After seeing that translation, I can see how the screen reader had such a tough time. At bottom, it seems idiomatic. It is coherent, but one probably wouldn't think to say it in English. I will say that some of my written pleasantries can take on a similar character. I am uncomfortable with the whole form. When I demand literal sense from our normal well wishes, I am unsatisfied, so I add one qualifier and then another. Soon I am left with something that sounds wooden and devoid of the effusiveness that is supposed to accompany personal regards.
I do wonder at the context likely to produce, "Please accept my regards to you this year as well." Specifically, about the "as well." It seems to imply that the card is in response to another, or that it's a renewal a bit along the lines of a yearly magazine subscription.
I related to the Endpaper idea. I am stingy about what I read. Given the necessity of only getting to the tip of the iceberg of literature, I feel I am bestowing a great honor on the authors I read. For writers, this reality must be depressing. How can they hope to be read, if there is a discriminating public? You might have something of the problem we have with a few people having most of the money, with the inequality that is so much discussed. And this is where diversity of taste, where quirkiness and whimsicality are very much needed. If we all just read a school curriculum, so to speak, even if the number of books was expanded many fold, we would kill off authors. But I try not to sacrifice quality, or at least the speciality of my experience, as a consequence of expanding my range.
Number three on the list was reading all books by a favorite author. Just as the progression in Endpaper suggests, I have relented on this some as I have read more. I had read maybe seven Dickens' novels and been enthralled by five or six. I disproportionately sampled his earlier works. I resolved to eventually get back to his whole oeuvre, reading them in order, but before I knew it, about eight years had gone by. I finally returned and did not have good experiences with Barnaby Rudge and Martin Chuzzlewit. Hedonist that I am, contrary to critical opinion, I think I like the satirical, earlier Dickens best. But those books mean so much to me, it's hard not to plow on with the whole oeuvre. And I wonder if one religious experience with a Dickens novel wouldn't be worth five restless ones? So I don't think I'm going to give up the plan.
I am also partial to being a completist because I hate relying on conventional opinions for the best or most worthwhile books of an author. It's antithetical to my creed of independent judgment. Truthfully, too, I dislike even reading reviews that give away too much of what a book is about, or what I am supposed to take from it, before I read it. When I do those kinds of forays, I like to do them enough in advance that I've forgotten them by the time I read the book. So it almost seems easier to just read everything by an author.
Another belief I have is that an author is in every book he or she writes. I don't know how you can like an author, and not like one of her books. Writing is personal. I don't know that authors and works can be divorced. So the idea of liking one book by an author and not another is in a way strange. Although I suppose we like some things about our friends and not others. Or like them at different times of our lives but not others. But if you don't like something I write, yes, I take it personally!
After seeing that translation, I can see how the screen reader had such a tough time. At bottom, it seems idiomatic. It is coherent, but one probably wouldn't think to say it in English. I will say that some of my written pleasantries can take on a similar character. I am uncomfortable with the whole form. When I demand literal sense from our normal well wishes, I am unsatisfied, so I add one qualifier and then another. Soon I am left with something that sounds wooden and devoid of the effusiveness that is supposed to accompany personal regards.
I do wonder at the context likely to produce, "Please accept my regards to you this year as well." Specifically, about the "as well." It seems to imply that the card is in response to another, or that it's a renewal a bit along the lines of a yearly magazine subscription.
I related to the Endpaper idea. I am stingy about what I read. Given the necessity of only getting to the tip of the iceberg of literature, I feel I am bestowing a great honor on the authors I read. For writers, this reality must be depressing. How can they hope to be read, if there is a discriminating public? You might have something of the problem we have with a few people having most of the money, with the inequality that is so much discussed. And this is where diversity of taste, where quirkiness and whimsicality are very much needed. If we all just read a school curriculum, so to speak, even if the number of books was expanded many fold, we would kill off authors. But I try not to sacrifice quality, or at least the speciality of my experience, as a consequence of expanding my range.
Number three on the list was reading all books by a favorite author. Just as the progression in Endpaper suggests, I have relented on this some as I have read more. I had read maybe seven Dickens' novels and been enthralled by five or six. I disproportionately sampled his earlier works. I resolved to eventually get back to his whole oeuvre, reading them in order, but before I knew it, about eight years had gone by. I finally returned and did not have good experiences with Barnaby Rudge and Martin Chuzzlewit. Hedonist that I am, contrary to critical opinion, I think I like the satirical, earlier Dickens best. But those books mean so much to me, it's hard not to plow on with the whole oeuvre. And I wonder if one religious experience with a Dickens novel wouldn't be worth five restless ones? So I don't think I'm going to give up the plan.
I am also partial to being a completist because I hate relying on conventional opinions for the best or most worthwhile books of an author. It's antithetical to my creed of independent judgment. Truthfully, too, I dislike even reading reviews that give away too much of what a book is about, or what I am supposed to take from it, before I read it. When I do those kinds of forays, I like to do them enough in advance that I've forgotten them by the time I read the book. So it almost seems easier to just read everything by an author.
Another belief I have is that an author is in every book he or she writes. I don't know how you can like an author, and not like one of her books. Writing is personal. I don't know that authors and works can be divorced. So the idea of liking one book by an author and not another is in a way strange. Although I suppose we like some things about our friends and not others. Or like them at different times of our lives but not others. But if you don't like something I write, yes, I take it personally!