czandra wrote: ↑March 28th, 2021, 6:00 am
This is a very interesting conversation. It could have been the author's self-censorship, or the translator's, or the publisher's. I even wondered whether Librivox might have its own considerations of language (and subject!), in deciding what it can include in its library. I found wolfi's comment about "shhshsh" revealing. My mother used to say "oh, sugar!" instead of "shit", which I found hilarious once I finally figured it out in my teens, because sugar doesn't even start with "sh" in writing! I found von Suttner's writing surprisingly forceful and candid in places. Would she have bitten her lip? I'm sure drandall will bring her own thing to it.
Cz
really?
we have several substitutions, like scheibenhonig instead of the sh word
scheibenhonig is something similar to sugar: pieces of honeycomb
we do have written down this rule about"never change or omit"
https://wiki.librivox.org/index.php?title=Recording_%26_Text_Policies#May_I_change_the_text.3F
(this rule is, why "we" have read vulgarities or racistic contents as is. in case you cannot read something, don't finish it, give it back and leave it to someone else.)
also, in our faq we have some additional rules regarding the tolerance of mistakes and our recording policies, which may interact here.
eg, we are accepting minor reading mistakes, don't accept to use copyrighted reading sources (have to ask back in cases of too many reading mistakes, where seemingly another reading source was being used), and so on.
these topics are not that easy to deal with, that's for sure.
but concentrating on our reader centric approach and our policy, that we try to finish as manyprojects as possible, want to read every book in the pd, working together as agreat and unique hobby site...
we are able to help each other, i feel.
and you are right, i was astonished, how directly she put it into words, that some ill/war fevered kings begin warfares... with reasons, disrespecting other mens lifes, under conditions, which do not respect the soldiers...
the book was a great sucess, also because of that.
it is really dependant on the contents, also.
while she would have used the word "damned" in one of the soldiers meetings as a pro war talk without hesitation, to show their way of thinking, and also being brainwashed..
or with some warlords, kings who declared war because their coffee was not hot enough,eg..
i really doubt, she would have joined into war propaganda after the first quarter of the book and i think she wouldn't describe the enemy soldiers like that.
she describes their corpses, eg.
in her thoughts, she condolences the wives of the dead in one section.
all in all, the first pages showed, that the mainfigure in this book was brainwashed in her adolescent years, too.
but she alters her thinking, early, and at the latest around her first marriage and giving birth to her son. talking about their sons prospective future as a soldier is really a game changer, if she needed one. and then, the father dies in a war.
...long talk enough of spolers and philosophy, it is up to drandall
(and you! many many thanks for your sections!)