Hi, Swan! For the book ask: 7 and 10 :3
Hi!! :D and tysm for the ask! <3
7: What book do you love but usually not recommend because it’s weird or intense, etc?
Well, honestly, most medieval literature that I like XD esp Parzival, bc it's my favourite book, but also sagas. hm. idk. wouldn't usually recommend them [only in a joking way really]. and if i am fully honest with myself, part of the reason is me being pretentious about translations and going all "well if you can't read the original you won't get the same enjoyment out of it anyway". which is a bit of a shit reason I am aware, but then again, especially with Middle High German literature, the translations available are either 19th century translations with their very own issues that make me cringe, or modern translations for students that focus on translating as grammatically and lexically correctly as possible, so a lot of the beauty of the original text and language gets lost
[Old Norse is a different level, because the texts themselves are prose, so that for one makes it much easier to translate while staying close to the original, plus they are less... poetic? than the MHG texts, so there just is less of a loss. only a loss of ambiguity at times. but with Old Norse I am less pretentious about translations XD]
10: What is your favorite genre book to recommend to someone who doesn’t usually like that genre?
let's stay with medieval literature XD I'd say, IF you want to give it a try, get into it, you should start with something short, and something that is possibly a little fun to read. For Middle High German, I'd recommend Herzog Ernst [it's about a duke who is outlawed and then has lots of shenanigans in the mediterranean/africa/the middle east with his definitely-not-gay-for-each-other buddy Wetzel].
if you want to get into Old Norse saga literature [bc that's the genre I've been mostly into], I'd probably also tell you to start with something short, because [at least in my opinion] the long sagas that are considered classics like Njáls saga, Egils saga, Laxdæla saga etc, they can get somewhat dry and boring in between. plus sagas have a somewhat confusing style of narration. veeeery long genealogies at the beginning of every third chapter. far too many people with the same name so you run in danger of confusing them. [that post about sagas being like uncle colm from derry girls telling you a story. that's very accurate lmao] So if you don't want to be as confused, start with something shorter. Grænlendinga saga, perhaps [that one's not exactly fun, but it's rather short and an interesting read I'd say].
