Borges translation

Dan Parmenter · 21 Apr 1998, 13:06 · from urth-v0009.mbox · original

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From: Dan Parmenter <dan at lec.com>
Subject: (urth) Borges translation
Date: Tue, 21 Apr 1998 13:06:04
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[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other work=
s]

From: m.driussi at genie.geis.com

>FWIW & IMHO, all of THE BOOK OF IMAGINARY BEINGS is essential reading
>for those more than superficially interested in TBOTNS.  Period, end
>of report.

I can't recall offhand which stuff is in which anthology, but I
started off with FICCIONES and that alone contains a number of works
that I think are pretty essential to understanding BOTNS.  Especially
"Funes the Memorious".

My current one-sentence description of BOTNS for people who haven't
read it is "It's like Borges on the scale of Tolien".  Normally I
avoid such pat comparisons, but I think it's apt in this case.

>I have read TBOIB in Spanish but the Spanish translator of TBOTNS, that
>I read in English and then checked in Spanish, obviously didn't because
>he got a few things wrong.

There was a rather amazing article in LINGUA FRANCA magazine recently
about a Borges translator who took liberties in translation, but only
after having consulted with Borges.  One example given was of a
character described in the original Spanish as "strumming a guitar"
which was retranslated as "tuning" after Borges explanied that that's
what he really meant to say in the original Spanish!  I don't have the
magazine with me, but perhaps I'll post the details in a few days when
I can get ahold of it.

BTW, on a totally unrelated topic: how hard is it to draw fuligin?
You'd think that a dark black would do, but Don Maitz seems to treat
it as a rather ordinary black cloak with a floral lining (never
described as such) on the original editions.  Despite this, I do
rather like his covers, though of course the paperback editions that I
have crop them rather mercilessly.  Another note on illustrations: I
always imagine Sidero as looking a bit like the black robot on the
cover of Wolfe's PLAN(E)T ENGINEERING anthology from NESFA press as
drawn by the great Vincent DiFate.

D

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