ellauri046.html on line 359: This abridgement reduces the original quarter of a million words down to about 12,000 (around 5%), based on three different translations, one by Alastair Hannay, another by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, and a third by an unnamed translator, possibly Lee M. Hollander. As with many of these condensed versions, having picked out the glowing passages may give an impression of a coherence which is absent in the rambling, repetitive and frequently incomprehensible original. The staccato style, though, is what it is like.
ellauri153.html on line 322: the Book of Job and the Gospels can be condensed into five grammatical remarks, or rules of
ellauri191.html on line 1928: "because, through his condensed, translucent images, he gives us fresh access to reality"
xxx/ellauri137.html on line 787: Sujata, also Sujātā, Eugenie, well-born, was a farmer´s wife, who is said to have fed Gautama Buddha a bowl of kheer, a condensed milk-rice pudding, ending his six years of asceticism. Such was his emaciated appearance that she wrongly believed him to be a tree-spirit that had granted her wish of having a child. The gift provided him enough strength to cultivate the Middle Path, develop jhana, and attain Bodhi, thereafter becoming known as the Buddha. The story does not tell what the holy tree spirit said when Gautama ate his rice and curry.
xxx/ellauri139.html on line 223: (4) Ippolit tries to figure out the point of living for two weeks. On the one hand, why not just die now and get it over with? But on the other hand, he feels like it's actually only now that he has a death sentence of sorts that he has really started to live. (Which, okay, guys, remember the story Myshkin told about the condensed man and how full of life his last few hours must be? There is definitely more to the idea that the person who knows he is about to die lives a very full life at the end—as Dostoevsky himself experience at his staged execution.)
5