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cahnIn the previous post Charles II found AITA:
Look, I, m, believe in live and let live. (And in not going on my travels again. Had enough of that to last a life time.) Why can't everyone else around me be more chill? Instead, my wife refuses to employ my girlfriend, my girlfriend won't budge and accept another office, my brother is set on a course to piss off everyone (he WILL go on his travels again), and my oldest kid shows signs of wanting my job which is just not on, sorry to say. And don't get me started about Mom (thank God she's living abroad). What am I doing wrong? AITA?
Look, I, m, believe in live and let live. (And in not going on my travels again. Had enough of that to last a life time.) Why can't everyone else around me be more chill? Instead, my wife refuses to employ my girlfriend, my girlfriend won't budge and accept another office, my brother is set on a course to piss off everyone (he WILL go on his travels again), and my oldest kid shows signs of wanting my job which is just not on, sorry to say. And don't get me started about Mom (thank God she's living abroad). What am I doing wrong? AITA?
Backlog Reading - Wilhelmine and Fredersdorf
Date: 2022-04-14 05:34 pm (UTC)My main take-away, though: I thought I knew SD was bad, but man, she was worse. Now I really understand why during the Wusterhausen argument, everyone voted for the parent they had to spend the most time with. Poor kids. On the other hand, those instances of Sonsine bodily blocking FW from getting at Wilhelmine and hitting her? Damn.
After that one, I also read Fahlenkamp and as far as Fritz/Fredersdorf letters go, yay! I'd mostly read Fritz ones before*, so I was particularly happy to get to all the Fredersdorf ones. But the rest of the book? Not impressed with the writing (a lot of superficial stuff, bad grammar) and now I'm not surprised anymore that Fahlenkamp used wiki as a source. Have to say, I prefer the chronological Richter approach with actually helpful footnotes to Fahlenkamp's thematic one.
* These kept being very endearing indeed, spelling and all, and it really struck me a) how patiently he repeated the same things over and over again, and b) how often he resorted to outright begging when it came to Fredersdorf's penchant for medical charlatans. And on the other hand, Fredersdorf's gave me an inkling for why he was so impatient and resorted to them, because I got the impression that he was genuinely upset that he couldn't be with Fritz and get his work done and was at times somewhat worried that he might lose Fritz' esteem. (Still shipping them, is what I'm saying.)
Re: Backlog Reading - Wilhelmine and Fredersdorf
Date: 2022-04-14 08:49 pm (UTC)Oh, wow. You have more stamina than I do! Once she's not in Berlin, it's all people I don't know or care about, other than her husband and I suppose female Marwitz. You did read it in German, right? The English editions I've been able to find are all heavily abridged in the second volume, partly for smelling salts reasons and partly for, as far as I can tell, TL;DR no1curr reasons.
bad grammar
Oh, dear. I wonder if I'll be able to spot it when I get there, or if I'll just learn bad German. :D
Which reminds me, is Schultz using "notwendig" and "notwenig" interchangeably a thing, or a repeated typo his editor didn't catch? I'm only familiar with the former, and Google always asks me "Did you mean notwendig?" (Me: "I think so, but as a non-German-speaker, I can't be sure"), but maybe it's a valid variant?
Have to say, I prefer the chronological Richter approach with actually helpful footnotes to Fahlenkamp's thematic one.
Oh, interesting! I have both high on my to-read list once I can start reading German purely for content rather than language practice, and I remember
Anyway, I still plan to read both, but I will keep an eye out for questionable grammar! [I mean other than Fritz's.:P]
how patiently he repeated the same things over and over again,
Awww.
how often he resorted to outright begging when it came to Fredersdorf's penchant for medical charlatans.
Awww.
he was genuinely upset that he couldn't be with Fritz and get his work done
AWWWW!
was at times somewhat worried that he might lose Fritz' esteem
OH NO. </3
(Still shipping them, is what I'm saying.)
In a word: YES!
Re: Backlog Reading - Wilhelmine and Fredersdorf
Date: 2022-04-15 11:18 am (UTC)I wonder if I'll be able to spot it
You might. I just skimmed a couple pages again and it's not that prevalent, more awkward sometimes than outright wrong. The actually wrong sentences should be rather obvious - "Seine Vorliebe für scharf gewürzte Speisen sind legendär." - and they apparently coloured my perception of the whole more than I thought. That said, I'm actually much more interested in how you'll cope with the letters themselves, particularly the rather phonetic spelling, nevermind the grammar. :D
You should also prepare yourself for the bit early on where Fahlenkamp says that Katte was executed on the 5th of August. Or that Rothenburg died the same year as Jordan and Keyserlingk. He does get these right later in the book, but that sure made me raise my eyebrows and adjust my expectations. I also remember that Selena mentioned how selectively and out of context he quoted Lehndorff's description of Fredersdorf, calling him "hateful" even.
re: Richter vs. Fahlenkamp - I was only thinking of the organizational approach, not their attitudes as editors. The letters often contain multiple topics at once, so while splitting them into different chapters based on those topics is useful for an overview and the presentation of background information, it's a bit random for a primary source edition, not least because it keeps going back and forth in time that way, which I'm not the biggest fan of, and because it makes it harder to see whether things have been cut from a letter because they don't fit the topic at hand.
"notwendig" and "notwenig" interchangeably a thing, or a repeated typo
Yeah, definitely a repeated typo. "Notwenig" doesn't exist.
Re: Backlog Reading - Wilhelmine and Fredersdorf
Date: 2022-04-15 09:06 pm (UTC)But I read it in German! (I've never read v2 in English, lol.) My first thought was that maybe you read the shorter English version, but then I thought, no, surely you read it in German. And Cahn read it in English, so--congrats, you have more tolerance for Bayreuth intrigues than we do! :)
"Seine Vorliebe für scharf gewürzte Speisen sind legendär."
Ah, yeah, I would have caught that, but then I would have read it like 3 times going, "Is it me? Is this a thing you can do in German that I just don't know?" But that's a syntax error that people make in English too--even I have when not proofreading closely.
I'm actually much more interested in how you'll cope with the letters themselves, particularly the rather phonetic spelling, nevermind the grammar. :D
Hahahaha, me too! There's a reason I'm holding off. :P
I also remember that Selena mentioned how selectively and out of context he quoted Lehndorff's description of Fredersdorf, calling him "hateful" even.
Oh, right. Argh, yes. And of course the wiki claim. Well, he's a urologist (iirc), not a historian (and we've seen historians do much worse).
re: Richter vs. Fahlenkamp - I was only thinking of the organizational approach, not their attitudes as editors... because it makes it harder to see whether things have been cut from a letter because they don't fit the topic at hand.
Fair, fair!
Yeah, definitely a repeated typo. "Notwenig" doesn't exist.
What I thought, so thanks for confirming! (Fahlenkamp and Schultz editors both dropping the ball here.)
Re: Backlog Reading - Wilhelmine and Fredersdorf
Date: 2022-04-21 04:54 am (UTC)It certainly meant the Christmas 1732 bit made rather less sense, because the sentence where SD was complaining about EC's fistulas got cut and so Mildred and I were both wondering why Wilhelmine was all gasp! can't believe you said this where the servants might hear!! about SD saying "She only says yes or no to everyone!" (Mildred, I think you read that bit in English when betaing, right?) So I would totally buy that it might have messed with flow and interest.
I mean, if they cut all the gossipy sensationalism, you can see why I quitwhere Fahlenkamp says that Katte was executed on the 5th of August.
Wow, even I know that's not at all right! Though to be fair, not until I wrote a fic on it.
Re: Backlog Reading - Wilhelmine and Fredersdorf
Date: 2022-04-21 08:53 pm (UTC)Mildred, I think you read that bit in English when betaing, right?
Exactly! It was part of the reason I elected to read it in German, since I couldn't find an unabridged English copy.
So I would totally buy that it might have messed with flow and interest. I mean, if they cut all the gossipy sensationalism, you can see why I quit
Haha, true! But
Wow, even I know that's not at all right! Though to be fair, not until I wrote a fic on it.
Clearly Fahlenkamp needs to write a fic! (I mean, he kind of did write a dark!AU about Fredersdorf. :P Not THAT fic, Fahlenkamp!)
Re: Backlog Reading - Wilhelmine and Fredersdorf
Date: 2022-04-16 05:24 pm (UTC)I thought I knew SD was bad, but man, she was worse. Now I really understand why during the Wusterhausen argument, everyone voted for the parent they had to spend the most time with. Poor kids.
Yep. BTW, I found it interesting that you have a great many FW apologists among historians past and present who insist that Wilhelmine must be exaggarating or is unfair or what not about him in general and his parenting methods in particular, but even the author who has an hate-on for Wilhelmine, whose SD biography I read and told about several issues back, Karin Feuerstein-Prasser, isn't to my recollection doing much of "SD would never". The one thing she doubted was that Wilhelmine was made to show her naked back to a couple of English and Hannover ladies to prove she wasn't humpbacked, but her argument there was more "that's certainly a typical exaggaration by Wilhelmine because no one would humiliate a King's daughter like this. Which, well, no.
Incidentally, in the case of Wilhelmine and SD we do have non-Wilhelmine sources, for example, Manteuffel and Seckendorff the younger in his secret diary, to testify to the fact that SD in the early and mid thirties (i.e. post marriage with BayreuthFriedrich) was extremely negative about her oldest daughter in public, and I think one of the other envoys mentions it as well, so historians going "surely that never happened" would have been pointless, but then again, that never stopped anyone re: Gundling's funeral. I think it's also because SD's verbal put downs and general obsession with English marriage/making her daughter(s) live life she'd have wanted didn't come across as abusive to them the way they do to us - as opposed to FW's physical violence - , they were seen as more or less as acceptable parenting for the era, or even as slightly comic a la Mrs. Bennet trying to get her daughters married.
Fahlenkamp: I liked the thematic grouping - though whether I would have appreciated it if I hadn't already read the letters in chronological order, I don't know - and the medical background (which is his expertise), plus of course the photos. Also, Fahlenkamp has a sense of humor. But of course in terms of academic reliability Richter is better, no homo'ing not withstanding.
Re: Backlog Reading - Wilhelmine and Fredersdorf
Date: 2022-04-21 05:08 am (UTC)*nods* Yeah, that's interesting -- it seems very recent that verbal abuse has been seen as definitely a bad thing -- even when I was growing up, I feel like there was a perception it wasn't as "real" as physical abuse. And to be honest I would feel like the English marriage thing was kind of hilarious too if I hadn't known how miserable Fritz and Wilhelmine were, not least from these memoirs. Anyway, it makes sense to me what you said -- that if one doesn't think it's objectionable, it's less of a priority to argue it couldn't have happened the way she said.
Re: Backlog Reading - Wilhelmine and Fredersdorf
Date: 2022-04-21 04:49 am (UTC)I thought I knew SD was bad, but man, she was worse.
YEAH THIS. I also feel this way about FW on a regular basis :) (I suppose because I have a bad memory and also am sort of... optimistic? So I'm always surprised when FW is as bad as FW is!)
These kept being very endearing indeed, spelling and all
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