Re: new southamerican fish

You're right, Scottie...I wonder what happened?

One person mentioned that different kinds of prose have different
translation problems, or lesser translation problems. That makes
sense. I'd add that I think even different kinds of fiction work better
in translation than others. _Catcher_ is a first person novel that
presents a speaker with a pretty unique voice, although not unknown to
NYC and the surrounding area. I don't know how that can really be
translated. Holden with a Spanish accent isn't Holden anymore -- or
even worse, Holden speaking Spanish with a New York accent. However, I
somehow think that translating most of Raymond Carver's fiction wouldn't
carry with it nearly the same loss. Most of his characters speak in
shorter sentences, the prose is third person and clipped, and tends to
be more along the lines of standard written English -- the type the
translator would have learned -- than Holden's English.

Jim

Scottie Bowman wrote:

> Daniel,
>
> Not only is your commation a delight to the eye & ear,
> a more generalised lucidity - strange & lovely - has
> suddenly begun to infuse your prose. Whass happened?
> Don't tell me you've decided to knock off the cactus juice.
>
> What I find even eerier is the precision with which you've
> anticipated my own thoughts on the problem of translation.
> I simply couldn't have expressed it better myself & that's
> surely saying something. No one wants a Copacobana Holden,
> do they, any more than they want a Liverpudlian Karenina?
>
> Scottie B.
>
>

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Received on Thu Dec 4 14:04:10 2003