Foreigners

[abu nuwas]

This was a comment I made on the 'literal v clarity' thread'.

How interesting! I had thought of the Caprichos before I had seen Ray's pic. It seems Spanish culture has a more powerful continuing influence than I should have thought -- Goya, Goya, Picasso and Dali!

'I wonder which non-English-speaking culture, or country, people feel most affected by, or in tune with? At one time, it was quite common for people to be acquainted with the chief writers of Europe --Heinrich Heine, Schiller, Goethe, through to Gunther Grass in Germany; and a zillion philosophers, at least in some scanty form. France, altogether too numerous -from the Pléiade, Racine Moliere and Corneille, the great novelists and poets of the 19th century, and the early 20th. Likewise, Italy had its (mad Fascist) Gabriele D'Annunzio, Alberto Moravia, the Holocaust survivor, Primo Levi, as well as ..hmmm..Petrarch, Dante, Ariosto. And the Name of the Rose bloke, Umberto Eco. I am struck by French bookshops which display translations of all sorts of people like this, foreigners, and rather rue the fact that even our nice ones do not. But this should really be on another thread -apologies! Smile'

Do you feel that there has been a wane in interest in 'great' writers, who did not use English? Are we becoming parochial, more than our grand-parents? Or do we interest ourselves a bit in Asian writers eg. Which furriners have you enjoyed? None? Fair go.

[rowens]

My favorites as a teenager out of school were Russian and French. In school, I only showed up for English class, but there was a big emphasis on English grammar on most days and English literature some days. English class meant 100 exercise questions a day about grammar and maybe a short story or poem once a week. I passed all my English classes by simply showing up and passing the exams. I wanted to read and write, and wasn't much interested in anything else, being a young punk not worth living.
But I read the French and Russian books the best I could and liked them better, assisting myself with English translations. I can't write or speak worth anything in other languages, but I learned to improvise. And I could get a sense of French writing despite the bad translations, in a practical and emotional way, with crummy literal language skills. Some of the Russian prose translations were a little better in English, at least for me.
I read more translations than English writers. Maybe that's why my English writing is so bad. I have a nice collection of those suicidal Japanese writers that get me through the night.
Do you count translations in your question? If you do, I read more books in translation than originally in English.

[Leanne]

I've never really gotten on with the Russians -- oh, they have some terrific ideas and they do tell a good yarn, but they're way too emotional for my taste . I acknowledge their brilliance while turning my preference to the French for literature (only for things on paper and film, not in person obviously!) and in philosophy I most align with the Germans (well, until around the 1930s...)

[rowens]

Even the American books I was reading still used those British spellings that I have no right to use. Everything is foreign to me.

I never read much Australian literature. I like Australian films and Australian supermodels.

[Leanne]

As long as it's not the Australian films with Australian supermodels in them, because they're a bit rubbish

There are plenty of great Australian novels. You'd probably get on quite well with Miles Franklin's "My Brilliant Career" (Miles Franklin was a woman, btw)

[rowens]

You mean to tell me there are no great Australian novels written by supermodels?

When I was eleven years old I thought I had a book I liked written by someone from Australia, but he turned out to be Austrian. I think a lot of Americans get confused over things like that.

[Leanne]

It's not your fault. It's because you write your dates backwards.

---

Not the supermodel kind of imaginary dates.

[rowens]

I used to think that Germaine Greer was really hot. Is she Australian?

Of course she stopped being hot quite a while ago. Not that she was a novelist or a poet or a supermodel or anything of relevance.

[just mercedes]

You mean to tell me there are no great Australian novels written by supermodels?

When I was eleven years old I thought I had a book I liked written by someone from Australia, but he turned out to be Austrian. I think a lot of Americans get confused over things like that.

Tara Moss - Tara Moss is a novelist, television presenter and journalist. Since 1999 she has written seven bestselling novels and been published in seventeen countries in eleven languages. Her writing has appeared in Australian Literary Review, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Sun Herald, Daily Telegraph, Weekend Australian and more. Writing has been a lifelong passion for Moss, who began penning gruesome 'Stephen King-inspired' stories for her classmates at the age of ten. She went on to an international career as a fashion model before pursuing professional writing. Her novels have been short-listed for both the Davitt and the Ned Kelly crime-writing awards, hit No. 1 on numerous bestseller lists, and made her Australia's No. 1 selling crime writer several years running.
(from http://www.harpercollins.com.au/authors/...D=50000630)

[Leanne]

I forgot about her and am ashamed. Tara's pretty hot.

[rowens]

Tara Moss

Do you know her phone number?

[Leanne]

Yes. It's the one you're about to drunk dial.

[rowens]

I also have this thing where I think all foreign people know each other and are very close personally. I feel the same way about blacks and Mexicans and lesbians.

[just mercedes]

---

I also have this thing where I think all foreign people know each other and are very close personally. I feel the same way about blacks and Mexicans and lesbians.

I feel the same way about posting on a forum like this - as if all the other members know each other really well.

[rowens]

Some might argue that Mexicans are foreigners too. But those people have never had to stand in line to use a payphone at a southside Virgina Wal-Mart at 5:15 in the evening.

[abu nuwas]

This seems to have gone a little hay-wire! Revenons a nos moutons!

I should have been more lucid. It is true that there was a time when the well-educated did have a good grasp of several languages, living and dead. But there were always dunces...like Winston Churchill, marked out as a failure at school. I was, however, alluding to translations as well. A good translation is worth any amount of partially understood bits and bobs from school, although if one has been exposed to the pronunciation of a language, a dual-text can work wonders. Language pre-forms the way we think, and so if we do manage to get a little peek at how it goes, we also get a better idea of how the writer is thinking, when his or her words come across in English.

One of my dreams is for our lending libraries to have a couple of cases, with the best work from around the world -not just your Zola (a hero of mine) and other French big-hitters, but examples of all countries Golden Age, or best shot, even if just one book. How else is Joe Soap going to stumble across?

[billy]

zola was one of the first serious writers i read. in another place he may have been called joyce.
the english classics are world renowned, yet the english tend to have fewer translations from elsewhere.

I do think we have quite a few we just don't realise they're translations, basho's writing are pretty common place but i suppose by now there on par with Zola as far as being well known translations go. i do believe some will think bash and zola alike wrote their works in english. Omar Khayyám's Rubaiyat is another. sadly language doesn't travel as well as music. Erik Satie would never have cut the mustard abroad as a poet, as a piano player he not only cut it but spread it thin.

i am not one of those people who bury themselves in reading so i wouldn't know a translation should one hit me, but as long as it's a good translation, i'll give it a read.

[Leanne]

Don't forget all of the wonderful satires and lewdness of Rome -- where would we be without Martial, Catullus, Ovid, et al?

[billy]

see what i mean. i've never knowingly heard of them

[Leanne]

"Blemishes are hid by night and every fault forgiven; darkness makes any woman fair" -- you must read Ovid, billy. He was a delightful pervert.