer bei der Arbeit zu unterstützen. Abgeschieden von Städten und seinen Brüdern.
Als er aus dem Waldstück hervortrat sah er bereits den Trampelpfad der ihn durch das Getreidefeld direkt zum Gemäuer führte. Die Kirche war wesentlich kleiner als sein Kloster und schien noch weniger Abwechslung zu bieten zu haben.
Hier würde er also den Winter verbringen und vermutlich noch länger, wenn der Abt immer noch wütend auf ihn war.
Es sah noch nicht danach aus, aber das Feld, durch das er wanderte, würde bald geerntet und mit Schnee bedeckt sein. Er konnte sich gut vorstellen, dass der Winter hier noch strenger und kälter war als im Kloster. Dort hatte er wenigstens angrenzende Gebäude, die ein bisschen Schutz vor Wind und Kälte boten.
Aber hier war nichts.
Hier war nur die Kirche, eine mickrige Mauer und das Feld.
In was hatte er sich da nur reingeritten?
Warum hatte ihm auch langweilig sein müssen?
Schon jetzt bereute er und hoffte inständig, dass der Abt ihm schnell vergeben würde.
Er war noch nicht angekommen und doch wollte er am Liebsten schon wieder umkehren. Aber nun war es zu spät, er musste das letzte Stück weitergehen und sich seiner neuen Aufgabe stellen.
Er musste gestehen, dass der Abt den scheinbar perfekten Ort dafür gewählt hatte.
~~~~~~~ ❄ ~~~~~~~ ❄ ~~~~~~~ ❄ ~~~~~~~ ❄ ~~~~~~~ ❄ ~~~~~~~
On the whole way from the monastery until here he struggled with one thought ‚It was just a stupid joke‘.
He hadn’t wanted the abbot to be this enraged about it.
They were a large monastery and not every time everyone got an interesting task. When he was seconded to clean the habits he got that bored that he decided to play a prank on his brothers.
He had remembered how the women in his home village had bleached the linen and likewise had he now done so with the habits that were entrusted to him.
A sulphurous brew mixed into the water and whoosh were the simple black habits grey. He thought they were now more fitting for the dreary live of a monk.
Grey, dull, boring.
The abbot instead thought that he was a disgrace for their confraternity and send him away to repent in a secluded church and support the local pastor in his work.
Isolated from cities and his brothers.
When he emerged from the forest he already saw the trail that lead him through the corn field directly to the masonry. The church was considerably smaller than his monastery and it seemed to offer even less variations in tasks.
Here he would have to spend the winter and probably even more time, when the abbot was still mad at him.
It didn’t look like it yet, but the field, through which he wandered, would soon be harvested and covered by snow. He could very well imagine that the winter here was even more grim and colder than in the monastery. There he had surrounding building that provided cover from wind and cold.
But here was nothing.
Here was only the church, a puny wall and the field.
Just what had he gotten himself into?
Why did he have to get bored?
He already felt regret and sincerely hoped the abbot would soon forgive him.
He hadn’t even arrived and he would like to return already. But now it was too late, he had to walk the last few steps and face his new task.
He had to admit that the abbot had seemingly chosen the perfect  place for this.

Behind the Scenes

I hope you had fun with the second story.
The picture is from an abandoned church that Ed had used in one of his Monochrome Madness Challenge Entries. Go check it out if you want to read more about it. 🙂
If you believe this story isn’t finished, then I can congratulate you, as there will indeed be a continuation of it. But I won’t tell you when. 😉
PoiSonPaiNter
© For the story by me and for the picture by EdMooney Photography. Do not use or repost either without my or his permission.