Rainbow & Parabola (was NP)

[jbor]

>> ... or rather, the impressionistic rendering of the title
>> into German from back in 1981 -- "Die Enden der Parabel",
>> which translates into English as "the end of the
>> rainbow/parable/parabola" -- that the theory derives from
>> ...

on 28/7/04 7:00 PM, lorentzen-nicklaus at wrote:

> ° In German the word "Parabel" does not really have the
> meaning of "Regenbogen" -

And nor is a rainbow a parabola, which is the NP observation that sent the
p-list Hollander-infrastructure screaming into Homeland Security Alert mode
yet again.

But I'm assuming that Chuck's contention, obviously working from the 1981
German translation of the novel's title -- that, in German, "Parabel",
meaning parabola, is an idiomatic synonym for rainbow -- is correct. He
looked it up in Cassell's, after all. I think it's quite feasible that there
is an intentional play on the phrase "the end of the rainbow" (i.e. where,
proverbially, the pot of gold is buried -- of course, one can never actually
locate the end of a rainbow because it's an observer-effect, so there is the
connotation of chasing after an impossible dream, which is apt). It's
interesting too that the German translators or publishers felt that they
needed to advertise that their new title had been "authorised by the
author"; obviously *they* were aware of the fact that it is a radical
departure from the original phrase and not a "standard" translation at all.
I wonder what process they went through to get that authorisation.

best

> "PARABEL (gr.-lat.), die; -, -n: 1. lehrhafte Dichtung,
> die eine allgemeingültige sittliche Wahrheit an einem
> Beispiel (indirekt) veranschaulicht; lehrhafte Erzählung,
> Lehrstück; Gleichnis. 2. eine symmetrisch ins Unendliche
> verlaufende Kurve der Kegelschnitte, deren Punkte von einer
> festen Geraden u. einem festen Punkt gleichen Abstand haben
> (Math.). 3. Wurfbahn in einem > Vakuum (Phys.)".
> 
> (Duden Band 5, Mannheim/Wien/Zürich 1982: p. 561.)
> 
> Except for meteorologists and Pynchon-Freaks nobody here
> thinks of Regenbogen when s/he hears the word Parabel.
> Which means that Elfriede Jelinek and Thomas Piltz
> screwed up the title of their translation. The whole
> dimension of Divine rescue (Noah's ark and all) as well
> as the connotation of hippiesque counterculture-solidarity
> ('Rainbow coalition') gets completely lost! And while
> 'Rainbow' always also refers to water & light, 'Parabel'
> is a sheer a-sensual abstraction ... When people hear the
> title "Die Enden der Parabel" (me: "Ey Alter, das is',
> zusammen mit dem Zauberberg, der beste Roman, den Du dir
> geben kannst!") they usually make a face as having a bad
> taste in their mouth and murmur something like "Oh, ok,
> I put that on my list..." (The eight buddies I convinced
> to give the novel an honest try, they all made their way
> through it and are thankful till today.) Although it says
> "Der Deutsche Titel wurde vom Autor autorisiert" (The
> German title was authorized by the author), me I never
> understood why they didn't bring it out under the
> wonderful name of REGENBOGEN DER SCHWERKRAFT --
> 
> That being said, I might add that the translation in
> general appears to be the best of all German
> P-translations. If so, probably because an artist
> (if you wanna read something by Elfriede Jelinek take
> "Die Klavierspielerin" from 1983) took part in it.