(no subject)
Nov. 16th, 2012 04:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsThis summer I virtuously read The Good Soldier Svejk and His Fortunes in the Great War, the Classic Czech Satire about how World War I was stupid and pretty much everyone in it was also stupid.
The introduction of my battered old library edition was a thing of fascination and beauty. Here, translator Cecil Parrot (a name perfectly suited to him, he writes exactly like a Cecil Parrot) complains about how English is a deeply inadequate language to translate this novel into:
"A further complication is the richness of Czech 'bad language' as compared with our own. In common with other Slavic languages and with German, Czech can boast a wide range of words of abuse in all shades of intensity. We cannot match those in Britain, where -- no doubt under the influence of puritanism -- the bulk of our terms of abuse are too mild and our strong expressions are limited to one or two hackneyed obscenities. Czech words of abuse generally involve domestic animals, excrement or the parts of the body connected with it. The English relate mainly to sexual functions or perversions, although there is in this respect a narrow area of common ground between the two languages. If the reader finds a certain monotony in the words chosen by the translator I hope he will realize that the bandsman has to operate within the limits of his instrument."
YOU ARE FORGIVEN simply for giving me that paragraph, Cecil Parrot!
I also deeply enjoyed the biographical details about the author Jaroslav Hasek, a wacky anarchist-slash-practical joker who forged dog pedigrees, wrote a bunch of articles for a scientific journal excitedly describing the discovery of made-up new species, and once got himself arrested as a Russian spy for the lulz.
The book itself is 800 pages of Svejk bouncing through the army serenely and viciously trolling everybody he comes across, which is fun for the first two hundred pages but then starts to pall a little if you have no particular vested interest in seeing Czech army officers consistently and viciously trolled. But it was worth lugging the whole thing around for the introduction alone.
The introduction of my battered old library edition was a thing of fascination and beauty. Here, translator Cecil Parrot (a name perfectly suited to him, he writes exactly like a Cecil Parrot) complains about how English is a deeply inadequate language to translate this novel into:
"A further complication is the richness of Czech 'bad language' as compared with our own. In common with other Slavic languages and with German, Czech can boast a wide range of words of abuse in all shades of intensity. We cannot match those in Britain, where -- no doubt under the influence of puritanism -- the bulk of our terms of abuse are too mild and our strong expressions are limited to one or two hackneyed obscenities. Czech words of abuse generally involve domestic animals, excrement or the parts of the body connected with it. The English relate mainly to sexual functions or perversions, although there is in this respect a narrow area of common ground between the two languages. If the reader finds a certain monotony in the words chosen by the translator I hope he will realize that the bandsman has to operate within the limits of his instrument."
YOU ARE FORGIVEN simply for giving me that paragraph, Cecil Parrot!
I also deeply enjoyed the biographical details about the author Jaroslav Hasek, a wacky anarchist-slash-practical joker who forged dog pedigrees, wrote a bunch of articles for a scientific journal excitedly describing the discovery of made-up new species, and once got himself arrested as a Russian spy for the lulz.
The book itself is 800 pages of Svejk bouncing through the army serenely and viciously trolling everybody he comes across, which is fun for the first two hundred pages but then starts to pall a little if you have no particular vested interest in seeing Czech army officers consistently and viciously trolled. But it was worth lugging the whole thing around for the introduction alone.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-18 03:45 am (UTC)