I too have a txt file of beautiful things, but the beauty of them is often much more esoteric.
Today is a vanilla ice cream day.
First thing sold: Blackberries in a farm to North African when I was sixteen
This probably reflects my pretentious hipsterdom something something.
Though okay there is one line I like that's sort of like the stuff in this post:
then the tigers come at night with their voices soft as thunder (From that too-famous song I Dreamed a Dream)
Fwiw I'd render that Chrono Chross song title as "The Prisoners of Destiny." Life is probably a mistranslation off the fact that the second kanji of destiny/fate, by itself, is "life force" -- and even then it means life in the sense of "vitality" rather than "stuff that happens to you" (that kind of "living" would be more in the vein of 生きて, I think?). As for the "imprisonment" word, the dictionary does suggest a "seized with" translation and I think it can probably be used in the metaphorical English sense of "this has captivated me," but I don't think any reasonably fluent speaker would parse it that way here.
"Those Imprisoned by Fate" is most syntactically literal, but I think the vibe is more like "Prisoners of Fate," though there's a certain pointedness to its reference, hence I think I'd add a "the" to the start.
I agree that there's a certain beauty to other languages translated literally, and I'm cool with acknowledging that so long as it doesn't get chalked up to being a property of the original. Personally, when it doesn't come from mistranslation1, I find it a kind of beauty stemming from the variance of languages. You become aware of how differently ideas are expressed and how many different nuances a word in your language or theirs might express.
1 And I once mistranslated a line from Ike/Soren B as "I'll forever bear your anguished state" so believe me when I say I see the appeal.
That all said, I'm with Le Guin when she suggests implicitly that sentences do have a right rhythm, one that blends perfectly. And knowing how hard it is to make them blend together right and feel smooth and flowing, I appreciate a passage that's written so well that it does feel smooth.
I have a feeling you'd like Andre Aciman better than I do presently. He's full of odd spastic wordy phrases that kind of bore me with their constant excitement.
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Date: 2013-03-14 03:00 pm (UTC)Today is a vanilla ice cream day.
First thing sold: Blackberries in a farm to North African when I was sixteen
This probably reflects my pretentious hipsterdom something something.
Though okay there is one line I like that's sort of like the stuff in this post:
then the tigers come at night
with their voices soft as thunder
(From that too-famous song I Dreamed a Dream)
Fwiw I'd render that Chrono Chross song title as "The Prisoners of Destiny." Life is probably a mistranslation off the fact that the second kanji of destiny/fate, by itself, is "life force" -- and even then it means life in the sense of "vitality" rather than "stuff that happens to you" (that kind of "living" would be more in the vein of 生きて, I think?). As for the "imprisonment" word, the dictionary does suggest a "seized with" translation and I think it can probably be used in the metaphorical English sense of "this has captivated me," but I don't think any reasonably fluent speaker would parse it that way here.
"Those Imprisoned by Fate" is most syntactically literal, but I think the vibe is more like "Prisoners of Fate," though there's a certain pointedness to its reference, hence I think I'd add a "the" to the start.
I agree that there's a certain beauty to other languages translated literally, and I'm cool with acknowledging that so long as it doesn't get chalked up to being a property of the original. Personally, when it doesn't come from mistranslation1, I find it a kind of beauty stemming from the variance of languages. You become aware of how differently ideas are expressed and how many different nuances a word in your language or theirs might express.
1 And I once mistranslated a line from Ike/Soren B as "I'll forever bear your anguished state" so believe me when I say I see the appeal.
That all said, I'm with Le Guin when she suggests implicitly that sentences do have a right rhythm, one that blends perfectly. And knowing how hard it is to make them blend together right and feel smooth and flowing, I appreciate a passage that's written so well that it does feel smooth.
I have a feeling you'd like Andre Aciman better than I do presently. He's full of odd spastic wordy phrases that kind of bore me with their constant excitement.