#i'm still doing better on a character-recognition basis than 90% of the actual characters in the novel

[coquelicoq]

i love it when dumas describes what someone's wearing because though i only recognize about half the nouns, it doesn't matter. the syntax is very formulaic and though the sentences are long, it's mostly just lists rather than a bunch of nested subordinate clauses, so i can easily follow it. and the takeaway is always "this person has clothes on. probably the specific clothes they're wearing says something about their place in society and/or their personality, but you don't know enough about fashion in france in the year 1833 anyway to pick up on that, so don't worry about it."

#i also love it when i do decide to look up an item of clothing and the translation is just the same word #helpful! lol #maybe the reason i only recognize half the nouns has nothing to do with my french knowledge #maybe i'm just fashion-illiterate #fashion #french #the important thing is i can recognize the words even if i don't know what they mean #so if he uses them later i can be like 'oh we're talking about the same person from before' #which is important in a book where the main character is theoretically in disguise for much of it #and there are very other characters undertaking various other schemes #so even though i don't speak french and can't actually see what any of these people are wearing #i'm still doing better on a character-recognition basis than 90% of the actual characters in the novel