Oh my god, you shouldn't have mentioned that - that edition looks gorgeous! And it's only 57€ on amazon.fr, and there are a few auctions on ebay.fr... Maybe something that gorgeous will be incentive enough to get me to read a French novel again after 17 years - or at least the chapters most relevant to whatever I'm writing at the time.
And the Donougher way still sounds somewhat awkward, but like the better alternative - after all, I am already aware that I am reading a translation, so just give me all the footnotes!
I've been thinking about this quite a bit because I really do like the way vouz/tu is at once so simple and so powerful in the way it denotes shifts in respect - going from the formal to the informal is such a slap in the face if it is done without invitation to do so or as a sign of affection. And usually with fic in English there is no need to think about that at all for me, but since I enjoy the way Hugo utilizes it so much, I also don't want to ignore it, which leaves the same sort of problem all of his translators face, I guess. But I experimented with Hapgood's "thou" once, and that's just not an alternative, I think it's really the most awkward way of dealing with it (maaaaybe, if it is just one sentence... but an entire conversation? Never again). In the end, the Donougher way of using phrases to describe changes in the mode of address probably is the least awkward you can get in a text.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2014-04-01 07:49 pm (UTC)And the Donougher way still sounds somewhat awkward, but like the better alternative - after all, I am already aware that I am reading a translation, so just give me all the footnotes!
I've been thinking about this quite a bit because I really do like the way vouz/tu is at once so simple and so powerful in the way it denotes shifts in respect - going from the formal to the informal is such a slap in the face if it is done without invitation to do so or as a sign of affection. And usually with fic in English there is no need to think about that at all for me, but since I enjoy the way Hugo utilizes it so much, I also don't want to ignore it, which leaves the same sort of problem all of his translators face, I guess. But I experimented with Hapgood's "thou" once, and that's just not an alternative, I think it's really the most awkward way of dealing with it (maaaaybe, if it is just one sentence... but an entire conversation? Never again). In the end, the Donougher way of using phrases to describe changes in the mode of address probably is the least awkward you can get in a text.