cahn | 18th-Century Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 35

In 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?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

mildred_of_midgard

I expected the second half to be a bit of a slog, but I have to say that I thought it was fine.

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

selenak saying Fahlenkamp's edition was much to be preferred to Richter's. Perhaps mostly or entirely because of their different attitudes toward no-homoing the relationship? Oh, and Richter fanboying Fritz like it's a life-or-death competition with Peter III and outright saying no one cares about Fredersdorf.

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!

Edited Date: 2022-04-14 10:30 pm (UTC)

From:

felis

I read the Memoirs in German, yes, and I'm wondering if the random (or even not-so-random) cutting of passages in the English version might make it less readable in the end, because it impacts context and flow?

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.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

I'm wondering if the random (or even not-so-random) cutting of passages in the English version might make it less readable in the end, because it impacts context and flow?

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.)

From:

cahn

I read the Memoirs in German, yes, and I'm wondering if the random (or even not-so-random) cutting of passages in the English version might make it less readable in the end, because it impacts context and flow?

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 quit~~

where 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.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Yes, I was thinking of this! It was indeed very confusing!

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

selenak and I both *also* read this in German, and aside from the fistulas and German comedians and general popcorn when she's in Berlin (and Selena's Franconian perspective on Wilhelmine's opinions of her new homeland :) ), we also didn't find it that engrossing even with the complete text. I think the outlier here is

felis, whom I applaud for having a high tolerance for Bayreuth hijinks in any language!

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!)