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kareinaToday I listened to 05:05:55 of the audio book, which leaves me ready to continue from the second to bottom paragraph on page 139 of Gösta Berling's saga. I am not certain I will ever *like* audio books (growing up with a hearing problem means that I *want* to see the speaker and read their lips), I think that it is totally worth doing this in terms of my actually learning how the sounds of Swedish relate to the printed words...
However, I am not certain I will ever get used to the fact that the two letter word "De" is pronounced as though it contained all three of these letters: "Dom"
I am finding this story a bit weird. The past few chapters have involved the plight of a young girl--a beautiful spoiled daughter of a rich man. She is one of the actors in a "Tableau" at a party--a balcony scene wherein a handsome man is wooing her. After the scene ends she, caught up the moment, actually kisses the man. Later in the evening the young man is gambling with her father (and other people), and winning, and dad runs out of things to bet. Someone suggests he put his daughter's hand in marriage up for offer, and dad counters "if you can talk her into it", and the handsome young man (Gösta Berling, the hero of our story), wins that round too. Still later in the evening (ok, morning at this point) there are a few dedicated dancers still going strong, and our hero and the beautiful girl are enjoying a dance. Some busy body tells dad that he shouldn't have gambled away his daughter, didn't dad know she had kissed Gösta? Dad flies into a rage, grabs mom, and they ride away on the sled. Not too long later daughter comes out to find parents gone, so she walks home, through the snow, wearing her dancing shoes and party clothes.
When she comes home the house is locked up tight, and no one answers her knocks on the door. The longer she pounds on the door, the more upset (and cold!) she is getting. Rather than doing the sensible thing and breaking into the house (which would have been easily done, I think) she screams and begs to be let in. Finally her mother comes towards the door, explaining that dad has forbidden everyone to let daughter in. But before she can open the door anyway, Dad arrives, pulls mom away from the door, and hits her. Girl, hearing her dad beating her mother, takes off her shawl and lays down in the snow drift before the door in despair, hoping that she will quickly freeze to death and that her dad will be the one to find her body in the morning, and her tears freeze to her face as the chapter closes.
Then Gösta and the other men of his group come riding past, see the girl in the snow drift, discover that she is alive, and take her away with them. Gösta decides that since her dad has both lost her to him at the gambling table, and cast her out to die in the snow that she is rightfully his now.
Then there is an interlude chapter wherein there is a bear that Gösta refuses to shoot, though it walks right up to him while he is holding his rifle, and some other man decides that the bear is of the sort that can only be killed with a silver bullet, so he steals some silver he sees the priest hiding and goes off in search of the bear. However, by the time he finds the bear it is already dead, and he is most disappointed that he didn't get to do the deed with a silver bullet.
Then we find out that the girl survived, but has been sick for a month and has forbidden the person caring for her to let anyone know that she is sick. During this time Gösta and his buddies aren't permitted to see her, either. Then we flash to her father's house, where dad, still in a rage, is holding a grand auction to sell off everything in the house that reminds him of his daughter, since she has run away and not come home or sent word all month. Gösta finds the girl's mother locked in the pantry so she won't interfere with the auction and lets her out and tells her that her daughter has been very sick, but is finally recovering. She insists that he go tell dad, who doesn't respond well, but then dad finds out who is buying most of his stuff (the local priest), and he gets upset and calls off the auction and chases out the 100+ people who have been there buying stuff. Then he collapses on a mattress and sleeps till the next day.
The next day he wakes up cheerful, orders his wife to return the house to its normal order (she, of course, agrees to do it straight away), loads the sled with good furs and heads off to fetch his daughter home. He arrives at the house where his daughter has been cared for, and tells the first guy he sees to go in and tell his daughter to come out, daddy is here, with a sleigh full of furs to take her home (and keep her warm on the drive). He then settles down to wait in the sunlight for her to come out, fully expecting that it will take a while before that happens--women are known to take a long time to get ready to go.
This is where I paused the book today, grateful that my dad wasn't mad like hers is, and grateful that I do not live in a time when women are property and men are the only ones with any rights.
However, I am not certain I will ever get used to the fact that the two letter word "De" is pronounced as though it contained all three of these letters: "Dom"
I am finding this story a bit weird. The past few chapters have involved the plight of a young girl--a beautiful spoiled daughter of a rich man. She is one of the actors in a "Tableau" at a party--a balcony scene wherein a handsome man is wooing her. After the scene ends she, caught up the moment, actually kisses the man. Later in the evening the young man is gambling with her father (and other people), and winning, and dad runs out of things to bet. Someone suggests he put his daughter's hand in marriage up for offer, and dad counters "if you can talk her into it", and the handsome young man (Gösta Berling, the hero of our story), wins that round too. Still later in the evening (ok, morning at this point) there are a few dedicated dancers still going strong, and our hero and the beautiful girl are enjoying a dance. Some busy body tells dad that he shouldn't have gambled away his daughter, didn't dad know she had kissed Gösta? Dad flies into a rage, grabs mom, and they ride away on the sled. Not too long later daughter comes out to find parents gone, so she walks home, through the snow, wearing her dancing shoes and party clothes.
When she comes home the house is locked up tight, and no one answers her knocks on the door. The longer she pounds on the door, the more upset (and cold!) she is getting. Rather than doing the sensible thing and breaking into the house (which would have been easily done, I think) she screams and begs to be let in. Finally her mother comes towards the door, explaining that dad has forbidden everyone to let daughter in. But before she can open the door anyway, Dad arrives, pulls mom away from the door, and hits her. Girl, hearing her dad beating her mother, takes off her shawl and lays down in the snow drift before the door in despair, hoping that she will quickly freeze to death and that her dad will be the one to find her body in the morning, and her tears freeze to her face as the chapter closes.
Then Gösta and the other men of his group come riding past, see the girl in the snow drift, discover that she is alive, and take her away with them. Gösta decides that since her dad has both lost her to him at the gambling table, and cast her out to die in the snow that she is rightfully his now.
Then there is an interlude chapter wherein there is a bear that Gösta refuses to shoot, though it walks right up to him while he is holding his rifle, and some other man decides that the bear is of the sort that can only be killed with a silver bullet, so he steals some silver he sees the priest hiding and goes off in search of the bear. However, by the time he finds the bear it is already dead, and he is most disappointed that he didn't get to do the deed with a silver bullet.
Then we find out that the girl survived, but has been sick for a month and has forbidden the person caring for her to let anyone know that she is sick. During this time Gösta and his buddies aren't permitted to see her, either. Then we flash to her father's house, where dad, still in a rage, is holding a grand auction to sell off everything in the house that reminds him of his daughter, since she has run away and not come home or sent word all month. Gösta finds the girl's mother locked in the pantry so she won't interfere with the auction and lets her out and tells her that her daughter has been very sick, but is finally recovering. She insists that he go tell dad, who doesn't respond well, but then dad finds out who is buying most of his stuff (the local priest), and he gets upset and calls off the auction and chases out the 100+ people who have been there buying stuff. Then he collapses on a mattress and sleeps till the next day.
The next day he wakes up cheerful, orders his wife to return the house to its normal order (she, of course, agrees to do it straight away), loads the sled with good furs and heads off to fetch his daughter home. He arrives at the house where his daughter has been cared for, and tells the first guy he sees to go in and tell his daughter to come out, daddy is here, with a sleigh full of furs to take her home (and keep her warm on the drive). He then settles down to wait in the sunlight for her to come out, fully expecting that it will take a while before that happens--women are known to take a long time to get ready to go.
This is where I paused the book today, grateful that my dad wasn't mad like hers is, and grateful that I do not live in a time when women are property and men are the only ones with any rights.
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