“At first, I didn’t realize that AlexanderIII was translating the book; I thought he was just a fastidious Russian reader with a loose command of the English language. It was fun to see people debating the meanings of my thoroughly worked-over phrases…Then I remembered that no Russian publisher had acquired the rights, and realized that AlexanderIII must be translating it for some kind of book-pirating outfit.” Over at The Atlantic, Peter Mountford recounts the experience of watching book piracy in action.
Steal This Curiosity
Amazon Books Expands?
I directed your attention to the opening of the first Amazon Books in Seattle. Now, reports are coming in that Amazon could have plans to open 300-400 more stores across the country. Other sources say the expansion could be more modest.
Murakami’s Translator
Jay Rubin, who spent a year and a half translating the first two books of Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84, has some interesting things to say about the prolific author.
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Old World Values
Henry James wrote a number of odd things about Jewish and Italian immigrants, but is it fair to call him a racist? In The New Criterion, Stephen Miller argues that it isn’t, recalling the time James spent with immigrants on the Lower East Side.
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On the Ladyblogosphere
“Behold the ladyblogosphere,” writes Molly Fischer for n+1, “for [Jezebel, The Hairpin, xojane, and Rookie] are not women’s blogs but ladyblogs, and ‘lady’ is their endemic verbal tic.” Emily Gould’s response is worth a read as well.
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A Rush of Blood to the Head?
An intriguing pairing: Norman Rush tackles James Ellroy‘s Blood’s A Rover in the current New York Review of Books.
OYC to Print
Selections from Open Yale Courses are headed to print. As program director John Donatich explains, “At first glance, you might look at it skeptically and ask why would anybody pay for something that you can get for free. But on second glance you realize that it’s actually not the same thing at all.”
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This Is Not Confessional Poetry
Over at the Bennington Review, Michael Dumanis interviews Year in Reading alumna Dorothea Lasky about persona poetry, the first-person “I,” and creativity. Pair with Gila Lyons’s Millions essay on creativity and madness.
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I’m one of these pirate translators.
Several years ago I’ve translated two novels. The Angel of Pain by Brian Stableford and The Singer’s Crown by Elaine Isaak.
Probably because of the bad karma both publishers were ruined. Somebody from the first one downloaded an edited copy of Angel on the pirate web-sites. I don’t know who. Later I got acquainted with Brian and presented him copy of his Empire of Fear in Russian, pirate edition too. That was all I could do.
What about Singer’s Crown, the translated text is on my hard drive now and I do not know what to do with it. To my regret I didn’t get any answer from Elaine Isaak to my message on Facebook.
Well… things could be worse. Recently I have read a book by Nora Roberts, Naked in Death. It was dull and I could not understand why is it popular among English-speaking readers. Then I noticed a strange thing in the story – multicharged flint pistol. I’ve downloaded English text to check and discovered that there are no flint pistols in the book at all! Only revolvers. I read further and revealed that the translator has changed… well… everything. He erazed all mentions of the future technologies. When the protagonist reads online-news he writes – newspaper. When there are cyber-dogs, he writes just dogs. Revolvers – flint guns, lasers – just guns, videophone – telephone and so on. At the same time he added more emotions. I could not find the man. It seems that he has no blog or page in the Web. I feel pity for Nora Roberts because Russian readers will think that her In Death books are common harlequin novels.