What are you reading

[Otto]

Yes, since Pynchon I've came to the conclusion that it's definitely
better to stick to the original text, for me the translation is only
an addition, a tool. Sometimes,as we've seen at the opening of
"Vineland", it can even destroy an, as it seems, deliberate opacity.

And, remembering the "whipping"-scene in "Mason & Dixon", even to
native speakers the original text isn't always clear. "What, exactly,
is being told here?" I remember a verly lively discussion.

I haven't got David Mitchell's "Cloud Atlas" in German yet so I cannot
tell you how the translator (who's surname is the name of my hometown:
Volker Oldenburg) managed to translate the central chapter. But he did
"Ghostwritten" quite well, I did not detect any major mistakes.

But Norfolk's bunker-metaphor reminded me of something I've read last night:

"My dear lady, in this life we only know our sector of front, so to speak . . ."
(W.T. Vollmann, "Europe Central", p. 716)

Getting older Shostakovich increasingly uses war metaphors like these:

"Once she asked him why he hadn't married E. E. Konstaninovskaya, I
mean Vigodsky, and he gaily replied: Inferior antitank forces." (717)

I'd like to have some recommendations which Vollmann-novel to read
next (late in 2007 I suppose, after the ATD-reading). I think "Europe
Central" is a remarkable novel, very political, very artistic and very
poetic.

Otto

2006/10/14, Ya Sam <takoitov at hotmail.com>:
> That is why I prefer to read in the original and will keep trying to get the
> reading knowledge of as many languages as possible. A bad translator can
> butcher the text and disfigure it beyond recognition. LD is a very dense
> text, rich in vocabulary and cerainly requires an expert translator. There
> is a good article on translation by Norfolk himself in which he says the
> following:
>
> "A writer-in-translation is as isolated as a general in his bunker trying
> simultaneously to direct a war on twenty or more fronts. The dispatches come
> through (or fail to) but, reduced as they are to their bare essentials, it
> is hard to know how the conflict as a whole is going."
>
> http://www.barcelonareview.com/20/e_ln.htm
>
>
>
>
> >From: Otto <ottosell at googlemail.com>
> >To: "Ya Sam" <takoitov at hotmail.com>
> >CC: pynchon-l at waste.org
> >Subject: Re: What are you reading
> >Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2006 15:34:27 +0200
> >
> >Critical review about the flawed (?) German translation of Norfolk's book:
> >
> >Stetige Bumser im Rücken
> >Die Qualität einer Übersetzung läßt sich durchaus beurteilen
> >Von Dieter E. Zimmer (Nabokov specialist)
> >DIE ZEIT/Feuilleton,
> >Nr.6, 5.Februar 1993, S.56
> >http://tinyurl.com/ynaywt
> >
> >Eleven literary translators had written an open letter to the
> >publisher. Their demand was to the destroy the books and that there
> >should be a new translation. The publisher answered by threatening to
> >sue them.
> >
> >"At the mention of pork the place erupts."
> >"Bei der Nennung des Schweins explodiert der Platz."
> >
> >-- but you simply cannot say that in German, and "center of gravity"
> >isn't "Mittelpunkt des Schwergewichtes".
> >
> >Nevertheless, there's a 60-pages "Journal of the Translator" at the
> >end of the book which is quite helpful for the historical background
> >of the novel.
> >
> >Otto
> >
> >2006/10/10, Ya Sam <takoitov at hotmail.com>:
> >> >"Barbarus hic ego sum
> >> >
> >>
> >>Exactly what I feel while reading this book. Norfolk did his homework
> >>well.
> >>Very informative as well, i.e. I didn't know that the Romans had the
> >>goddess
> >>of sewers.
> >>
> >
>
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