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Don Quixote - The New Translation

#82: April - May 2010 (Fiction)
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Suzanne

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Re: Don Quixote - The New Translation

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You're hysterical bleachededen, I hope you stick around for a long time. I really do enjoy your posts.
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Re: Don Quixote - The New Translation

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:blush:
Thank you.

I like it here. I'm sure I'll be staying. :)
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Robert Tulip

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Re: Don Quixote - The New Translation

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justareader wrote:"Don Quijote soy, y mi profesión la de caballero andante. Son mis leyes, el desfacer entuertos, prodigar el bien y evitar el mal. Fuyo de la vida regalada, de la ambición y la hipocresía, y busco para mi propia gloria la senda más angosta y difícil. ¿Es eso, de tonto y mentecato?".

Don Quijote y yo hablamos la misma lengua. Si vosotros quereís yo podría coordinar la discusión, mis apreciados y respetados amigos. :D

Justareader
Translation from http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_txt
" Don Quixote I am, and my profession the one of horseman andante. They are my laws, desfacer entuertos, lavishing the good and to avoid the evil. The Fuyo of the given life, the ambition and hypocrisy, and I look for my own glory the narrowest and difficult footpath. He is that, of idiot and mentecato? ". Don Quixote and I spoke the same language. If you quereís I could coordinate the discussion, my appreciated and respected friendly
Does Donkey Hote translate as a pun?
Last edited by Robert Tulip on Tue Mar 02, 2010 2:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
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DWill

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Re: Don Quixote - The New Translation

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bleachededen wrote:
Suzanne wrote:
bleachededen wrote:Do you mean Edith Grossman?
This is what I'm finding too, with an intro by Harold Bloom.
Oh, Harold Bloom. He and I are not friends. I like some of his ideas about the "anxiety of influence," but his writing comes off as pompous and annoying (somewhat sexist at times, too). But I suppose he's not as bad as T.S. Eliot. That guy drives me nuts!

(somebody didn't like their literary criticism class :-P)
One of the little useless things I remember is that ee cummings referred to Eliot as "tears eliot." Will you be shutting your eyes when the march of poems comes to Prufrock and The Wasteland?

As this thread is about Don Quixote, and as I have started to reread my old Penguin, I have the idea to keep reading my edition and see whether what others say will indicate significant differences. The translator of the Penguin (1950) is J. M. Cohen. He says that his is modern, unstilted, and faithful to Cervantes.
Last edited by DWill on Tue Mar 02, 2010 9:14 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Don Quixote - The New Translation

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bleachededen wrote:
tomwhite56 wrote:By all accounts the new translation of Don Quixote by Edith Goodman is a work of wonder. I never was able to get through my reading of what I now understand to be the fountainhead of all classics, and the first true novel, perhaps because the translation was less than desirable, or perhaps I was just not ready for the book. As a newbie I hardly concsider myself qualified to lead the discussion, but I would be eager to join in.
Do you mean Edith Grossman? That's what I'm finding on Amazon.
Heh heh...I said "Goodman". Grossman is of course correct. :roll:
A likely story.
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Re: Don Quixote - The New Translation

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I can tell you now that I started reading this book on Sunday, and (including the translator's note and the Introduction by Bloom) I'm up to page 73 as of this morning. Someone out there on the web reviewing the edition said that it may be the best translation to English since the 17th century, which is certainly saying something. I can't speak to that, but what I can tell you is that the feeling I get is that I'm not so much reading a book as listening to Cervantes tell me the story -- animated, expressive, full of delight in the telling. This is remarkable. Very little going back and reading over -- pressing on instead. This was not the case when I was younger and reading what must have been an inferior translation -- it seemed more like work to read what I did, drudgery, and never able to complete the job. This is how it ought to be.
A likely story.
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Re: Don Quixote - The New Translation

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DWill wrote: One of the little useless things I remember is that ee cummings referred to Eliot as "tears eliot." Will you be shutting your eyes when the march of poems comes to Prufrock and The Wasteland?
Most likely. I like the first line or so of Prufrock, but after that I lose interest, and as far as The Wasteland is concerned, it has long been my opinion that a poem should not need footnotes. And I don't mean footnotes by a translator who is making a note of something that happened in translation of one language to another, but author written footnotes, without which the poem cannot be read.

Yeah. No. That kind of poetry does not stand with me. That, and I generally hate the "art for art's sake" movement in all forms of the arts, from poetry and art to music. I don't want to have to have my art explained to me, and I don't want to have to read 20 pages of long-winded poetry plus 10 pages of footnotes just to find what I already know -- I hate T.S. Eliot. The only work of his I ever liked was Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats -- and not just because it became a musical. :-P Those poems are whimsical and amusing, and sometimes I think Eliot didn't even write them himself. Maybe there really was an "Old Possum." :mrgreen:
DWill wrote: As this thread is about Don Quixote, and as I have started to reread my old Penguin, I have the idea to keep reading my edition and see whether what others say will indicate significant differences. The translator of the Penguin (1950) is J. M. Cohen. He says that his is modern, unstilted, and faithful to Cervantes.
The copy I have is my dad's, and the copyright on it says 1930, so I can only assume the translation is even older than that! No wonder I've been having such problems. :lol:
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Re: Don Quixote - The New Translation

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I'm going to get it. Every few years I reread the second - the more deeper - half. Don Quixote is my favorite novel. To think that Cervantes was a failure most of his life. Amazing the way things work out sometimes. Without his failures - which eventually forced him to ride around southern Spain as a tax collector - I don't think Cervantes would have ever written his great book.

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Re: Don Quixote - The New Translation

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I've got the version translated by "John Ormsby" in my collection of free e-books on http://Mikefiles.com
Here's the direct link - http://mikefiles.com/b/Classics/10.%20Don%20Quixote.txt
I'd like to know which one you like better. (All I know about the version I have is that it has a huge introduction. So far this seems common for all Don Quixote books that I've tried out so far.
So far I've taken several running starts, even in an abridged version in Spanish (though I'm not fluent and had to guess every other word), and in all cases I've never even reached the part with the windmill and the riding partner.
Good luck to you all in this undertaking.
Last edited by MikeB on Sat Mar 06, 2010 2:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Don Quixote - The New Translation

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Has anyone started reading? I will pick my book up today.
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