Good question, Martin - and I am still 'at swim' in the text. Indeed, I can
find some of Roubaud's more ardent 'to the letter' exercises perfect to a
fault - boring, or they come off more as displays(!) - challenges with a
sense of competitive winning among his fellow Oulipo mates.
But the Waldrop(s) are good translators. If I had time I would do a sample
of what I like - on a particular level - and I will in a later review. But
I am impressed with the bigger challenge - figuring ways to embrace a City -
indeed an icon - in a fresh way that knocks out the cliches and keeps one
(the reader) rubbing up against a language (French) that refuses to get
totally choked by its choked, cliché ridden history.
Stephen
http://stephenvincent.net/blog/
Currently home of the Tenderly series,
A serial work in progress.
> I'm curious, Stephen - how do they translate the "found" bits where the
> poetic effect depends on your understanding French words in a different
> context, like place-names? If you translate Vierge in a place-name,
> fr'instance, it comes out unFrench as Virgin (oh, that railway company),
> if you don't, you don't understand why it chimes with Marie, etc
> etc.(That's in a poem called something something *naturel*, in my
> sagging memory) There's a lot of that Oulipian sort of thing going on in
> that book. (OUvroir de LIttérature POtentielle). I no longer believe in
> poetry translation - imitation, yes (Nachdichtung), crib, yes, but not
> traduttore= traditore. But even novels come out of the machine bleached
> or discoloured, and they're something else again ("He's something,
> Else", as Frieda von Richthofen said to her sister.)
> mjay
>
> Stephen Vincent wrote:
>
>> By the way, speaking of Ouilipo, particularly for its wonderfully diverse
>> and exhaustive embrace of Paris, I suggest folks keep their eyes for Jacques
>> Roubaud's "The Form of a city changes faster, alas, than the human heart."
>> It's coming out from Dalkey Archive Press in July and is translated by Keith
>> and Rosemarie Waldrop. I got an advance review copy and I can't put it
>> down, well, I did for this!
>>
>> Stephen
>> http://stephenvincent.net/blog/
>> Currently home of the "Tenderly" series,
>> A serial work in progress.
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
>
> The self that shines in the greying sunshine
> of the immediate is actual, though it is
> not all that is there. - Douglas Oliver
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