New possibilities emerge

[resonant]

I just ran across a quote from Gaudy Night, and it was an entirely different experience when I could pop into Google Translate for help with the French and the Latin, and then do a search to track down the origin of the phrase "shabby tigers." When I read Gaudy Night, the internet with its wealth of translation and information resources didn't *exist.*

Possibly it's time to reread the Harriet Vane books.

Comments

[petra]

Gosh, it hadn't occurred to me that it's now possible to know what the heck is going on at all points in those books. *contemplates a reread*

[ellen_fremedon]

What is the origin of the shabby tigers?

[resonant]

The poem "The Bells of Heaven" by Ralph Hodgson.

'Twould ring the bells of Heaven
The wildest peal for years,
If Parson lost his senses
And people came to theirs,
And he and they together
Knelt down with angry prayers
For tamed and shabby tigers
And dancing dogs and bears,
And wretched, blind pit ponies,
And little hunted hares.

[ellen_fremedon]

And, yeah, rereading Les Miserables with the ability to google everything was a completely different experience than encountering "The Year 1817" in 1991 with only the contents of my very small town and school libraries to turn to. (And almost nothing more helpful in either of them than an encyclopedia--my school didn't even offer French.)

[ellen_fremedon]

Huh. It fits, but it's not quite what I was expecting.

[resonant]

Those two characters are so literate, and it definitely came across that they understood each other's allusions, but that doesn't mean I understood them myself!

[resonant]

It's - I mean, I understood what they were saying well enough from context. I understood it well enough that I remembered it all these years. But you're right, it's not what you would expect.

[resonant]

I had the same experience with Stranger In a Strange Land - all those Rodin sculptures! where was Wikipedia when I needed it? - but I'm not at all moved to reread *that.*

[aninconvenientruth]

I reread all the Wimseys not long after getting regular access to the internet. I had *so many* notes! I did think I should turn them into a sort of 'annotated Wimsey' book/website. I wonder if I've still got the notebook somewhere...

[mific]

I love, with ebooks, being able to highlight a word or phrase and hit "lookup" and if the built-in kindle app resource doesn't know it, hitting the internet option and searching for it, with the "return to kindle" link always right there. Magic!

[princessofgeeks]

\o/

IMHO a Harriet reread is always in order.

[resonant]

We have an annotated version of A Christmas Carol, but it requires less annotation. Though the further into the past a story goes, the more help you need understanding money and getting what's implied by descriptions of clothes and furniture.

[resonant]

I haven't even used that feature! I sort of knew it was there but not everything it would do.

[resonant]

The library doesn’t have them! Not in any format! I had to request a purchase.

[princessofgeeks]

Unacceptable! Argh!