Invested in reading / invested by the difficulties

Sat Feb 6 18:02:52 UTC 2021

Matthew,

Of course, you are right! Finnegans Wake. Now that takes real heroism. A
Chinese translation came out in 2013. I probably should look it up at some
point. And Ulysses as well. I'm sure I could learn a lot from that.

Thank you for your kind words. And thanks to Raphael, Becky and Jerky as
well.

Mike Jing

On Fri, Feb 5, 2021 at 3:07 AM matthew cissell <mccissell at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello Mike,
>
> Ah the old 'lost in translation' problem. Imagine what they say to people
> trying to translate Finnegan's Wake. Your efforts are to be commended. I
> believe it was Borges who said something about each translation being one
> more attempt in the long (and unending) line of translations that strive
> toward the Ideal. (Or something like that.) Afterall, how many translations
> of the Iliad in English alone are there? Translation is a practice that has
> various schools of thought, and interpretation is generally somewhere off
> to the side looking on with interest. That you are trying to make a better
> one than that which is available in Chinese is very worthwhile.
>
> Best Regards
> mc otis aka Piglet
>
>
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> On Fri, Feb 5, 2021 at 3:26 AM Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> The unfortunate fact is that, in translating from English to Chinese, much
>> of the nuances and connotations in the original text will be lost. And
>> this
>> is doubly true for Pynchon. Therefore, some have argued that Pynchon is
>> untranslatable, and they do have a point. I was told this when I was still
>> working on translating GR. My response at the time was that my bar was
>> considerably lower. Instead of trying to achieve the perfect translation
>> that would please everybody, all I was trying to do is to do better than
>> the published Chinese translation, which I consider to be an abomination
>> due to its many obvious mistakes.
>>
>> Last year, after 12 years since the original publication of the Chinese
>> translation of GR, they published a 2nd edition, revised by the author,
>> aided by a dozen or so "experts". Unsurprisingly, many of those mistakes
>> still remain.  For example:
>>
>> V179   You will have the tallest, darkest leading man in Hollywood.
>>
>> is rendered as "You (plural) will have the tallest, darkest leader in
>> Hollywood."
>>
>> V135.39   . . . tippin’ those Toledos at 7 pounds 8 ounces . . .
>>
>> ". . . gently brandishing the Toledo blade while weighing only 7 pounds 8
>> ounces . . ."
>>
>> V683.16 Ass usually is backwards, right?
>>
>> "Donkeys usually walk backwards, right?"
>>
>> So on and so forth. It's probably a good thing that most of the P-list
>> will
>> not read this version, or the one before it.
>>
>> The point is that both my ability and my goal are rather modest. And when
>> I
>> ask a question, it's because I genuinely do not understand the text on a
>> very basic level, thus making translation literally impossible. All the
>> extra reading is fine and dandy, but sadly it's probably mostly irrelevant
>> to the translation in the end.
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Feb 4, 2021 at 2:15 AM Raphael Saltwood <
>> PlainMrBotanyB at outlook.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> > ...good writing contains many times more meanings than a narrow reading
>> > gleans, so you have the Scylla of missing nuances, connotations
>> >
>> > But there’s also the Charybdis of reading incompatible, extraneous, or
>> > simply wrong extensions into something
>> >
>> > (Charybdis especially was the whirlpool one, so that relates to getting
>> > sucked into troubled waters)
>> >
>> > Just translating into different English - paraphrasing for my own
>> > understanding & appreciation - involves ruling stuff out, visualizing,
>> > trying to apprehend a context & look for links, salient (also a military
>> > term) points -
>> >
>> > Coming to a provisional understanding of a passage that you know a lot
>> of
>> > work went into: background work, the stocking and stoking of the word
>> hoard
>> > and vision; and the word choice, sequence & revisions - so that of a
>> > plethora of meanings & connotations that you *know* the author is aware
>> of,
>> > this particular author uses multiple ones, maybe even all of them.
>> >
>> > Stuff that anyone would notice, and maybe some things nobody else would
>> > notice (and the possibility that they aren’t intended) - like, does this
>> > passage’s reference to siegecraft
>> >
>> >
>> >   *    which already has a nice two-edged nature, viz. the Candlebrow
>> > scholars are laying siege to the intellectual and engineering problems
>> > posed by Time, and
>> >   *    Time is also laying siege to them, their heirs and assigns, their
>> > projects, etc
>> >   *   And possibly a 3rd (using the more pedestrian meaning of “invested
>> > by” in the asset management sense): that Time is utilizing them for its
>> own
>> > purposes
>> >   *   Or that some Power beyond time and humanity is utilizing both of
>> > them for an even more complex project?
>> >
>> > bear any narratively significant relation to another point made to the
>> > Chums by Gaspereaux?
>> >
>> > He said,
>> > “Among historians you’ll find a theory that crusades begin as holy
>> > pilgrimages....But introduce to your sacred project the element of
>> weaponry
>> > and everything changes. Now you need not only a destination but an
>> enemy as
>> > well.”
>> >
>> > For me, the extraneous considerations of the other seekers are those of
>> > crusaders, whereas Merle and his fellow tinkers are pilgrims to the
>> extent
>> > that their purely technical interests don’t - at least at the outset -
>> > revolve around changing other people’s lives.
>> >
>> > The paraprosdokian - or, “paraprosdokian-plus” is that the surprise
>> > intensification effect of “invested in, invested by” isn’t limited to a
>> > reversal, but opens out into multiple possibilities
>> >
>> > And the ways in the book in which the spirit of pure inquiry exemplified
>> > in Merle is co-opted into projects  with horrific results like the
>> Vormance
>> > Expedition, or Kit’s fascination with flight into dive bombing...
>> >
>> > And the “flattening out” of the idea of manipulating Time itself into
>> the
>> > achievable simulacra of film, radio, tv, recordings, which (as
>> rereaders)
>> > we know will draw  Merle into its ambit.
>> >
>> > & in fact the graphite connotations of the “anharmonic pencils” that
>> come
>> > into the tale hereabouts allude to yet another form of representation,
>> > “time-binding” (imho)(besides probably having a more mathematical set of
>> > connotations as well)
>> >
>> > The attempts to revisit past times partially fulfilled; the desire to
>> > revise them still “under attack” (with perhaps a suggestion that a more
>> > peaceful, pilgrim-like approach is what’s needed)
>> >
>> > All of which and more is implied in the passage, imho, with laudable
>> > panache.
>> >
>> >
>> > So great respect for trying in a different language.
>> >
>> > Thanks and kudos for sharing OED meaning #5!
>> > --
>> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>> >
>> --
>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>
>
>
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