“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
Tuesday New Release Day: Frame, London, Stafford, Tennyson, Bennet
Janet Frame’s posthumous novel In the Memorial Room is out this week, as is a new e-book edition of Jack London’s The Sea Wolf. Also out: Ask Me: 100 Essential Poems by the onetime Poet Laureate William Stafford; a new biography of Alfred, Lord Tennyson; and the latest edition of The Best American Magazine Writing.
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Raymond Chandler on How to Write Detective Stories
“The good detective story writer (there must after all be a few) competes not only with all the unburied dead but with all the hosts of the living as well. And on almost equal terms; for it is one of the qualities of this kind of writing that the thing that makes people read it never goes out of style.” Raymond Chandler’s 1950 essay, “The Simple Art of Murder” is a real gem.
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Monkey Shakespeare
Who was it that came up with the idea that a million monkeys in front of a million typewriters would eventually, with their random keyboard smashing, type William Shakespeare’s complete works? Well, you can give the experiment a try here (link from the CC). And while you’re waiting for your monkeys to finish typing Love’s Labor’s Lost, check out some book excerpts I found:Heir to the Glimmering World by Cynthia Ozick — excerpt, NYT review, SF Chronicle reviewChain of Command by Seymour Hersh — excerpt, CS Monitor reviewThe Double by Jose Saramago — excerpt, NZ Herald reviewThe Fall Of Baghdad by Jon Lee Anderson — excerpt, WaPo review
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Dr. Seuss Manuscript Surfaces
“All Sorts of Sports. Shall I play checkers? golf? croquet? There are so many games there are to play.” A never-before-seen Dr. Seuss manuscript, “All Sorts of Sports,” is up for auction. (via AuthorScoop)
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Time Magazine Goes Soft
Last week, a lot of people were disappointed by Time‘s decision to “water down” the latest issue’s cover for its American audience. As a follow-up, ShortFormBlog takes a look at the publication’s history of doing this, and also their reasoning.
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The Declining Agony of Influence
According to a study cited in The Guardian, contemporary authors are less likely to be influenced by classic literature than previous generations of writers.
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.