Class 8: Correction Echenoz & Text by Giradoux

Hello class, sorry about the delay this week in posting your correction and new text.... time flies so quickly sometimes, but this is no excuse.

Just to let you know also that the week after next is Easter weekend, including Easter Monday. For those in Group 1, this is "problematic", since there will be no class. There will also be no "make-up" class (due to a lack of weeks in the semester). So, I invite you to come to the class on Tuesday (also at 14h), if you can or want to. You can suggest other solutions if you would like in class this week.

So, here are the texts.

CORRECTION Jean Echenoz

And now that he had a moment, the bartender was speaking to the young man, pointing out the strong (big) man with his gaze (with his eyes/a look). He seemed to be talking softly, yet despite the music, the young man seemed to understand. He slid from his barstool, walked calmly up the line of drinkers and came up close, very close, to the strong man and said something that Georges Chave couldn’t hear.

The strong man shuttered (was startled, jumped), and trying to back up, banged into the bar (bumped into). The young man moved his lips again and, suddenly, hidden somewhere between the dark crowd and the noise, Georges Chave saw the flash of a razor off whose blade reflected a fleeting, dim yellow glow. Responding to God knows what, there was a ripple through the crowd and Georges Chave banged into the strong man who fell (tripped) backwards and who the young man wanted to hold back by stooping down within reach of Georges Chave, who in turn threw out his leg to crush his foot into the nose of the young man who began to scream something inaudible, bringing his hands to his face. The razor fell somewhere among the dancing shoes (feet). The strong man looked quickly at the big man and then ran away from the bar towards the stairs cutting his way like a wild boar through the women dancing. Georges Chave ran after him and met up with him in the hallway.

TEXT TO TRANSLATE FOR NEXT TIME:

This is admittedly a long text. I am however including this whole section because it gives you some indication of context. Also, the ACTION happens in the USA so you should translate the name of the geological formation mentioned in the first line as well as the names of the organisations and companies mentioned later into English

Translate as much as you can and we will see how far we get. If we need to finish it up over two weeks, we can.

Jean Giraudoux, « La surenchère », dans Les contes d’un matin 1952

Charlie parcourut les îles, grimpa sur le rocher des Chèvres. Soudain, il prêta l’oreille. On marchait derrière lui, depuis un bon moment, avec précaution. Les pas se rapprochaient aux tournants dangereux, s’attardaient au contraire quand le roc devenait plan, pour redevenir, dès qu’on côtoyait une cascade, plus proches et plus menaçants. Les gens qui vont se suicider évitent peut-être encore les araignées ou les chenilles, mais ne redoutent pas les agressions. Charlie, heureux de l’aventure, décida d’attirer l’assassin ou le voleur dans un petit îlot où nul ne les dérangerait. Il n’y avait qu’à enjamber un ruisselet plus bruyant que dangereux, et avant de franchir le dernier Rubicon, ce n’était point là une affaire. Il sauta. On sauta derrière lui, on pataugea même un peu. Il gravit un rocher qui surplombait un gouffre au-dessus duquel mille arcs-en-ciel se croisaient, se fondaient et se dédoublaient comme des rosaces de cinématographe. On grimpa derrière lui, non sans glissades répétées. Il se retourna alors brusquement.

La face tatouée d’un Iroquois en costume de guerre l’eût moins troublé que ce qu’il vit. Au lieu du bandit classique auquel il s’attendait, une jeune fille blonde et jolie comme on en voit sur les affiches, lui souriait.

-- Monsieur Eggins ? demanda-t-elle seulement. Charlie s’inclina.

-- Monsieur Eggins, je suis membre actif de l’Association des Partisans du Seigneur. Vous connaissez ses églises de Boston. Vous avez visité, comme tous, sa chambre présidentielle, dont tous les objets, même la baignoire, sont d’or massif. Je viens en son nom vous rappeler que le suicide est un péché mortel et vous conjurer de vivre pour le salut de votre âme.

-- Tous mes regrets, Miss, c’est impossible.

-- Vous êtes bien résolu à mourir ?

-- Je le suis.

--Vous jurez que vous ne changerez point d’avis ?

-- Je le jure.

-- Alors, Monsieur Eggins, permettez-moi d’exposer la seconde partie de ma mission. Je suis également mandataire de la Maison Forbett, d’Indianapolis. Son cirage et ses vernis ne vous sont pas inconnus. La Maison Forbett vous offre vingt mille dollars, payables à celui de vos parents que vous désignerez si, dimanche, vous vous jetez du pont suspendu avec une banderole qu’elle vous fournira et qui porte sa marque de fabrique. Je passerai ce soir, à huit heures, à votre hôtel chercher la réponse.

Class 7: Correction Berque & New Text by Echenoz

This week we got back to work but started branching out by studying an academic text by a contemporary author and researcher.

In fact, if you want to delve more into his texts, his theories and his world you can actually audit his seminar at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales: http://crj.ehess.fr/document.php?id=581

For this text, it was imperative to analyse the overall meaning to find the juxtaposition between the living, WE, and the dead, THEM. From there, you needed to adapt the pronouns found in the text to correspond to the category you were talking about.

PART ONE: CORRECTION:

Opening Corpses

VIII. Yet no matter what they tell us, in the end corpses only say what we want to make them say. “We”, in other words, the living, with our monopoly on speech. We take advantage of this to be the only ones to talk about death, even if it’s the one thing in all the world we know the least about. Certainly, we see death with others, but no matter how much we autopsy ourselves, we’ll never see ourselves dead. There’s no hermeneutics of death: we’ll never know what it wants to say, other than transposed in terms of life. As someone who’s alive and thus capable of talking about death, I know that we, the living, are unable to put ourselves in the place of the dead. Even if we chant Requiem aeternam dona eis (“Grant them eternal rest” in Latin, a dead language but not the language of the dead), it’s mainly so the souls of the dead will leave us alone, we who are alive. Because souls that aren’t at rest come back; and we don’t really want that. What we want is for those we love not to die. But once they’re corpses, they’ve gone to another world, and we don’t really know what kind of ideas they might get over there. No doubt not the same ones they had while they were alive; because since they’ve been dead, they’ve seen worse (other things). They’ve seen other dead people who could very well have given them dead-people ideas.


HOMEWORK

For next week (22/23 March 2010) we will deal with ACTION. Again, it is important to know who did what, where and when and to whom. Here is the text:

Jean Echenoz, Cherokee 1983

Et maintenant qu’il avait un instant, le serveur parlait encore au jeune homme en désignant l’homme fort du regard. Il semblait parler à voix basse mais, malgré la musique, le jeune homme paraissait comprendre : il glissa de son tabouret, remonta calmement la ligne des buveurs pour s’approcher de l’homme fort, très près, et lui dire quelque chose que Georges Chave ne put entendre. L’homme fort sursauta, voulut reculer, se heurta au comptoir. Le jeune homme remua encore les lèvres et puis, subitement, caché entre eux parmi la foule obscure et le bruit, Georges Chave vit luire un rasoir dont la lame réfractait un faisceau fugitif de lueur jaune. Sous l’action d’on ne sait quoi, il y eut alors un mouvement de foule et Georges Chave heurta brusquement l’homme fort qui trébucha et que le jeune homme voulut retenir en se baissant à portée de Georges Chave, lequel alors balança sèchement sa jambe pour écraser son pied sur le nez du jeune homme qui se mit à crier quelque chose d’inaudible en portant ses deux mains vers son visage, le rasoir allant se perdre sous les semelles des danseurs. L’homme fort regarda brièvement l’homme grand, puis s’éloigna du bar en courant vers l’escalier, se frayant un brutal passage de sanglier à travers les femmes qui dansaient. Georges Chave courut après lui, le rejoignit dans le hall.

Class 6: Correction DST and new text by Berque

Hello class, two weeks ago there was no blog entry because of the DST. I was pleased at the results.

Here are the corrections:

(I had promised you two excerpts from your classmates, but that might take up too much room. Instead, I have incorporated some of their GREAT ideas into the correction, which is slightly different from what we did in class.)

Text A: Muriel Barbery, Une Gourmandise (Gallimard, 2000)

My Aunt Marthe’s house was an old dilapidated house engulfed in ivy. Due to a boarded up window, it had a slightly blind appearance which was in perfect harmony with the surroundings and its inhabitant. Aunt Marthe, who was the eldest of my mother’s sisters and the only one not to have inherited a nickname, was a surly, ugly and smelly old maid who lived in the midst of her chicken coop and the rabbit hutches in an incredible stench. Inside, it went without saying, there was no water, no electricity, no telephone or television.

Text B: Julien Green, Moira (1950)

“Mister Day,” she said. “Do you know what is in this letter?”

“Yes,” he replied. “I wrote it down myself while my father was dictating it to me.”

His voice was muted, both husky and tender at the same time.

“My father is blind,” he explained.

Mrs. Dare raised her eyebrows. Neither old, nor young, she was thin and stood erect in her grey dress with white flowers. Her cheeks were flat and rubbed with blush and her black hair was pulled back (in a bun). Her mouth was too broad and her nose too pointy for her to be considered pretty, but the young man concluded that she, at any rate, must find herself so to make herself up in that way.

Homework to translate for next week ( 15/16 March)

Augustin Berque: L'ouverture de cadavres, 2007

VIII. Quoi qu’ils racontent, pourtant, les cadavres ne disent en fin de compte que ce qu’on veut bien leur faire dire. « On », c’est-à-dire les vivants, qui monopolisent la parole. Ils en profitent pour être les seuls à parler de la mort, bien que ce soit la chose au monde qu’ils connaissent le moins. La mort, certes, on la voit chez les autres, mais on aura beau s’autopsier, soi-même on ne se verra jamais mort. Il n’y pas d’herméneutique de la mort : jamais on ne saura ce qu’elle veut dire, sinon transposée dans les termes de la vie. Moi qui suis vivant, et puis donc parler de la mort, je sais que nous autres vivants sommes incapables de nous mettre à la place des morts. Même si l’on chante Requiem aeternam dona eis (« Donne-leur le repos éternel » en latin, langue morte mais non pas langue des morts), c’est d’abord pour que les âmes des morts nous laissent tranquilles, nous autres qui sommes en vie. Parce que les âmes qui ne sont pas en repos, elles reviennent ; et ça, on n’en veut pas. Ce qu’on voudrait, c’est que ceux que nous aimons ne meurent pas. Mais une fois cadavres, eux sont partis dans un autre monde, et nous ne savons pas trop ce qu’ils peuvent se mettre dans la tête, là-bas. Sans doute pas la même chose que ce qu’ils y avaient de leur vivant ; car depuis leur mort, ils en ont vu d’autres. Ils ont vu d’autres morts, qui ne peuvent leur avoir donné que des idées de morts.

Class 4: Correction of Franz Bartelt

Part One: Correction of Franz Bartelt

“My dear colleague, you have come to our beautiful city just in time for the medieval festival[1]. You couldn’t have had better timing[2]. Everybody is taking part in[3] the festivities, even our patients, of course, you will see.”

As he spoke[4], Baptiste Rouque-Jaune, his elbow on the table and a hand lying on his belly, kept flattening his tie. It was a habit of his, usually a sign that he had had too much to drink and that he was feeling satisfied[5] with himself.

Frédéric Soumagne was the newcomer at the Grand Bercail. He was replacing Emile Borsat, who was killed two months earlier in an earthquake in Japan.

“He had longed[6] to see Japan for thirty years. In the end, it became[7] an obsession. As far as we know, he was killed an hour after having set foot on Japanese soil. He hadn’t even left the airport. He was waiting for his baggage.”

“What bad luck[8],” Frédéric Soumagne commented soberly, glancing over his bifocals.

“The most incredible[9] thing in this story is that the earthquake only claimed one victim, my eminent colleague Emile Borsat. What do you think of that, hunh?”[10]

“What really bad luck,” Soumagne thought appropriate to reaffirm.

---

[1] Celebrations. NOT « feast » because this is a big meal, one that is usually associated with a religious holiday.

[2] couldn’t have timed it better.

[3] joining in on.

[4] Here there is an editorial decision to make. Should you use the present tense? Should you use the narrative past? The latter is the general tense used by the narrator in story telling and is quite common in English, whereas the present for narration is less common and generally used for dramatic effect only. However, if you choose to use the present tense here, to mirror the present in the French text, you must be coherent throughout the rest of the text.

[5] Pleased with himself, self-satisfied. A feeling of self-satisfaction.

[6] He had been longing to see Japan…

[7] had become, turned into

[8] How unlucky, What hard luck.

[9] extraordinary

[10] What do you say to that?

Part Two: Get ready for the midterm. Vocab. Past tense. Vocab.


Homework: There is none in particular. Whew. You'll have a slight break during the week of your holidays. We will do the correction of the midterm in class during the week following your vacation. I can, if you wish, post the next text sooner than that. Send me an email to let me know what you prefer.

Week 3: Correction Moira, Franz Bartelt

Greetings again this week. I don't have much to add this week except that I am pleased with how the classes are going. You are participating well and your suggestions and questions are pertinent. Thank you. Keep up the good work.

***BRING YOUR PHOTOS for the Trombinoscope!!! ***

Correction: Moira

They stood there for a moment without moving[1], a few steps[2] from each other, and Mrs Dare pretended to be reading the letter that he had just given her, though she had already understood its contents several seconds ago and was now, from the corner of her eye, observing the newcomer. Without knowing quite why, she felt somewhat embarrassed looking at him. “At any rate,” she said to reassure herself, “he certainly looks respectable.”

She saw him from the side, his face struck by the rays of the sun which poured[3] into the room between the leaves of the trees, and despite herself, she found him quite handsome, even if he were red-headed[4]. That’s what troubled her[5], this flaming head of hair, the milky whiteness of his skin. She had to gain control over herself so that he wouldn’t see the slight repulsion that she felt for him[6]. She didn’t notice right away[7] that he had dark eyes. Tall and a bit slender in his dark clothes that didn’t seem to suit him[8], he had his arms crossed[9] over his chest and was looking at the street defiantly. At his feet, a yellow bag, its leather cracked open in spots, was stuffed to the point of being a sphere. After an instant, he changed his demeanour and reached his big hand towards the opening of the bag which he silently opened up a few centimetres. Then, standing upright, he stuffed[10] his fingers into the pockets of his vest, his eyes on the horizon[11].

Maybe he knew he was being watched. He let a minute or two go by, then, risked a quick, sideways glace towards Mrs. Dare who was still reading. Finally, as if authorized by this long wait, he looked more intensely around himself.

The room had a low ceiling and the walls were covered with a faded, yellowing paint. Near the window, there were two rocking chairs facing each other, separated by a small braided rug with fading blue and purple wool. A round painted wood table held a large plant with vigorous and shiny leaves which was the central decorative piece in the little study[12]. There was an upright piano in the corner and on its music stand rested a songbook of popular music whose bold printed titles rang out like a vulgar laugh. The young man turned his head. “It’s the university,” he thought. “At the university, things are like that.” But at his home, in his parents’ home, the piano was only ever used on Sundays, when church songs were sung. The rest of the week it was covered with a long olive covered sheet that protected the keys.

Ever more time passed, but nothing led him believe that Mrs. Dare had finished reading because, immobile, she still held the paper in her thin fingers and didn’t move. “I can’t send him away just because he is red headed,” she said to herself. She looked at his dusty shoes and supposed that he must have come on foot from the station, out of frugality. Again she asked herself, “I wonder if he smells. Red heads sometimes smell strong[13]. I couldn’t bear that. I have to admit, though, that from here I don’t smell anything.”

Suddenly, she folded the letter and put it back in its envelope.

---

[1] For a moment, they were still, standing…

[2] paces

[3] Slid, seeped, (light can often use the same verbs as a liquid).

[4] even if he had ginger hair

[5] It was that which troubled her

[6] that he provoked in her.

[7] immediately / right off

[8] Didn’t seem to be his…

[9] folded his arms over his chest

[10] jammed

[11] looking into the distance

[12] parlour

[13] Have a strong smell (odor).

-------------
Text for next week:

Franz Bartelt, Le grand bercail (2002) (202 mots) This was a former exam...

« Cher collègue, vous arrivez dans notre belle ville juste au moment où commencent les fêtes médiévales. Vous ne pouviez pas mieux tomber. Tous les habitants participent à la fête. Nos malades aussi, évidemment. Vous verrez. »

Tout en parlant, Baptiste Rouque-Jaune, un coude sur la table, une main sur le ventre, lisse sa cravate. C’est un tic, habituellement le signe qu’il a trop bu et qu’il se sent content de lui. Frédéric Soumagne est nouveau venu au Grand Bercail. Il remplace Emile Borsat, tué deux mois plus tôt dans un tremblement de terre, au Japon.

« Il avait envie de connaître le Japon depuis trente ans. A la fin, c’était devenu une obsession. D’après ce qu’on sait, il est mort une heure après avoir posé le pied en terre nippone. Il n’était pas encore sorti de l’aéroport. Il attendait ses bagages.

-- Pas de chance, commente sobrement Frédéric Soumagne, en jetant un coup d’œil par-dessus ses lunettes à double foyer.

-- Le plus extraordinaire dans cette histoire, c’est que ce tremblement de terre n’a fait qu’une seule victime : Emile Borsat, mon éminent confrère. Qu’est-ce que vous en dites, hein ?

-- Vraiment pas de chance, croit juste de confirmer Soumagne.

Week 2: Correction Druon, Moira by Julien Green

Running commentary...

In this week's class, we began the real work of hashing through texts on the board. It is a long process, and as you noticed, we only slogged through about half of the Druon text. But, it is important to get your suggestions and for you to ask questions about your translations.

Here is the list of animal names (males, females, babies and groups): www2.biology.ualberta.ca/uamz.hp/MamName.html
(however, I admit that I must have read it wrong and a female rat is rather called a Doe and not a Queen... I guess that was a kind of Freudian slip)

Also, in Group 1, the Moroccan author and book that I mentioned was Mohammed CHOUKRI, al-khubz al-hâfî (censored until 2000), with Le Pain Nu (translated in French 1980 by Tahar Ben Jalloun - who, in fact, was also a friend of his) and For Bread Alone (translated by Paul Bowles in 1973)

CORRECTION of Maurice Druon:

In the beginning of Spring 1929 (In the early spring of 1929), a person[1] arrived in Paris who was seldom spoken of in the papers, who didn’t attend salons (who was never seen in the fashionable circles), and yet whose presence weighed (bore) down upon the city[2]. He had rented half a floor at the Ritz, on the Vendôme side and telephone line had been reserved[3] for his personal use alone. An hour never went by (elapsed) without a messenger boy (page) bringing him up a platter heavy with letters and telegrams. But, the maids[4] who cleaned his apartments (his suite) never found any paper, even at the bottom of the waste (dust) bins. There were no women[5] in his life, except for (unless you consider his) a secretary with the grey and boyish hair (a bob haircut), who had a tortured, intelligent and ferocious appearance/exterior appearance[6]. Men of various looks and ages, who sometimes looked like body guards and at other times looked like head sales-clerks (department managers/supervisors) in department stores, came and went. And, in front of the hotel, a car with thick (tinted) windows was waited for him[7].

This person, who could cause the ruin of hundreds of industrial companies and the misery of hundreds of thousands of workers, who could refuse the invitations of kings, provoke (stir up, rile up) south American[8] revolutions and topple (bring to the ground) European ministries, who owned a fortress on an island in the Baltic and the biggest yacht in the world, (which was) anchored in Trieste, who travelled with four passports, even one from the Vatican, and who was decorated by every order imaginable, was sixty years old and called/named[9] Karl Strinberg.

---

[1] A man, someone, NOT “Character” because a character is more of a “strange or unusual person”, not someone as non-descript as we want to present here.

[2] Here, City is better than Town because a city is more cosmopolitan.

[3] NOT Blocked, because blocked means obstructed. This is a contre sens.

[4] You can use Domestic staff, but this would be more modern and politically correct. Maids, corresponds closer to the era of the story.

[5] NOT wife, because the meaning is about ANY women, and placed in opposition to the boyish secretary.

[6] Who constantly had a tortured, intelligent and ferocious expression on her face. NOT mask, this is just wrong. NOT face because this only talks about the physical outside.

[7] … a car was parked waiting for him permanently. // a car was waiting at his beck and call.

[8] NOT possessive here. Use the adjective form.

[9] … had the name K.S.

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TEXT FOR NEXT WEEK (Homework):

Moïra, by Julien Green

Depuis un moment, ils se tenaient immobiles, debout, à quelques pas l'un de l'autre, et Mrs. Dare feignait de lire la lettre qu'il venait de lui tendre, mais il y avait plusieurs secondes déjà qu'elle avait pris connaissance de ce document et maintenant, du coin de l’œil, elle observait le nouveau venu. Sans bien savoir pourquoi, elle éprouvait un sentiment de gêne à le regarder en face. « En tout cas, se dit-elle pour se rassurer, il a certainement l'air honnête. »

Elle le voyait de profil, le visage frappé par les rayons de soleil qui se glissaient dans la pièce entre les feuilles des arbres, et malgré elle il lui parut beau, bien qu'il fût roux. C'était cela qui la troublait, cette chevelure de flamme, ce teint d'une blancheur laiteuse, et elle se domina pour qu'il ne comprît pas l'espèce de répulsion qu'il lui inspirait. Elle ne remarqua pas tout de suite qu’il avait les yeux noirs. Grand et le corps un peu mince dans ses vêtements sombres qui ne paraissaient pas faits pour lui, il croisait les bras sur la poitrine et regardait la rue d'un air de défi. A ses pieds, un sac jaune dont le cuir se fendillait par endroits était bourré au point de ressembler à une sphère. Au bout d'un instant, il changea d'attitude, allongea une grande main vers l’ouverture du sac qu'il délaça sans bruit de quelques centimètres, puis, se redressant, enfonça le bout des doigts dans les poches de son veston, les yeux au loin.

Peut-être se savait-il observé. Il laissa passer une minute ou deux puis risqua un coup d’œil oblique vers Mrs. Dare qui lisait toujours. Enfin, comme si cette longue attente l'y autorisait, il jeta plus hardiment la vue autour de lui.

La pièce était basse de plafond et les murs recouverts d'une tenture décolorée qui tirait sur le jaune. Près de la fenêtre, deux fauteuils à bascule se faisaient face, séparés par un petit tapis au point de chaînette dont les laines bleues et mauves se fanaient. Une table ronde en bois peint supportait une grosse plante aux feuilles vigoureuses et lustrées qui formait l'ornement central de ce petit salon. On voyait dans un coin un piano droit étalant sur son porte-musique un album de chansons en vogue dont les titres en lettres grasses faisaient l'effet d'un rire vulgaire. Le jeune homme détourna la tête. « C'est l'Université, pensa-t-il. A l'Université, c'est comme ça. » Mais chez lui, dans la maison de ses parents, le piano ne servait que le dimanche, lorsqu’on chantait des cantiques, et toute la semaine il gardait sa longue bande de drap olive qui protégeait les touches.

Du temps s'écoula encore, mais rien ne laissait croire que Mrs. Dare eût achevé sa lecture, car elle tenait encore le papier entre ses doigts maigres et ne bougeait pas. « Je ne peux pourtant pas le renvoyer parce qu il est roux », se dit-elle. Elle observa ses chaussures poudreuses et supposa qu'il était venu à pied de la gare, par économie. De nouveau elle s'interrogea : « Je me demande s'il sent. Les roux sentent très fort quelquefois. Ça, je ne le supporterais pas. je dois reconnaître que d'ici, je ne sens rien.

Tout à coup, elle plia la lettre qu'elle remit dans son enveloppe.

(548 mots)