allVishal.com - Books - Comments

If the urge to draw anything

Vishal — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:00:49 -0700

If the urge to draw anything arises from this, then by all means, please do. I look forward to it!

ITS SCIENCE! I like how

Spyder — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 14:54:55 -0700

ITS SCIENCE!

I like how alien these seem, especially out of context to their sciencie origins (6 is a good example). Good drawing-game material.

Book Collections

Vishal — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 01:41:48 -0700

So, what happened to all those books? Sold? Given Away? Stored in a bunker for after that spiffy apocalypse thing?

I think anyone with a love of the medium of books will end up with an eclectic collection. I have yet to come across a bibliomaniac with only paperback techno-thrillers, for instance, and even totally casual readers will have some kind of strange tome either inherited, received as a gift or even purchased on a strange whim.

One day I'd like to expand this little project to other people, sort of like this Time photo essay.

I know this week's book post is a little late. Sorry about that. It should be up by Monday.

Flashbacks

dan l-k — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 17:23:35 -0700

That pile of books looks like something I might have dug out of the attic at home ten or twenty years ago (DIY back-to-the-land construction book and all). But I suppose large stacks of yellowing paperbacks are likely to have certain universal qualities.

Aishwarya, I dunno what's up with my comments, save that HaloScan seems more reliable than my previous, now long-vanished, commenting system. (I was going through third-party commenting services before Blogger had a comment option and never adopted the house system.) If you're having trouble, feel free to send me an email and I can either look into the problem or post your comment myself.

Delhi Books

Vishal — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 23:49:21 -0700

Yes, but you can alway use the excuse that you have no books where you currently are to get more books. Look, this post only had seven -- surely have five to seven books you can photograph and talk about.

No, I would never dare to delve into the big bad world of Delhi books without an intrepid guide.

...Er, also on an unrelated note I just remembered someone (my mother?) telling me about cheap pre-internet porn booklets which were called 'Delhi Books'. True? False? And in Delhi, are they just called 'books'?

Re: Dan's Blog
I have had no problems commenting. Sometimes Haloscan does act up and doesn't even bring up the comment link at the end of posts (and its comment count on the blog page is always unreliable), but that usually sorts itself in a few hours.

Whine

Aishwarya — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:15:21 -0700

I want to take pictures of my books (and shelves) now, but they're mostly in another city. :(

You will not, I hope, DARE to bookshop in Delhi without me.

Also, am I the only person having trouble commenting on Dan's blog?

Thanks. It was a lot of fun

Vishal — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 23:30:30 -0700

Thanks. It was a lot of fun to put together. I have heard of the one in Delhi and I think I'll have to keep a day aside (not to mention an extra suitcase) just for that whenever I eventually end up there.

..awesome post....we have

rahul — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 21:14:36 -0700

..awesome post....we have this kind of market in delhi too near red fort..every sunday...I guess I will check it out :P

Busy? I wish!

Vishal — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 14:13:28 -0800

Not so much busy as lacking a good internet connection. I have plenty I would like to write, but for now I'm just jotting down quick notes in my diary for later.

Hmm, I do suppose I'm not spending as much time on the computer as well. But since most of the rest of the year is spent staring at a computer screen of some sort, I automatically stay away when on vacation!

Vishal, No time for updating

Ravi — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 21:50:18 -0800

Vishal,
No time for updating this blog, eh? Busy man, I see!
Ravi

Phantom Textile thingy

Vishal — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 20:21:00 -0700

Phantom Textile thingy strikes again! Must remember that asterisk marks create quotations, but only some of the time. Hurm.

World War 2 analogies? This

Vishal — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 20:20:00 -0700

World War 2 analogies? This I have to read. I suppose that even modern Indian language is over-the-top -- just try translating any Hindi film songs!

As people who come from a descendent of that culture it is easier for us to translate the intent and mood of the words -- to break them down into their essence from their more complex forms* -- but I would hate to be a Westerner muddling through them.

* Strangely this skill also comes in handy when watching subtitled Japanese Anime. The (usually) American translation is awkward at best, but if you watch enough you get a feel for the syntax of the spoken Japanese (it's a lot like Hindi) and using the subtitle as 50% and the spoken words as the other half you can get a much clearer idea of what is being said despite not knowing the lanugage.

The problem with the two

Aishwarya — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 04:44:00 -0700

The problem with the two Indian epics is that the original language itself is so over the top that the more accurate translations try to be, the more ridiculous they get. (The Van Buittenen translation has some priceless passages as a result.) Or there's the Rajagopalachari version which leaves all the naughty bits out and randomly inserts Wordl War II analogies for the benefit of the readers.

Believe it or not, the

Vishal — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 20:45:00 -0700

Believe it or not, the closest that the Mahabharata comes to modern, starightforward language is in the comic-book version by Amar Chitra Katha. While the dialogue is still mostly formal, the massive compression plus the ability to visually represent events gives it a ferocity that the other versions just don't have.

Re: "Shut up and get out of him!" -- damn, now if I was the son of God, that's all I'd need to say.

I've been eyeballing the

dan l-k — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 08:24:00 -0700

I've been eyeballing the Heaney Beowulf for a little while now. It's one of those "I want this but not as bad as the new Hellblazer trade" books.

Interestingly, the Bible has similar issues of translation. Everyone in the West has been so King Jamesed for so long that a really useful translation doesn't sound right. There are some useful correctives, of course, like the Jesus Seminar's plain-language work in The Complete Gospels, which is done to give an approximation of what the language would have sounded like to the people who wrote it; you get moments like Jesus performing the exorcism in (iirc) Mark, where he commands the demon to "Shut up and get out of him!"