Had to pick between two editions of Les Mis for our club and I'm still annoyed about it

I brought in my old paperback that I've always read, but this one lady insisted we all use the newer annotated version for our discussion last Tuesday. She kept pointing out footnotes and historical context like it made her the expert, but honestly the original translation I had was way more readable and the group got bogged down in 20 minutes of arguing about a footnote about French street names from the 1830s. Has anyone else dealt with that person who acts like having the fancier edition makes them the authority?

3 comments

3 Comments

thea60216d ago

Ugh, that's the worst.

robinp8916d ago

And like @thea602 said, that's the worst part - people act like owning the fancy thing makes them the expert. But really it's just a flex, not actual skill. The real flex is making something good with whatever you've got.

barbara_jenkins6616d ago

The 2019 annotated edition I saw at a conference had 200 extra pages of footnotes and they still argued about a comma in chapter 3, which shows how people cling to fancy books as a shortcut to sounding smarter. @thea602, it's the same thing with my neighbor who buys the deluxe cookware set but burns every meal - the tool doesn't make the cook.

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