[COMPLETE] Footsteps of Fate by Louis Couperus -ans

Solo or group recordings that are finished and fully available for listeners
eggs4ears
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Post by eggs4ears »

Hi Erin,

Thanks for the tip on -ij-, now I know why 'wijn' is Dudtch for 'wine'!

Just wanted to let you know that I am going to take a break on this for a week or so, as I have some academic work I have fallen behind with that I need to finish. All the recording is done, and I just need to get on with the editing. It's a bit of a silly book in some respects but also odd in interesting ways. Later on it also has the most graphically violent scene I have come across in a PD book - I may need to include a warning in the summary!
Newgatenovelist
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Post by Newgatenovelist »

Thanks for the heads up. Take your time. This book isn't going anywhere. I can wait to find out some of the oddities of this novel. And good luck with what you need to get done!
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eggs4ears
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Post by eggs4ears »

https://librivox.org/uploads/annise/fate_02_couperus_128kb.mp3 - 33:06

Section 2 Ready for PL! In this one, Westhove should usually be pronounced 'vest-over' as we said before, but Eva puts an English 'w' at the beginning. The first time she says his name, it says that he laughed at her English accent, so that is the best way I could think of representing that. I had to make a couple of edits to make it consistent, so I hope they sound okay. Fortunately, she'll soon be calling him Frank!
Newgatenovelist
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Post by Newgatenovelist »

Section 2 is PL OK. I've been having more problems getting to the site lately - I haven't been trying to ignore you! Also, my goodness but it's been signposted that things are going to go pear shaped, hasn't it?

This is the last thing for now I can think of for you to adjust your eyes and mouth to before a longer project - the part of the surname that in Dutch (and usually Flemish) looks sort of in-between on the printed page because it isn't capitalised. It's the 'van' in Vincent van Gogh, and from the preliminary list you sent me this will come up in Small Souls! It can be 'van', 'van de', 'van der', 'van 't' - I think they're the main ones. In American surnames where it's been anglicised it's often pronounced like the vehicle used for things like parcel deliveries, but the Dutch is a bit different. The first letter is a little bit like a cross between an English F and and an English V, and the vowel is more of an 'ah'. There are some examples below - I searched for 'van de', but if you want you can have a listen to some of the others that the broader search term threw up. I don't mind how you choose to pronounce it, but if it comes up a lot and/or you need to 'transplant' some of the accents to UK equivalents then it's something to be aware of before you start recording.

https://forvo.com/word/van/#nl
https://forvo.com/search/van%20de/

I think that's it for now. When you have a full character/place list we can hammer out more of the detail!
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eggs4ears
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Post by eggs4ears »

Ready for PL!

https://librivox.org/uploads/annise/fate_03_couperus_128kb.mp3 - 36.09

Thanks, again, for the tip - so there are three sounds where English has two - f, v, and w - and v is closer to f than w is, is that right?

The main challenge with this book is the narration. The narrator kind of gets into the heads of the characters and tells the story from their perspectives (I think there is a name for this, but I don't remember what it is), which is difficult because you need to suggest the characters without going so far as to use their voices. Plus, in those sections, there are a lot of fragmented sentences, and it is often not quite clear how they are meant to be read. I'm not sure if I've done a good job on this chapter or not, but it was a learning experience!
Newgatenovelist
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Post by Newgatenovelist »

Notes for section 3 are below.

Is the term you're thinking of free indirect speech, also called free indirect discourse? Jane Austen is pretty much the past master of it, if that's what you mean, but a lot of other authors have used it. It's a pig to come across for doing DR scripts (or solos!), because changing to the character's voice tends to disrupt the story rather than aid it...

Could I just check that you're not getting interference from German? Do *not* substitute W for V, as some native speakers of German do when speaking English (Victoria becomes Wictoria, etc.) when saying van, van den, van der. Is that perhaps why you're asking about the W? As for the F, yes, if you can watch yourself in a mirror the shape your lips will make is much more like an F than a W. Again, somewhere between a V and an F, inching ever so slightly more towards an F, is the most English-accessible and fastest pronunciation suggestion I can make. I really don't think you should lose sleep over this, but deciding on your preferred pronunciation in advance of recording will probably save time down the line. If you'd feel better about it you're welcome to send me a test file with some names or places you're not sure about recorded.



0.41-0.46, omission
...and did not feel himself born to endure poverty and [want. Still, he had known misery, the slavery of hired labour, to which he had bent his back with crafty] subservience; still, he had felt...

8.36-8.38, repetition
...for behind thought lurks impulse!—Fight? [Fight?] Against Fate, who forges...

24.10-24.16
And had he not experienced the same shudder as he [heard she] saw them sitting side by side on the sofa...
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eggs4ears
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Post by eggs4ears »

Section 3 Ready for spot PL. For the long ommission. I've re-recorded the couple of sentences around to smooth out the edges a bit.

I'll get to work on this, now. It's a long holiday weekend here.
eggs4ears
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Post by eggs4ears »

Newgatenovelist wrote: September 25th, 2021, 12:28 pm Is the term you're thinking of free indirect speech, also called free indirect discourse?
Yes, it is, and Couperus seems to have whole chapters of it! I guess the way to do it is to give a hint of the character's voice, but not go the whole way.
Newgatenovelist wrote: September 25th, 2021, 12:28 pm Could I just check that you're not getting interference from German? Do *not* substitute W for V, as some native speakers of German do when speaking English (Victoria becomes Wictoria, etc.) when saying van, van den, van der. Is that perhaps why you're asking about the W?
I am sure I am getting interference from German! What I am asking is which one is softer, V or W? In German, I think it would be V.
eggs4ears
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Post by eggs4ears »

https://librivox.org/uploads/annise/fate_04_couperus_128kb.mp3 - 41:49 - Ready for PL!

As I was editing this, I remembered that the word I was looking for was 'interior monologue' - there are a few long sections of it in this section from Eva and Bertie and I realise that I didn't adjust for it very much at all.
Newgatenovelist
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Post by Newgatenovelist »

eggs4ears wrote: October 1st, 2021, 10:20 pm Section 3 Ready for spot PL. For the long ommission. I've re-recorded the couple of sentences around to smooth out the edges a bit.
The first two changes for section 3 are fine, but I think perhaps with the last one something got edited at the wrong time stamp (maybe? or maybe an old bit of the recording just wasn't deleted?):

24.11-24.27, slip in editing/editing out of place
Had he not then felt, as though the black clouds were an omen of evil hanging over her head? [as he saw] And had he not experienced the same shudder as he saw them sitting side by side on the sofa, as if a noose were ready to cast round her neck?



If you had to go head to head, I'd say that the Dutch V probably sounds a bit softer than the Dutch W. The W tends to sound like an English V.

Willem and Wouter, both male names
https://forvo.com/search/willem/
https://forvo.com/search/wouter/
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eggs4ears
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Post by eggs4ears »

Yes, that was a bit messy! Let's try again...

https://librivox.org/uploads/annise/fate_03_couperus_128kb.mp3

I was correcting 'as she saw', so the extra 'as he saw' was copied from earlier in the recording. I'v deleted it and also improved the edit a bit.
Newgatenovelist wrote: October 4th, 2021, 8:51 am
The first two changes for section 3 are fine, but I think perhaps with the last one something got edited at the wrong time stamp (maybe? or maybe an old bit of the recording just wasn't deleted?):

24.11-24.27, slip in editing/editing out of place
Had he not then felt, as though the black clouds were an omen of evil hanging over her head? [as he saw] And had he not experienced the same shudder as he saw them sitting side by side on the sofa, as if a noose were ready to cast round her neck?
Newgatenovelist
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Post by Newgatenovelist »

Section 3 is spot PL OK! Notes for section 4 are below.

No worries about the editing, as long as it gets fixed in the end!


7.20-7.26
Much moved, she went up to him; she took [heard shook] his hand, and made him sit down by her side.

18.11, omission

...with a touch of foppery like an eighteenth-century marquis; [and he went away.]

She was left alone. Standing there, in the middle of the room, she closed her eyes...

20.50-20.54
...without the smallest perceptible cause, like a mangy hound.
https://www.lexico.com/definition/mangy

40.23-40.27
"Then it is so?" she moaned, clutching his [heard her] hands.
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eggs4ears
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Post by eggs4ears »

https://librivox.org/uploads/annise/fate_05_couperus_128kb.mp3 - 40.00

Section 5, ready for PL!

Thanks for the PL notes! That's a weird pronunciation of 'mangy' to me. It sounds Australian. I guess it rhymes with 'range', 'change', 'strange' etc, but it doesn't sound right at all to my northern ears :?
Newgatenovelist
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Post by Newgatenovelist »

Section 05 is PL OK.

Out of curiosity, how would you pronounce mange, the disease mangy refers to? I know English is inconsistent with retaining stress or vowel sounds between related words, but this one - at least to my mind! - kind of makes sense. Does it seem like it should shift, or would your instinct be to pronounce both mange and mangy as you recorded?

This has started a hare! I had a quick check, and Merriam-Webster says the (standard) US pronunciation is the same as the OED one. That would be an obvious US-UK difference, but it looks like that's not the case. I'm not sure why your northern ears are clashing with my demi-northern ears. Any ideas?
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mangy
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eggs4ears
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Post by eggs4ears »

Section 4 corrected and ready for spot PL! I've changed mangy because I don't really want non-standard pronunciations in this book.

For me, mange and mangy have the same sound. I can't say whether it is northern or not, but that is usually my first reaction when someone says I am pronouncing a word wrongly! :D I do pronounce a few words in the same way - another is wrath, which for me rhymes with math not moth.

But then here is someone quite posh who, to my ears, is saying mangy quite differently to the phonetic description on the same page - https://youglish.com/pronounce/mangy/english/uk
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