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Re: Fw: reading Ada in Portuguese: notes
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This is an important passage for the novel. Nicknames might be translated
as "pudendal synonyms". Ada is full of them. There also may be a specific
botanical pun -- nicking below the base of a bud as a form of pruning.
Also notice the pedigree of poorly translated vaginal references "from the
French" -- Catherine's mistaking "neck" for "nick" in Henry V.
This is part of the "aphrodisiac sinistral direction" that readers both
resent and perversely enjoy.
Eric
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello
> To: don barton johnson
> Sent: Saturday, November 06, 2004 4:03 PM
> Subject: Don: reading Ada in Portuguese
>
>
> Don, I´ve been re-reading ADA and several questions popped up.
>
>
> Here are some of them:
>
> VN wrote in ADA I, ch10:
> " ...the transformation of souci d´eau ( our marsh marigold) into the asinine
"care of the water" - although he had at his disposal dozens of synonims, such
as mollyblob, marybud, maybubble, and many other nick-names associated with
fertility feasts, whatever those are".
>
> First question: why is the word "nickname" hyphenated in the quoted paragraph
of VN´s ?
> Is it only in my Penguin edition? Is there a suggestion of something like "
in the name of nick" ( ???)
>
> Second question: Something quite strange happens when these "nick-names" (
almost inoffensive in English) that are associated with "fertility feasts" are
translated into Portuguese!
> One of the words is "picão do mato" ( I could not find them in the Oxford
Concise Dictionary, nor in the Michaelis but I got this information from a
Brazilian VN translator, Jorio Dauster ). Now, "picão" not only refers to a
kind of herb whose infusion is used to bathe new-born babies with icteric
problems but to a slang word that has a definite sexual connotation ( big-dick)
.
>
> Another question: Ada I , chp.13: When writing about Van´s maniambulation, VN
speaks of the "earth canceling its pull". But it would not be earth/ground but
Earth/planet since only Earth might benevolently cancel gravitational
effects.
> Now, isn´t Earth, "Terra"? ( in Portuguese we only have this word for ground
and planet ).
>
> I may have only a confused idea of VN´s geography... but I always thought
that Ardis was in Antiterra, not in Terra. What would be the "earth" in
Antiterra that would cancel gravity´s pull?
> " Now and then, when he detached his organs of locomotion from the lenient
ground, and seemed actually to clap his hands in midair, in a miraculous parody
of a ballet jump, one wondered if this dreame indolence of levitation was not a
result of the earth´s canceling its pull in a fit of absentminded benevolence"
----- End forwarded message -----
as "pudendal synonyms". Ada is full of them. There also may be a specific
botanical pun -- nicking below the base of a bud as a form of pruning.
Also notice the pedigree of poorly translated vaginal references "from the
French" -- Catherine's mistaking "neck" for "nick" in Henry V.
This is part of the "aphrodisiac sinistral direction" that readers both
resent and perversely enjoy.
Eric
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Jansy Berndt de Souza Mello
> To: don barton johnson
> Sent: Saturday, November 06, 2004 4:03 PM
> Subject: Don: reading Ada in Portuguese
>
>
> Don, I´ve been re-reading ADA and several questions popped up.
>
>
> Here are some of them:
>
> VN wrote in ADA I, ch10:
> " ...the transformation of souci d´eau ( our marsh marigold) into the asinine
"care of the water" - although he had at his disposal dozens of synonims, such
as mollyblob, marybud, maybubble, and many other nick-names associated with
fertility feasts, whatever those are".
>
> First question: why is the word "nickname" hyphenated in the quoted paragraph
of VN´s ?
> Is it only in my Penguin edition? Is there a suggestion of something like "
in the name of nick" ( ???)
>
> Second question: Something quite strange happens when these "nick-names" (
almost inoffensive in English) that are associated with "fertility feasts" are
translated into Portuguese!
> One of the words is "picão do mato" ( I could not find them in the Oxford
Concise Dictionary, nor in the Michaelis but I got this information from a
Brazilian VN translator, Jorio Dauster ). Now, "picão" not only refers to a
kind of herb whose infusion is used to bathe new-born babies with icteric
problems but to a slang word that has a definite sexual connotation ( big-dick)
.
>
> Another question: Ada I , chp.13: When writing about Van´s maniambulation, VN
speaks of the "earth canceling its pull". But it would not be earth/ground but
Earth/planet since only Earth might benevolently cancel gravitational
effects.
> Now, isn´t Earth, "Terra"? ( in Portuguese we only have this word for ground
and planet ).
>
> I may have only a confused idea of VN´s geography... but I always thought
that Ardis was in Antiterra, not in Terra. What would be the "earth" in
Antiterra that would cancel gravity´s pull?
> " Now and then, when he detached his organs of locomotion from the lenient
ground, and seemed actually to clap his hands in midair, in a miraculous parody
of a ballet jump, one wondered if this dreame indolence of levitation was not a
result of the earth´s canceling its pull in a fit of absentminded benevolence"
----- End forwarded message -----