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Tuesday, 24 July 2007

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"He do the police in different voices" - adapted by T.S. Eliot from Dickens (and, sorry, I couldn't remember where I'd heard the reading of Eliot's "The Waste Land," and did wind up using Google to trace it).

Equiano's comment makes me ask what is a translation: if Brink changes things, has he written two books, or improved the first one? Translations of translations, even back to the original language, would be worthy of a Borges story.

Harriet, Googlewhack is query that returns a single hit. Put "Googlewhack" into Google for more information! Dark Puss

And what's a googlewhack? Could it be something that defeats google? I think it must be as I just cheated and tried it and all it brings up is this blog!

Great stuff and worth putting that on my own blog to elicit this fascinating response. I love the Logue. I used to admire his poetry when I was a young-un but have not read this Homer version and now really would like to. The Pope is of course wonderfully accomplished but for me it seems a bit to lack life and energy. I totally agree about the first two. The quotation is ringing bells but though they are on the tip of my tongue (ouch) I can't quite place it.

How fascinating! I often wonder the same about books I read in translation - the more you learn of other languages the more countless variations occur to you. The South African author Andre Brink interestingly enough translates his own work, and in the process tweaks the writing, sometimes changing the story substantially - isn't that interesting?!

Note for Lindsay - your title (which I put into Google AFTER my original posting) is a sort of Googlewhack (although not limited to two words as in the original game)!

Note for Lindsay - your title (which I put into Google AFTER my original posting) is a sort of Googlewhack (although not limited to two words as in the original game)!

Dark Puss also has a collection of Icelandic saga's translated by number of folk, and with an introduction my Magnusson. I have Egil's saga translated by Palsson & Edwards and Njal's saga translated by Magnusson and Palsson. Maybe we have the same collection?

'Tis a brave cat, indeed, that sets paw in Lindsay's lair, whether " 'umble physicist'" or 'lowly housewife', he may have us bettered.
However, I'll see his collective Homer and raise him a Norse saga or two (and not as told by Noggin the Nog, but in reputable translation).
Egil's Saga and Njal's Saga, the latter translated by Magnus Magnusson, come recommended by this erstwhile student of Norse law and English literature. Whether you read them for their prose, their history or their legal content, they are worth a look.
To quote from the introduction to "Njal's Saga": "Its prose has a taut epigrammatic terseness ....it is cool, impersonal, objective, easy-paced; only in sudden explosions of harsh dialogue does the effortless lope of the narration change its unhurried stride. And yet, under this studied urbanity, tensions gather like muscles rippling under the skin ....."
Who could resist?

Dark Puss is but an 'umble physicist your Lordship and unschooled in the reading of books (as Cornflower and Dr Cornflower will attest most assuredly). He is well beaten by your superior knowledge, and slinks away, ears flattened whiskers drooping, into the night. However I'll make a reckless guess at Malory as I vanish into the dark.

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Quotidian

  • Nothing is of greater consolation to the author of a novel than the disovery of readings he had not conceived but which are then prompted by his readers. (Umberto Eco, Reflections on The Name of the Rose)
  • ... relatively few persons in London ... can afford the luxury of one or more servants. No fewer than 3,700,000 have no servants at all, and of the half million that have servants 227,000 have only one. (The Times, 6 June 1895)
  • Standing among savage scenery, the hotel offers stupendous revelations. There is a French widow in every bedroom, affording delightful prospects. (Tyrolean inn brochure, according to Gerard Hoffnung)
  • (A doctor is at an elderly relative's deathbed) "The old sawbones, eh?" he bellowed ... "Just in the nick, perhaps. Haul the old girl back by the short hairs, if you ask me. Devilish smart at his work ... Always take a fence with more confidence when I know he's out with us."
  • Too often, when a man of Monty Godkin's mental powers is plunged in thought, nothing happens at all. The machinery just whirs for a while, and that is the end of it. (P G Wodehouse, Heavy Weather)
  • ...the breed that take their pleasures as Saint Laurence took his grid (Kipling, The Five nations)

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