Just finished the epic Don Quixote, the Edith Grossman translation. Very entertaining and readable and often described as the first “modern” novel. After a month of being immersed in tales of knights errant I will miss the company of The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha and his faithful squire Sancho Panza.

#DonQuixote #SanchoPanza #classicliterature #literature #books #MigueldeCervantes #EdithGrossman #chivalry #knightserrant

„Sie ist ein Ungeheuer, deine Tochter“– bildstarke „Salome“ in Wuppertal
Ursula Hartlapp-Lindemeyer
[caption id="attachment_29894" align="alignleft" width="300"] Oper Wuppertal/SALOME/Foto: Bettina Stöß[/caption]

Mit seiner Oper „Salome“ nach dem Theaterstück von Oscar Wilde etablierte sich der 37-jährige Richard Strauss 1905 als führender Opernkomponist seiner Zeit. Basierend auf einem biblischen Stoff schildert „Salome“ die Obsession einer verwöhnten Prinzessin, die ihre Attraktivität als junge Frau einsetzt, um das zu bekommen, was sie nicht haben kann – den Kopf des Jochanaan, des Propheten, der ihre Mutter Herodias als Ehebrecherin und Nymphomanin schmäht und als einziger Mann ihren jugendlichen Reizen widersteht. GMD Patrick Hahn erzeugt mit dem Sinfonieorchester Wuppertal und einem hochkarätigen Ensemble einen enormen Spannungsbogen, der erst mit dem Ausruf des Herodes: „Man töte dieses Weib“ endet. Man erlebt die Geschichte von zwei starken Frauen: Salome und Herodias, denen der charismatische Prophet Jochanaan zum Opfer fällt. (Rezension der Vorstellung v. 7. Februar 2025) […]

https://opernmagazin.de/sie-ist-ein-ungeheuer-deine-tochter-bildstarke-salome-in-wuppertal/

Over the weekend I finished the first part (book) of Cervantes' Don Quixote with the Edith Grossman translation. Beyond being an enjoyable read, it's much more an illumination of the human condition than I expected. It's more than a tale about Don Quixote, it's also the tales of the lives and times of the people that he meets.

It is of us, today, written 400 years ago. There are tales of love, betrayal, jealousy, greed, cruelty, stupidity, hypocrisy, and naturally, for the time, the idealized religious views of woman, men, and marriage. It is us, looking in a mirror.

The basic premise is the story of a man driven mad by his delusions of knights and chivalry through his reading of such books and believing that what he's read are in fact true stories, "otherwise, why would they have been allowed to be published?", he asks the unbelievers he meets. Sound familiar?

I'm looking forward to starting the second part tonight.

#Books #Literature #Reading #Cervantes #DonQuixote #EdithGrossman

Wonderfully written #Obituary on translator Edith Grossman, 1936-2023

“Gabriel García Márquez’s previous work had been translated by the brilliant Gregory Rabassa; but in the mid-1980s, Grossman was offered the job of recreating his latest. This translation was Love in the Time of Cholera (1988), and #Grossman would remain #GarcíaMárquez’s translator till his death 26 years later.

#donquixote #EdithGrossman
@FinancialTimes
https://www.ft.com/content/ca347c84-2f00-4ba1-a2da-e8a63bbf4e7e