ProZ.com Translation Forums

a dream come true would be... | Saramago

Maaike van Vlijmen — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 03:58:00 +0000

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Topic: a dream come true would be...
Poster: Maaike van Vlijmen
Post title: Saramago

.....if I would ever be able to translate Saramago! Some years ago I discovered his books and I loved them. Later, I moved to Portugal and learnt Portuguese, but his books are still hard for me to read in Portuguese, so I stick to the translations...which are marvellous by the way in Dutch. My deepest respect to Maartje de Kort! If I only could...

a dream come true would be... | Henry James and Virginia Woolf and Thomas Pynchon and...

Alfredo Tutino — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 20:56:00 +0000

Forum: Off topic
Topic: a dream come true would be...
Poster: Alfredo Tutino
Post title: Henry James and Virginia Woolf and Thomas Pynchon and...

I'd like to translate literature and only literature - but literature of course it's badly paid and moreover the truly great books have already been done - and well enough too... (and I have to admit it is a good thing, as Vito says...)

In the dim past, when I was young, I did in fact translate Virginia Woolf's "Jacob's Room" into Italian for myself (and a friend of mine) and then went on to Henry James' "The Sacred Fount" (its translation was out of print, at the time, but was re-issued shortly after I finished mine...). I was nursing a misplaced ambition to be a writer, and this felt like the only way to understand the way they wrote, but I got infected with a passion for translation itself...

I think I still have somewhere the typed text, with more than a few last-minute handwritten corrections... (it happened in one of the lost geological era before computers began to be used as typewriters...)

Fond memories indeed.

In later years, I have translated some short stories and novels, and been paid for it; none was really bad, and some of them were even good, but in fact they do not compare at all...

The truly great are gone, the giants are all under our dwarf asses, golden ages are all in the past, Arcadia's long lost and so forth, as everybody know :-^) - but it would still be good being asked to translate the next book that will come (hopefully) from Thomas Pynchon or Salman Rushdie, with ample time and good pay... I might even settle for Ian McEwan or Hanif Kureishi...

[Edited at 2006-11-13 20:58]

[Edited at 2006-11-13 21:27]

a dream come true would be... | Translating Fitzgerald

Olga Dubeshka (X) — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 19:15:00 +0000

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Topic: a dream come true would be...
Poster: Olga Dubeshka (X)
Post title: Translating Fitzgerald

From translator`s point of view a pure treat... When I read his books I could almost hear jazz on the background , and
the Golden Age is present in each centence. Well, maybe I had too much coffee that day:)
His language has something peculiar about it , almost sounding as if it rhymes and flows like a song...
Well, it almost disappears in translation. I always thought it the greatest challenge to translate it in such a way that you would get the same feeling.

And of course my all-time fav " Como Agua para Chocolate" by Laura Esquivel - the most romantic charming book in my opinion. Now that I could only find time to tackle them both !!:)

a dream come true would be... | My dream come true would be...

Vito Smolej — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 16:30:00 +0000

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Topic: a dream come true would be...
Poster: Vito Smolej
Post title: My dream come true would be...

to translate "The old man and the sea", "Madame Bovary", "Prozess" - well, I nearly added La divina Comedia, but then I am not that good with terzinas.

But then,

i) it's better, humanity - specifically Slovenians - did not wait for me and

ii) there's more to come: if Handke down the road gets a Nobel prize, then I'll be in the shadow of immortals (sort of) due to my early works...

[Edited at 2006-11-13 16:30]

a dream come true would be... | Hello Angeliki :)

biankonera — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 13:24:00 +0000

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Topic: a dream come true would be...
Poster: biankonera
Post title: Hello Angeliki :)

[quote]Angeliki Papadopoulou wrote:

Does your proz ID come from a movie made in Tuscany, the name of which escapes me, starring Diane Lane and a house named Bramasole? I loved that movie!

[/quote]

Ah yes, thats where it comes from indeed.:) I adore that movie - Under the Tuscan Sun (which happens to be my dream movie to translate) - and also its meaning is perfectly about me as I always yearn for the sun.:)

Mmm... a cottage on some island surrounded by crystal clear sea... suppose its daydreaming time for me:))

Stella

a dream come true would be... | Hi Stella

Angeliki Papadopoulou — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 12:37:00 +0000

Forum: Off topic
Topic: a dream come true would be...
Poster: Angeliki Papadopoulou
Post title: Hi Stella

Does your proz ID come from a movie made in Tuscany, the name of which escapes me, starring Diane Lane and a house named Bramasole? I loved that movie!

On the subject of your thread, a dream come true for me would be to translate into english a self-help book I co-authored with a firend of mine on losing weight and the psychology involved.

I might even do that one day, when (another dream I may hopefully realize) I will be able to stop working full time and go back to live in my cottage on an Aegean island.

Thank you for those few moments in dreamland!!!

a dream come true would be...

biankonera — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 12:16:00 +0000

Forum: Off topic
Topic: a dream come true would be...
Poster: biankonera

I watched today yet again one of my all time favorite movies and thought - how nice it would be to have a possibility to translate it for a voice over or at least make subtitles for it in my TL.

The same applies to some books I really enjoy and am sincerely sad they are not translated into my native language.

So how would you finish the sentence "a dream come true would be to translate..."?
What would be your dream translation to do? What movie, book or whatever else would you enjoy translating for pleasure? :)

Stella