August 17, 2008

Paul West on Cendrars' Moravagine

This post now resides on my other site 50 Watts:

9 comments:

  1. Changed it, thanks Ed. I actually caught this typo in my dream last night and wondered if anyone would see it before I could correct it. More evidence that my dream life sucks. (I'm not joking!)

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  2. Brilliant! You are operating at a level above the rest of us, clearly!

    (Love this blog, in case you couldn't tell...)

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  3. Your two mentions of this site on your own were noted with glee (and I hadn't realized L.S. ever dropped by, so that made my year). Thank you.

    Ouroboros! From an autobiographical piece by Severo Sarduy in Review Fall 72: "And from here on it will be better to read the Indian Diary, which closes Cobra. Birds circle over the Parsic garden, swoop down, peck at corpses, fly overhead again. The bones, now naked, pulverized, flow down a drain toward the bay. There the shellfish of the port finish them off. The hotel's best dish is its shrimp cocktail. The cycle closes: cobra curled around itself, biting its tail."

    Cute Jungian image: link.

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  4. Like Cendrars, I too have made a career of my temperament. Since my temperament is slow and lazy, there's nothing more to say about it.

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  5. Utterly extraordinary character, Cendrars. I actually translated his Prose of the Trans-Siberian - not very well, I'm sure - because I couldn't find an English version anywhere. Just for my own pleasure, but here's a bit:

    “Tell me, Blaise, are we very far from Montmartre?”

    Why yes, you’re getting on my nerves, you know very well we’re a long way away
    Overheated madness blares from the engine of the train
    Plague cholera rise in our path like burning coals
    We are disappearing down a dark tunnel into war
    Famine, that whore, clings to the stampeding clouds
    And shits stinking corpse-pats onto the battlefields
    Do as she does, do your job . . .

    “Tell me, Blaise, are we very far from Montmartre?”

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  6. Neil, I'd love to see the complete translation!

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  7. I sent you the complete text, Will, let me know if it doesn't arrive.

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  8. Got it Neil, thanks! Posting a Cendrars interview quote tonight.

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