For the Love of _______: Rumination on Translation and Conjugation

Sunday, November 10, 2013

Rumination on Translation and Conjugation

"Sans doute, je vous ai; sans doute, je vous voi.
La pensée est un vin dont les rêveurs sont ivres,
Je le sais; mais, pourtant, je veux qu'on songe à moi.
Quand vous êtes ainsi tout un soir dans vos livres,"
-Victor Hugo, Paroles Dans L'Ombre

"Without a doubt I have you. Surely I see you.
Thinking is a wine on which the dreamers are drunk,
I know. But sometimes I'd like to be dreamed of too.
When you are like that, in your books, all evening sunk,"
-Translated by Louis Simpson: Victor Hugo, Words in the Shadow

La pensée est un vin dont les rêveurs sont ivres,
Thinking is a wine on which the dreamers are drunk,

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What's This?

I suppose introductions are in order?
Not much is needed by way of describing myself, anything of significance will assert itself eventually, so I'll prefer to keep my door mostly closed, though, a light knock or insistent gust of wind will usually bear it open regardless.

This record, however, assumes the right of identification, and I will do my best to give it some sense of self from the start. It has become an object of some fascination to render unreflected and often impulsive personal details public; with this I will flatly refuse engagement. The small things in our lives are indeed rich, and the oft-glossed-over is also worth peeking under, within. To do so without respect for possible readership, for propriety, or for the simple fact of what is and is not interesting, is plainly disrespectful. Discernment between the idiosyncratic and the neurotic will be of the highest importance, for with a goal of humbly sharing the experiences gleaned, as is only possible, from only one life, we tread such a line as requires continual checks in balance.

The chores and tasks of maintaining a survival that pays some homage to the torturous glory of being human and to the dignity which we must grant ourselves will be the articles placed in this armoire. You will, as a reader, be asked to follow, as only a true reader can, with patience, curiosity, skepticism, and vicarious, or perhaps even genuine feeling. I can only hope to lay down here what can be picked up with other hands; wrinkled or gnarled or polished, in another place, at another time.

----
As I said, it is your duty, reader, to humor me in the many moods that you shall have the privilege and curse of witnessing in my writing. The world is my oyster, delicious and slippery.
Let's have at it, shall we? Straight, now.

Plans are nebulous and always making and remaking themselves along with me, but I assure you and I commit to you, reader, that I will, upon pain of bankruptcy and stomachaches and migraines: I will eat, and drink, and I will cook, and I will speak French, and I will read in French, and I will write (perhaps) in French, and later (perhaps), in Spanish, but certainly en Anglais. My exploits and enterprises in language and food, or les affaires de la bouche, as well as my reflections on travel, growing up, identity, time, and space (as ya do) will be here for your foraging pleasure.

mwah

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Sunday, November 10, 2013

Rumination on Translation and Conjugation

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