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A human heart posted:Generally if someone writes for the guardian, or indeed any so called news media, that means they're bad And journalists/critics generally have dozens of acquaintances who will give them good reviews, so unless David Markson reaches out from the grave to put his blurb on the jacket I'm going to give it a miss.
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Dec 14, 2016 06:46
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A human heart posted:Generally if someone writes for the guardian, or indeed any so called news media, that means they're bad exceptions: stewart lee ... that's all i got
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Dec 14, 2016 07:03
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WatermelonGun posted:Ryu is the better murakami. Read Coin Locker Babies instead and tell your friends that they're useless and then go do some crimes. I'm really into this statement.
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Dec 14, 2016 07:23
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Dave Eggers has written for the guardian
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Dec 14, 2016 08:32
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Solitair posted:Is Edward Docx any good? I just read a couple of his articles in The Guardian and they were alright, but I don't know it that translates to novel-writing talent. This dude has a file extension for a name, what a dweeb.
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Dec 14, 2016 08:58
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fridge corn posted:Dave Eggers has written for the guardian Exactly.
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Dec 14, 2016 09:06
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at the date posted:And journalists/critics generally have dozens of acquaintances who will give them good reviews, so unless David Markson reaches out from the grave to put his blurb on the jacket I'm going to give it a miss. You think especially highly of David Markson? Zesty Mordant posted:This dude has a file extension for a name, what a dweeb. He really does, has this been addressed anywhere?
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Dec 14, 2016 13:18
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Mr. Squishy posted:You think especially highly of David Markson? hell yeah
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Dec 14, 2016 14:45
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WatermelonGun posted:Ryu is the better murakami. Read Coin Locker Babies instead and tell your friends that they're useless and then go do some crimes.  Almost Transparent Blue was good too, I seem to recall.
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Dec 14, 2016 16:44
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at the date posted:hell yeah I like him too but for that hyperbolic hypothetical you had your pick of a very large field, seemed remarkable. What of his is your favourite?
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Dec 14, 2016 17:53
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I just finished The Virgin Suicides and it's well-written, it's interesting, it's got Joyce's fingerprints all over it, but it would have been a hell of a lot better with any actual characters in it.
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Dec 14, 2016 18:19
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Mr. Squishy posted:I like him too but for that hyperbolic hypothetical you had your pick of a very large field, seemed remarkable. What of his is your favourite? Oh, I had just got done writing a paper on him and he died recently. I figured if anyone were to reach from their grave it would probably be a recently buried guy. e: I suppose I could have chosen Umberto Eco. My favorites by Markson, though, are Reader's Block and Wittgenstein's Mistress (I've actually only read three, those and Dingus Magee). I read WM earlier this year on a total whim shortly after Wittgenstein's actual Philosophical Investigations and followed it last month with RB. It seems silly to say "I love the quasi-impressionistic free association of anecdote and factoid that sneaks in a plot behind the errata" since it's a bit like saying "I love the way The Waste Land is broken up into lines" but it was a revelation to me at the time, one which I still haven't gotten over. Eugene V. Dubstep fucked around with this message at 19:24 on Dec 14, 2016 |
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Dec 14, 2016 19:20
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Translation chat: I started reading "The Stranger" today, and something in the translator's note bugged me right from the get-go: Matthew Ward posted:No sentence in French literature in English translation is better known than the opening sentence of The Stranger. It has become a sacred cow of sorts, and I have changed it. In his notebooks Camus recorded the observation that "the curious feeling the son has for his mother constitutes all his sensibility." And Sartre, in his "Explication de L'Etranger," goes out of his way to point out Meursault's use of the child's word "Maman" when speaking of his mother. To use the more removed, adult "Mother" is, I believe, to change the nature of Meursault's curios feeling for her. It is to change his very sensibility. Okay, so "Mother" is too formal compared to the original French, fine, I get that. But why, instead of using one of the many informal English words available (Mom, Mommy, Ma, Mum, whatever), just keep the original "Maman" in there? Isn't keeping a French word that a native English speaker would have no frame of reference for (unless they bothered reading the translator's note) the exact opposite of what he's trying to accomplish as a translator?
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Dec 16, 2016 00:37
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Tim Burns Effect posted:Translation chat: Yeah it's not like as if it's an untranslatable word like saudade or something. 'Mama' would have been fine, probably
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Dec 16, 2016 02:37
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I can't remember Ward's reasoning, but certainly maman isn't too foreign to utilise - its meaning is self-evident. And saudade has the obvious translation "yearning" and calling it untranslateable is dumb.
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Dec 16, 2016 09:01
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I'm reading Moby-Dick and realizing that it is in fact good.
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Dec 16, 2016 10:00
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Ras Het posted:And saudade has the obvious translation "yearning" and calling it untranslateable is dumb. There's a book called 'Against World Literature: On the Politics of Untranslatability' that has an entire chapter on saudade disagreeing with precisely that opinion
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Dec 16, 2016 14:36
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J_RBG posted:There's a book called 'Against World Literature: On the Politics of Untranslatability' that has an entire chapter on saudade disagreeing with precisely that opinion I don't care about some comparative lit idiot's opinions on language
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Dec 16, 2016 14:44
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J_RBG posted:There's a book called 'Against World Literature: On the Politics of Untranslatability' that has an entire chapter on saudade disagreeing with precisely that opinion Thesis must have some pretty substantial merit then if it takes that much work to refute it
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Dec 16, 2016 15:14
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 what if./.... you can never truly translate anything, even the words said by different people in the same language, as tey mean something different to them??? and even the meanings you attach to any word change with time, so you have to translate your own previous thoughts to yourself, whichc you can't really do, because you're blowing two cocks at the same time and your mind is busy with the third one?
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Dec 16, 2016 15:38
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Burning Rain posted:
I literally have this exact thought written in a notebook that I wrote as I was reading l'etranger.
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Dec 16, 2016 15:47
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I always thought mother/mum/most other choices was bad translation because "aujourd'hui maman est morte" has such a nice flow to it as an opening sentence and something like "mother died today" or "my mum died today" is horribly ugly.
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Dec 16, 2016 15:51
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Me ma kicked the bucket just now 
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Dec 16, 2016 16:44
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Today momma died.
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Dec 16, 2016 16:45
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All language is arbitrary, never speak to anyone ever again
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Dec 16, 2016 18:54
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Heath posted:I'm reading Moby-Dick and realizing that it is in fact good. Next read Pierre and marvel at the fact that they were written by the same author just a year apart!
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Dec 16, 2016 19:05
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mum's right scarpered off 'er mortal coil
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Dec 16, 2016 19:25
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Mr. Squishy posted:Me ma kicked the bucket just now Time to join the military so you can shoot Arabs in sandy locations.
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Dec 16, 2016 19:57
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Moby Dick is indeed cool af The actual story parts are OK but the whole insight into how a whaling ship works is fascinating.
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Dec 17, 2016 12:07
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I think the main problem with "aujourd'hui maman est morte" in an english translation is that "aujourd'hui maman est morte" is actually in french.
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Dec 17, 2016 15:27
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The solution: never read translations. Wanna read a book in a foreign language? Learn that language first.
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Dec 17, 2016 17:52
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The Belgian posted:The solution: never read translations. Wanna read a book in a foreign language? Learn that language first. I did this for Le Petit Prince, and the experience taught me that L'Étranger is out of my league.
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Dec 17, 2016 18:45
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The Belgian posted:The solution: never read translations. Wanna read a book in a foreign language? Learn that language first. You will never learn it as well as a native speaker. Or the author.
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Dec 17, 2016 19:12
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:You will never learn it as well as a native speaker. Something something Nabokov.
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Dec 17, 2016 19:26
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The Belgian posted:Something something Nabokov. That's different because he had synesthesia. He was always translating, from colors into language.
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Dec 17, 2016 19:45
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The Belgian posted:The solution: never read translations. Wanna read a book in a foreign language? Learn that language first. I resolved this after being introduced to Dante many years ago.... ....but that didn't work out. The upside is that I have all the translations and comparing them can be pretty cool! (Plus the Durling & Martinez volumes are all you really need, given the notes & essays. Although I actually think Clive James did an admirable job given the impossibility of his task.)
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Dec 17, 2016 20:21
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mdemone posted:I resolved this after being introduced to Dante many years ago.... I'm still planning to read Dante in the original once my Italian's good enough. Also Umberto Eco.
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Dec 17, 2016 21:40
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:You will never learn it as well as a native speaker. Or the author. Actually I'm really smart so I will
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Dec 17, 2016 23:17
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Franchescanado posted:You're going to have to decide by the end of Part 2 on whether or not you will continue, bud. While everything certainly gets more lucid and focused (in a way), all of your complaining points are certainly going to continue, and the entire last act will probably frive you to burn the book, yourself, or both of you in a raging fire. The best way I can explain the book is a parabola. Themes, ideas, characters and even jokes will be repeated or explained or completed by the books end, but on its own terms. And that isn't for everybody. One of the reasons I started to read it, was because I'd heard about all the references and was interested in how that would work. I am sure I missed most of them and most which I got or googled were interesting (it's a bit difficult with the internet nowadays to appreciate the effort and skill displayed here). But similarly to how pop culture references alone don't make jokes, historical references alone don't give meaning. Just to be a nit-picky idiot: At least half of the German sentences contained wrong articles or cases. In itself this doesn't bother me but for the references to work you need to have the feeling that they are all correct, which was a bit undermined by this. Despite what I wrote above, I got a lot out of it and am glad that I read it. However, I'm not sure if I'll read another Pynchon. Also I've read Ferdydurke and it was brilliant (though the ending is also not that great).
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Dec 18, 2016 12:39
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true.spoon posted:I finished Gravity's Rainbow a while ago and you were right, it did become much more readable and once I had a frame of reference even the last act didn't annoy me nearly as much as the first. There are brilliant bits and pieces throughout and I can see why people would laud the book but for me it was too muddled. Pynchon is astonishingly creative but a little restraint could have done wonders. I still hate his style. All of the slapstick and most of the cinematic/musical scenes fell flat for me because every kind of kinematic energy was lost when I had to reread a sentence for comprehension (admittedly I am not a native speaker but rarely do I have that much trouble). The ending was fairly weak for all the work you had to invest to get there as well. Keep in mind that GR is amongst his hardest work to read. Something like Mason & Dixon or Bleeding edge is much easier reading.
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Dec 18, 2016 12:49
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