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Fw: PNIN - Maria Yamalidou and translations to beardless
Kinbote: a correction to the text just mailed...
Kinbote: a correction to the text just mailed...
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I didn't erase the begining of "the translator" when quoting Maria Yamalidou. Instead of "The transif" it should appear simply as "If the Ash-can..."etc.
----- Original Message -----
From: jansymello
To: nabokv-L@listserv.ucsb.edu
Sent: Wednesday, August 02, 2006 3:36 PM
Subject: Fw: PNIN - Maria Yamalidou and translations to beardless Kinbote
Dear List and Maria Yamalidou,.
M. Yamalidou wrote: " The transif the "Ash-can, Can-can, Cache-Cache" triplet is too playful to be
missed, what can one say for the seemingly innocent assonance "seascapes,escapes, capes" ["Nothing of the slightest interest to therapist could Victor be made to discover in those beautiful, beautiful Rorschach ink blots, wherein children see, or should see, all kinds of things, seascapes,escapes, capes, the worms of imbecility, neurotic tree trunks, erotic galoshes, umbrellas and dumb-bells". "Pnin", Penguin, 1997, on p. 76].
She then asked: "How cryptic or how obvious is the meaning here? Are these just words to be translated? And omit the sound effect? No way! Any triplet exhibiting an equivalent assonance would do? But then we will miss the meaning...."
In one of the translations of "Pnin" into Portuguese, we find sound dominating over meaning:
"pajens, pastagens e paisagens" for "seascapes, escapes,capes"
( literally, our translator's choice, created "landscapes, pastures and valets" ) [Jorio Dauster]
In another translation for the similar lines we have: "paisagens marinhas, aranhas, rinhas" [ Pinheiro de Lemos ] ,i.e, literally: "seascapes, spiders, cockfights".
Now, the Cinderela triplets apparently presented to them a more complicated task. To translate: "does not grade into red again but passes into another spiral, which starts with a kind of lavender grey and goes on to Cinderella shades transcending human perception. He taught that there is no such thing as the Ashcan School or the Cache Cache School or the Cancan School..." we find:
"não sobe de novo ao vermelho mas passa para outra espiral que começa com uma espécie de cinza de alfazema e continua em matizes Cinderela que transcendem a percepção humana. Ensinava que não havia tal coisa como a Escola da Lata de Lixo, a Escola Cache-Cache ou a Escola Cancan... ( Pinheiro de Lemos)
"em vez de retornar ao vermelho, a seqüência de cores entra em outra espiral, que começa com um tipo de lilás-cinzento e atinge tons de Cinderela que transcendem a percepção humana. Ele ensinava que não existia nenhum estilo Ashcan nem Cache-Cache nem Cancã..."
The translator, Jorio Dauster, appended a foot-note ( here copied in my rendering) : "Ashcan means "trash-can" ( lata de lixo ), but the word was used in a pejorative sense to describe the realistic style of a North American group of painters who, in the first decades of the XXth Century, revolted agains the academicism then dominant. The two other "styles" were invented by the author playing with alliterations."
Either way, the connection between grays, Cinderela, cinders and ashes ( with something hidden, "cache") disappeared with translation.
And, after all, it seems that this link was only important to me - who have recently arrived from a first experience with colorless ash-gray and salt-and-pepper snowy landscapes just like a movie with black&white gradations and no natural color - in my relief when the sun shone and turned ash-gray into "lavender-gray".
Maria Yamalidou observed that: ' "Pnin" is a rare gem, a real "pearl". And maybe pearl gray is the most suitable color for this noble yet playful text. [Those who are interested in connecting VN to the Cherokee language may wish to know that the Cherokee word for gray is "very-light-blue"]." Another expert in the Cherokee language, Stan K-Bootle, corrected my suggestion to have the letter "P" in the name "Pnin" painted an ash-gray ( check former recent postings at the List).
The entire "Pnin", as now it looks to me, with its either sounding or its "ab-surd" "P", would not be Paris-lead nor gay, but, like Maria's, come in a soft pearl gray...
PS:
Shuttling from Pnin to Pale Fire I came across an apparition ( to which Carolyn Kunin had already called my attention to).
We find PNIN in Pale Fire! His name is mentioned in a note where mysteriously Kinbote writes about his shaven beard.
Cf. Kinbote commentary to line 894:
- "You do know Russian, though?" said Pardon. "I think I saw you, the other day, talking to - what's his name - oh, my goodness" [laboriously composing his lips].
Shade: "Sir, we all find it difficult to attack that name' [laughing].
Professor Hurley: "Think of the French word for 'tire': punoo."
Pnin's academic world here blends with Kinbote's. Here the latter is being questioned by a visiting German lecturer from Oxford ( married to a Swedish lady whose sister was acquainted with the mother of one of King Charles' pages...)
If the man with a black briefcase and umbrella is not a shaven Kinbote, he must have been Pnin. But the Golconda is his cuff-link and Matisse's Golconda painting with repeated semblances of bussiness men in black does suggest the multitude of Zemblans disguised with red-caps and scarlet wool...
Now let's turn to Kinbote's beard: "All brown-bearded, apple-cheeked, blue-eyed Zemblans look alike, and I who have not shaved now for a year, resemble my disguised king". (Everyman, page 76, note to line 12) and "King Charles wore no beard" (page 265, note to line 894).
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----- Original Message -----
From: jansymello
To: nabokv-L@listserv.ucsb.edu
Sent: Wednesday, August 02, 2006 3:36 PM
Subject: Fw: PNIN - Maria Yamalidou and translations to beardless Kinbote
Dear List and Maria Yamalidou,.
M. Yamalidou wrote: " The transif the "Ash-can, Can-can, Cache-Cache" triplet is too playful to be
missed, what can one say for the seemingly innocent assonance "seascapes,escapes, capes" ["Nothing of the slightest interest to therapist could Victor be made to discover in those beautiful, beautiful Rorschach ink blots, wherein children see, or should see, all kinds of things, seascapes,escapes, capes, the worms of imbecility, neurotic tree trunks, erotic galoshes, umbrellas and dumb-bells". "Pnin", Penguin, 1997, on p. 76].
She then asked: "How cryptic or how obvious is the meaning here? Are these just words to be translated? And omit the sound effect? No way! Any triplet exhibiting an equivalent assonance would do? But then we will miss the meaning...."
In one of the translations of "Pnin" into Portuguese, we find sound dominating over meaning:
"pajens, pastagens e paisagens" for "seascapes, escapes,capes"
( literally, our translator's choice, created "landscapes, pastures and valets" ) [Jorio Dauster]
In another translation for the similar lines we have: "paisagens marinhas, aranhas, rinhas" [ Pinheiro de Lemos ] ,i.e, literally: "seascapes, spiders, cockfights".
Now, the Cinderela triplets apparently presented to them a more complicated task. To translate: "does not grade into red again but passes into another spiral, which starts with a kind of lavender grey and goes on to Cinderella shades transcending human perception. He taught that there is no such thing as the Ashcan School or the Cache Cache School or the Cancan School..." we find:
"não sobe de novo ao vermelho mas passa para outra espiral que começa com uma espécie de cinza de alfazema e continua em matizes Cinderela que transcendem a percepção humana. Ensinava que não havia tal coisa como a Escola da Lata de Lixo, a Escola Cache-Cache ou a Escola Cancan... ( Pinheiro de Lemos)
"em vez de retornar ao vermelho, a seqüência de cores entra em outra espiral, que começa com um tipo de lilás-cinzento e atinge tons de Cinderela que transcendem a percepção humana. Ele ensinava que não existia nenhum estilo Ashcan nem Cache-Cache nem Cancã..."
The translator, Jorio Dauster, appended a foot-note ( here copied in my rendering) : "Ashcan means "trash-can" ( lata de lixo ), but the word was used in a pejorative sense to describe the realistic style of a North American group of painters who, in the first decades of the XXth Century, revolted agains the academicism then dominant. The two other "styles" were invented by the author playing with alliterations."
Either way, the connection between grays, Cinderela, cinders and ashes ( with something hidden, "cache") disappeared with translation.
And, after all, it seems that this link was only important to me - who have recently arrived from a first experience with colorless ash-gray and salt-and-pepper snowy landscapes just like a movie with black&white gradations and no natural color - in my relief when the sun shone and turned ash-gray into "lavender-gray".
Maria Yamalidou observed that: ' "Pnin" is a rare gem, a real "pearl". And maybe pearl gray is the most suitable color for this noble yet playful text. [Those who are interested in connecting VN to the Cherokee language may wish to know that the Cherokee word for gray is "very-light-blue"]." Another expert in the Cherokee language, Stan K-Bootle, corrected my suggestion to have the letter "P" in the name "Pnin" painted an ash-gray ( check former recent postings at the List).
The entire "Pnin", as now it looks to me, with its either sounding or its "ab-surd" "P", would not be Paris-lead nor gay, but, like Maria's, come in a soft pearl gray...
PS:
Shuttling from Pnin to Pale Fire I came across an apparition ( to which Carolyn Kunin had already called my attention to).
We find PNIN in Pale Fire! His name is mentioned in a note where mysteriously Kinbote writes about his shaven beard.
Cf. Kinbote commentary to line 894:
- "You do know Russian, though?" said Pardon. "I think I saw you, the other day, talking to - what's his name - oh, my goodness" [laboriously composing his lips].
Shade: "Sir, we all find it difficult to attack that name' [laughing].
Professor Hurley: "Think of the French word for 'tire': punoo."
Pnin's academic world here blends with Kinbote's. Here the latter is being questioned by a visiting German lecturer from Oxford ( married to a Swedish lady whose sister was acquainted with the mother of one of King Charles' pages...)
If the man with a black briefcase and umbrella is not a shaven Kinbote, he must have been Pnin. But the Golconda is his cuff-link and Matisse's Golconda painting with repeated semblances of bussiness men in black does suggest the multitude of Zemblans disguised with red-caps and scarlet wool...
Now let's turn to Kinbote's beard: "All brown-bearded, apple-cheeked, blue-eyed Zemblans look alike, and I who have not shaved now for a year, resemble my disguised king". (Everyman, page 76, note to line 12) and "King Charles wore no beard" (page 265, note to line 894).
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu,chtodel@cox.net
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm