I don't think I'll do translations -- so much time required! -- but I do love Briggs's invitation, which makes me want to devote the time to translation, even if I don't actually have it.
I'd forgotten that Brexit is in the background of TLA, or the foreground in the pages for today. What a contrast, the openness of Briggs's invitation to translate, and the closed-off nature of Brexit. Briggs values the contact translation brings, and she always emphasizes the body in translation -- the hands that translate -- and she values how travel facilitates translations. How sad that Brexit can make that contact harder! How sad to look back and see that what she took for granted is under threat. I can feel the sadness and anger, even though Briggs doesn't dwell on it.
Barthes, Session of Jan. 6th: I'm curious about his side note that some people have accused his lecture course of being narcissistic. It doesn't feel that way to me! Yes, he uses his interests and desires -- his fantasy -- to shape what he says, but at least he's upfront about that. I think we all begin with our personal interests and desires, but we aren't always honest about it.
I like what Barthes says about haiku as equivalent to a word, as a fundamental unit, and I'm thinking about his idea of "aeration" -- the space around each haiku, in relation to the way Briggs uses white space. She certainly cares about giving her blocks of text, her units, the space they need to allow the reader to breathe. I wonder how much of her use of white space comes directly from Barthes, and/or from elsewhere. And my eye is drawn to the short sections as I flip through TLA or look to see what it coming up in the next few pages. I find it nearly impossible not to read the short sections that are in the next day's reading.
I’m also thinking about his ideas of “aeration” and how he seems to link that to some sense of “truth” (I’m writing something about haiku and aeration and truth and that really difficult paragraph in p27 about space and time). I really do appreciate the idea of the haiku as “a verbal gesture [a line] that can’t be broken down.” Should we all start writing haiku now?
I wasn't bothered by the narcissism remark. I actually agree with that perception. That doesn't necessarily need to be construed as negative though, I just finished Augustine's Confessions and that book is equally worthy of the designation. It hasn't negated the book's value.
The Brexit remark also stood out for me. IMO, it helps ground the book in time and place, but beyond that takes us from the realms of translation, criticism, literature, and into the real world. This grounding not only pulls us out of those other realms for a minute, nudging us toward seeking real world applications for lessons from the book, but also encourages a more expanded interpretation, where we may find universal metaphorical meanings beyond translation and criticism.
I felt Briggs comments on "white space," were more on aesthetic and like Nicholas saw Barthes' as more related to truth or some word like truth that combines correctness, actuality, and ideal. Excuse my not having a definitive word for that.
I've been thinking about narcissism, and I wonder if it's self-absorption alone or self-absorption mixed with a pointed disregard of others or excluding/ignoring others. I feel like maybe Barthes writes a lot about himself, but also with some attention to the audience, like he's aware of the audience and inviting them in. He has a relationship with the audience and that relationship shapes his writing, or at least that's the feeling I have as I read.
I went back to Barthes on haiku and truth and see your point, although I don't pretend to understand that complicated passage. I'm fascinated by the meaning of form and its relationship to truth (I can only try to follow Barthes's reasoning though!).
I was also struck by Barthes' comment on accusations of narcissism, and I totally agree, Rebecca—his project doesn't feel that way at all to me. It feels *so* deeply personal (and so generously, vulnerably so) that it comes across as a gift and an invitation—an invitation to know him and what he cares about, plus an invitation to participate: here, I'm showing you this in case you might like to pursue your own version of it. I love texts like this—in which the deep interior life of the writer feels like an offering and a permission—Rachel Zucker's book Mothers comes to mind but there are many others.
I love books like this too, Kasey! Rachel Zucker's Mothers is such an important book to me -- among other things, it got me reading poetry again. Yes, it feels inviting and permission-offering. Kate Zambreno's writing makes me feel this way sometimes. I'm rereading Zambreno's and Sofia Samatar's book Tone right now and feel like the book is an invitation to think and write and do criticism.
And Kate Zambreno is the other writer I was thinking of! She's also so important to me (as is Rachel Zucker)—in many ways, definitely including that permission-giving, inclusive one. I just read Tone and loved it—that book and To Write as if Already Dead (especially, though I love all of KZ and RZ's books) have been/are doing so much to change the ways I read and write and think—such necessary companions around these mid-life questions regarding newness and change...
Yay!! I'm so glad we agree about these writers. Yes, they are changing the way I think too, and the way I read, and what I read, and they are all absolutely inspirations for this project. I am eager to read Sofia Samatar's book coming out this summer about writing and her friendship with KZ. It might possibly be a continuation of all these ideas.
I'm excited for that book too! (Though I can't find it on Bookshop—maybe it's too early?) And yes, I feel so many linkages between this reading and thinking we're all doing, and Briggs and Barthes, and Zambreno and Samatar. KZ and SS might be a wonderful focus for a read-along! Just saying :).
Yeah, I guess Opacities hasn't made it to Bookshop yet, but here's the publisher page if you're looking for more information: https://softskull.com/books/opacities/. I've seen galleys in one or two social media feeds, and I'd love to get my hands on one...just sending that wish out into the universe, I guess :)
There's SO MUCH in the latest Barthes reading, the Session of January 20th. The weather as an underestimated topic (yes!) -- how talking about the weather can mean such different things depending on who you are talking to.
The weather as a "deficiency of language (of discourse) that is precisely what's at stake in love: the pain at no longer being able to talk about the Weather with the loved one. Seeing the first snow and not being able to tell them, having to keep it to yourself." Always, it seems, Barthes's feelings are near the surface, or they are the surface; I think of the loss of his mother. This passage is beautiful!
How weather operates in haiku: haiku "situates itself on the quietly surprising border between the code (of the season) and the weather (as it's received, spoken, by the subject: a season's precocious awakenings, the languidness of a season drawing to an end." Gorgeous.
Involuntary memory, or satori, which, in Proust, produces extension (length) and in haiku, remains a bud, or a stone in water. It's sound only, not ripples.
One of my favorite passages from this session: "I've nothing to add other than this: anyone who has lost someone dear to them retains a painful memory of the season; the light; the flowers, the smells, the harmony or discrepancy between mourning and the season: how it's possible to suffer in the sun! Bear that in mind as you leaf through travel brochures!" A bit of humor, with deep sadness behind it.
Finally, the thoughts on subjectivity, which is possibly more like "a discontinuous (and yet unabrupt) mutation of sites (cf. Kaleidoscope)" rather than a river, even one that changes constantly. Individuation both strengthens the subject and "undoes, multiplies, pulverizes, and in a sense absents the subject."
TLA, p. 72-79: And now we get to Lowe-Porter's mistakes and failings. I love how Briggs spaces out the ideas and information, so we are 70+ pages in and only now learning of the critique of Lowe-Porter, and it will be longer yet until we get to how Briggs makes sense of the mistakes and responds to them. Such a slowly-developing narrative and exploration. It feels so expansive, as though we have all the time in the world, so why not go slowly and really ponder each part? I suppose this feeling is what inspires my/our impulse to read her slowly. I feel calmed and meditative when reading her and want to linger in the same way she does.
I'm so glad Briggs is mentioning critiques and debates of Lowe-Porter's translation, mainly because I've seen this kind of discussion before (this article contemplating critiques on Deborah Smith's translation of The Vegetarian by Han Kang springs to mind: https://koreaexpose.com/deborah-smith-translation-han-kang-novel-vegetarian/ ) and I'm so interested how Briggs is going to wrestle with it.
Oh, I remember those critiques of Smith. I like the ideas Briggs gets at in today's reading about responding to and critiquing translations as part of an ongoing, never-ending process that can be done without arguments and shaming. WILL it be done without arguments and shaming? Possibly not, but it CAN be done that way.
Yes! It's such a relief and pleasure to hear from a translator on this rather than the critics. She does a lot of "yes but no" answers to the critiques leveled at Lowe-Porter's work (pg 91) while walking us through the some of the desires, considerations, and careful deliberations in translating work. I considered copying it out here (it's so wonderful!) but I'll just go for the last paragraph at the top of page 92:
"And there is this close involving time spent with the sentence she is working on (then, the great sequence of sentences) that the translator is not wrong--or, I can't see how she is exactly wrong; in no way straightforwardly or eventually wrong--to feel that she has written herself."
In regards to Smith: I have a tendency to read multiple translations of the same work (when possible). I'd love to read other translations of the The Vegetarian but I'm also very grateful for the work Smith did in translating it into English for the first time.
I've never tried reading multiple translations of the same work; I should try that, particularly with something in German, since I know a (very) little of that language.
I've done that with The Brothers Karamazov and The Tale of Genji. I will say, there are many more translations then there used to be. It's not a ton but it feels like it because there was so few in the past. When I first read Brothers there was only one English translation by Garnett. A few years later after I read Garnett's, a translation by the husband and wife team, Pevear and Volonkhonsky, came out and that was huge back then. Now there's many more. There's a lot more translated literature out there then there used to be.
Agreed, and we are so lucky to have all that translated literature available! It's truly a great time to be a reader. Not necessarily a great time to be a writer, but that's a different conversation.
TLA p. 68-71 and Barthes, Session of Jan. 13: There's so much that is beautiful in the readings for today! The uncertainty and thrill of beginning to translate a sentence -- of launching oneself into the translation -- and not knowing where one will end up: what a thought! It makes translation seem riskier than parkour, or maybe not riskier, but more of a leap into the unknown. Beginning something and having no idea where it will lead you -- that's an experience that will make you feel alive...
I LOVE this Barthes quotation -- an aside in parentheses! -- although I'm not entirely sure what it means: "(perhaps that's what Art is, what Form is: what gives us the courage to come to terms with our Desire: making thought: *the animation of an adventure*)."
The way he sums up the course in this session: "We shall see, however, that the Sovereign Good of haiku is provisional; it's insufficient (and so not the Sovereign Good), which is why, and this is the argument of the Course, there's call for the novel." All I can say is, I trust you, Barthes, to follow through on that "we shall see" -- I can't wait to find out more about what this means!
I copied down that same quote from Barthes: about Art and Form giving us "the courage to come to terms with our Desire." Like you, not sure I understand it! But I felt a sort of visceral ZING when I read it (and again when I read it in your post!). Continuing to be fascinated, mystified, and compelled by the Barthes. Like his discussion of what he calls the "code" (which I understand to be, at least in part, the metrical/rhythmic aspect of poetry): how the code of haiku is embedded deeply in Japanese culture (but not in French, though I don't understand his reasons why) and how this code, specifically the 5-7-5 syllables of haiku, acts on the body. Again/still, both he and Briggs are so attuned to the body—how front-and-center it is in their texts—I love this. AND I'm super curious about why the "Sovereign Good" of haiku is "insufficient"—I feel pulled along by this, excited for what he's going to teach us about it (and other things!).
I'm so compelled by the idea of haiku -- sovereign good and NOT sovereign good somehow at the same time -- as insufficient and therefore requiring the novel. I also feel pulled along by this and ready to read the next 250+ pages or so to get there :) I AM looking ahead with some trepidation at the sessions that are longer and maybe more complex, but so far every session I have read has had a lot that I can follow easily and that I love, as well as material I respond to even if I don't fully understand it. And also some passages I just let go...
I loved the "what Art is, what Form is" quote too. It reminded me of an experience I had awhile ago when attempting to write a sonnet. The form of a sonnet is very strict; each line can only have so many syllables, they must be in iambic pentameter, the end of each line must follow a certain rhyme scheme, there must be a big issue or problem at hand and the ending couplet must solve it. It's a lot! And yet, when I was working and struggling over it, new ideas formed and merged. I discovered more of what I thought and in the end, I enjoyed the process a great deal. The strict form itself helped cloth my thoughts and in ways and combinations I hadn't ever considered before (which, come to think about it, is what Briggs is doing in her parkour/translation meditation).
For some mysterious reason, art and its forms can bring our desires into existence. And what great adventure that process is.
I love the idea of a strict form leading you to new thoughts and new combinations of thoughts. Form bringing our desires into existence -- that's great.
TLA, p. 64-67: I LOVE the idea of translation work requiring a certain amount of time and that this can't be sped up, and therefore is not subject to the pressures of efficiency or productivity. I mean, you can be productive in terms of spending a lot of hours in a short amount of time on a translation, but those hours must be spent. The stillness, the concentration required -- how satisfying and pleasurable that sounds!
I also appreciate, on p. 67, Briggs's efforts to get Barthes's phrasing just right -- to capture just the right amount of non-arrogance, wanting not to put pressure on anyone else. I think that's a beautiful moment for Briggs to offer to the reader, to accompany the story of the young men leaping.
Briggs, pp60-63: I really appreciate how Briggs is again making sure that we understand the levels of mediation that are happening when we read. She makes “visible the paths between his work [Mann], her work [Lowe-Porter and, I guess, Metz], his work [Barthes] and our own [Briggs].” (p61)
Plus I feel a bit admonished by her, um, admonishing that the English world needs translation so that it remembers it isn’t the be-all-and-end-all. People are writing and reading other things!
When Briggs admonishes readers, she does it so kindly! :) Yes, I love the way she thinks about the layers and levels of mediation, the voices involved in translation, the conversation.
Barthes: In the haiku, the weather is "the pure and mysterious sensation of life." (38) I really, really, really like how he compares the haiku to a stone that gets thrown into the water: it's the sound, not the ripples. (39) Finally, I can really feel Barthes' sorrow. He feels "lazy without feeling relaxed, idle and unsociable: a _flat_ hour." - 3:30pm, the time of his mother's death, and of Christ's death. Quite heavy stuff.
Reading the last two sessions shows me how difficult Barthes can be to understand. He is operating at a different level than I am!
Briggs, pp72-74: it’s fascinating to me how Briggs (and Barthes) describes literature as knowing, as full of knowledge, but also looking towards new information, what is not yet known. Further, Briggs (and Barthes) explores the idea of flavour of language, and how the translator needs to know that as they translate. Finally, Briggs writes about the different things translators need to know when translating. The questions are always different!
I loved that description of what literature knows -- it seems so full of promise, to know things and also to show what it doesn't know and what we can learn about. No wonder we love literature, right? :) This section also made me really really want to become a translator because of all the opportunities for very random reading and research. How fun it sounds.
Briggs, pp75-77: to think that the children’s French teacher mother could have translated Barthes! To think that Lowe-Porter was victim to all of those allegations (not knowing French, etc.). Where do we readers fit in? Is there any hope for us, lowly as we are?
Oh, thanks, Rebecca! I'll wish for a galley for you... and I love this from the publisher page: "Why does publishing feel like the opposite of writing?"
Briggs, pp64-67: Barthes says that he didn’t publish his lectures because (Briggs says) “to do so would have been to manage and market the past.” (65) The lecture does, unlike the published book. Interesting, especially considering we’re reading Barthes 45 years later.
Is Briggs suggesting that she is like those boys outside her window jumping from ledges? No, she says, but she wants to be. After all, she’s poised to translate. (66)
Outdoor leaping = “my own anxiety over where and how to set down this _vous permettez_ in English.” (67) It’s the non-arrogance that doesn’t seem to translate properly.
Perhaps the next section (the reading for today) shows she's taking even more of a risk than those boys! They have practiced; a translator cannot practice in the same way (I wonder how the boys would feel about this comparison!)
Yeah, I love how she describes the action of translating: she can’t practice it, she has to do it in order to understand the difficulties, to work it out. Her job is tougher than the boys’ jumping.
I like how Barthes seems to suggest that the haiku is difficult: “History has outmoded the objects that we have investment in.” (32) I wonder how true this actually is?
I don't know how true that claim actually is, but I do like the idea of making something of a form that has (possibly) become outmoded -- doing something with that form anyway, even if it doesn't make (as much) sense in French as it does in Japanese.
TLA, p. 56-59: Do translations!
I don't think I'll do translations -- so much time required! -- but I do love Briggs's invitation, which makes me want to devote the time to translation, even if I don't actually have it.
I'd forgotten that Brexit is in the background of TLA, or the foreground in the pages for today. What a contrast, the openness of Briggs's invitation to translate, and the closed-off nature of Brexit. Briggs values the contact translation brings, and she always emphasizes the body in translation -- the hands that translate -- and she values how travel facilitates translations. How sad that Brexit can make that contact harder! How sad to look back and see that what she took for granted is under threat. I can feel the sadness and anger, even though Briggs doesn't dwell on it.
Barthes, Session of Jan. 6th: I'm curious about his side note that some people have accused his lecture course of being narcissistic. It doesn't feel that way to me! Yes, he uses his interests and desires -- his fantasy -- to shape what he says, but at least he's upfront about that. I think we all begin with our personal interests and desires, but we aren't always honest about it.
I like what Barthes says about haiku as equivalent to a word, as a fundamental unit, and I'm thinking about his idea of "aeration" -- the space around each haiku, in relation to the way Briggs uses white space. She certainly cares about giving her blocks of text, her units, the space they need to allow the reader to breathe. I wonder how much of her use of white space comes directly from Barthes, and/or from elsewhere. And my eye is drawn to the short sections as I flip through TLA or look to see what it coming up in the next few pages. I find it nearly impossible not to read the short sections that are in the next day's reading.
I’m also thinking about his ideas of “aeration” and how he seems to link that to some sense of “truth” (I’m writing something about haiku and aeration and truth and that really difficult paragraph in p27 about space and time). I really do appreciate the idea of the haiku as “a verbal gesture [a line] that can’t be broken down.” Should we all start writing haiku now?
I wasn't bothered by the narcissism remark. I actually agree with that perception. That doesn't necessarily need to be construed as negative though, I just finished Augustine's Confessions and that book is equally worthy of the designation. It hasn't negated the book's value.
The Brexit remark also stood out for me. IMO, it helps ground the book in time and place, but beyond that takes us from the realms of translation, criticism, literature, and into the real world. This grounding not only pulls us out of those other realms for a minute, nudging us toward seeking real world applications for lessons from the book, but also encourages a more expanded interpretation, where we may find universal metaphorical meanings beyond translation and criticism.
I felt Briggs comments on "white space," were more on aesthetic and like Nicholas saw Barthes' as more related to truth or some word like truth that combines correctness, actuality, and ideal. Excuse my not having a definitive word for that.
I've been thinking about narcissism, and I wonder if it's self-absorption alone or self-absorption mixed with a pointed disregard of others or excluding/ignoring others. I feel like maybe Barthes writes a lot about himself, but also with some attention to the audience, like he's aware of the audience and inviting them in. He has a relationship with the audience and that relationship shapes his writing, or at least that's the feeling I have as I read.
I went back to Barthes on haiku and truth and see your point, although I don't pretend to understand that complicated passage. I'm fascinated by the meaning of form and its relationship to truth (I can only try to follow Barthes's reasoning though!).
I was also struck by Barthes' comment on accusations of narcissism, and I totally agree, Rebecca—his project doesn't feel that way at all to me. It feels *so* deeply personal (and so generously, vulnerably so) that it comes across as a gift and an invitation—an invitation to know him and what he cares about, plus an invitation to participate: here, I'm showing you this in case you might like to pursue your own version of it. I love texts like this—in which the deep interior life of the writer feels like an offering and a permission—Rachel Zucker's book Mothers comes to mind but there are many others.
I love books like this too, Kasey! Rachel Zucker's Mothers is such an important book to me -- among other things, it got me reading poetry again. Yes, it feels inviting and permission-offering. Kate Zambreno's writing makes me feel this way sometimes. I'm rereading Zambreno's and Sofia Samatar's book Tone right now and feel like the book is an invitation to think and write and do criticism.
And Kate Zambreno is the other writer I was thinking of! She's also so important to me (as is Rachel Zucker)—in many ways, definitely including that permission-giving, inclusive one. I just read Tone and loved it—that book and To Write as if Already Dead (especially, though I love all of KZ and RZ's books) have been/are doing so much to change the ways I read and write and think—such necessary companions around these mid-life questions regarding newness and change...
Yay!! I'm so glad we agree about these writers. Yes, they are changing the way I think too, and the way I read, and what I read, and they are all absolutely inspirations for this project. I am eager to read Sofia Samatar's book coming out this summer about writing and her friendship with KZ. It might possibly be a continuation of all these ideas.
I'm excited for that book too! (Though I can't find it on Bookshop—maybe it's too early?) And yes, I feel so many linkages between this reading and thinking we're all doing, and Briggs and Barthes, and Zambreno and Samatar. KZ and SS might be a wonderful focus for a read-along! Just saying :).
Yeah, I guess Opacities hasn't made it to Bookshop yet, but here's the publisher page if you're looking for more information: https://softskull.com/books/opacities/. I've seen galleys in one or two social media feeds, and I'd love to get my hands on one...just sending that wish out into the universe, I guess :)
There's SO MUCH in the latest Barthes reading, the Session of January 20th. The weather as an underestimated topic (yes!) -- how talking about the weather can mean such different things depending on who you are talking to.
The weather as a "deficiency of language (of discourse) that is precisely what's at stake in love: the pain at no longer being able to talk about the Weather with the loved one. Seeing the first snow and not being able to tell them, having to keep it to yourself." Always, it seems, Barthes's feelings are near the surface, or they are the surface; I think of the loss of his mother. This passage is beautiful!
How weather operates in haiku: haiku "situates itself on the quietly surprising border between the code (of the season) and the weather (as it's received, spoken, by the subject: a season's precocious awakenings, the languidness of a season drawing to an end." Gorgeous.
Involuntary memory, or satori, which, in Proust, produces extension (length) and in haiku, remains a bud, or a stone in water. It's sound only, not ripples.
One of my favorite passages from this session: "I've nothing to add other than this: anyone who has lost someone dear to them retains a painful memory of the season; the light; the flowers, the smells, the harmony or discrepancy between mourning and the season: how it's possible to suffer in the sun! Bear that in mind as you leaf through travel brochures!" A bit of humor, with deep sadness behind it.
Finally, the thoughts on subjectivity, which is possibly more like "a discontinuous (and yet unabrupt) mutation of sites (cf. Kaleidoscope)" rather than a river, even one that changes constantly. Individuation both strengthens the subject and "undoes, multiplies, pulverizes, and in a sense absents the subject."
TLA, p. 72-79: And now we get to Lowe-Porter's mistakes and failings. I love how Briggs spaces out the ideas and information, so we are 70+ pages in and only now learning of the critique of Lowe-Porter, and it will be longer yet until we get to how Briggs makes sense of the mistakes and responds to them. Such a slowly-developing narrative and exploration. It feels so expansive, as though we have all the time in the world, so why not go slowly and really ponder each part? I suppose this feeling is what inspires my/our impulse to read her slowly. I feel calmed and meditative when reading her and want to linger in the same way she does.
I'm so glad Briggs is mentioning critiques and debates of Lowe-Porter's translation, mainly because I've seen this kind of discussion before (this article contemplating critiques on Deborah Smith's translation of The Vegetarian by Han Kang springs to mind: https://koreaexpose.com/deborah-smith-translation-han-kang-novel-vegetarian/ ) and I'm so interested how Briggs is going to wrestle with it.
Oh, I remember those critiques of Smith. I like the ideas Briggs gets at in today's reading about responding to and critiquing translations as part of an ongoing, never-ending process that can be done without arguments and shaming. WILL it be done without arguments and shaming? Possibly not, but it CAN be done that way.
Yes! It's such a relief and pleasure to hear from a translator on this rather than the critics. She does a lot of "yes but no" answers to the critiques leveled at Lowe-Porter's work (pg 91) while walking us through the some of the desires, considerations, and careful deliberations in translating work. I considered copying it out here (it's so wonderful!) but I'll just go for the last paragraph at the top of page 92:
"And there is this close involving time spent with the sentence she is working on (then, the great sequence of sentences) that the translator is not wrong--or, I can't see how she is exactly wrong; in no way straightforwardly or eventually wrong--to feel that she has written herself."
In regards to Smith: I have a tendency to read multiple translations of the same work (when possible). I'd love to read other translations of the The Vegetarian but I'm also very grateful for the work Smith did in translating it into English for the first time.
I've never tried reading multiple translations of the same work; I should try that, particularly with something in German, since I know a (very) little of that language.
I've done that with The Brothers Karamazov and The Tale of Genji. I will say, there are many more translations then there used to be. It's not a ton but it feels like it because there was so few in the past. When I first read Brothers there was only one English translation by Garnett. A few years later after I read Garnett's, a translation by the husband and wife team, Pevear and Volonkhonsky, came out and that was huge back then. Now there's many more. There's a lot more translated literature out there then there used to be.
Agreed, and we are so lucky to have all that translated literature available! It's truly a great time to be a reader. Not necessarily a great time to be a writer, but that's a different conversation.
TLA p. 68-71 and Barthes, Session of Jan. 13: There's so much that is beautiful in the readings for today! The uncertainty and thrill of beginning to translate a sentence -- of launching oneself into the translation -- and not knowing where one will end up: what a thought! It makes translation seem riskier than parkour, or maybe not riskier, but more of a leap into the unknown. Beginning something and having no idea where it will lead you -- that's an experience that will make you feel alive...
I LOVE this Barthes quotation -- an aside in parentheses! -- although I'm not entirely sure what it means: "(perhaps that's what Art is, what Form is: what gives us the courage to come to terms with our Desire: making thought: *the animation of an adventure*)."
The way he sums up the course in this session: "We shall see, however, that the Sovereign Good of haiku is provisional; it's insufficient (and so not the Sovereign Good), which is why, and this is the argument of the Course, there's call for the novel." All I can say is, I trust you, Barthes, to follow through on that "we shall see" -- I can't wait to find out more about what this means!
I copied down that same quote from Barthes: about Art and Form giving us "the courage to come to terms with our Desire." Like you, not sure I understand it! But I felt a sort of visceral ZING when I read it (and again when I read it in your post!). Continuing to be fascinated, mystified, and compelled by the Barthes. Like his discussion of what he calls the "code" (which I understand to be, at least in part, the metrical/rhythmic aspect of poetry): how the code of haiku is embedded deeply in Japanese culture (but not in French, though I don't understand his reasons why) and how this code, specifically the 5-7-5 syllables of haiku, acts on the body. Again/still, both he and Briggs are so attuned to the body—how front-and-center it is in their texts—I love this. AND I'm super curious about why the "Sovereign Good" of haiku is "insufficient"—I feel pulled along by this, excited for what he's going to teach us about it (and other things!).
I'm so compelled by the idea of haiku -- sovereign good and NOT sovereign good somehow at the same time -- as insufficient and therefore requiring the novel. I also feel pulled along by this and ready to read the next 250+ pages or so to get there :) I AM looking ahead with some trepidation at the sessions that are longer and maybe more complex, but so far every session I have read has had a lot that I can follow easily and that I love, as well as material I respond to even if I don't fully understand it. And also some passages I just let go...
I loved the "what Art is, what Form is" quote too. It reminded me of an experience I had awhile ago when attempting to write a sonnet. The form of a sonnet is very strict; each line can only have so many syllables, they must be in iambic pentameter, the end of each line must follow a certain rhyme scheme, there must be a big issue or problem at hand and the ending couplet must solve it. It's a lot! And yet, when I was working and struggling over it, new ideas formed and merged. I discovered more of what I thought and in the end, I enjoyed the process a great deal. The strict form itself helped cloth my thoughts and in ways and combinations I hadn't ever considered before (which, come to think about it, is what Briggs is doing in her parkour/translation meditation).
For some mysterious reason, art and its forms can bring our desires into existence. And what great adventure that process is.
I love the idea of a strict form leading you to new thoughts and new combinations of thoughts. Form bringing our desires into existence -- that's great.
TLA, p. 64-67: I LOVE the idea of translation work requiring a certain amount of time and that this can't be sped up, and therefore is not subject to the pressures of efficiency or productivity. I mean, you can be productive in terms of spending a lot of hours in a short amount of time on a translation, but those hours must be spent. The stillness, the concentration required -- how satisfying and pleasurable that sounds!
I also appreciate, on p. 67, Briggs's efforts to get Barthes's phrasing just right -- to capture just the right amount of non-arrogance, wanting not to put pressure on anyone else. I think that's a beautiful moment for Briggs to offer to the reader, to accompany the story of the young men leaping.
Briggs, pp60-63: I really appreciate how Briggs is again making sure that we understand the levels of mediation that are happening when we read. She makes “visible the paths between his work [Mann], her work [Lowe-Porter and, I guess, Metz], his work [Barthes] and our own [Briggs].” (p61)
Plus I feel a bit admonished by her, um, admonishing that the English world needs translation so that it remembers it isn’t the be-all-and-end-all. People are writing and reading other things!
When Briggs admonishes readers, she does it so kindly! :) Yes, I love the way she thinks about the layers and levels of mediation, the voices involved in translation, the conversation.
Barthes: In the haiku, the weather is "the pure and mysterious sensation of life." (38) I really, really, really like how he compares the haiku to a stone that gets thrown into the water: it's the sound, not the ripples. (39) Finally, I can really feel Barthes' sorrow. He feels "lazy without feeling relaxed, idle and unsociable: a _flat_ hour." - 3:30pm, the time of his mother's death, and of Christ's death. Quite heavy stuff.
Reading the last two sessions shows me how difficult Barthes can be to understand. He is operating at a different level than I am!
Yes to Barthes being on a different level, and also Briggs, who somehow translated all this, plus did the research and footnotes! What a task!
Briggs, pp72-74: it’s fascinating to me how Briggs (and Barthes) describes literature as knowing, as full of knowledge, but also looking towards new information, what is not yet known. Further, Briggs (and Barthes) explores the idea of flavour of language, and how the translator needs to know that as they translate. Finally, Briggs writes about the different things translators need to know when translating. The questions are always different!
I loved that description of what literature knows -- it seems so full of promise, to know things and also to show what it doesn't know and what we can learn about. No wonder we love literature, right? :) This section also made me really really want to become a translator because of all the opportunities for very random reading and research. How fun it sounds.
Briggs, pp75-77: to think that the children’s French teacher mother could have translated Barthes! To think that Lowe-Porter was victim to all of those allegations (not knowing French, etc.). Where do we readers fit in? Is there any hope for us, lowly as we are?
We may be lowly, but we are also necessary!
Oh, thanks, Rebecca! I'll wish for a galley for you... and I love this from the publisher page: "Why does publishing feel like the opposite of writing?"
Briggs, pp64-67: Barthes says that he didn’t publish his lectures because (Briggs says) “to do so would have been to manage and market the past.” (65) The lecture does, unlike the published book. Interesting, especially considering we’re reading Barthes 45 years later.
Is Briggs suggesting that she is like those boys outside her window jumping from ledges? No, she says, but she wants to be. After all, she’s poised to translate. (66)
Outdoor leaping = “my own anxiety over where and how to set down this _vous permettez_ in English.” (67) It’s the non-arrogance that doesn’t seem to translate properly.
Perhaps the next section (the reading for today) shows she's taking even more of a risk than those boys! They have practiced; a translator cannot practice in the same way (I wonder how the boys would feel about this comparison!)
Yeah, I love how she describes the action of translating: she can’t practice it, she has to do it in order to understand the difficulties, to work it out. Her job is tougher than the boys’ jumping.
I like how Barthes seems to suggest that the haiku is difficult: “History has outmoded the objects that we have investment in.” (32) I wonder how true this actually is?
I don't know how true that claim actually is, but I do like the idea of making something of a form that has (possibly) become outmoded -- doing something with that form anyway, even if it doesn't make (as much) sense in French as it does in Japanese.