Subject
Picturing the reader of Bend Sinister (parrots and translation
redux)
redux)
From
Date
Body
[EDNOTE. Jansy Mello sends a snapshot of a Nabokophile along with some
comments on translation in Bend Sinister. -- SES]
The parrot is reading a page about bar-shaped hoots of an engaged line(
which he will take up soon again, in a different context) like "the long
vertical row of superimposed I's in an index by first lines to a verse
anthology. I am a lake. I am a tongue. I am a spirit. I am fevered. I am
not covetous. I am the Dark Cavalier. I am the torch. I arise. I ask. I
blow. I bring. I cannot change...I will. I will. I will". ( the idea is
one of the good surprises here, with its encased poetic statement )
A few sentences later: "...is favourite lines in Shakespeare's greatest
play - follow the pertaunt jauncing 'neath the rack/ with her pale
skeins-mate....
In his native tongue "rack"' was anapaestic. Like pulling a grand piano
through a door. Take it to pieces. Or turn the corner into the nex
line... the line was engaged..."
There are some words about translation, but related to Ember ( with an
amber cigarette-holder): ..."an obscure scholar, a translator of
Shakespeare ...A publisher asked him to apply the reverse process ..."
and this is followed here and there by examples for such versions in
reverse, or misconceptions as, for example, a Latinate "Buxum
biblioformis", for a box shaped like a book. We find also a latchkey
turn into a hybrid "sesamka" ( open-sesame?).
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
comments on translation in Bend Sinister. -- SES]
The parrot is reading a page about bar-shaped hoots of an engaged line(
which he will take up soon again, in a different context) like "the long
vertical row of superimposed I's in an index by first lines to a verse
anthology. I am a lake. I am a tongue. I am a spirit. I am fevered. I am
not covetous. I am the Dark Cavalier. I am the torch. I arise. I ask. I
blow. I bring. I cannot change...I will. I will. I will". ( the idea is
one of the good surprises here, with its encased poetic statement )
A few sentences later: "...is favourite lines in Shakespeare's greatest
play - follow the pertaunt jauncing 'neath the rack/ with her pale
skeins-mate....
In his native tongue "rack"' was anapaestic. Like pulling a grand piano
through a door. Take it to pieces. Or turn the corner into the nex
line... the line was engaged..."
There are some words about translation, but related to Ember ( with an
amber cigarette-holder): ..."an obscure scholar, a translator of
Shakespeare ...A publisher asked him to apply the reverse process ..."
and this is followed here and there by examples for such versions in
reverse, or misconceptions as, for example, a Latinate "Buxum
biblioformis", for a box shaped like a book. We find also a latchkey
turn into a hybrid "sesamka" ( open-sesame?).
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
