In one of those odd coincidences, Melissa and I were talking about him this morning on the train, maybe 40 minutes after you posted this (but before either of us had seen it). She's reading Isabelle Allende's "House of the Spirits," which I've never read. I asked her about it, and she said that the fact that it was translated from Spanish got her thinking about the difficulties of translating on various levels: meaning, rhythm, literary voice. I mentioned that your old family friend had translated a Spanish-speaking poet, Pablo Neruda, to great acclaim, and we talked about the extra difficulties of translating poetry. Then Melissa opened her book to read and noticed that it began with a stanza (in English) by none other than Neruda. We checked the permissions page and saw that it was from Alaister Reid's translation.
I called my mum to see how she was doing and told her this story, which cheered her immensely. She is finding mornings to be the hardest time, for whatever reason, and she quite brightened up at the idea of the old rogue--who used to chase around my granny's house in New Haven with her having water pistol duels when they were both in their 20s--pulling out his Bic and sending his famous work up in flames. :-)
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2007-04-09 01:59 pm (UTC)In one of those odd coincidences, Melissa and I were talking about him this morning on the train, maybe 40 minutes after you posted this (but before either of us had seen it). She's reading Isabelle Allende's "House of the Spirits," which I've never read. I asked her about it, and she said that the fact that it was translated from Spanish got her thinking about the difficulties of translating on various levels: meaning, rhythm, literary voice. I mentioned that your old family friend had translated a Spanish-speaking poet, Pablo Neruda, to great acclaim, and we talked about the extra difficulties of translating poetry. Then Melissa opened her book to read and noticed that it began with a stanza (in English) by none other than Neruda. We checked the permissions page and saw that it was from Alaister Reid's translation.
And then I got to work and saw this post.
What a funny little world it is sometimes . . .
no subject
Date: 2007-04-09 02:23 pm (UTC)I called my mum to see how she was doing and told her this story, which cheered her immensely. She is finding mornings to be the hardest time, for whatever reason, and she quite brightened up at the idea of the old rogue--who used to chase around my granny's house in New Haven with her having water pistol duels when they were both in their 20s--pulling out his Bic and sending his famous work up in flames. :-)