(no subject)

[helle]

I have Internet in my room! Life is good, though already my productivity has slid riiiight down. Currently translation a scene from the film La Haine, which is fun - How many times do I get to translate dialogue like this into idiomatic English?

T'en a fait, toi? Mais moi non plus, je dis "nique ta mère"; déjà je m'en fous du placard, c'est bon.
Vinz: Shit, you've done community service ? Well I won't any more, I'll them to fuck off, hey already I don't even give a shit if they land me in the slammer.

My grasp of gangster English is not great. Do alienated teenagers even talk about the slammer? UrbanDictionary is being surprisingly unhelpful. A vast improvement, though, on last week's text for translation, which was two sentences of Proust. Two 200-word sentences of Proust, which I completed at 4 in the morning, muttering "Fuck Proust, seriously, why don't you fuck off and die in a fucking fire with a madeleine up your arse Marcel" from time to time. It was fun!

Comments

[helle-d.livejournal.com]

It isn't the evening meal that's important - it's the asparagus in the next sentence. I don't quite know why. (Published translation, since this was the point where I utterly lost the will to live.) I don't think that there's any possible way I can mock this.

I would stop by the table, where the kitchen-maid had shelled them, to inspect the platoons of peas, drawn up in ranks and numbered, like little green marbles, ready for a game; but what fascinated me would be the asparagus, tinged with ultramarine and rosy pink which ran from their heads, finely stippled in mauve and azure, through a series of imperceptible changes to their white feet, still stained a little by the soil of their garden-bed: a rainbow-loveliness that was not of this world. I felt that these celestial hues indicated the presence of exquisite creatures who had been pleased to assume vegetable form, who, through the disguise which covered their firm and edible flesh, allowed me to discern in this radiance of earliest dawn, these hinted rainbows, these blue evening shades, that precious quality which I should recognise again when, all night long after a dinner at which I had partaken of them, they played (lyrical and coarse in their jesting as the fairies in Shakespeare's Dream) at transforming my humble chamber into a bower of aromatic perfume.

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

Wait. Is he saying eating asparagus makes him fart? If not, what in god's name is he talking about?

[helle-d.livejournal.com]

I DON'T KNOOOOW.

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

Oh, Wikipedia says he's talking about it making his urine smell. "Asparagus "...transforms my chamber-pot into a flask of perfume." Marcel Proust (1871–1922)" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asparagus Why does your tutor think this is useful, again?

[helle-d.livejournal.com]

Riiiight. It's for the translation course I'm doing this term ... I think the course tutors figured they'd start us off with Proust since nothing else will seem as bad after that. It's the proverbial book for making prospective translators break down and weep, or else get into real-life flamewars with every scholar they know. (And is therefore perfect for Oxford tutors to introduce a course with!)

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

I hope it's all pleasantly downhill (effort-wise) from here! Best of luck in any flamewars.

[helle-d.livejournal.com]

Oh, I couldn't compete with seasoned academics. Guys are vicious.

This has just inspired my to find this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=av5ncxj7wVE) on Youtube. Bloody Proust, indeed.

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

Hee. I don't think I need to bother reading Proust now.

Also, since your Vorkosigan fic recs the other day I have been plunged into a desperate yearning for ALL THE BOOKS NOW, AT ONCE. I love them so much!

[helle-d.livejournal.com]

Muhahaha - I mean, I would also like ALL THE BOOKS NOW AT ONCE! I don't know if you've seen, but there is a new cover design for Barrayar which I want like burning - its only flaw, as far as I can see, being that it isn't actually published.
(http://philomytha.livejournal.com/69942.html) ()

Re:

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

Oh, that is a gorgeous cover - the illustrator actually knows what it's about! Amazing. My only complains: Cordelia looks a bit like Angelina Jolie. She should not look like that; she looks far more awesome. And Drou appears to be wearing essentially the same outfit as Cordelia; as a non-Vor, should she be? But yes, gorgeous.

(Have you read all of the books? I have not, and am torn between wanting to read them all and not wanting to run out of new things.)

[helle-d.livejournal.com]

You should read them all! The ones I like best are all in the second half of the series - Brothers in Arms, Mirror Dance, Memory, Komarr and A Civil Campaign, and of those, I'd be hard pressed to pick a favourite. (Except that Memory and ACC totally are, because they are awesome and - well, you'll see when you get there. (And then there is The Curse of Chalion! And its sequels!)
Plus, if you get through them by November, there will be a new book released, centreing on Ivan, Captain Vorpatril's Alliance.
I am, however, saving LMB's other fantasy/romance series for a rainy day, or a long train journey. Like you, I don't want it all to be over.

Hmm, didn't they both dress as maids to get in to the Residence? Maybe Ezar just liked to have his maids looking really snazzy? Or maybe Cordelia is dressed like a Vor and Drou took one of Kareen's boleros because she was feeling cold.

I've looked up the passage: "Droushnakovi shook out clean dresses, suitable for senior Residence womenservants too superior for menial's uniforms; the girl had worn them for just such service." But I think the artist is correct, wither way,whether he has this bit in mind or just going for Rule of Vor Cool in his costumes, because, yay costume porn. (Speaking of, I have just been browsing the Asexual Porn (http://asexualporn.tumblr.com/) tumblr. So many pretty pictures of food and cloths and books!)

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

Good, those are the ones I'm just getting to! Brothers In Arms is the latest I've read (discounting the frame story in my copy of Borders of Infinity). I bought the next four on Amazon last night in a deranged rush, because I am weak. (What I have heard about A Civil Campaign makes me want to read it excessively. I caved and read the scene in which Miles proposes at his disastrous dinner party on the Baen website, because I couldn't resist.)

Yay, new book! I have to admit, I don't love Ivan like I do lots of the other characters, but I may well grow to.

Your ability to recall detail is better than mine! I did think that perhaps the skirts weren't swirly enough to be Vor outfits, but hadn't really seen boleros as maids' wear. I like your take on Ezar. (I fail to see how a bolero would keep one warm, though. The sleeves are so short! Anyway, with the Residence burning down nobody needs extra layers.)

That tumblr is brilliant.

[helle-d.livejournal.com]

Oh, and there should be a "pot" after "chamber" in the last line ... Dunno why that isn't in the translation.