From: m.driussi@genie.com
Subject: (urth) Translator/Author
Date: Wed,  7 May 97 19:03:00 GMT


[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]

Reply:  Item #0776694 from URTH@LISTS.BEST.COM@INET#

Joel,

Interesting point re: Fitzgerald as cited source of quote.  I never
noticed that, but of course you are right and it does play some
mirrors-that-look-at-mirrors tricks, as you suggest.

For your question about Wolfe's possible strong ideas about the
nature of translation, I confess my ignorance.  But to add a few
tokens to your pile, here are some observations: one of Wolfe's
favorite authors is Proust, yet he has "only" read Proust translated
into English; likewise Wolfe read all his ancient Greek authors in
English translation (he did study the language of ancient Greece with
the aid of a private tutor, but this was in the 1980s and I suppose
that it was only after his interest in ancient Greece had been so
developed by reading translations).

I myself have not heard of any Omar Khayyam convention, new or old,
that attributes his work to another.  The convention of listing a
translator =and= the author is quite handy (for praise or blame) since
both are acknowledged; the listing of only a translator verges upon
criminal <g>, and were it not for the loop-the-lupine-loop aspect you
addressed, I might suspect that it was a mistake or error on the part
of the copy editor, punishable by death or public humiliation.  (I
urge myself to refrain from throwing glass stones at the mighty rock
--yet Tor has had some trouble with front matter of late. Witness Jack
Vance's listed novel TO LOVE FOREVER in the front of the PLANET OF
ADVENTURE omnibus.  Hmmm.  Vance reputedly hated the original published
title, bestowed by the publisher, and I sense that he would like this
one even less.)

=mantis=