I always wondered how J. R. Ward’s Black-Dagger-Brotherhood novels would translate into other languages, mostly because of its use of slang. But my curiosity wasn’t enough to make me pay for a novel I already had, much less buy two books to get it complete.
You read that right. Each of Ward’s BDB books is published in two parts in Germany, meaning you have to buy two books to get one complete novel (it’s published by Heyne). In terms of money: paying nearly 16 Euro for two German books compared to around or even less than 5 Euro (online shops) for one English book.
(rant on -/-
This is nothing new. They do this rip-off for quite some time now, mostly with fantasy novels. I think Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series has more than 30 books in German. Also: series on DVD. We need to buy two boxes to get one season complete. And: the first season is always sold in one box (~ 50 Euro), while all the subsequent seasons come out in two boxes, season 2.1 and season 2.2 (~ 40 Euro each) and so on. But the best give-away: series that don’t do well on TV here mostly come out in one box, regardless of the season number.
I don’t like; I don’t buy.
rant off -/- Is it the same in other countries?)
But when I saw the first part of the German edition of Lover Eternal on sale for 3,50 Euro (as opposed to 7,95 Euro) I couldn’t resist: Lover Eternal is my favorite (I wouldn’t have bought one of the others, I think).
Here’s the German cover for the first part of Lover Eternal:
Its title, “Ewige Liebe,” translates to “eternal love.” The book ends with chapter 24 at 267 pages. It’s when Mary phones Bella to ask her if she is also a vampire and to let Bella know where Mary is staying. The chapter ends with the sentence: “Maybe your home is now with Rhage” (Bella is thinking that). This is a new sentence; it’s not there in my English copy of Lover Eternal. But it gives the German version the needed sense of closure, I think.
Overall, it was a interesting experience to read Lover Eternal in German. The translation didn’t use what I see as the German equivalent of all the slang in the English BDB books (thank you), making it a very smooth read. But how embarrassing is it that I sometimes thought the translation isn’t what I remembered from reading it in English and when I checked, it turned out I was right? That’s not to say it was a wrong translation just that the German translation carried connotations not there in the English version which made me check the English version. These connotations also made me look at some things differently in the German version. Or maybe I just didn’t pick up on them in English.
One example:
Rhage phones Bella to ask after Mary’s address. At one point during their phone talk Bella thinks, “He was coming after her [Mary] for one and only one reason: to release all that sex in his body. Release it into her” (75). This didn’t struck me as especially crude; I thought it mostly showed how much Rhage wanted Mary (as I said, I probably don’t pick up on all the connotations). The German translation of that sentence suggests a more indiscriminate intend on Rhages side and uses a rather crude word for that. Translated back it would be something like: “He was coming after her for one reason only: to get rid of his glaringly obvious ‘sperm jam’ from which he suffered” (105). “Sperm jam” is a literal translation of the word that makes this sentence in the German translation rather crude. It means “too much sperm accumulated” and is (mostly) used for someone who is very horny and just wants to relieve himself. Also: the last sentence, “release it into her” is not really there in the German translation.
So that’s my lengthy explanation of why I thought it interesting to read Lover Eternal in German and why it put a slightly different slant on some things. It might even be that I wouldn’t like this novel in the German version as much as in the English version. The power of words! And if it’s just because I didn’t pick up on these connotations while reading Lover Eternal in English, then I’m glad about that.
Here’s the cover for the second part of the German edition of Lover Eternal to give you a complete picture:
The title, “Bruderkrieg,” means “war of brothers.”
The covers for the whole series are done in this way and (as far as I know) they all get the same back blurb which emphasizes the war of the vampires (bats on the cover for that) against the Lessers. (A more specific blurb is inside each book).
But I’m not going to get this second part – Lover Eternal being my favorite or not.
Re-Read Challenge: “Lover Eternal” By J. R. Ward
28 FebInfo:Re-Read Challenge 2009
This month:Re-Read Challenge: February!
GENRE: Romance / Paranormal
PUBLISHED: Signet, 2006
SERIES: “Black Dagger Brotherhood” series, #2
AVAILABILITY: still available
The back blurb:
“In the shadows of the night in Caldwell, New York, there’s a deadly turf war raging between vampires and their slayers. There exists a secret band of brothers like no other – six vampire warriors, defenders of their race. Possessed by a deadly beast, Rhage is the most dangerous of the Black Dagger Brotherhood.
Within the Brotherhood, Rhage is the vampire with the strongest appetites. He’s the best fighter, the quickest to act on his impulses, and the most voracious lover – for inside him burns a ferocious curse cast by the Scribe Virgin. Owned by his dark side, Rhage fears the times when his inner dragon is unleashed, making him a danger to everyone around him.
Mary Luce, a survivor of many hardships, is unwittingly thrown into the vampire world and reliant on Rhage’s protection. With a life-threatening curse of her own, Mary is not looking for love. She lost her faith in miracles years ago. But when Rhage’s intense animal attraction turns into something more emotional, he knows that he must make Mary his alone. And while their enemies close in, Mary fights desperately to gain life eternal with the one she loves …”
Then
It was in November 2006 that I read Lover Eternal for the first time. I ordered it right after I finished Dark Lover and I loved it. It’s my favorite in the “Black Dagger Brotherhood” series and it’s the gorgeous-hero-wrecked-for-the-plain-heroine thing that gets me.
Since then, I read it a few times more. That is, I read the parts with Mary and Rhage. It’s easy to skip the other parts (lessers, Bella & Zsadist, John Matthew) since they don’t contribute all that much to the romance although I think the parts with Bella & Zsadist and John Matthew quite interesting. For this challenge, I read it all again.
I wrote a comment about Lover Eternal, I wrote a post about the things that irritate me with this series, and I wrote a post about reading the first half of Lover Eternal in German (which left me with a slightly different impression of this novel) so this novel is rather covered and I can be lazy concentrate on quotes (tried not to be too spoilerish) to show why I like this novel so much.
Now
It’s in chapter 8, page 59, that Mary and Rhage meet for the first time. So there’s more than enough time to establish the two most unsurmountable obstacles to their relationship – Mary’s illness and Rhage’s curse. The reader also knows how important it is for Mary to deal with her illness alone and how much Rhage hates his curse and what he is forced to do to keep it somewhat in check; in particular how it makes him a different/two-females-a-night kind of guy when he actually just longs to settle down with one woman.
Lover Eternal is fast paced and big on obstacles, and I love how the heart wrenching is pushed to the max in this story because of all these obstacles and a hero totally wrecked for the heroine. Scenes like this (the words in blue are in italic in the book but this doesn’t show in the blockquote):
or this:
or this:
and all the other parts I marked for quotes get to me no matter how often I read this novel.
What really struck me in re-reading were the little details and how they are connected to the bigger issues of the romance in the novel, making Lover Eternal actually a rather tightly plotted novel. Like Rhage knowing the time he has to live with the curse down to the days: ninety-one years, eight months, four days, and what happens at the end.
Or that talking plays an important role in this novel: John Matthew can’t talk, Mary’s work, that Rhage is first attracted to Mary’s voice, the effect Mary’s voice has on Rhage (and the beast), how Mary keeps things to herself so that Rhage at one point says: “Christ, Mary, can you at least once let me in?”
This is not the most unsurmountable obstacle to the romance but it’s the obstacle which is there nearly for the whole time, which pushes on the heart wrenching factor big time, and which makes Lover Eternal one of my favorite hero-wrecked-for-the-heroine stories.
Verdict: 4,5/5 – The grade for Lover Eternal is mostly based on my enjoyment of the romance between Rhage and Mary, taking only slightly into account some of the more irritating things about this series (see link above), the weak lessers parts, and the deux-ex-machina ending. But re-reading it for the challenge, I actually think I now love this novel more than I ever did, mostly due to my new-found appreciation for the little details and my (solidified) impression that Lover Eternal has a rather well plotted romance.
Tags: "Black Dagger Brotherhood" series, J. R. Ward, paranormal romance