1652 replies to this topic

[casandra]

Tabaluga, on 11 February 2013 - 04:27 PM, said:

No. The "child" was depressed and physically ill too (note where I put the emphasis).

so it's not exactly a child but perhaps a woman? ok..how about George Sand's Indiana...she's married to an older army guy and suffers from a lot of diseases- most probably hypochondriac....but actually, she's kinda bored and there's no passion in her life and finally falls in love with a younger guy...and so on and so forth.....tell me if it's french at least ...

btw, you're still awake?

[Tabaluga]

Yeah, I'm still awake...writing something.
Yes, it refers to a young woman. You missed the other emphasis I put in the sentence above, but nonetheless your guess was pretty good, regarding the plot. It would become too easy if answer your question I'm pretty sure yu can figure it out yourself !

[casandra]

Tabaluga, on 11 February 2013 - 04:52 PM, said:

Yeah, I'm still awake...writing something.
Yes, it refers to a young woman. You missed the other emphasis I put in the sentence above, but nonetheless your guess was pretty good, regarding the plot. It would become too easy if answer your question I'm pretty sure yu can figure it out yourself !

which other emphasis? is it a pregnant woman? ...and it's probably French...perhaps from one of Anatole France's stories?

[Tabaluga]

Maybe it is difficult to see, I had put the "was" in italic....
Not french, and think of the three famous 19th century books dealing with a theme similar to the plot you described in your first guess... it's one of them.

[casandra]

Tabaluga, on 11 February 2013 - 05:48 PM, said:

Maybe it is difficult to see, I had put the "was" in italic....
Not french, and think of the three famous 19th century books dealing with a theme similar to the plot you described in your first guess... it's one of them.

3 famous books dealing with bored wives committing adultery or just about adulterous women? I can think of more...

Tolstoy's Anna Karenina
Flaubert's Madame Bovary
Hardy's Sue Bridehead (from Jude the Obscure)
Zola's Thérèse Raquin
Hawthorne's Hester Prynne(though husband was lost at sea)

but it's not French nor English...and I don't think it's Anna Karenina either....draaaat....

[bob1]

casandra, on 11 February 2013 - 04:17 PM, said:

bob1, on 11 February 2013 - 01:06 PM, said:

Tabs' got it.  The theme was NZ authors.  The movie is terrible, despite having Sam Neill (NZ actor, which is probably the only reason they could get him) in it.

Te (Maori for "the", pretty handy for us non-speakers and typo makers)  book is about two twins who have to help the last of one alien race to defeat another alien race who want to turn the world into a mud planet

NZ theme? ..and I was trying to figure out the connection of all the quotes from Friday... I just read the synopsis of this book with killing and stuff and it's classified as children/young adult fiction?

Yeah, we had a run of Butler (Erewhon is based on his experiences in NZ; he grew up here), Mansfield, and Frame.  I thought I would continue it...

[casandra]

bob1, on 11 February 2013 - 07:11 PM, said:

casandra, on 11 February 2013 - 04:17 PM, said:

bob1, on 11 February 2013 - 01:06 PM, said:

Tabs' got it.  The theme was NZ authors.  The movie is terrible, despite having Sam Neill (NZ actor, which is probably the only reason they could get him) in it.

Te (Maori for "the", pretty handy for us non-speakers and typo makers)  book is about two twins who have to help the last of one alien race to defeat another alien race who want to turn the world into a mud planet

NZ theme? ..and I was trying to figure out the connection of all the quotes from Friday... I just read the synopsis of this book with killing and stuff and it's classified as children/young adult fiction?

Yeah, we had a run of Butler (Erewhon is based on his experiences in NZ; he grew up here), Mansfield, and Frame.  I thought I would continue it...

yup...it's pretty obvious now...... actually, I have always thought that Mansfield was a Brit...

[Tabaluga]

Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary are two of the three that I meant. The third is the one we're looking for, and the title is also just the name of the woman in question (who dies in the end, as is referred to in the quote).

[casandra]

Tabaluga, on 11 February 2013 - 07:25 PM, said:

Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary are two of the three that I meant. The third is the one we're looking for, and the title is also just the name of the woman in question (who dies in the end, as is referred to in the quote).

an eponymous character who dies in the end...by suicide- just like the other two or because of illness or old age?

[Tabaluga]

She dies as a young woman due to psychosomatic illness after being shunned by society and especially after estrangement with her small child, which is raised by her former husband.

Last clue: to the east of Mme Bovary, to the west of Anna Karenina

[casandra]

Tabaluga, on 11 February 2013 - 07:40 PM, said:

She dies as a young woman due to psychosomatic illness after being shunned by society and especially after estrangement with her small child, which is raised by her former husband.

Last clue: to the east of Mme Bovary, to the west of Anna Karenina

ok...got it.......like dr H's and your homeland? Fontane's Effi Briest....omg.....that was super long....and I know of Effi Briest but  only in passing ie while reading about Anna Karenina and the other tragic heroines......

[Tabaluga]

yep, that's it. Had trouble finding an English translationn the web, the one I took the quote from sounds rather weird...
What's also weird, I suddenly wasn't following this thread any longer. But I didn't click the unfollow button !

[casandra]

Tabaluga, on 11 February 2013 - 08:02 PM, said:

yep, that's it. Had trouble finding an English translationn the web, the one I took the quote from sounds rather weird...
What's also weird, I suddenly wasn't following this thread any longer. But I didn't click the unfollow button !

so who's talking in the quote? the parents?...Fontane based the novel on a real person, right?
anyways, here's my usual hardest to guess quote ever quoted: 19th century, not english....

“Death had to take her little by little, bit by bit, dragging her along to the bitter end of the miserable existence she'd made for herself. They never even knew what she did die of. Some spoke of a chill. But the truth was that she died from poverty, from the filth and the weariness of her wretched life.”

[bob1]

Thats sounds like something out of the Brothers Karamazov by good ol' Dostoyevsky, but I suspect it should be harder than that.

[casandra]

nope, though they were published very close to each other...it's one volume of a series...and you'd wanna have a drink after reading it...