It's all sort of like watching a trainwreck, with the people involved mostly having good intentions, or at least not bad ones? But not the best mental health...
It is SUCH a trainwreck! Even Struensee, who had good mental health, made some poor choices with his good intentions, and it's so very train-wrecky.
I don't know that I can commit to reading a whole book about it in Danish, though!
I was not expecting any such thing! That's why I was half-seriously trying to see if I could teach myself Danish based off of German. (Spoiler: it's both easier and harder than expected. Definitely not doable in one day, though!)
Though honestly, the majority of the monograph is probably of less interest. I don't care about Moltke's patronizing of the arts, or his leadership of the Asiatic Company, or his work as an estate owner. I really only care about his personal life. And that has me thinking maybe I should buy the book after all and Google translate just the relevant chapter(s), as I am doing with Holm's magnum opus on Danish history.
The biggest problem is that it wouldn't arrive until March, at which point there's a 90% chance I won't care enough to prioritize it. So thus far I have resisted the urge to buy a copy.
Hmm, I do have a Danish brother-in-law who is interested in history, but he also has two small kids, so I probably couldn't draft him into this...
So while I have 100% discovered that the way to learn history is to draft people (Selena, Felis, you, Prinzsorgenfrei) into reading the things you cannot read or sometimes even the things you don't want to read, I am not asking anyone to read a monograph on Moltke for me! If nothing else, a random stranger probably won't pick up on the parts that are of interest to salon specifically; we'd presumably be better off with Google translate.
But that is very interesting that you have a brother who likes history. What period(s) is he into, and would salon be of any interest to him even without being drafted into reading and writing up a specific book? cahn, who also has two kids, enjoys following the conversations even without doing much reading and reporting back. (God knows even I, without any kids, have to drop out of actively participating in a bunch of conversations, like Louis XIV and Byzantium, no matter how much I enjoy reading along with them.) And he might know random things off the top of his head that we don't know.
ETA: And I have received Mildred's list of Finnish sex machine sources! Will eventually report back...
We look forward to it! But no rush, everyone is busy. I have 3? 4 now? languages I'm trying to study. I might do the thing with Danish that worked so well with French that I'm now doing it with Italian: read one paragraph a day and see what happens.
And I still want to write up the Duke of Parma monograph, especially as the Danish developments made me think of it and want to do a compare-and-contrast!
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Re: Danish kings and their favorites: Christian VII
Date: 2023-02-18 10:19 pm (UTC)It is SUCH a trainwreck! Even Struensee, who had good mental health, made some poor choices with his good intentions, and it's so very train-wrecky.
I don't know that I can commit to reading a whole book about it in Danish, though!
I was not expecting any such thing! That's why I was half-seriously trying to see if I could teach myself Danish based off of German. (Spoiler: it's both easier and harder than expected. Definitely not doable in one day, though!)
Though honestly, the majority of the monograph is probably of less interest. I don't care about Moltke's patronizing of the arts, or his leadership of the Asiatic Company, or his work as an estate owner. I really only care about his personal life. And that has me thinking maybe I should buy the book after all and Google translate just the relevant chapter(s), as I am doing with Holm's magnum opus on Danish history.
The biggest problem is that it wouldn't arrive until March, at which point there's a 90% chance I won't care enough to prioritize it. So thus far I have resisted the urge to buy a copy.
Hmm, I do have a Danish brother-in-law who is interested in history, but he also has two small kids, so I probably couldn't draft him into this...
So while I have 100% discovered that the way to learn history is to draft people (Selena, Felis, you, Prinzsorgenfrei) into reading the things you cannot read or sometimes even the things you don't want to read, I am not asking anyone to read a monograph on Moltke for me! If nothing else, a random stranger probably won't pick up on the parts that are of interest to salon specifically; we'd presumably be better off with Google translate.
But that is very interesting that you have a brother who likes history. What period(s) is he into, and would salon be of any interest to him even without being drafted into reading and writing up a specific book?
ETA: And I have received Mildred's list of Finnish sex machine sources! Will eventually report back...
We look forward to it! But no rush, everyone is busy. I have 3? 4 now? languages I'm trying to study. I might do the thing with Danish that worked so well with French that I'm now doing it with Italian: read one paragraph a day and see what happens.
And I still want to write up the Duke of Parma monograph, especially as the Danish developments made me think of it and want to do a compare-and-contrast!