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Thanks re: translating "literally" and VN's synaesthesia
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Dear List, Liuba Tarvi and Nikita Danilov,
Thank you for your collaboration concerning the difficulty for the
translation of "Golos ego slovno oslepil menja ..." into any other language.
I realized that in this story the problematic "as if" or "it seems" arose as
a special "turning point" of VN´'s particular kind of synaesthesia. Unlike
the common example of " a screaming red tie" (when vision carries the
sound) his synaesthesia favored an opposite sensation (when sound alters
the vision).
Jansy Mello
.....................
the two collaborations were:
As a translation scholar, I doubt that a unique solution can be found
here. As a native speaker, I can share with you my way of interpreting
this phrase: "His voice seemed to blind me", or "The impression was that
his voice blinded me". A striking mix of two ways of perception.
Ljuba Tarvi
Nabokov's story "Nezhit'" (1921) contains a phrase: "Golos ego slovno
oslepil menja ..."
http://www.lib.ru/NABOKOW/nezhit.txt
"slovno" means roughly "like", "as if", "as though", "as it were." It
stems from the root "slovo" meaning "word."
Nikita Danilov
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Thank you for your collaboration concerning the difficulty for the
translation of "Golos ego slovno oslepil menja ..." into any other language.
I realized that in this story the problematic "as if" or "it seems" arose as
a special "turning point" of VN´'s particular kind of synaesthesia. Unlike
the common example of " a screaming red tie" (when vision carries the
sound) his synaesthesia favored an opposite sensation (when sound alters
the vision).
Jansy Mello
.....................
the two collaborations were:
As a translation scholar, I doubt that a unique solution can be found
here. As a native speaker, I can share with you my way of interpreting
this phrase: "His voice seemed to blind me", or "The impression was that
his voice blinded me". A striking mix of two ways of perception.
Ljuba Tarvi
Nabokov's story "Nezhit'" (1921) contains a phrase: "Golos ego slovno
oslepil menja ..."
http://www.lib.ru/NABOKOW/nezhit.txt
"slovno" means roughly "like", "as if", "as though", "as it were." It
stems from the root "slovo" meaning "word."
Nikita Danilov
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm