Complete (SOLO) The Wild North Land, by Sir William Francis Butler-ag

msfry · Post by **msfry** » January 6th, 2022, 8:49 am

Thanks and no, you didn't give too much detail. I loved hearing your process, which differs from mine in that I don't make corrections along the way as it interferes with my "flow". I find it easy enough to cut out repeats during my first play-through edit. Then I add a third step of PL'ing against the text, where I find more mistakes. Adding words in later is my biggest challenge, as my voice quality changes throughout the day. I try to lay down enough track to begin with for a completed project. Doesn't always work, especially when I mis-pronounce a proper name all throughout the story. Arrrggg!

Trust me, I DON'T cite every little error, and almost all readers make plenty of those. My list is longer than STNDARD, but not WORD PERFECT by any means. I cite only things that I think stand out -- change meaning, miss the point, misdirect, mispronounce, leave out words, phrases, sentences, even paragraphs! I don't see how anyone can PL properly without following along with the text. Some appreciate it, others not so much. I hear the author up in heaven exclaiming "No, I didn't say that!" Ruth Golding once told me LV'ers have it easy because our authors are all dead. Living authors are much harder to please.

I will PL as I have time to devote to a whole chapter. It's a nice break and I am enjoying the tour of early Canada, the dogs, the natives, the fur trade, the rough life, all imbued with the indomitable human spirit. Your voice and style convey that well.

Steven Seitel · Post by **Steven Seitel** » January 6th, 2022, 6:27 pm

msfry wrote: ↑January 6th, 2022, 8:49 am I cite only things that I think stand out -- change meaning, miss the point, misdirect, mispronounce, leave out words, phrases, sentences, even paragraphs!

That sounds just right to me.

Chapter 26 -- Another long whine, mostly. But we're about to turn to final approach...

https://librivox.org/uploads/alg1001/wildnorthland_26_butler_128kb.mp3 (23:33)

Steve

Steven Seitel · Post by **Steven Seitel** » January 7th, 2022, 11:14 am

Okay, here's the last chapter. A long slog. It's somehow fitting that Cerf-vola, the Untiring, gets the greatest share of the credit...

Chapter 27
https://librivox.org/uploads/alg1001/wildnorthland_27_butler_128kb.mp3 (23:09)

Cheers,

Steve

msfry · Post by **msfry** » January 14th, 2022, 12:23 pm

13 and 14 are PL OK. Poetically so!

I'm just a bit disappointed that the "5-day-abandoned in the snow man" with no matches or firewood didn't share his survival secrets, and that his nasty companion didn't get hoisted up into a fir tree hanging upside down by his ankles and left as food for the bears. Grrrrrrr. In bitter cold, I'm afraid I'd become quite vindictive.

Steven Seitel · Post by **Steven Seitel** » January 14th, 2022, 4:38 pm

msfry wrote: ↑January 14th, 2022, 12:23 pm 13 and 14 are PL OK. Poetically so!

Thank you!

I'm just a bit disappointed that the "5-day-abandoned in the snow man" with no matches or firewood didn't share his survival secrets…

If I recall, his "secret" was to find a hot spring and curl up next to it. That works in Yellowstone, too. Bison and elk congregate at Mammoth every winter because the ground is warm.

…and that his nasty companion didn't get hoisted up into a fir tree hanging upside down by his ankles and left as food for the bears.

A just retribution in our eyes, to be sure, but consider the setting. There was then no legal mechanism (and in fact no effective law) to moderate impulsive behavior. No sheriff, no judge, no court system. Are you proposing vigilante action? If so, where will you find the vigilantes, given the "quarter of a person per square mile" population density? I suspect in such a situation, watching out for oneself is the only survival option. Five-day man was very, very lucky.

Also, fir trees don't have branches suitable for suspending a body. (I'm just hassling you now

)

Grrrrrrr. In bitter cold, I'm afraid I'd become quite vindictive.

…because you are a civilized lady

living in a firmly established and well-ordered society with accepted moral and legal standards. Not so in 1870 in the unexplored great north. Nor in parts of Montana until quite recently, come to think of it…

Steve

msfry · Post by **msfry** » January 21st, 2022, 9:51 pm

Section 15 is PL OK

I learned a few new words.
Debouch
emerge from a narrow or confined space into a wide, open area.
Now let me use it in a sentence.
I need to debouch myself from this cosy office chair and get out into the wide open yard.

shnay
Person who asks way too many questions in a short period of time.
Oh, that's me, for there are way too many things I want to know.

batture
the alluvial land between a river at low-water stage and a levee.
We have these along our levee, but didn't know its geographical name. Ours are often littered with plastic bottles and bags.
I can now write to our mayor and complain that we have unsightly battures along the Mississippi River at Baton Rouge! I will sound so smart.

PL Notes Section 16
7:05 dry meat and moose leather, you say dry moose and meat leather.
19:11 It is there, followed by a sentence. You read Is it there, followed by a question.

FYI, Here's a book about the Ojibbeway Indians that ought to be in the LV collection:
Description:
https://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Ojibbeway-Ioway-Indians-Vol/dp/1582184992
PD text sources:
https://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Ojibbeway-Ioway-Indians-Vol/dp/1582184992
https://archive.org/details/advojibbeway01catlrich

And I wish there was a footnote we could stick in somewhere that the Ojibbeway Indians are also called the Chippewas.

msfry · Post by **msfry** » January 22nd, 2022, 1:45 pm

PL Notes 18, such an engaging, picturesque chapter I hate to fuss, but these two seem to skew the picture:

23:36 down the river at its summer level, you say summit
26:37 nature reigns in loneliness and cloud. I hear lowliness.

msfry · Post by **msfry** » January 24th, 2022, 1:05 pm

19 and 20 are PL OK

Well, well, Sir William does wax poetical in these chapters, and you getting into it with him. Both wonderfully read, I think! I like this bit of truth in the struggle to describe vast expanses of nature:
"Alas, how futile is it to endeavour to describe such a view! Not more wooden are the ark animals of our childhood, than the words in which man would clothe the images of that higher nature which the Almighty has graven into the shapes of lonely mountains! Put down your wooden woods bit by bit; throw in colour here, a little shade there, touch it up with sky and cloud, cast about it that perfume of blossom or breeze, and in Heaven’s name what does it come to after all? Can the eye wander away, away, away until it is lost in blue distance as a lark is lost in blue heaven, but the sight still drinks the beauty of the landscape, though the source of the beauty be unseen, as the source of the music which falls from the azure depths of sky."

WOW!

msfry · Post by **msfry** » January 27th, 2022, 1:22 pm

21 and 22 are PL OK

msfry · Post by **msfry** » January 31st, 2022, 2:32 pm

PL Notes 23
What an exhausting trek! I think it wore you out, too, for I ran into 6 errors worth mentioning.
7:25 when suddenly there came upon the rope a fierce strain; all at once the canoe seemed to have the strength of half a dozen runaway horses. It spun us round, we threw all our strength against it, I hear fear strain, then strength aget it.
7:45 We had a second line fastened to the bow; you say trassened
15:51 and his paddle dipped a moment, you say battle
19:25 we would once again carry our baggage, you say we would at once carry our baggage
21:42 plosive, easily deleted.

msfry · Post by **msfry** » February 2nd, 2022, 2:18 pm

24 is PL OK

Steven Seitel · Post by **Steven Seitel** » February 2nd, 2022, 3:40 pm

Finally back from travel...

I hope I've got chapters 16, 18, and 23 patched properly now. Duration of 18 is now 26:48; duration of 23 is 21:16. Ready for Spot PL.

Good catches, Michele. Keep 'em coming. They make the book better.

Steve

msfry · Post by **msfry** » February 4th, 2022, 8:00 am

16 and 18 are PL OK

Do you have an explanation why 23 is 35 seconds shorter than the original file? If not, I suspect something has been inadvertently cut out because the edits you made are correct but not found at the times I cited, so any cut would most likely be before those.

Steven Seitel · Post by **Steven Seitel** » February 4th, 2022, 2:22 pm

msfry wrote: ↑February 4th, 2022, 8:00 am
Do you have an explanation why 23 is 35 seconds shorter than the original file?

I noticed that discrepancy, too. I may have been experimenting with tempo on that first mp3, trying not to sound so frantic.

I've just listened to the Audacity master file against the text and it's correct at 21:16 duration. I'll make a new mp3 and upload it "just in case."

Steve

msfry · Post by **msfry** » February 4th, 2022, 3:50 pm

Increasing tempo would also account for the time shift.
I've been told I read so fast it sounds like I "have to get the book done in a few minutes. Slow down."
I don't hear it that way myself until I listen back a few months or years later, then I sadly have to agree with the reviewer. So, nowadays, I just apply Tempo -2 to every finished file. I'm waiting for another reviewer to come along and say "Speed up."

I find your tempo on this project pretty much "just right".