On Translation

Why Translation Deserves Scrutiny

Tim Parks

NYRB NYR Daily, October 23, 2018

 

 

Nonfiction

Did He Really Say That? On the Perils and Pitfalls of Translation

Benjamin Moser, NYT June 28, 2018

Review of:

THIS LITTLE ART
By Kate Briggs
365 pp. Fitzcarraldo Editions. 

Letters to the Editor

NYT, July 20, 2018 

 

The Art of Translation

To the Editor: Here you find some of the angry letters in reaction the the review by Benjamin Moser. It illustrates the points Tim Parks reflects in his article.

Facebook, the asocial drug

The Autocracy App

Jacob Weisberg, NYRB, October 25, 2018

A review of two books on FACEBOOK and its criminal background:

Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy
by Siva Vaidhyanathan
Oxford University Press, 276 pp., $24.95

 

Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now
by Jaron Lanier
Henry Holt, 146 pp., $18.00

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Many years ago I subscribed "Driesch" to facebook. After a very short time I encountered the bad business policies, the fraud, the misuse of data, the destruction of discourse, the wrong appeals to "selfism" (self -expression as extrem self-manifestation as beginning of the cult of the shown self), so that I cancelled very soon membership, which, by the way, was pretty difficult. In our facebook account we didn't share private issues, only items concerning our publishing program or questions of literatur. But the environment does effect every item which is displaced and shown, and one becomes a collaborator with the ugly power, if one cooperates.

Today, many so called quality papers and magazines or corporate media recommend the viewer, listener or reader, to follow on facebook. I do not follow. It's the mind of the fellow traveller, the uncritical consumer and collaborator. Persons as well as institutions who observe the values of a free, emancipated society, shouldn't invite to participate in the destructive asocial media. It is a contradiction to their position and shows only that their goal to reach more people and to increase profit.

We have a well sorted library with books mainly in philosophy, literary criticism, social scienes and so on. Stuff, which the average reader doesn't read. We often hear, we should utilize facebook to gain more attention, to catch some readers. I decline. The pure orientation on masses according the general orientation on quantities doesn't satisfy our expectations concerning quality.

 

The NYRB and the troubles of political correctness

Accused Sexual Assaulter’s Tale of Ostracism

Should The New York Review of Books have published the essay by a Canadian broadcaster that led to the departure of the publication’s editor?

Sept. 23, 2018, NYT

New York Review of Books Acknowledges ‘Failures’ in a #MeToo Essay

John Williams, NYT, Sept. 24, 2018

This article has been updated to include information about a letter sent to the New York Review of Books on Tuesday by contributors to the magazine saying they found Ian Buruma’s departure as editor “very troubling.” 

THE NATION did apologize, now the NYRB. Who will be next? The rule of the mob reigns. Even if a court accquits a case, the pure mass of accusers keep it hot and demand obedience - and business follows cowardly.

As one female wrote in a letter, quoted by by the NYT:

Sexual harassment and assault are evils, but so is firing an editor for refusing to pass judgment on allegations rejected by a court, or choosing to publish an author who writes not to excuse bad behavior, but rather to describe the effects of a contemporary phenomenon — justice by internet — that is rampant and dangerous.

Fascism takes many forms, and rough justice by self-selected vigilantes is one of them. I won’t cancel my subscription to The Review, but I am appalled.

Rita C. Tobin

Confessions of a Jewish Dissident

Confessions of a Jewish Dissident

I.F. Stone

March 9, 1978 Issue 

—Washington
Abstractly speaking, I should be quite a popular person in the American-Jewish community. I am a dissident. I am also, at a time when the search is on for moderate voices on the Palestine question, a moderate. And I proved my devotion to displaced persons in and out of the Middle East years ago. I have a medal to prove it, from the Haganah—the illegal Jewish army that fought what Prime Minister Begin calls the Jewish war of liberation and established the state of Israel in 1948.
Read on here! 

A short story, 40 years of age. What are 40 years? 30 years earlier the Jewish state of ISRAEL was installed on stolen and conquered land. Nakba. 


Since 70 years we hear and see the very same! Some new figures change while the old ones are engraved in the hearts and brains. Israel has become a matter of unconditional and definitive belief. As the Hitler-Germans with their Führer, the great Hitler, today one has to stand with Israel, strong and absolute, without any (!) question . There is a duty to obey. This law is to be obeyed not only by the former enemies, the Germans, but generally. And it is! Israel, right or wrong, Israel, the eternal Holy Land, the old and new Jeruaselm.

Homage to Catalonia

Homage to Catalonia is political journalist and novelist George Orwell's personal account of his experiences and observations in the Spanish Civil War. The first edition was published in 1938. The book was not published in the United States until February 1952. The American edition had a preface written by Lionel Trilling. The only translation published in Orwell's lifetime was into Italian, in December 1948. [The German translation appeared only in 1964!]
A French translation made by Yvonne Davet – with whom Orwell corresponded, commenting on her translation and providing explanatory notes – in 1938-39, was not published until five years after Orwell's death.

The book was finally published in April 1938 but "made virtually no impact whatsoever and by the outbreak of war with Germany had sold only 900 copies." According to John Newsinger, "the Communist vendetta against the book" was maintained as recently as 1984, when Lawrence and Wishart published Inside the Myth, a collection of essays "bringing together a variety of standpoints hostile to Orwell in an obvious attempt to do as much damage to his reputation as possible."

(Quote from the Wikipedia article)
Wikipedia
[Image from Wikipedia]

Addendum:
Revisiting George Orwell’s classic account of the Spanish Civil War, 75 years on.
by Mick Hume , SPIKED

* * *

Censorship is censorship, whether from the right or the left. Or should we consider the crimes of the left, the communists, as less weighting, less important, less damaging? Obviously so - since so many still uphold Stalin, his terror, as legitimate measures against fascism.

With leftwingers like those one only can become desperate. Today it is no accident or coincidence that there are no journalists, writers or activists like George Orwell was. The scene is clear: here the good boys, the politically correct ones, there the bad boys, the enemies. The old manichaean view reigns for the comfort of the One Dimensional Man.

The Event of Literature

The Event of Literature
by Terry Eagleton 
Yale Press 2012

Review: The Event of Literature by Terry Eagleton
Why writers have little use for literary theory
Adam Kirsch, New Statesman, 4.4.2012
 
The Event of Literature by Terry Eagleton – review
Terry Eagleton's theory of literature allows for the 'bad' as well as the good.
Stuart Kelly, Guardian, 6.4.2012



The Event of Literature
Times Higher Education, 3.5.2012



Rescuing literature from literary theory

Terry Eagleton’s attempt to define literature is impressive, but he fails to recognise that this definition is not merely descriptive – it’s also evaluative.
by Sarah Boyes, SP!KED

Ian Johnson on Yu Jie's New Biography of Liu Xiaobo

China’s ‘Fault Lines’: Yu Jie On His New Biography of Liu Xiaobo
Ian Johnson, NYR Blog, The New York Review of Books, July 14, 2012

Ian Johnson writes about Yu Jie’s latest book and writes in his interview with the author, who lives now in the US:

“In the West, if people know anything, they might think of him as conservative. For example, he supported Reagan and, later, George W. Bush’s Iraq War. He was very similar in many ways to the Republicans. I felt I had to write this and explain his thinking and show why he’s like that. Why did he support the Iraq war? You can’t just put him in the European environment and say that everyone who supported that war was a bad person.
He thought of the war as an extension of his opposition to dictatorships.
Yes, and he wasn’t alone. Havel also supported it, and Michnik too. So there are very confusing issues and they can’t be simplified.”

* * *

Several aspects are quite interesting:

Firstly, the old view “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Concerning Liu Xiaobo’s stand to the Iraq-war.

Secondly, the comparison and linking with two Europoean political figures to support Liu Xiaobo’s questionable war endorsements: Vaclav Havel and Adam Michnik.

But does this elevate Liu Xiaobo? No. It is too simple a manoeuvre to justify his war oriented  supportive position. Liu Xiaobo was supporting war. Period. The same is valid for many Western intellectuals and politicians, not only the mentioned Havel and Michnik.* We should remember that persons like the famous Ralf Dahrendorf were in line with the inhuman, self-righteous position led by the US and her puppets, the liberal philosopher Richard Rorty and so on. A big part of the Western intelligence surrendered under what seemed “rational” and “necessary”. These dark figures are of no weight to support a wrong position taken by the Chinese dissident.

• * Adam Michnik über den Irak-Krieg: [Frage des Interviewers]„Sie haben vor einem Jahr über die amerikanische Irak-Politik gesagt: ‚Eine schlechte Regierung hat mit schlechten Argumenten eine sehr gute Intervention gemacht.‘ Was wollten Sie damit sagen?
  Antwort von A. M.: Dass man für den Sturz Saddam Husseins sein kann, obwohl auch Bush und Rumsfeld dieser Meinung sind. Dass dieser Krieg gerechtfertigt sein kann, obwohl auch Bush und Rumsfeld ihn befürworten." [In einem Interview in der Schweizer WELTWOCHE, Ausgabe 17/2004] 

Neben kriegsorienterten Intellektuellen, Politikern und Geschäftemachern waren auch viele westliche Staaten unterstützend tätig in der sogenannten “Koalition derWilligen”.

Das Friedenstaubenimage, das der Westen dem braven Vaclav Havel verpasste, verlangt nach Korrektur, zumindest nach Gegenüberstellung mit anderen Deutungen. Eine findet sich in WSWS (World Socialist Web Site) in einem Beitrag von Peter Schwarz vom 21.12.2011. Vielleicht doch nicht überflüssig sie zu lesen? Das wiederum könnte einen hellhörig machen in der Beurteilung von vom Westen gepriesener Dissidenten. Was nicht heißt, dass ihre Positionen unannehmbar wären, sondern nur bedeutet, die instrumentalisierenden Begleitgeräusche zu dämmen und sich mehr den Personen und ihren Aussagen direkt zu widmen sowie Kontexte herzustellen.

Christopher Hitchens dies December 15th 2011

Christopher Hitchens, a remarkable personality, a well known and famous writer and speaker, an uninhibited atheist, died at age 62; he was born April 13, 1949.
He loved to take position, be outspoken as almost no one else, be critical at an utmost level. He didn't give in. Now we mourn his passing away.

Wikipedia

Daily Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens: tributes and reactions
The indefatigable author, journalist and 'valiant fighter against all tyrants' Christopher Hitchens has died, aged 62. We round up the reactions of his friends and admirers
The Guardian, 16 Dec. 2011

The last video on this list is a three hour recording:
Christopher Hitchens joined Book TV for a three hour interview on Sunday, September 2. Mr. Hitchens is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair magazine and a visiting professor of liberal studies at the New School. He is the author of over a dozen books including "The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice," "No One Left to Lie To: The Values of the Worst Family," "Why Orwell Matters" and "God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything."

Nachtrag vom 20.12.2011:
   
Michael Fitzpatrick    
From revolutionary student to Byronic celebrity
Michael Fitzpatrick recalls his first meeting with Christopher Hitchens 40 years ago, when there was more to him than flashy posturing.
SP!KED, 20 Dec. 2011

Tony Judt - a critical assessment

In Driesch # 4, "Zukunft + Dossier Ost", brachten wir einen Beitrag von Tony Judt, "Words", der kurz vor seinem Tod in der New York Review of Books erschienen war.
Hier in der New Left Review ein "kühler Blick":

Dylan Riley: TONY JUDT: A COOLER LOOK
New Left Review 71, September-October 2011

The London Riots.

An Interview by Zia Cutrara with Haimo L. Handl about the recent riots in London.

Part 1

Part 2

Dazu als Reminiszenz:
Adorno über die zwischenmenschliche Kälte