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I love Woolf and Nabokov but Orlando is kind of a mess and I find King, Queen, Knave dreary. I have no memory of even hearing of that Sassoon book, which is a bit of a surprise.
Probably going with Lady Chatterley here.
― feels about eels (Ye Mad Puffin), Sunday, 27 December 2020 20:06 (three years ago) link
Is "con" a pun on "conte" in the French title?
Hmm, I don't think so. If so, it's exceedingly subtle.
Tbc 'con' in the anatomical sense was a bit dated by 1928 and hence less coarse than it sounds in English. If anything, it harks back to the 18th century libertine novels (those of Sade included) that the Surrealists and other modernist French writers were reviving/self-consciously imitating at the time. Beyond that, a 'con' can also refer to a dumb person (almost always masculine, sometimes neutral) and it's somewhat closer yet not reducible to the UK/Irish/Australian usage of 'cunt', e.g. you can say 'j'suis con' in the sense of 'I'm an idiot' after you've done something stupid. As far as the explicitly gendered, NA version of 'cunt' goes, a semi-equivalent would be 'conne' (the feminine of 'con'), except it's still not quite as aggressive, if only because modern French has fewer hangups about vulgar language than NA English, likely for historical reasons, many of which have to do with the place of religion in the US vs. France. Lastly, it's worth pointing out that, much like 'vagin', 'con' is masculine even when it refers to an ostensibly female bodily part (take that, Cratylus; see also: 'la bite'). So while Irene's Cunt is a perfectly fine translation, it's way more strident than the original.
Anyway, if we're including Le con d'Irène, a récit, surely Bataille's Histoire de l'œil should have been a contender as well.
― pomenitul, Sunday, 27 December 2020 22:37 (three years ago) link
Having spent a lot of time writing his name in these polls, I only recently clocked that Compton Mackenzie wrote "Whiskey Galore"!
Gay Neck, The Story of a Pigeon is a good enough title to win any poll.
The first notable Indian-American author it seems!
― Daniel_Rf, Monday, 28 December 2020 10:52 (three years ago) link
Decline and Fall is a novel I might have gone for (instead of Quartet, say). Haven't read the Tanizaki or Schnitzler, or at least I don't think so. Must remedy.
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 31 December 2020 14:58 (three years ago) link