You Care What I'm Reading, Watching, Listening To (II)
(Five disc boxset of old-school hip hop from the Sugarhill Label. Esssssssential.)
(Five disc boxset of old-school hip hop from the Sugarhill Label. Esssssssential.)
posted by PWS at 12:08 AM
7 Comments:
PWS --
Nice reading list.
If you can get the more recent translation of Doktor Faustus, you'll be a much happy camper.
The book relies a lot on diction and the old translation misses a lot. Luverkuehn's German, for example, goes backward historically through the novel, and Zeitblom's florid, "humanistic" (he plays the viola d'amore and married his wife becuase her name was Helen) style is comically ill-suited to telling the story.
I knew the old translation before I read the German, and only then did I realize that Mann had written what was essentially a comic novel, which after all, was the only appropriate form for the subject matter.
I'm on page 100, and was having trouble with the somewhat turgid translation of what I hear is an already difficult and diffuse novel. I've enjoyed it so far.
I'm a poor man-is it worth ditching the Porter translation altogether and getting the new one?
I think it's worth switching, but I'm a poor man, too. Get a library copy of the new translation first and compare.
It's worth it- the new translation is lovely and easy on the eyes. I'm a little astounded by Daniel calling it a 'comic novel', though. I see where he's coming from, but any humor in that book is thoroughly caked in the dust of bombed-out Germany.
I've decided I'm lazy and for now will just finish this translation. Every critical text I read on the book, and everytime I see this book quoted (as in the above mentioned Elliott Carter Writings), it's the Porter translation.
I'm sure I'll read the newer translation at some later date.
There is really too much to read in this godforsaken world.
Trevor --
"Comic" is the genre, not the subject matter, although the ineptness of Zeitblom as narrator (his great successor is Kinbote in Pale Fire) sometimes puts this principle to test.
Yes, I took your general meaning, but I guess it's a bit like describing Waugh's 'Sword of Honor' books as comic. It always reminds me of the term 'rough chuckles', as in http://www.achewood.com/index.php?date=04012002
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