Subject
A NOVEL'S UNRECOGNIZABLE SPIRIT (fwd)
Date
Body
I usually do not react to assertions, opinions and the like; but this time I
felt an irrepressible urge to do so to the following, without wishing to
enter into a fruitless debate:
>>Kubrick consistently used free invention in his translation--opening
rather than
concluding with Quilty's murder (or am I wrong about this being Kubrick's
idea?) or at any rate the ping pong game in that scene, for example--one
among countless examples. The result was a brilliant film that was closer
to the spirit of the novel than the author's own script.<<
Closer to the spirit of the novel?! In what way? An elaboration on Mr
Miale's assertion will be greatly appreciated. Is it, then, my fault that I
did not perceive the novel's "spirit" in Kubrick's film through which not
even the novel's skeleton shows?
Could one define that most elusive of notions as "spirit"?
Nabokov admired the film as film, not as an adaptation of his novel,
otherwise why did he publish his screenplay?
>>It is a great pleasure to read one of the rare translations (such as
Scott-Montcrieff's Proust or Lattimore's Homer) that provides a direct
experience of great literature, i.e., that does not read like a
translation.<<
Clearly, this is a matter of taste. Scott-Montcrieff's Proust I found
lacking in Proustian "flavor", unlike the Dutch translation. By this I mean,
reading the Dutch version evoked sensations that where akin to those evoked
by the original.
N.B. Translations that don't read like translations are no translations, or
words to this effect, VN remarked somewhere.
Abdellah Bouazza, The Netherlands.
---------------------
EDITOR's NOTE. VN's published version of the screen play does have the
Quilty murder first.
felt an irrepressible urge to do so to the following, without wishing to
enter into a fruitless debate:
>>Kubrick consistently used free invention in his translation--opening
rather than
concluding with Quilty's murder (or am I wrong about this being Kubrick's
idea?) or at any rate the ping pong game in that scene, for example--one
among countless examples. The result was a brilliant film that was closer
to the spirit of the novel than the author's own script.<<
Closer to the spirit of the novel?! In what way? An elaboration on Mr
Miale's assertion will be greatly appreciated. Is it, then, my fault that I
did not perceive the novel's "spirit" in Kubrick's film through which not
even the novel's skeleton shows?
Could one define that most elusive of notions as "spirit"?
Nabokov admired the film as film, not as an adaptation of his novel,
otherwise why did he publish his screenplay?
>>It is a great pleasure to read one of the rare translations (such as
Scott-Montcrieff's Proust or Lattimore's Homer) that provides a direct
experience of great literature, i.e., that does not read like a
translation.<<
Clearly, this is a matter of taste. Scott-Montcrieff's Proust I found
lacking in Proustian "flavor", unlike the Dutch translation. By this I mean,
reading the Dutch version evoked sensations that where akin to those evoked
by the original.
N.B. Translations that don't read like translations are no translations, or
words to this effect, VN remarked somewhere.
Abdellah Bouazza, The Netherlands.
---------------------
EDITOR's NOTE. VN's published version of the screen play does have the
Quilty murder first.