Дуглас Адамс опять :)
Sep. 15th, 2005 09:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kibirov"It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see ..."
"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"
"No," said Ford,[...] "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did," said Ford. "It is."
"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in."
----
Эх, осталось сто страниц, точней, сто телефонных экранов, и что я потом буду читать - ума не приложу...
"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"
"No," said Ford,[...] "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did," said Ford. "It is."
"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in."
----
Эх, осталось сто страниц, точней, сто телефонных экранов, и что я потом буду читать - ума не приложу...
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Date: 2005-09-15 05:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-15 06:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-15 06:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-15 06:38 am (UTC)That's from the fourth book about Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I read them with the help of my cell phone, I told you. Just found this dialog while going to office by bus. Situation with those lizards looks terribly familiar, yes? In any country, I think.
Alas, it is one of the last pages of the last "Hitchhiker's" book which I had not read yet, and so I am depressed a little: what will I read in a bus tomorrow?.. Books by Douglas Adams were so good choice :)
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Date: 2005-09-15 06:51 am (UTC)Well, what kind of books do you like? Maybe I can recommend something, granted it is in ebook format somewhere...
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Date: 2005-09-15 07:13 am (UTC)But, of course, I will be grateful for any your recommendations. I think, the only restriction is the simplicity of language. For example, I would like to read Nabokov's last books, but it definitely will be too difficult for me...
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Date: 2005-09-15 11:09 am (UTC)1984 by George Orwell is also a classic, again, never read it myself, sorry, so can't say for sure. I have heard mixed reviews, some hate it, some love it.
And while you could have done this yourself, lol, I found this link of some ranked Sci-fi classics. http://classics.jameswallaceharris.com/Lists/ByRank.php
OR
http://classics.jameswallaceharris.com/Lists/OtherLists.html
By the way, somewhat unrelated, because this book probably would not make good cell phone reading, but a semi-classic, in my opinion, is Lois Lowry's The Giver. Now this is for young adults, BUT it was the first novel I read that made me stop and think and analyze. It was full of meaning, which I think you might enjoy.
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Date: 2005-09-16 06:18 am (UTC)"Dune" by Frank Herbert was stronly recommended to me by some friends, but I had not read it even in Russian, I don't know why...
And thank you for these links, they reminded me a lot of authors and books I would like to read or re-read in English... But the question is - can I find any of these books as a file? If yes - how can I do that?
For example, we have a large online library www.lib.ru - lots of books in Russian... Classical literature, modern literature (only by author's permission), foreign - in translations, so on. Do you have some similar web-resources?
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Date: 2005-09-16 07:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-16 07:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-16 08:29 am (UTC)I found Hitchhiker's Guide several years ago at www.lib.ru, but now those links are dead: lib.ru has deleted lots of English texts recently - because of some copyright problems, I think.
Well, anyway, that's not so urgent: I forgot that I have some files with Kurt Vonnegut's books :) But if you find some English online recources similar with lib.ru - please tell me, it would be very interesting :)
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Date: 2005-09-16 08:08 am (UTC)http://www.hourwolf.com/sfbooks/
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Date: 2005-09-16 08:38 am (UTC)So many links!!! :)
Thank you very much, very interesting and useful collection, that's what I tried to find for so long time :)
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Date: 2005-09-16 09:02 am (UTC)http://www.literature.org
Not a huge archive, but very useful, I think... Thank you again :)
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Date: 2005-09-16 02:05 pm (UTC)http://www.voidspace.org.uk/library/classic_scifi.shtml
Herbert, Bester, Zelazny... and even "Hitchhiker's Guide" ;)
To collect all the links in one place
Date: 2005-09-16 03:11 pm (UTC)http://www.voidspace.org.uk/library/index.shtml
Lots of pdf books, mostly technical, but not only:
http://ebook.irdesigner.com/index.php?cat=1
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Date: 2005-09-22 08:23 am (UTC)And, well, I finally found the book I want to read in English RIGHT NOW :) It is "A Scanner Darkly" by Philip K. Dick, it was one of my favourite novels since the middle of 90-s when I read the translation in our literary magazine "Yunost'". Very strange and surreal (even for P.K.Dick!) novel about drug dependence, and very close to real life at the same time: I know a lot of similar people and stories, alas. I can give you the link if you need - I found it due to this your comment, so thank you very much again :)
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Date: 2005-09-15 07:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-15 12:06 pm (UTC)По крайней мере те 5 книг про Путеводитель по Галактике, которые я читал...
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Date: 2005-09-15 05:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-15 06:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-16 05:56 am (UTC)Дошли файлы?
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Date: 2005-09-16 07:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-16 04:35 pm (UTC)Две книги есть.
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Date: 2005-09-19 05:15 am (UTC)Обязательно почитаю :)