tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post13408020791588077..comments2024-03-27T16:48:21.039-05:00Comments on Wuthering <br>Expectations: The lyre went mute for want of content - but there will always be poetry! - abstract and concrete BécquerAmateur Reader (Tom)http://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-48477671654409929062012-07-28T22:26:03.762-05:002012-07-28T22:26:03.762-05:00Hmm, maybe your list is the obvious thing I could ...Hmm, maybe your list is the obvious thing I could not remember.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-71385164196895875342012-07-28T21:43:32.560-05:002012-07-28T21:43:32.560-05:00I compiled a reading list last year. Though I'...I compiled a <a href="http://booktrek.blogspot.com/2011/12/reading-list-translation-in-fiction.html" rel="nofollow">reading list</a> last year. Though I'm sure it's incomplete. I added some of the suggestions above.Risehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17446964640160585194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-55321501271082228542012-07-27T11:52:04.754-05:002012-07-27T11:52:04.754-05:00I found another one: "The Flying Camel and th...I found another one: "The Flying Camel and the Golden Hump," by the Israeli writer Aharon Megged. It's apparently about a translator whose upstairs neighbor is a critic.<br /><br />The Wolfson is worth seeking out, by the way. It's well known in French psychiatric circles; I don't know if it's been translated, though.Doug Skinnerhttp://www.dougskinner.netnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-55477822961728176022012-07-27T10:16:14.490-05:002012-07-27T10:16:14.490-05:00Thank you both for the titles. There's also an...Thank you both for the titles. There's also an Iris Murdoch but I can't remember which one, and possibly Byatt's <i>The Biographer's Tale</i> involves translated works, but it's been too long so I can't say. I also feel that there's something obvious we're all missing. I am surprised that Nabokov didn't write a novel about a translator, though the end notes to his Lermontov are a metafictional text unto themselves, and quite maddeningly entertaining.scott g.f.baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05726743149139510832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-72416736708178029372012-07-26T20:06:30.782-05:002012-07-26T20:06:30.782-05:00The Translator (2002), John Crowley - Russian poet...<i>The Translator</i> (2002), John Crowley - Russian poetry is what the translator translates. Some fine classroom scenes.<br /><br /><i>All Souls</i> and the <i>Your Face Tomorrow</i> trilogy by Javier Marías, in which the narrator is a translator and translation is mined for various thematic ideas, especially in the trilogy. Marías himself more or less learned his craft as a translator, English to Spanish, with his version of <i>Tristram Shandy</i> apparently a triumph. <br /><br />I feel I am forgetting something completely obvious.<br /><br />Thanks for the ideas, Doug.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-87332806003883347642012-07-26T19:26:15.612-05:002012-07-26T19:26:15.612-05:00Huh. I did a search, and found a few, none of whi...Huh. I did a search, and found a few, none of which I've read: "The Bad Girl" (Mario Vargas Llosa), "The Mistress" (E. S. Purnell), "Foreign Tongue" (Vanina Marsal).<br /><br />The most intriguing book about translation I know is "Le schizo et les langues," by Louis Wolfson: a memoir by a schizophrenic who couldn't tolerate his own language (English), and translated every word he heard into a cognate form in another language.Doug Skinnerhttp://www.dougskinner.netnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-10117961837065746732012-07-26T18:18:30.203-05:002012-07-26T18:18:30.203-05:00Here's one: does anyone know of any novels abo...Here's one: does anyone know of any novels <i>about</i> translators?scott g.f.baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05726743149139510832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-88389109119583547282012-07-26T16:53:10.034-05:002012-07-26T16:53:10.034-05:00Oh, me too. Once I started paying attention to tr...Oh, me too. Once I started paying attention to translation, the <i>problems</i> of translation started to become interesting, too. Translated poetry emphasizes the issues and different approaches.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-15031429642216377342012-07-26T16:10:20.693-05:002012-07-26T16:10:20.693-05:00I'm fascinated by the problems of translation,...I'm fascinated by the problems of translation, having done some of it myself. It's hard. I take solace in a snippet from Diderot: "You need not understand a language to translate it, since you only translate for people who do not know it at all."Doug Skinnerhttp://www.dougskinner.netnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-56257101085813649102012-07-25T18:53:03.685-05:002012-07-25T18:53:03.685-05:00I do believe that the popularity of Trollope is sp...I do believe that the popularity of Trollope is spreading among book bloggers. <a href="http://blog.catherinepope.co.uk/the-trollope-challenge/" rel="nofollow">Victorian Geek</a>, earlier this year, actually polished off every novel.<br /><br />I have two or three or four things I want to say about <i>Orley Farm</i>. Maybe just repeating what I have written before, although that is not the idea. <br /><br />On translation, I pretty much agree with <a href="http://wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2010/05/an-entirely-separate-genre-independent.html" rel="nofollow">Donald Frame</a>:<br /><br />"I think it is an art, though a very modest minor one, since it requires constant choice by the translator among the author’s values and devices as he seeks to recapture them in his own language and finds he can rarely if ever recapture them at all. Clearly it belongs far below good literary creation, and below good literary analysis, but I think it demands much of the same sensitivity shared by many booklovers whose gifts for good creation or analysis may be modest or non-existent."<br /><br />I would omit "very," but Frame is a first-rate translator himself and wanted extra humility.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-45464712272175671782012-07-25T17:52:33.785-05:002012-07-25T17:52:33.785-05:00Will you be writing about Orley Farm?
Hard to fin...Will you be writing about Orley Farm?<br /><br />Hard to find Trollope-lovers on the Internets.Shelleyhttp://dustbowlpoetry.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-88094749628249237682012-07-25T17:13:53.745-05:002012-07-25T17:13:53.745-05:00Now I've cast Frank Sinatra in the role of gra...Now I've cast Frank Sinatra in the role of gravedigger. Which, you know, ain't bad. If I think too long and hard about translation, nothing becomes more clear. It's an interesting category of literature. I consider better and worse versions of <i>The Iliad</i>, for example, but I almost never think of a version in Ancient Greek. You put a lot more (detective?) work into your reading of poetry than I ever will. For which thanks, because, as I say, I'm lazy.scott g.f.baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05726743149139510832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-32524299841771749112012-07-25T16:51:56.717-05:002012-07-25T16:51:56.717-05:00"Crooning" is pure invention by the tran..."Crooning" is pure invention by the translator. The Spanish is "cantando entre dientes," "singing through his teenth." Some people blame the translator for changes like this; I credit him. "Crooning" is too good to not use.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-85127559986373287012012-07-25T16:45:19.094-05:002012-07-25T16:45:19.094-05:00Though I like that the gravedigger was crooning, I...Though I like that the gravedigger was crooning, I don't think Becquer's poetry is going to be for me. I like the snippets of the short story, though. <br /><br />Doña Maria reminds me that I'm going to see the King Tut exhibit in August, and I should mark my calendar.scott g.f.baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05726743149139510832noreply@blogger.com