Tuesday 13 November 2012

ERASMUS TIMES: I read a book.

Note the Milka wrapper in the backround.
One of a number of fallen comrades.
So, in an attempt to enhance my German learnings, I decided to try and read a book entirely in German. You'd think that after 8 years of learning German, this kind of an activity would be a regular part of my routine. Well it wasn't. And just because I've read one book in German, doesn't mean I can say that it is. I'd want to be doing it fair regular if it was to be a routine.

 The book I chose to read? 'Nick and Norah: Soundtrack einer Nacht' by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan. And before you ask, yes that is a translation of 'Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist'. I wasn't going to start with 'Vor dem Gesetz,' now was I? And before you tell me that it was written for teenage girls, I already know. There was a general consensus of 'is that all it is?' from anyone I told I was reading it, but I never claimed to be any kind of literary sophisticate.

 It was a pretty enjoyable read, from what I understood and in my defence that was about 80% of it. I'll own up now and admit that I have seen the film version starring Michael Cera and Kat Dennings, but the plot of the book and the plot of the film differ quite a bit. For those who don't know, 'Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist' tells the story of two young'uns who are both emerging from weird relationships. Nick had recently been dumped by his girlfriend Tris and Norah is in the midst of an on/off relationship with Tal. In an attempt to win an argument, Norah asks Nick to be her 5 minute boyfriend and following from this encounter, the two spend the evening together. That's about the bones of the plot, if I'm not to give too much away.

 As you will have observed above, the novel was co-authored. What Cohn and Levithan did was split the narrative: Cohn did every second chapter, writing from the perspective of Norah and Levithan did the remaining chapters, writing from the perspective of Nick. This was the element of the novel I liked best. It was quite sweet that there was an increasing overlap of shared ideas and feelings between the two characters as the novel progressed. I thought the translation was pretty solid too. References were made through English in parts, to retain the youth-culture-centric core of the novel. I think it was worthwhile reading, because there was a more youthful, casual register of German used in the narrative.

 So all in all, 'Nick and Norah: Soundtrack einer Nacht' was a pretty enjoyable read and a suitable first assay into reading German-language literature. I highly recommend. Now it's just a case of deciding what to read next, which is likely to be more in the vein of young adult fiction. If I come out of this without developing a Peter Pan Complex, I'll be doing well.

Soundtrack der Woche (yes, I did steal this general idea from the title of the book):
In keeping with the literary theme and simultaneously professing my love for Kate Bush, my song for the week is 'Wuthering Heights'. 'Cos I'm cool like that.

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