Details

Here's a powerful example of how crucial a word or two can be in the work of translation, from a review by Judith Shulevitz of Robert Alter's translation The Five Books of Moses, New York Times, October 17, 2004:

What Alter does with the Bible . . . is read it, with erudition and rigor and respect for the intelligence of the editor or editors who stitched it together, and--most thrillingly--with the keenest receptivity to its darker undertones.

In the case of the binding of Isaac, for instance, Alter not only accepts a previous translator's substitution of ''cleaver'' for the ''knife'' of the King James version but also changes ''slay'' (as in, ''Abraham took the knife to slay his son'') to ''slaughter.'' Moreover, in his notes he points out that although this particular Hebrew verb for ''bound'' (as in, ''Abraham bound Isaac his son'') occurs only this once in biblical Hebrew, making its meaning uncertain, we can nonetheless take a hint from the fact that when the word reappears in rabbinic Hebrew it refers specifically to the trussing up of animals. Alter's translation thus suggests a dimension of this eerie tale we would probably have overlooked: that of editorial comment. The biblical author, by using words more suited to butchery than ritual sacrifice, lets us know that he is as horrified as we at the brutality of the act that God has asked Abraham to commit.

Homer everywhere

From The End: Hamburg 1943, by Hans Erich Nossack, translated by Joel Agee, an eyewitness account of the firebombing of Hamburg:

A few airplanes caught fire and fell like meteors into the dark. . . . Where they crashed, the landscape lit up for minutes. Once the silhouette of a distant windmill stood out against one such white incandescence. There was no feeling of cruel satisfaction at the defeat of an enemy. I remember that on one such occasion some women on the roof of a neighbor's house clapped their hands, and how at the time I angrily thought of the words with which Odysseus forbade the old nurse to rejoice over the death of the Suitors: "Old woman, rejoice in silence; restrain yourself, and do not make any noise about it; it is an unholy thing to vaunt over dead men."

[The quotation is from Samuel Butler's prose translation.]

Sappho papyri

2601 students: Jon Meyer asked after class where it's possible to see surviving examples of Sappho's poems. Here is a link to one page from POxy (Oxyrhynchus Online), a website devoted to the Oxyrhynchus dumps. You can click to see each Sappho papyrus.

The home page for the site is here. A brief and highly visual history of Oxyrhynchus can be found here.

Alabama in the news

From an article in the Birmingham News:

An Alabama lawmaker who sought to ban gay marriages now wants to ban novels with gay characters from public libraries, including university libraries.

A bill by Rep. Gerald Allen, R-Cottondale, would prohibit the use of public funds for "the purchase of textbooks or library materials that recognize or promote homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle." Allen said he filed the bill to protect children from the "homosexual agenda" . . . .

Allen said that if his bill passes, novels with gay protagonists and college textbooks that suggest homosexuality is natural would have to be removed from library shelves and destroyed.

"I guess we dig a big hole and dump them in and bury them," he said.

A spokesman for the Montgomery-based Southern Poverty Law Center called the bill censorship.

"It sounds like Nazi book burning to me," said SPLC spokesman Mark Potok.

Me too. And this story reminds me of what happens in Pleasantville, in which the book-burning scene is meant of course to evoke what the Nazis did.

The article goes on to add: "Allen pre-filed his bill in advance of the 2005 legislative session, which begins Feb. 1. If the bill became law, public school textbooks could not present homosexuality as a genetic trait and public libraries couldn't offer books with gay or bisexual characters." Goodbye Gilgamesh and Enkidu. Goodbye Achilles and Patroclus. Goodbye Sappho.

Quiet please

From an article in today's Washington Post on materials used in federally funded abstinence-only programs:

Some course materials cited in Waxman's report present as scientific fact notions about a man's need for "admiration" and "sexual fulfillment" compared with a woman's need for "financial support." One book in the "Choosing Best" series tells the story of a knight who married a village maiden instead of the princess because the princess offered so many tips on slaying the local dragon. "Moral of the story," notes the popular text: "Occasional suggestions and assistance may be alright, but too much of it will lessen a man's confidence or even turn him away from his princess."

It sounds as though the author(s) of "Choosing Best" never read Lysistrata or Odyssey 19 (it's Penelope who gives Odysseus the crucial advantage of a long-range weapon by devising the test of the bow).

Time flies

If you need a reminder that time flies, look at this page. It may take a few seconds to load (if you can spare them).

World AIDS Day

Tomorrow is World AIDS Day.

[This post is in memory of my dear friend Aldo Carrasco, 1958-1986.]

The painting in Pleasantville

All the way from Florence, Italy, here is the painting that we see in Pleasantville, Masaccio's Expulsion from Paradise.

When I first saw Pleasantville, something clicked--I knew this painting from somewhere. But where? I turned the pages of every art-history book I own to find the source of the click. I finally found Masaccio's painting in a book that I bought at a Textbook Rental sale (for all of 25 cents). To find the painting on-line, I used (what else?) Google.

And, but, for, nor, or, so, yet

Starting a sentence with a conjunction is a literary device that can be overused. And it can be annoying. But there's nothing inherently evil about it.

From a good book on writing, The Elephants of Style, by Bill Walsh, a copy editor at the Washington Post, available at fine bookstores everywhere and at Booth Library. Call number: PE2827.W35 2004.

A correction

In today's New York Times: "An obituary of the jazz pianist and composer Joe Bushkin on Nov. 5 misidentified the technology used at a recording session in the early 1930's when Mr. Bushkin, who was 14, nearly made a record with Benny Goodman before the scheduled pianist finally showed up. It was a disk cutter and wax disks; magnetic tape was not used regularly for recording music until the late 1940's."

I emailed the Times about the error on November 5. I'm glad that there's finally a correction. It's amazing though that someone writing for the Times (the Times!) would think that magnetic tape was in use in the thirties.