Chekhov's Mistress
Don Quixote Breaks the Fourth Wall
Maybe because I like to read and write poetry, I often hone in on a word or phrase in a novel, even in one so long as DQ, and dwell on it a while. I loved this passage on pages 106 – 107 after our Gentleman and his Squire have attacked and then been beaten by 20 Yanguas:
And if it were not because I imagine…did I say imagine?…because I know for a fact that all these discomforts are an integral part of the practice of arms, I would let myself die here of sheer annoyance.
“did I say imagine?” he says. I can almost see his wry grin filled with double meaning. And then to say “I know for a fact” rings like a trial lawyer letting something slip into the consciousness of the jurors even if his words will be officially stricken from the record.
For all the talk we’ve had here about creating reality, this playfulness is interesting in that it puts the subject with us, the readers, and makes him complicit in the game. Beyond that, it’s just fun and good writing.
I am curious how that line comes out in the Spanish. I checked my Jarvis translation and it looks pretty much the same. Grossman does it better with ellipses rather than Jarvis’ parenthesis, even though parenthesis are technically correct. The ellipses seem to put more emphasis on the aside and perhaps that’s more of a postmodern…did I say postmodern?…interpretation that only someone translating now would pick up on (Jarvis’ was early 18th century).
Maybe Ana Maria or Heather (or her husband) can tell us about how it comes out in Spanish?
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I’m still behind in my reading due to sick baby (better now) and wife’s birthday. I have high hopes for next week though and no matter how far along, there’s much to talk about.
I am going to try and go to one of the Quixote talks at the Pen World Voices Festival. No chance for me to go to the Saturday night event, but Sunday’s will specifically be about the challenges of translation and I hope to be there. If I make it, I will “blog” it.
Cheers everyone!
comments
I have my mom’s Riquer-edited copy (on which Grossman based her translation). And what do I find?
“Y si no fuese porque imagino..., ¿qué digo imagino?, sé muy cierto”, etc.
In other words, it’s all there!
I have to pipe up and say how much I love Edith Grossman. Aside from producing a first-rate translation, she has a marvelous sense of humor. For instance, Riquer adds footnotes to help decipher what the Basque says in Ch. VIII. Grossman makes the Basque’s first words (p. 63) slightly over-the-top (by translating “caballero” as “mister” rather than “gentleman” or “sir"), but accurate to how Cervantes intended him to come off. Brilliant.
– amcorrea (04/15 at 08:17 PM)
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About this Post
- Posted by: Bud Parr
- Date: April 15, 2005
- Filed Under:
Wise Men Fish Here: Literature
- Comments:1
- Links to this Post: Technorati
