This is supposed to be part one of the first volume of In Search of Lost Time, and I suspect the artist didn't dare to take many licences, being the oThis is supposed to be part one of the first volume of In Search of Lost Time, and I suspect the artist didn't dare to take many licences, being the original the monumental reference that it is. And yet if the comic is faithful, there is so much I don't remember from that first book!
Of course I remember the madeleine soaked in tea, the long walks around Combray, the good-night kisses, Swann, the auntie… but other passages I seem to have forgotten already. Or the characters are mixed up in my memory, or the order of events is wrong in my memory.
This seemed to me a somewhat whimsical adaptation: jumping from passage to passage, mixing thoughts with action and images with words… Perhaps it's just that Swann's Way is impossible to render as a (short) graphic novel after all, its main value being sophisticated language, extremely detailed and subtle accounts, and a flood of words without end. I mean, how does one even being to translate that into drawings and panels?
And the art isn't great, let's put it that way.
So, I give it one or two stars. Two I guess, if only for the boldness of the whole enterprise: this is the first book of many! (the rest of which I do not intend to read)....more
This paperback collects original issues 18–23 (of 60). So I'm roughly one-third into the series. As I suspected from the beginningI'm still liking it.
This paperback collects original issues 18–23 (of 60). So I'm roughly one-third into the series. As I suspected from the beginning, as the story goes on necessarily there's a drop in quality: there just can't be as much novelty and surprising humour and genuine plot twists page after page. It's just a universal law that given enough time, every good piece of art that works well and therefore stretches for too long approaches the asymptote “soap opera”. There's already a tiny bit of that here. But it's quite good still, and I'm still hooked.
I read a horrible translation into Spanish because that's the edition I found at one of the libraries of the public regional network here. You know when texts are so badly translated that you see a weird expression or an incorrect word, and you are able to reverse engineer the bad translation and work out what the original said? That bad. Also, it's full of typos, missing diacritics, and expressions that don't sound natural in Spanish (of Spain). It's so bad I have to share some highlights. Brace yourselves:
“Con todo lo que XXX desconoce sobre YYY podría mos [sic] llenar tres trincheras marianas”
You got that? Think. Answer after the break.
…
“Mariana Trench” → “trinchera mariana”! Instead of “Fosa de las Marianas”.
More:
“Decidnos a dónde [sic] ha ido la tercera chica de vuestra pequeña fiesta”
I bet that was “your little party” in the original; but given the context, it should have been translated as “grupo”, “destacamento” or “compañía” — not “fiesta”.
I think my translation into Spanish was truly horrible, and that detracted from the experience. There were missing accents, even. Perhaps that's why II think my translation into Spanish was truly horrible, and that detracted from the experience. There were missing accents, even. Perhaps that's why I can't give it four stars.
The kernel of this little book is moving and shocking. We know it's first-hand experience, and that makes it even more valuable.
The story serves as proof of the principle of hedonic adaptation: when life is truly horrendous and miserable for years; and you toil at -30°C from before dawn to after dusk; battling louse, starvation, disease and violence; all for two bowls of watery soup and a loaf of bread a day… then that's your baseline for well-being, and tiny “improvements” over that that would seem laughable to you and me feel like pure bliss and can make a day wonderful (in comparison). Things such as getting a second serving of soup, saving enough to buy a few cigarettes, or finding in the snow a rusty piece of metal that one can polish for hours to build a rudimentary knife or a rudimentary needle. That kind of “luxuries”. It's amazing.
As a literary work, it's not remarkable in itself, I guess. Well written (to the extent I can tell reading a bad translation), and it does what it says on the tin. But boy, what a historical document…...more
Hum. I liked the first poems best. eg these three, which you can read (in Spanish) right now directly on Wikisource: La Casada Infiel, PreciosaHum. I liked the first poems best. eg these three, which you can read (in Spanish) right now directly on Wikisource: La Casada Infiel, Preciosa y el Aire, Reyerta. Those I found beautiful and evocative.
Most of the others, I think I didn't quite understand. Verses are full of metaphors, many of them difficult to decrypt (because they have to do with old rural life, Gypsy culture, Catholic myths, etc). Some of them were to me a blur of green, green, green, moon, moon, moon: I couldn't quite extract a story or even a snapshot or a gallery of characters from them… So I didn't find that much to enjoy.
In the three poems dedicated to three Andalusian cities (Córdoba, Granada, Seville) I was expecting to recognise features of those cities which I know well: the shape of the historic buildings, the sound of markets, street names, scenes by the river… but instead, it was something about some saints (somehow related to the cities, I guess), with very few recognisable references to the respective city.
I should probably read more about the book to understand it fully. Right now, this book is to me a handful of very beautiful and skillful short poems about life in rural Spain a century ago, brawls between gypsy families, little girls being raped, clashes with the Civil Guard, and the smells and sights of olive grooves and creeks.
It was going to be at least three stars, maybe four, when I started reading it. But I can't in conscience give it that much. Definitely my own fault of education and/or sensibility.
(If you don't know them, read those three or four poems from the beginning right now :)...more
I got a bit bored with this third and final volume. It's too long, there's too much rambling, and the titles of the essays often bear no relationship I got a bit bored with this third and final volume. It's too long, there's too much rambling, and the titles of the essays often bear no relationship with the content of the essays themselves. For instance, an essay may be entitled “On the convenience of peace”, but most of its pages are a discussion on whether it's better to sit or to squat when having a shit (I'm making this up, but that's the idea).
On the other hand, Montaigne is still insightful, original, and at times funny. There are a couple of chapters in this volume that feel particularly prescient and valuable, and I ended up highlighting so many passages. Montaigne is almost a liberal, almost a stoic, and almost a rationalist.
Another positive thing I got from the Essays is a fresher interest in the Greek and Roman philosophers and poets: Montaigne is to be admired, and he himself admired “the ancients” above all men — particularly Socrates and Plato, and the greatest emperors and conquerors of antiquity. (I found myself at times wishing I knew Latin to be able to read the two hundred million quotes he includes in his text from the original, or in the case of the Greek philosophers, from the closest Latin translation. In a different life, I set out to learn Latin for the thrill of it… I could definitely see that. Man, I'll never be the cool kid at the cafeteria.)...more
Loading...
