Бодлер, лозунг Беккетта

[avva]

Любопытное стихотворение в прозе Бодлера, на редкость мизогинистское.

По-французски я читаю очень плохо, так что, несмотря на вышеприведенную ссылку на оригинал, прочитал я его на самом деле в английском переводе небезызвестного в мире Юзнета Михаила Зелёного.

А ещё, всякий раз, как я вижу какое-нибудь сообщение Зелёного в ньюзгруппах, заново вспоминаю, как мне нравится цитата из Беккетта, которая стоит у него в сиге:

All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
-- Samuel Beckett

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Doesn't seem to me especially unusual for the "artistic male" then (or indeed at most times), for whom women are both a necessity and a source of distraction and perceived weakness, therefore giving rise to excesses of both praise and contempt. Don't forget either that this is not B. speaking in propria persona but a prose poem, i.e. the speech of an unseen narrator. Not defending B. from the charge of misogyny, which is certainly justified, only putting it in perspective (as one must put in perspective charges of racism leveled at people in earlier times). I certainly wouldn't have wanted to be his mistress.

Incidentally, I'm dubious about this detail of the translation: "...you scorn the small cog..." As far as I can tell (and I've ransacked my reference books), soliveau is nothing but the diminutive of solive 'joist, balka.' It may be that Zeleny has reason to render it "cog," I just don't know what it might be.

Steve

http://www.languagehat.com/

Re:

[avva.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Steve!
Do you know by any chance the exact location/context of the quotation from Beckett?
I'd be interested, too, to hear your opinion on a possible reading of this quotation, which I suggested above in this thread, in a reply to denniska.

[(Anonymous)]

It's from his 1984 book Worstward Ho, but I don't have a copy, so I can't give you the context.

I agree with your reading, which seems to me indisputable.

Steve