Superior Person's Tuesday!

Deipnosophist n A wise conversationalist at the dinner table. Unfortunately, the two elements of he definition rarely go together. The author, for example, claims to meet one of the two criteria (he refuses to say which) but not the other.

 

Each Tuesday, we’ll offer up a Superior Word for the edification of our Superior Readers, via the volumes of the inimitable Peter Bowler. You can purchase all or any of the four Superior Person’s Books of Words from the Godine website. Deipnosophist appears in the Third.

Superior Person's Tuesday!

Bradykinectic a Moving very slowly. Alternative sense: one who jumps up dynamically to switch off the TV when The Brady Bunch comes on.

Each Tuesday, we’ll offer up a Superior Word for the edification of our Superior Readers, via the volumes of the inimitable Peter Bowler. You can purchase all or any of the four Superior Person’s Books of Words from the Godine website. Bradykinectic appears in the Second.

Superior Person's Tuesday!

Hygeiolatry n Fanaticism about health. More useful, these days, would be a word for fanaticism about fitness—an increasingly prevalent condition, judging by the thousands of goggle-eyed whirling dervishes of our time bounding about in aerobics classes and jogging their way doggedly around what, but for their presence, would be scenic tracks and pathways.



Each Tuesday, we’ll offer up a Superior Word for the edification of our Superior Readers, via the volumes of the inimitable Peter Bowler. You can purchase all or any of the four Superior Person’s Books of Words from the Godine website. Hygeiolatry appears in the Second.

Superior Person's Tuesday!

Fabiform a Bean-shaped. "And I'd like you to meet Brett and Wanda, and their children Jamie and Cass—round here we call them the fabiform four."



Each Tuesday, we’ll offer up a Superior Word for the edification of our Superior Readers, via the volumes of the inimitable Peter Bowler. You can purchase all or any of the four Superior Person’s Books of Words from the Godine website. Fabiform appears in the Second.

Superior Person's Tuesday!

Pilgarlic n A poor, wretched, bald-headed man who presents a sorry spectacle. From pilled (peeled) garlic.


Each Tuesday, we’ll offer up a Superior Word for the edification of our Superior Readers, via the volumes of the inimitable Peter Bowler. You can purchase all or any of the four Superior Person’s Books of Words from the Godine website. Pilgarlic appears in the First.

On Translation - David Bellos at Princeton

David Bellos, the author of Georges Perec: A Life in Words, a biography, and translator of several of Perec’s works (available from Godine: "53 Days"; Life A User's Manual; Things: A Story of the Sixties & A Man Asleep; Thoughts of Sorts; Three by Perec; and W, or the Memory of Childhood) has become the go-to man for thoughts, opinions and strategies when translating a work. A professor at Princeton University, Bellos teaches in the French, Italian, and comparative literature departments. After joining the staff in 1997, he created an undergraduate certificate Program in Translation and Intercultural Communication in 2007. His wide range of skills and contribution to the university are why on February 10th, he was the feature story on Princeton’s website in an article by Paul Karr.

From "News at Princeton":

"David has sparked a good deal of student and faculty interest in the field," said Sandra Bermann, the Cotsen Professor of the Humanities and a professor of comparative literature at Princeton. "Translation is not only for literature majors; it's gaining importance in the social sciences, the sciences and engineering, as well as in the humanities. Even students at Princeton who have no particular literary interests take courses in the certificate program, and David has done a superb job getting that program off the ground."

Bellos is known to integrate various different examples of translation in the classroom, most recently showing the British film “Slumdog Millionaire” in his senior seminar. In order to demonstrate the importance of translation and language in a film’s overall feel, Bellos instructed six students to watch different versions of “Slumdog”, including the U.S. release in English, the French version, and the Spanish version. The students all reported different impressions of the film, based upon the different languages it was presented in. These findings only reinforce the research Bellos has done over the years, and why he asserts, “a translation is different from the original. It can never be the same thing. But it's not worse.”

. . .

I have had similar experiences when taking a Hindi/Urdu class at Boston University. Growing up watching Bollywood films and speaking Hindi to my family, I took the class to learn the beautiful script. However, there was a speaking component for the non-native speakers in the class, and in order to aid their conversation skills, my professor often screened Bollywood films. Occasionally, a non-native speaker would ask my professor the direct translation of a colloquial phrase, and we would look at each other and shrug. Try as you might, some things just can’t be translated and retain the intended meaning. And yet, as Bellos says, “A text and its translation are two different objects, and they always will be. So we must grant the translator authority in a language we do not know.” With his new book Is That a Fish in Your Ear?: Translation and the Meaning of Everything, Bellos will keep inspiring his students to try to understand the world in more than one tongue.

David Bellos, winner of the Man Booker International Prize for translation (2005) and the Prix Goncourt de la Biographie (1994), grew up in Southend-on-Sea, England. He is a professor of French, Italian and comparative literature at Princeton University.

"Reconsidering Perec’s Library"

Late last week Vice writer Blake Butler paid homage to Godine author Georges Perec’s intriguing look at library organization in the essay, “Brief Notes on the Art and Manner of Arranging One’s Books.” While according to Butler, some “less active readers” feel that an arrangement with no specific order suffices for their libraries, a more passionate breed indulges in assorted, distinctive, and often spontaneous setups. Perec’s suggestions for creating libraries that delight their owners are neither narrow nor rigid. Rather, he leaves the decision up to the readers, instead asking them to reevaluate how they perceive their favorite books.

From Vice:

"In 1978, Georges Perec published a now-famous essay titled, 'Brief Notes on the Art and Manner of Arranging One’s Books,' in which he outlines various analytical methods one might use to organize a home library. He suggests the following possibilities for classification: alphabetically, by continent or country, by color, by date of acquisition, by date of publication, by format, by genre, by major periods of literary history, by language, by priority for future reading, by binding, by series. 'None of these classifications is satisfactory by itself,' Perec notes, 'every library is ordered starting from a combination of these modes of classification, whose relative weighting, resistance to change, obsolescence, and persistence give every library a unique personality.'"

An avid reader since elementary school, I have often altered my bedroom “library”, (the cramped area between my headboard and the wall), and now reconfigure my dorm room “library”, (the cramped area between my futon and the dresser). No matter how minimal the space, I’ve enjoyed arranging my books to my liking, from a kindergarten obsession with flashy covers (Marcus Pfister’s The Rainbow Fish often taking center stage), to a middle school self consciousness with stealthily obscured romantic titles. However, I’ve been fairly vanilla with my bookshelves. Butler’s take on Perec’s essay is an interesting one in that once we begin to examine unique library arrangements, we realize that the possibilities are endless. One of his most far-fetched musings is of organizing books based on, “the number of times a copy of the book has been carried into a McDonald’s.” Although most of us would not attempt this, the choices are fascinating even when they aren’t pragmatic. By imploring his readers to rearrange their bookshelves, Perec summoned not only the organization in his readers, but also the creativity.

Georges Perec is the author of Life: A User’s Manual, hailed as “one of the great novels of the century” by (among others) the Times Literary Supplement and the Boston Globe. His other books include W, or The Memory of Childhood; Things: A Store of the Sixties and A Man Asleep; Thoughts of Sorts; A Void; and Three by Perec, all available in paperback from Godine. Georges Perec died of cancer in 1989.

Bill Henderson's memoir

With All My Dogs, his memoir about childhood, marriage and most prominently, the dogs throughout his life, Bill Henderson teaches his readers about living with a heart open to love. In the book he reflects on a life that was sometimes glorious and sometimes trying, but almost always soothed by the presence of a dog.

Henderson has said that this memoir is his near seventy-year life story, and that in previous memoirs, leaving out his dogs had been an “oversight.” It has become clear that the inclusion of his thirteen dogs was a great decision, because All My Dogs has received incredible reviews, most recently from the Washington Post, which said, “memoirs like this don’t happen along very often.” The author says that the public reaction is “becoming overwhelming” but that he is thrilled with the feedback he has received. Having just done an interview with the BBC, All My Dogs has gone international. In his BBC segment, Henderson speaks of two of the dogs that have significantly impacted his life, Sophie and Lulu. The former saved his marriage, while the latter became his companion when both were diagnosed with cancer. Lulu is considered particularly special to Henderson. In the prelude of All My Dogs, he writes, “Of the many dogs I have known, she was my life dog, the one closest to my heart.”

At Henderson’s recent book signing at Canio’s Books in Sag Harbor, NY the bookstore was packed with enthusiastic readers. By the end of the event, they had sold out of books. When asked about his success, Henderson says that he is “especially thankful to Godine” for being so in love with the books they publish. He feels that this small publishing house has been a huge pleasure to work with because of the individual attention a memoir such as All My Dogs has received. Up next: He is planning to write about a little stone chapel he is building on his property in Maine.

Bill Henderson is founder of Pushcart Press and editor and publisher of the annual Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses, now in its thirty-fifth year. He is the author of the memoirs His Son (Norton, 1981), Her Father (Faber and Faber, 1995), Tower (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2000), and Simple Gifts (Free Press, 2006). He received the 2006 Poets & Writers/Barnes & Noble "Writers for Writers" citation and the 2006 Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Book Critics Circle.