http://www.calendarlive.com/books/bookreview/cl-bk-levi30mar30.story

"D. Barton Johnson" wrote:

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Carolyn Kunin

To: Vladimir Nabokov ForumSent: Monday, March 31, 2003 10:19 AMSubject: Spotted in the LA Times Book Review Section

 To the List,

The Los Angeles Times Book Review section of 3/30/03 (accessible on the web for 2 weeks post publication) published Primo Levi's thoughts "On translating and being translated" (translated from Italian by Zaia Alexander and appearing in English for the first time).

A taste:

Being translated is a job neither for weekdays nor holidays, in fact, it is not a job at all. It is a semi-passive state similar to that of the patient under the surgeon's knife or being on the psychiatrist's couch, rich in violent and contrasting emotions. The author who sees himself on a translated page in a language that he knows feels at one time or another flattered, betrayed, ennobled, X-rayed, castrated, planed, raped. adorned or murdered.
 

Another book review on a new biography of W C Fields showed that like Dickens and Nabokov, Fields was a collector [inventor?] of interesting names:
 

[The author] notes that [Fields] took pride in the fact that he had come across most of the quasi-Dickensian names he used in his work in the course of his travels (Why the pride? Perhaps because like so many great exaggerators, Dickens and Twain among them, he wanted to claim that he was only transcribing the real.) In any case, he identified "Prettiwillie" as the name on a lumber yard outside Detroit, "Peppitone" as a dentist in Washington, "Chester Snavely" as a Pennysylvania undertaker, "Posthewhistle" as a name he had found in England. "Junk" and "Limberger" were lawyers he had used in Germany.  "Fuchswanz" and "Muckle" were neighbors of his Pennsylvania family.
 

CK