From: paulchem@tigger.cs.Colorado.EDU (Icarus)
Subject: Nos Tacemus --[ Column ] -- Icarus.
Organization: The Net-Anarchists of SCI, Inc.
              Flaming Homer Division.
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1992 17:54:15 GMT

0] Any comments e-mail to paulchem@tigger.cs.colorado.edu
   This is for the most part idle musings about Pasternak 
   and translations. Of interest probably only to a book
   junkie. Hit 'n' now.

1] Saturday, CSU came over to boulder to serve as guinea pigs
   for Football Coach McCartney's experimental offense line.
   The buffaloes did the needful, thrashing the rams 37-17.
   Perhaps the defectors such as a certain Subramanian, may
   feel a twinge of regret :-)

2] I picked up a copy of Boris Pasternak, Selected Poems, from
   the local bookstore. Boulder, perhaps like all university towns
   has its share of book maniacs. I remember standing on Pearl, listening
   to Watson & Edge play the piano and the violin, lost in some
   fond recollection, only to be brought back by a hippie on bike,
   who kept pointing at my elbow and saying:

   "Great, man, like wow! Really cool, man!"

   And I finally understood that he was talking about the old copy
   of Ursula K.'s The Dispossesed that I was carrying. Got it for 
   95 cents. Thank God for bad taste. :-)

   	
   Reading Pasternak's Zhivago Poems in this translation, by jon 
   stallworthy and peter france is so different from reading them
   in the Irina Z. translation that I have at home. Its kind of odd
   the thought that there would be so many variations and interpretations
   of the same poem, when it gets translated by a new person. One 
   associates meaning to words just as much as to the idea.

   Pasternak himself said:

   "Translations are pointless unless their link with the original 
    is closer than is usually the case. Textual equivalence is too
    weak a link to guarantee the value of translation.

    .....
   
    More than this; we have said that translation is inconcievable
    because the principle charm of a work of art lies in its 
    unrepeatability. How then can a translation repeat it ?
    But translation is concievable, because ideally it too will be a
    work of art; sharing a common text; it will stand by the original,   
    unrepeatable in its own right.

    .....

    Translation is not a method of getting to know isolated works,
    it is the channel whereby cultures and peoples communicate 
    down the centuries."

    Which is heartening, and contrary to what some of my friends say.
    I had a argument with Njan over the issue of vernacular poets and
    whether a translation could improve opon the original.

    A close look at the oft-quoted couplet from Khayyams rubaiyat,
    in the original, when translated word for word into english,
    demonstrates that Fitzgerald deserved his fame.

    But its not so simple, would Khayyam sound as moving to a native
    speaker ? May be some net person can shed some light on this.

    Again, I think translation is easier when the original deals with
    subjects that do not involve local idioms and does not intermesh
    too closely with local custom, myth or folklore.
    That could explain the stilted flow of vernacular poets when 
    translated into english. It was not easy to come up with a 
    translation of a malayalam poem that preserved its content and 
    at the same time felt like poetry in English.

    Any comment welcome.

   When I read hamlet, as part of the last chapter in Dr. Zhivago,
   and which explains the character and the motives and the perceptions
   that drive him, I was introduced to poetry.

   Pasternak writes:

   Hamlet.
   -------

   "The buzz subsides. I have come on stage.
    Leaning in an open door,
    I try to detect from the echo,
    What the future has in store.


    .....

    Abba, Father, if it be possible,
    Let this cup pass from me.

    I love your pre-ordained design,
    And am ready to play this role.
    But the play being acted is not mine.
    For this once let me go.

 
    But the order of the acts is planned,
    The end of the road already revealed.
    Alone among the Pharisees I stand.
    Life is not a stroll across a field."


    It sounds and feels different from what I remember, but 
    still the idea is still there.


    Looking through the notes, I came across something interesting,
    about Nehru and Pasternak.
    When Pasternak published his magnus opus in italy, through a 
    friend, and drew international acclaim, the russian communist
    party misconstrued it to be a anti-communist work, and hence
    counter-revolutionary. Which is not surprising, though Pasternak
    really was more interested in the human condition as seen from a 
    larger perspective. The authorities hounded him, and he was forced
    for the sake of his family to sign papers he never wrote, recanting
    his views. He was going to be exiled, at the very least.
    Pandit Nehru directly intervened, using his considerable influence
    at the time with the russians and was able to convince the russians
    to let pasternak stay. Which is again intriguing. Because Pasternak
    never recovered from the humiliation of being persecuted by the
    country he so loved, and died soon after, physically debilitated
    from lung cancer, and mentally exhausted from his ordeals.
    It is interesting to speculate what would have happened if like
    Alexander S. of the Gulag Archipelago fame, he would have been
    exiled to America or france or some other place where he would have
    been allowed to write freely.

    Someday to Peredelkino, then.

3] I have the list of the best hundred books selected by Anthony
   Burgess from 1938 onwards to 1983, in english.

   Our own R.K. Narayan and V.S. Naipaul find entries in the list.
   Of course it is pre Rushdie, Seth, Ghosh etc.

   If any interested netter wants it I will e-mail or post depending
   on response. It may take a few days, though, things are getting
   rushed over here, de-hibernating after a drowsy summer.

 

4] Stay Cool.
   Have a nice week.
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