Editing Volume 4/Book 6/Chapter 2
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===''Keksekça?'' et/and ''Kekçaa?''=== | ===''Keksekça?'' et/and ''Kekçaa?''=== | ||
| − | + | The 19th century English translators didn't translate Hugo's direct-to-speech transliterations. Neither "Keksekça?" nor its meaning "Qu'est-ce que c'est que cela?" are translated into English in either the 1862 Wraxall or the 1887 Hapgood English translations.<ref>Hugo, Victor. ''Les Misérables, Volume 2''. Trans. Sir Frederick Charles Lascelles Wraxall (3rd Baronet). London: Hurst and Blackett, Publisher, 1862. Digitized by Google, original from Oxford University's Bibliotheca Bodleiana. https://books.google.com/books?id=TuQBAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false </ref><ref>Hugo, Victor. ''Les Misérables''. Trans. Isabel F. Hapgood. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1887. A Project Gutenberg Ebook. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/135/135-h/135-h.htm#link2HCH0148 </ref> The other transliteration, "Kekçaa?", and its formal explication, "qu'est-ce que cela a?", also remain as is. An 1876 translation cited by Google Books as by C. E. Wilbour, omits Hugo's direct-from-speech transliterations, making a smoother reading experience, but losing Hugo's "but wait I haven't told you everything yet" style that makes Hugo's local-world-epoch story so delicious.<ref>Hugo, Victor. ''Les Misérables: Jean Valjean''. Trans. Charles Edwin Wilbour. London: Ward, Lock, and Tyler, Warwick House, Paternoster Row, 1876. Digitized by Google, originally from Oxford University's Bodleian Library. https://books.google.com/books?id=qhwGAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false </ref> | |
Fahnestock and MacAfee translate the direct-from-speech transliterations the way Wright translates Queneau's (see textual note, below). | Fahnestock and MacAfee translate the direct-from-speech transliterations the way Wright translates Queneau's (see textual note, below). | ||
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The scaffold. <ref name="hapgood"></ref> | The scaffold. <ref name="hapgood"></ref> | ||
| − | === | + | ==="Keksekça?" and ''Kekçaa?'' (direct-from-speech transliteration)=== |
| − | "Doukipudonkton, se demanda Gabriel excédé" opens Raymond Queneau's dazzling 1959 novel ''Zazie dans le métro''.<ref>Queneau, Raymond. ''Zazie dans le métro''. Folio, Editions | + | "Doukipudonkton, se demanda Gabriel excédé" opens Raymond Queneau's dazzling 1959 novel ''Zazie dans le métro''.<ref>Queneau, Raymond. ''Zazie dans le métro''. Folio, Editions Flammarion, 1973.</ref> Barbara Wright translates Queneau's direct-from-speech transliteration of Gabriel's question as (I'm recalling from memory, so maybe not exactly) "Howcantheystinksotho."<ref>Queneau, Raymond. ''Zazie''. Trans. Barbara Wright. More bibliographic details soon as I get to my bookshelf</ref> This direct-from-speech transliteration, made famous more recently by Irvine Welsh with ''Train Spotting'', shows up a century before ''Zazie dans le métro'' in ''Les Misérables''. |
| − | Having read almost none of ''Les Misérables'' in French I am uncertain if the direct-from-speech transliterations appear only in the second half, but the two interrogatives of Gavroche the street kid, only pages apart (in Vol. 4, Bk. 6, Ch. 2), are | + | Having read almost none of ''Les Misérables'' in French I am uncertain if the direct-from-speech transliterations actually appear only in the second half, but the two interrogatives of Gavroche the street kid, only pages apart (in Vol. 4, Bk. 6, Ch. 2), are |
''Keksekça?'' | ''Keksekça?'' | ||
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''Kekçaa?'' | ''Kekçaa?'' | ||
| − | + | Yet, using Fahnestock and MacAfee's English translation as a guide, ''Keksekça?'' and ''Kekçaa?' seem to be the first instances in the novel, as if Hugo discovered this new dialogic method well into the writing. | |
''Les Misérables'''s narrator explains this dialogic method after the second transliteration: | ''Les Misérables'''s narrator explains this dialogic method after the second transliteration: | ||
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That is, ''This is another word of the language no one writes but everyone speaks.'' | That is, ''This is another word of the language no one writes but everyone speaks.'' | ||
| − | The need for in-text explanation suggests a new literary method. | + | The need for in-text explanation suggests a new literary method. The plausibility that Hugo's direct-from-speech transliteration was avant-garde is suggested by its treatment by translators. (See translation note, above) |
==Citations== | ==Citations== | ||
<references /> | <references /> | ||
