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[romanticbastards]

In Winnetou 2, as they part at the end, my older translation said they embraced. A more recent translation says that Winnetou bent down and kissed Charlie, before riding into the sunrise. There is no clarification of what kind of kiss it was, Karl May usually says so when they're kissing on both cheeks. So I'm just going to assume Winnetou kissed him on the lips and bolted after Santer. It would be almost funny to include that at the end of a movie, no explanation given. Watch everyone not familiar with the books go "wtf?!"

Just. The fact that I need to make the original novels less gay in order to write gay fanfic.

Brought to you by me wanting them to pine while being separated in the books and not, as in canon, kiss. This is now a kiss on the cheek. They will pine.

[romanticbastards]

This is wonderful! 🥳🥳🥳

Somewhere out there, Karl May is fist-pumping the aether in pride and joy! His legacy is alive and well. 🥰🥰🥰

Does anybody have a good (online) source for the Chiricahua/Mescalero Apache language? The only dictionaries I can find have like 20 words in them...

I need it for reasons.

[romanticbastards]

Yellowstone National Park by David Wessels

[romanticbastards]

Starry Night over the Dunes (Bedouin with Arabian Horse) 2023

[romanticbastards]

Old Shatterhand has just about two reasons for doing anything:

It is the right thing to do.

It would be really, really entertaining.

[romanticbastards]

It's in the South America novels, I think in the "In the Cordilleras" volume, but I don't have the books at hand to check.

I agree, that scene is very telling. I actually enjoy Charlie's bastard moments. He has a similar moment in the latter part of the Oriental cycle, where he's surprisingly impervious to the bad guy's pleading for mercy.

The South American cycle also has some good moments where the characters talk about certain aspects of their life as Germans, including persecutions and discrimination back in Europe, that are providing a very good historical context for these people and their reasons for travelling so far from home.

Ah yes, Charley is such a kind man, such a ray of sunshine *pushes the scene in which he tortured a man using a technique that causes intense fear and even psychosis in the victim under the carpet with my foot* yes what an absolute sweetheart

[romanticbastards]

There's one scene in "Winnetou's Heirs" where a side character wakes Charlie up, because everyone else, including Charlie's wife was already awake and making breakfast. Side character thought it wouldn't do for Old Shatterhand to sleep in, but Old Shatterhand disagreed.

Kara ben Nemsi should have been woken up by a muezzin at least once. (The first prayer is at sunrise!) He does not strike me as a morning person and I bet it would be hilarious.

I almost fell out of bed. Somebody somewhere was shouting, causing me to awake with a startle. In such a big city as Bagdad, a fire would never be out of the ordinary. Alarmed, I ran to the little window with the bars in front of it and forced it open. Gladly, there was no smell of fire. However, the shouting was now louder.

I listened to the words and realized that I had acted like an idiot foreigner. I sighed and returned to my bed. Naturally, my panicked actions had woken up my dear friend Halef as well.

"Sidhi, has the muezzin scared you?", he laughed, quite amused by the spectacle. I could not disagree with him. However, my eyes were already falling shut again. I just grunted deeply.

"You are so much of a Christian, habibi. Nearly falling out of your bed from the words of Allah.", Halef kept on laughing. I ignored the endearment and soon was sleeping soundly again. I always held that the early morning was never good for any activities.

[romanticbastards]

Sioux

The Sioux are a native North American nation who inhabited the Great Plains region of, roughly, modern Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming. They are one of the many nations referred to as Plains Indians who lived in the region for approximately 13,000 years before the arrival of the Europeans in the 17th century.

Continue reading…

[romanticbastards]

[romanticbastards]

In "Winnetou's Heirs", Charlie finds some notebooks written by Winnetou. They were written in English, with words in Mescalero and occasionally in German, which made Charlie very misty-eyed. So it seems he learned some words and expressions from Charlie, but not nearly enough to follow a conversation. As mentioned above, in "Satan and Ischariot", there are at least 2-3 situations where he can't follow a conversation in German, though he does deduce a lot from context and Charlie's general body language (the conversation with Franz Vogel in Charlie's home).

Winnetou and Old Shatterhand definitely use the Mescalero Apache dialect to talk shit about people right in front of their face.

[romanticbastards]

Romania here. 👋👋👋

If it helps, from what I saw in the memoirs of the previous generations, Karl May has been translated into Romanian since 1935, at least. Older generations were learning German in schools, so it's likely they were simply reading them in the original German. And it hit the peak around the '60s-'70s (thank you, Pierre Brice). My parents' generation all had at least the "Winnetou" trilogy in their bookshelves. Now the older editions are incredibly expensive to buy, but I'm doing my best to rebuild my dad's collection. And they translated some books that weren't translated before, like "Satan and Ischariot". So I'd say it's definitely seeing an upsurge in popularity again.

Alright! Everybody please reblog this with/comment your nationality (if you're comfortable doing so), because looking at just where May's books have reached fascinates me to no end.

I'm Czech!

[romanticbastards]

I'm strangely taken by the idea of Charley singing sea shanties.

I know he's mostly painted as an introvert in the books, but I like to imagine him as the sort of man that can find human connection almost anywhere. On his voyages, he has probably met hundreds of sailors, and even befriended some—does anybody here know of Turnerstick?—so I don't think it's out of pocket to think he probably knows a lot of shanties.

[romanticbastards]

Tintype of very relatable man who refuses to leave his bearskin burrito even at gunpoint, c. 1880s

[romanticbastards]

In the year 1908. Here an original photo of the author Karl May at the grave of Seneca Indian chief Sagoyewatha or Red Jacket at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo, New York. This visit was after he had written the famous novels about his fictional identity Old Shatterhand and his fictional Apache chief friend Winnetou

[romanticbastards]

the scene where charley finds out about ribanna is such comedy gold to me. it literally goes like this

old shatterhand: yeah so winnetou doesn't like women huh

old firehand: well actually there was that one time where—

old shatterhand: HE QUEERBAITED ME??

[romanticbastards]

Well, I managed to find the description in "The Son of the Bear-Hunter", at least.

https://www.karl-may-gesellschaft.de/kmg/primlit/jugend/baerenj/jaeger7.htm

The notes mention that this is the original text, without subsequent additions -- which mostly concern bear hunting stories, anyway. But it is true that May's texts have been altered to heavens and back, several times. I think our translation does make reference to his hair and eyes, for example, but I don't have the text with me right now.

Does someone remember where exactly it is mentioned that Old Shatterhand is blond? I do not remember a book like that. Of course it might be some version I do not have, some older translations, some short stories I have not read (the things like Blizzard, Old Cursing Dry etc I have read), stuff like this…I will be happy for any proof our brave Scharlih is a blondie :-))

[romanticbastards]

Well, I managed to find the description in "The Son of the Bear-Hunter", at least.

https://www.karl-may-gesellschaft.de/kmg/primlit/jugend/baerenj/jaeger7.htm

The notes mention that this is the original text, without subsequent additions -- which mostly concern bear hunting stories, anyway. But it is true that May's texts have been altered to heavens and back, several times. I think our translation does make reference to his hair and eyes, for example, but I don't have the text with me right now.

Does someone remember where exactly it is mentioned that Old Shatterhand is blond? I do not remember a book like that. Of course it might be some version I do not have, some older translations, some short stories I have not read (the things like Blizzard, Old Cursing Dry etc I have read), stuff like this…I will be happy for any proof our brave Scharlih is a blondie :-))