Wednesday, September 25, 2002
 

One of the two readings in the library reserve turned out to be in French (it later transpired that the prof thought he was putting the English translation on reserve). Being a geek, I went ahead and started to "browse" (as per the instructions in the syllabus, such as it is). The book was Faulkner, Mississippi (very interesting, if that's up anyone's alley-- and, as I said, there is a translation), by Edouard Glissant. The funniest thing was seeing all the Faulkner titles in French; I think Go Down, Moses (Descends, Moise) loses something in translation. Le Bruit et la Fureur (The Sound and the Fury) was still nice, I thought. What was REALLY funny was when you'd be reading along, middle of a paragraph of French, lovely language that it is, and he's writing about "l'histoire de Flem Snopes" or something like that. A good one: ". . . qu'ils ne sont pas seulement une chronique du comte de Yoknapatawpha et par consequent du sud tout entirer . . ." I just love the Faulkner words adrift in those seas of French. Or maybe I'm just weird. And that last remark is NOT an invitation to comment.

Elvisette philosophized at 8:01 PM