Barnes' article has little to do with authorial intent
Larry Send a noteboard - 21/11/2010 11:37:25 PM
Honestly, that's not my intention. I had actually typed out a long response to your first reply, before realizing that you seemed to be having your cake and eating it too. Or else your subject header was just flashy advertising. To me it felt like with that response and your "you must not have read..." you were leading and then following with an insult. Furthermore, you didn't even respond to my reply. Yes, I think the article has to do with authorial intent. Yes, I read the section on Nabokov's translation of the poem I've never heard of.
I'm not interested in the usual snarky back-and-forth replies, a narrative which this seems to be following. You'll excuse me (or not) for being confused when you said "to hell it has to do with authorial intent" and then said that it didn't have to do with just authorial intent. Those are two entirely opposite stances.
I'm not interested in the usual snarky back-and-forth replies, a narrative which this seems to be following. You'll excuse me (or not) for being confused when you said "to hell it has to do with authorial intent" and then said that it didn't have to do with just authorial intent. Those are two entirely opposite stances.
On the other hand, it has a lot to do with those moments of je ne sais quoi in which something that is embedded within one language cause all sorts of difficulties in rendering it in another language. That is what Barnes discusses in depth for the vast majority of his review. Authorial intent fades in the background when there are things in the Text that just cannot be rendered as precisely in a translation. That was pretty much the point of the section dealing with Nabokov's infamous "translation." His effort there was not as much of a translatio as it was a perversion of such.
Illusions fall like the husk of a fruit, one after another, and the fruit is experience. - Narrator, Sylvie
Je suis méchant.
Je suis méchant.
Julian Barnes on translation
- 18/11/2010 05:49:37 PM
1156 Views
That's a very interesting article. Though it does sound like he'd never be happy.
- 18/11/2010 08:06:09 PM
800 Views
That was a long article.
- 19/11/2010 07:05:12 PM
722 Views
Re: That was a long article.
- 19/11/2010 09:59:24 PM
708 Views
Yeah, I think English translations on average are better than those in smaller languages.
- 19/11/2010 10:16:44 PM
839 Views
On balance, I'm glad I read the Steegmuller translation when I read the novel.
- 20/11/2010 05:14:42 PM
655 Views
Vas-tu faire s’enculée, Camille!
- 20/11/2010 05:26:08 PM
743 Views
If you don't mind a few grammatical corrections of your swearing... 
- 20/11/2010 05:42:57 PM
765 Views
- 20/11/2010 05:42:57 PM
765 Views
It was a quick and dirty rendering
- 20/11/2010 05:53:13 PM
688 Views
And I didn't order from France. It's a US-based company that I bought it from. *NM*
- 20/11/2010 05:54:55 PM
308 Views
I love Pleiade editions
- 21/11/2010 12:14:14 AM
694 Views
How tall are they, out of curiosity?
- 21/11/2010 12:50:57 AM
828 Views
Not tall
- 21/11/2010 09:59:55 AM
725 Views
I got my books today.
- 23/11/2010 05:38:20 AM
923 Views
Re: I got my books today.
- 23/11/2010 10:33:10 AM
735 Views
Regardless, if Pleiade is the best France has to offer, their book industry is awful.
- 23/11/2010 07:17:13 PM
988 Views
Re: Oh Authorial intent.
- 21/11/2010 02:07:27 AM
824 Views
Like hell it's about authorial intent.
- 21/11/2010 05:40:22 AM
740 Views
Re: I didn't even read it, I guessed based on the author's initials.
- 21/11/2010 01:37:40 PM
932 Views
So I take it you missed the whole part about Nabokov's translation of Eugene Onegin.
- 21/11/2010 03:28:14 PM
689 Views
Re: Yes, I missed all of that. Such a conclusion clearly follows from my previous response. *NM*
- 21/11/2010 03:57:16 PM
391 Views
Actually it does. Your responses are just cheap tricks, not discussions. *NM*
- 21/11/2010 04:44:21 PM
312 Views
Re: Cheap tricks?
- 21/11/2010 10:45:39 PM
785 Views
Barnes' article has little to do with authorial intent
- 21/11/2010 11:37:25 PM
725 Views
I think it is more about the "authentic experience" than about intent.
- 21/11/2010 10:01:57 AM
723 Views