The Story of the Little Mole

Like most people who have read the book, I find The Story of the Little Mole who knew it was None of his Business, by Werner Holzwarth and Wolf Erlbruch, utterly hilarious.

Yes, okay, it's a "poo book", and I know many librarians are totally over poo books, but this is a good one. A classic, you could say. And so very informative, in a scatological way. One could actually identify dung in the "wild" (if one lived on a farm in Europe) from reading this book.

Turns out the book is equally hilarious in German. I went looking for German children's books the other day to get some reading practise, and when I noticed this book was available I simply had to buy it.

Vom kleinen Maulwurf, der wissen wollte, wer ihm auf den Kopf gemacht hat is perfect for a reading activity at the "slightly past complete beginner" level. You can get the 'gist' without quite knowing all the words for an initial read through, and then you can go back over it with a dictionary to see if you guessed correctly, or pick up on the details you missed.

Details which are somehow worth knowing, even if they aren't. Who doesn't need the word Pferdapfel in their vocabulary?

Anyway, I found myself a tad confused. One of the other books I bought was a German translation of Guess How Much I Love You, by Sam McBratney and Anita Jeram (also really good for reading at a beginners German level), and it clearly mentioned on the verso that it was a translation. Vom Kleinen Maulwurf doesn't, which made me suspect it was originally written in German. I wanted to read the verso of the English version to see if I could find more information, but WE DON'T HAVE IT!

I am shocked. Absolutely and thoroughly shocked to find myself sitting in a library which does not have a copy of The Story of the Little Mole who knew it was None of his Business. Even more shocking - the other local libraries only had one copy between them, and that copy is missing. I must make sure we buy copies in multiple languages.

Anyway, I finally thought to google the original publisher of the book, and confirmed that the German version is, in fact, the original. However, at no point did any of the libraries I consulted (including the Libraries Australia public catalogue) mention that the English version was a translation. Neither did any of the bookshops I tried originally - although I did discover that there's an alternative English title: The Story of the Little Mole Who Went in Search of Whodunit - which is closer to the German title, but not as witty. No idea if it's the same translation or not, there's no mention of a translator. Or that it's a translation.

For some reason, Amazon.co.uk is trying to sell both versions of the book together. That must be disappointing to whoever wanted two different books.

Even the wikipedia entry neglected to mention that it was a German original. We'll have to fix that...

Anyway, I was a bit put out that I couldn't find this information in Trove, or in the first five libraries I clicked on. I would have thought the fact that a book was the English translation would be fairly basic information to put in a catalogue record. No doubt many of these libraries had it in the "full" record - but not in the one that was available to the general public. Every now and then I like to pretend I'm not a librarian and use the catalogue like a normal person. It's always interesting to note how much libraries like to keep their patrons in the dark.

The fifth library I tried actually included the words "English translation" in the record, but made no reference to the original version, or the translator. The sixth included the German title in the record, but didn't bother mentioning why. What is wrong with you people?

It shouldn't be this complicated to find out if an insanely popular children's book was originally written in German. Only Mr God knows why the libraries of Australia and booksellers of the greater English speaking world think such information is not worth mentioning.

Das habe ich nicht verstanden

The other morning I caught the last five or so minutes of a show called "Yo Gabba Gabba" whilst eating my breakfast.

I gotta say, that show is seriously weird. I can't help thinking I would have appreciated it better if I was stoned. I spent those last five minutes (and the next ten or so minutes afterwards) saying "What?" a lot.

Then, I had a strange repeat experience later in the day - only this time I was reading Widdowson's 1979 book on applied linguistics - specifically the chapter on authenticity in texts supplied to language learners. This is one of those works which are referred to by every man and his dog, so I thought I should read it. I couldn't understand it. Bits were making sense, the rest of it may as well have been recited by people dressed as robots and hopping on one foot.

I found myself saying "What?" a lot.

What is it with applied linguistic theorists? They say something perfectly reasonable, and then "explain it" by saying something that seems barely coherent. It's as though the spend all day studying how people communicate, and then decide to see just how much they can mess with it.

Murder Must Socialise

I maintain that, somewhere, out there, there exists a copy of a half-finished manuscript by Agatha Christie. In this manuscript, Miss Marple has been invited by the daughter of an old friend to a house party in a small English country town.

Very shortly after arriving, Miss Marple wanders into the library to discover a dead body lying on the floor - stabbed and strangled! She replies in a way entirely natural and expected under the given circumstances:

"Oh, crap! Not another one!"

If I was one of those "amateur detective" characters that keep stumbling across murderers and dead bodies in book after book, I'd start getting a complex. I wouldn't accept invitations to parties, after a while.

Bulletproof tights

This is something worth listening to, if you have the time:

http://www.rte.ie/podcasts/2010/pc/pod-v-080410-28m14s-tts.mp3

'Tis a programme from an Irish radio station (weblike) discussing the image of librarians and the stereotypes a lot of people just can't let go.