tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6632813196384907322.post3576134966341871886..comments2024-01-16T04:13:38.751-06:00Comments on Fine, I'll start a goddamn blog: Sneak snip from the Mirbeau novel I'm translatingAnn Sterzingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11771539913173138647noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6632813196384907322.post-88778218248182521732014-01-21T09:37:55.169-06:002014-01-21T09:37:55.169-06:00Woog. Have you tried to mail anything transoceanic...Woog. Have you tried to mail anything transoceanic post lately? I'm better off reading Arkansas on Kindle and waiting for them to Kindle Mammiferes (Note on Kindle: although their international licensing rights are limited, it's pretty easy to trick Amazon into thinking you live in whatever country you want to download stuff from, so long as you don't "move" too often).Ann Sterzingerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11771539913173138647noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6632813196384907322.post-23689787815094840632014-01-20T02:24:29.605-06:002014-01-20T02:24:29.605-06:00Even if contemporary French fiction is rather feeb...Even if contemporary French fiction is rather feeble – at least the prose of Michel Houellebecq has some virility.Mr. Mean-Spiritedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16261750487608315400noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6632813196384907322.post-80403894450318461322014-01-10T03:34:01.713-06:002014-01-10T03:34:01.713-06:00My pleasure, Jindra. I hope you're well.
Ann,...My pleasure, Jindra. I hope you're well.<br /><br />Ann, you can get Mammals for practically nothing through Amazon UK. I imagine the cost of shipping it to where you are would only be a few dollars.Karlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16333013979246343381noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6632813196384907322.post-3990251927876808412014-01-09T15:41:05.758-06:002014-01-09T15:41:05.758-06:00Thanks, Jindra.
Karl, I couldn't get Mammals a...Thanks, Jindra.<br />Karl, I couldn't get Mammals at a reasonable price, but I got Arkansas for Kindle and will wait on Mammals... looking forward to it! Thanks for the recommendation.Ann Sterzingerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11771539913173138647noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6632813196384907322.post-43901912081672854172014-01-09T14:06:04.042-06:002014-01-09T14:06:04.042-06:00Sorry, Ann.
Karl i took your description of Paris ...Sorry, Ann.<br />Karl i took your description of Paris without your permission. I love the way you put it.<br />And Happy Birthday, Ann. To me, you are still a youngster. I like the way you put words into an amusing combinations.Jindra K. Hrdlička https://www.blogger.com/profile/10468663041887193461noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6632813196384907322.post-72131827756949603102014-01-09T11:57:31.979-06:002014-01-09T11:57:31.979-06:00I'm from Ireland, living in England, so I have...I'm from Ireland, living in England, so I have the experience of two monoglot countries (no one in Ireland speaks Irish, thanks to her madgestee's governments in the 19th century), and Irish culture is depressingly conformist these days. (Very few Irish people really get Beckett.)<br /><br />Pierre Merot's 'Mammals' I really enjoyed. A more compassionate and gently despairing version of Houellebecq.Karlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16333013979246343381noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6632813196384907322.post-66657618061017000042014-01-09T11:02:21.099-06:002014-01-09T11:02:21.099-06:00(No doubt there's much better French fiction b...(No doubt there's much better French fiction being written, by some wage slave at a gas station out in in Bumblefuck, Brittany...)Ann Sterzingerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11771539913173138647noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6632813196384907322.post-80169690666901437492014-01-09T11:00:08.534-06:002014-01-09T11:00:08.534-06:00But anyway, don't feel bad, popular current Fr...But anyway, don't feel bad, popular current French litfic is almost as moribund as any other... Beigbeder always starts off interesting, for example, but he couldn't write a good ending if you put a gun to his head. He elaborately takes himself down for being bourgeois-spawn, but that doesn't change the fact that he got where he is because he's bourgeois-spawn... just a more erudite Dave Eggers. Smothering everyone who didn't get the chance he did and whining about it all the while... not that I didn't get a kick out of 99 Francs, to be fair. But that's mostly because I didn't read it till after I wound up having to take a job in the ad industry, and it amuses me that the trade jargon has remained the same since he wrote it...Ann Sterzingerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11771539913173138647noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6632813196384907322.post-71886745248475585912014-01-09T09:41:31.963-06:002014-01-09T09:41:31.963-06:00I forget where you're from...I forget where you're from...Ann Sterzingerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11771539913173138647noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6632813196384907322.post-67044187521551787992014-01-09T04:31:23.404-06:002014-01-09T04:31:23.404-06:00I'm no French scholar, but I'm sure you...I'm no French scholar, but I'm sure you're doing a great job.<br /><br />I spent a few days in Paris around New Year. Damn, damn, damn, apart from the misfortune of being born, why did I have to be born into a bland, boring, monoglot, cultureless country when I could be an arrogant, swaggering, Frenchman who casually quotes great authors the way other people quote sports stats?Karlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16333013979246343381noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6632813196384907322.post-51793641167281631222014-01-08T09:38:50.808-06:002014-01-08T09:38:50.808-06:00I love it... so I'm taking it rather slower th...I love it... so I'm taking it rather slower than I'd theoretically like, considering all the other shit I want to get done, if that makes any sense. It's a really hard balance to try to translate as accurately as possible without sounding stilted in the target language/era. "Era" is actually the harder row to hoe there; writing conventions, particularly as they affect dialogue and dramatic interjections, have changed in all modern European languages since this was written, so what would be relatively easy to translate from 19th-century French into natural-sounding 19the-century English sounds weird and stilted if you try to ignore the conventions of our little settlement in time... I'd be kidding myself if I thought trying to write believable 19th-century English was my better bet here. But how much do you change?Ann Sterzingerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11771539913173138647noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6632813196384907322.post-83016513733407705812014-01-08T03:43:53.184-06:002014-01-08T03:43:53.184-06:00Great stuff!Great stuff!Karlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16333013979246343381noreply@blogger.com