Dear Kent,
thank you for your appreciation about the post I sent
- the one full of slang and swear words, for which I
apologize. But that was no my personal letter to the
list: in fact, it was a passage from my novel in
English (I am writing it these days ) entitled 'The
Scandal of Translation'.
In the passage there were - as you noticed - two
different characters, the author stating something and
her character, presenting his own view. They speak
different registers.I have based the equilibrium
between the two voices on the treacherous relationship
they entered in the very moment they moved from the
domestic culture to the foreign one. They also have
entered the complexity of the new language from
different doors.I am interested in the contrast
between these two ways.
Your Russian architect's letter is - yes - a perfect
example of these 2 opposite contexts.
Erminia
--- KENT JOHNSON
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Erminia,
>
> That was a wonderful post. I wholeheartedly agree
> with its
> sentiments and with the beautiful force of its
> swollen language.
> Here is a similar frustration, expressed by an
> architect from
> Russia, who wrote me some months ago. I have tried
> to preserve
> its strange and ravaged formatting. I thnk I might
> have posted it
> here before, but now I can't remember. Anyway, here
> it is again, if I
> did. I can't think of anything to say myself, these
> past few days,
> being on antibiotics after slipping while fishing
> and jamming a stick
> halfway through my palm, so I must resort to the
> inspired words of
> others. thank goodness for the Copy command!:
>
> **
>
> [First interregnum: E-mail from an Architect in
> Russia.Original
> formatting kept.]:
>
> My greetings from Gymnasium of
> Architecture to all
> people who
>
> will VOTE in Russia. Dear Kent.
> There was a
>
> question to say to my Russians
> not
>
> to be capable to Vote. FUCK
> YOU> This is
> ridiculous and insulting, not to
>
> mention ignorent of communist
> tradition in Golden
> AGe >
>
> before twelfth Congress.>>For
> example, Tatlin,
> which man you cartoon,his tower to Third
> International:
> do
>
> you think Eiffel tower could
> lean like a SS20?? (So
> boring and predictable
>
> you of the West.))I give
> Kronstadt as an example
> where Great
>
> Bakunin was dismembered his
> body (and agents of
> Prussia) because of
>
> Russian people's Love to their
> >country,their families
> and their Lenin. Also
>
> Trotsky, destroyed
> fortunatelyby David ((muralist and
> Architect))
>
> >>Siqueiros, And this tradition
> continues inspite >of
> terrible conditions some
>
> Muskovy people found themselves
> when Freedom
> >Came Upon in October (*hah* what Ironi,
> Mr.Architect!!!). It is
> fucking capitalism you New York
> and Sheffield petit
> bourgeosie, you keep saying space, Bauhaus,
> diorama to be success
> in in for some decadent fucking
> city, do you know a
> child who is >hungry for freedom
>
> *and also bread*??? You said
> that you were writing
> about >Russia. FUCK
>
> YOU. Did you mention that it
> was not the right time
> to strive to Freedom yet. Shachtmanite!!! Harvard
> Boy!!!The nation
> was not wet in it yet. Too much
>
> of in it, wetness created
> nothing but more >of cruelty
>
> tie me down petit!! When
>
> I will put my first plastics
> phallic of >Our Lives In
> Space And Time
>
> online I will let you
>
> know .FUCK YOU. May. be thenyou
> will understand
> a
>
> little bit more about Russia,
> my wet hair.
>
> I.ve already mentioned once
> that Diane >Sawer's
> mistake
>
> and Barbra Waters also
> (bitch)>was that she should
> had study sex in her wet
>
> MANCUNT (do you know this
> expression?) before
> she announced Boris
>
> Yestsin a hero . Drunk
> Bastard!!!, And she would
> >not know about necessary Cruelty which
> happened
>
> under that Lenin who was a true
> man against Whites
> and Social Revolutionryes(I am talking about
> the
> best people of Russia
> who wanted a bit of
>
> >>Freedom for Russian people
> similar to what was
> happening before in Paris,,, >not Mensheviks.
>
> FUCK YOU.And that is called the
> vote of all! What is
> your life with no
>
> COMPUTER??? Vote for Nasser.
> Don't waste it.
>
> --Maireya
>
> **
>
> Erminia said:
>
> They say: when you move to a foreign country, you
> never know to
> what kind
> of language you are exposing yourself. You come
> from a family of
> professional people, from a literary intellectual
> background
> especially?
> Forget part of that: you move to another nation
> and you lay
> yourself bare
> on the ground as a newly born child. You are there,
> anew, ready to
> absorb
> the new language: all depends from what people you
> are going to
> be
> transmitted that new mother tongue from and in what
> new
> environment.
> - Yes, fucking right, the same happened to me,
> lads. I moved to
> this
> country, England, between seven to nine years ago.
> It better be
> the latter
> end. I have no idea as to what kind of English I
> was exposed to,
> what
> mother-tongue? If you're expecting me to actually
> open my lips and
> physically utter the English idiom in the received
> pronunciation,
> you are
> fucking mistaken. Do I really give a shit? I'm
> telling you...I've got
> whole shitload of other questions in my mind. My
> only
> preoccupation is to
> grab my dinner... I fucking hate this I want to
> suffer bit of what other
> people here are going through bullshit...They tell
> me: you have a
> dead ear
>
=== message truncated ===
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