I'm just reading _tB_, more or less side-by-side with the recent not
very good Czech translation, and I must say that I can't really blame
the translator for misunderstanding or leaving ut at least some of the
things he did [1]. Especially those stream-of-consciousness passages
are much worse than the barbarian's spelling which, after all,
requires just shifting a mental gear and from then on you can go quite
mechanically although slowly (at least for the most part, I was at a
loss several times), while the narrator's monologue is deliriously
disjointed and you are expected to _get_ a joke, pun, association, and
I keep failing.
To give just a couple examples offhand, at the beginning of
_Oligocene_: "... you don't get anything for nothing (although, of
course, there are _margins_, which come pretty damn close)." Does he
mean margin of profit, surplus value (in reference to his left-wing
views, and also later becoming a capitalist in spite of himself)? And
a paragraph further on, after an explanation how all heavy atoms are
debris of long-ago supernovas: "we, all our systems and this single
system, are the gathered silt of ancient explosions, dying stars from
that first birth, detonating in the silence to send their shrapnel
gases spinning, swarming, collecting, forming (beat that, mean
'magined monks)." What imagined monks, by heck? The only thing that
occurs to me is Pratchett's "Listening Monks of the Ramtops" who
believe "that the universe was started with ... a piece of music"
which certainly isn't the right answer
Does anybody have any ideas? Damn it all, if there's a book which
would deserve online annotations more than all comics together, _tB_
is it. (And yes, I know of Rich Puchalsky's posts; impressive stuff -
I found there things which I was too blind or lazy to notice myself -
but not quite what I need.) This reminds me another thing - is it ever
said (or implied) unequivocally in what relation the directions
Up/Down-river and City/Kingdom are? I. e. on the real Forth Bridge,
when looking downstream the city is on the right side, but I haven't
noticed if this, or the opposite, is said about the Bridge as well.
Thanks,
--
Jan Vanek jr.
[1] Although there's still a lot of unforgivable schoolboy errors
left; how do you think "They drank, smoked and screwed together, and
tripped together a couple of times; she took him round museums and
galleries and to her parents' house" was rendered? He has no idea what
"got the munchies" means, either.
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