Yo, Paul Ryan! Atlas Didn't Shrug, She Put Her Hand Out

[Kai Frederik Lorentzen]

On 28.01.2011 17:36, Heikki Raudaskoski wrote:

>
> Unfortunately, I can't say anything about the quality of Kallas
> translations.

"All translations are bullshit" (Hubert Fichte)

Yes, but ...

More mildly: Translations can always be only ersatz bzw. intro. To 
really read an author it's necessary
to go ad fontes ... Unfortunately, Finnish belongs not to the languages 
I can read. My mistake, I know.
Just thought you maybe once held "The White Ship" in hands and were 
skimming through the pages ...

> What I consider her best books, the so-called "Deadly
> Eros" trilogy - Barbara von Tisenhusen (1923), Reigin pappi (The
> Pastor of Reigi, 1926) and Sudenmorsian (The Wolf's Bride (1928) -
> are written, each in its peculiar way, in a language of pastiche
> that is every bit as consciously stylized and re-created as that
> of TRP in Mason&Dixon. Only that written Finnish literature did
> not exist in the 18th century, so Aino Kallas bases her Finnish
> language on legends and other epic oral poetry.
>

Seems that "Der tödliche Eros" [1929] is the 'translation' of the 
trillogy. It's a pity that not this one yet
"Sankt Thomasnacht" (eng. St. Thomas Night), which I just bought for 68 
cents (plus porto), is available in German to give me a first idea. (But 
then again it's nice to have a book from 1935 in good shape around.) 
Since one of my children may spend some months in your country in the 
not too far away future, I also ordered "The White Ship". Must 
understand more about your culture. And if it really flashes me, who 
knows? I might end up learning Finnish ...  Damn, just tried Sanskrit ~

Kai

> In translations, I would imagine that there is a danger to either
> make her style prosaic, or misdo it so that it becomes affected in
> a way the original texts never are. And for better or worse, these
> books stand or fall by their language. In Finnish, I find these
> works both fresh and archaic.
>
>
> Heikki
>

> On Fri, 28 Jan 2011, Kai Frederik Lorentzen wrote:
>
>> On 27.01.2011 18:00, Heikki Raudaskoski wrote:
>>> You Kai/you guys [btw anglos: "Kai" and "guy" rhyme] got me into this...
>>>
>>> I did a little investigating and found out that Ayn Rand apparently
>>> based her pseudonym on a Finnish writer - most probably on Aino Kallas
>>> [1878-1956) who I do like.
>>>
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aino_Kallas
>>> http://tinyurl.com/63odxt5
>>>
>>> (Again, the diphthong "Ai" in Aino is pronounced as the corresponding
>>> diphthong in "Kai" and "guy".)
>>>
>>> "Kallas" means "bank" or "strand" in Finnish and Estonian, whereas
>>> "rand" means "coast" or "strand" in Estonian...
>>>
>>>
>>> OUCH!
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Heikki
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Via the link of the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek from the wiki article I
>> found out that two books
>> --- "Der tötende Eros" [1929] and "Sankt Thomasnacht" [1935] --- of Aino
>> Kallas got published
>> in Germany. There are still four used copies of the original "Sankt
>> Thomasnacht" (is this a major
>> work?) to get from the biggest online bookshop, but Hamburg's public
>> library does have neither
>> this one nor the other. In English there's a collection of "Estonian
>> Tales" titled "The White Ship"
>> which is still available. Do you, Heikki, know about the quality of the
>> mentioned translations?
>>
>> I had never heard of Aino Kallas before. Thanks for introducing her here!
>>
>> Kai
>>
>