One of the speeches at K and C's wedding dinner by C's uncle was incredibly difficult for me to understand, although his enunciation was clear. It turns out that what I understood (his humorous, overstated tone and the audience laughter in response) was a Donald Duck speech--full of word play, alliteration, arcane references to high culture, etc. Luckily, one of our table-mates, a wonderful friend of K's mother explained that in Germany, a Donald Duck fascination has long been part of a subculture of people, some of whom have organized themselves into clubs and the like. R told me that C seems to be a fan of the American Disney character, because he had noticed several Donald Duck books on Christian's bookshelves.
But most of Germany does not read the same Donald Duck we could read. They read a German version that provides much more than a translation. In fact, Donald Duck becomes something new. For a better sense of what I mean, I recommend this great article in the Wall Street Journal.
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