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Saturday, March 29, 2014

Dear unhappy couples:

You're both in it together!

The one great  thing you have in common is that no one else in the world knows the particular hell you're going through together. How romantic is that? No wonder you keep at it. It's a more glorious addiction than all the other drugs in the world put together. Can you help putting yourselves and each other through it? How can you stop, without the horrible sensation that you're betraying yourself, and everything you've thought you are?

Damn, if I knew the answer to that question I would be a millionaire.

And no, if you're wondering, this thought has nothing to do with my own meat life, the current one anyway; it does, however, pertain to the final scenes of the novel I'm living through a thousand times as a translator.

Serendipity: As I eagerly prepare to take on the duties as editor at Taki's Magazine online, I am just finishing up—with just a day of buffer time, gee whiz—my translation of Octave Mirbeau's IN THE SKY, a REAL heartbreaking work of genius which, up till this time, has been inexplicably absent from English translation. Octave Mirbeau is to Camus sort of as Amis pere is to Amis fils: the ancestor of the mid-20th century Existentialists and, very simply, a far superior version.

Dr. Pierre Michel, head of the translation project, has asked everyone involved if they'd like to write a foreword. I cranked one out last night when I was too tired to translate anymore. I HIGHLY doubt the publisher is going to go for it; it's a tiny bit, er, experimental. Not terribly scholarly. I know a lot about Mirbeau by now, but I'm just not good at scholarly writing, I don't have the patience quite yet. SO, for your entertainment, I plan to think about it for a bit and publish it here on Monday. Oh goody, a preface to a book you won't be able to buy for months. You're welcome!

At least I studiously avoid most spoilers.

4 comments:

  1. Congratulations with the gig at Taki’s Mag. Hope that you still find time for your own blog while working in the Libertarian big-time.

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    Replies
    1. Heh heh heh. I'll try... I'll just have to write more careless posts, like the one below this. I'm laughing at myself for that now, because it was a wee bit of projection... I've been putting food on the table for the past two years working at an ad agency. And advertising is to email scams as organized religion is to "cults," if you know what I mean.

      Delete
  2. "The one great thing you have in common is that no one else in the world knows the particular hell you're going through together. How romantic is that? No wonder you keep at it. It's a more glorious addiction than all the other drugs in the world put together. Can you help putting yourselves and each other through it? How can you stop, without the horrible sensation that you're betraying yourself, and everything you've thought you are?"

    So true it hurts.

    Rich Sellers

    ReplyDelete

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