More than you deserve?
I just thought I'd blog something before I do some more revision. It would certainly be easier were it not for the books I have to read. Especially when they are not in English.
Like Jean Froissart and the Fabric of history, for example. Whenever the author quotes anything from Froissart, or French historians, it's in French. So about half the book is in French. And the bits that are in English aren't that helpful, because to support his points, and give relevant examples I could use in the exam, Ainsworth uses quotations from Froissart - in French, so you can't understand them! It reminds me of Mark Steel in Vive la Revolution, when he is talking about an author with a similar knack of having half the book in French:
Paris and its Provinces...by Richard Cobb gets interesting and then goes into several pages of French. And it keeps doing this. Presumably he must have sat in his publisher's office and insisted, "If people can't be bothered to become fluent in a foreign language to read my book, they don't deserve to know about Paris and its provinces".
Back to the grindstone...
-posted by Roy
