VLVL 4: War, politics and love

[snarf]

snarf wrote:
>
> Yeah, I assume P. knows spanish pretty well and the spanish translation of
> bush vet. as "veterano de la jungla" kind of imply a triple meaning:
> somebody used to live in the woods, vietnam veteran and somebody used to
> survive in the margins of society, although the veterinarian thing is
missed
> in the translation, as Terrance pointed out. I think we can fairly take
that
> RC may be all these.


Terrance wrote:
>It's difficult for me to imagine that native speakers of Spanish will
>make sense of this phrase.  How would they? I don't have a copy of the
>Spanish translation of Vineland. Is that really how the translators
>dealt with this phrase? Veteranos de la jungla sounds kinda weird to me.
>I'm thinking tour guide or something. And, hasn't "Bush", the Australian
>Bush, has made it's way into Spanish just as it has made its way into
>American English?

If you meant that you don't understand how a spanish native speaker can
understand "veterano de la jungla" in the triple meaning I'm pointing out,
I'd say that "veterano de la jungla" is usually used metaphorically for
"survivor". Somebody living in a farm, earning his living out of his kid's
catching crawfish may be called "a jungle veteran", meaning both living in
the woods and making his living by regretable means, and, for this reason,
socially marginal. If "veteran" is taken in its military meaning is rather
clear that "jungle veteran" may mean "vietnam veteran" (and you can fairly
take this military reading since P. mentions the name changing "since the
war"). RC may be a "survivor" of the war and still a "survivor" by any means
(making his kids work for him and depending on Zoyd to "distribute" the
crawfish, living almost out of nothing).
And no, the word "Bush" hasn't made its way into spanish and since George
Sr. has only meant "dangerous moron" up today. Maybe "veterano de la jungla"
is not a literal translation of bush vet, but it is still a good one. And
you are right that you can call, rather ironically, "veterano de la jungla"
a tour guide if the tour is pretty dangerous, maybe an Amazonas tour guide.

The spanish translation goes this way: "[Zoyd] se dirigía a una pequeña
granja en la carretera del arroyo, donde tenía un negociete marginal de
venta de cangrejos de río a medias con un veterano de la jungla y su
familia"  (Note that the words "negociete marginal" -marginal
pseudo-business-, reinforces the idea of the socially marginal means of
living of RC).

And, Terrance, I haven't understood a single word of your comment to Dave.
Is it some kind of joke? Anyway, he was very kind encouraging me writing
this posts although they may be full of mistakes and even hard to
understand. I struggle to make myself clear and I'm sorry if I'm not. You
can boo me out, whenever you want. If so, I'll start re-reading Pale Fire
and try to be adopted by the nabokovians.

Best
Maria