Day 50 of “Le Tour du numéro 7 de Saville-row en 80 traductions”

[Harpold, Terry Alan]

Dear fellow travelers,

 

We enter Day 50 of “Le Tour du numéro 7 de Saville-row en 80 traductions” – https://80traductions.blogspot.com – and the machinations of our journey to nowhere do not disappoint. My comments below will not be as detailed an analysis as Garmt and I posted to the JVF on Day 40, but I wanted to flag a few charming deformations and inventions, products of our serial translation of _Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingt jours_, that continue to make the trip worthwhile. (I’ve made a few minor corrections to punctuation so as to form coherent sentences in a couple of case.)

 

Phyllis Fogg parle bien l'anglais, oui, très bien, elle a une forte personnalité et une relation heureuse. Sa tête était au pied d'une barbe. Sa barbe et sa moustache sont comme du beurre. Le grand Byron a mille ans…

 

– Phileas’s gradual transformation to “Phyllis” is nearly there, though a few pronouns in the text haven’t quite caught up to this fact, and the interesting problem of her beard and moustache – elegantly described here as *buttery* – seems less an anomaly than a wonderful queering of the most famous bachelor of Verne’s œuvre. Racter would be proud, I think, of a phrase like that – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racter –: Phyllis Fogg’s beard is half-constructed, but from butter – https://archive.org/details/policemansbeardi0000unse .

 

Vous ne pouvez pas voyager avec un billet valide. Aucune formation particulière n'est requise mais parfois vous devez faire face à des milliers de touristes perdus ou perdus. Souvent, leurs paroles soutiennent d'autres opinions et ils diront ce qui leur arrive au moins en psychiatrie et médecine.

 

– The narrator’s musing in the original about the extent of Fogg’s travels before he and Passepartout strike out on their tour of the world slips here into an odd paradox – a valid ticket, it seems, is not the thing you need – and the menace of a throng of opinionated – or not – tourists, apparently fixated on psychiatry and medicine. Perhaps our Fogg’s journey is less one taken around numéro 7  than along the royal road of the psychoanalyst’s divan?

 

L'auteur du livre... est vêtu d'une belle robe chinoise, d'un manteau et de chaussures noires. Sherry, Port-au-Prince, Cannelle, Free Shepherd, Silver Cinnamon. La crème glacée la plus célèbre et la plus délicieuse d'Amérique.

 

– As we’ve observed before, it’s hard to resist readings of many of these deformations of the original as meta-commentaries on the composition of the novel and/or on Verne, who would perhaps be lovely in a beautiful Chinese robe, an overcoat and black shoes. A strange list of destinations or port of calls here, places that neither Fogg nor Verne ever visited, but flavors and foods both would have enjoyed? (Sherry? The most famous and delicious ice cream from America?) Cinnamon, apparently, gets a double round of applause, though “Silver Cinnamon” appears to be, in fact, a breed of rat – https://ratvarietyguide.weebly.com/silver-cinnamon--silver-mink.html.  

 

Il y a beaucoup d'arbres mais ça a été depuis que j'ai quitté la France. J'aime la vie de famille, je veux être britannique. Maintenant je sais que l'homme le plus puissant d'Angleterre, Philip Fogg, croyait en Dieu et menait une vie paisible.

 

– There are, or were, many trees, but that was only since Passepartout left France? Or their presence has changed in some way since his arrival in England? This observation has the feel of the ubi sunt about it – “Mais où sont les [arbres] d’antan?” –  As in the original Passepartout’s search for a little peace and quiet will be overturned by Fogg’s sudden change of habitus. But who this Philip Fogg might be is unclear. Phyllis’s brother? Or her alter-ego?

 

Phyllis Fogg s'est levée sans un mot et a disparu avec la robe dans sa main gauche. Il entendit la porte du colis se refermer, et le garçon vit James Foster debout devant lui une seconde fois.

 

– Exit stage left, Fogg’s hat now a dress (a beautiful Chinese robe), going out what was once a door to the street and is now a door to a package (?) James Forster, Fogg’s dogsbody before Passepartout and still around after 50 days of having been fired, should be following his former master out the door but appears now to stand up straight before Passepartout. I imagine him signaling with an obstinate glare the question that must be crossing Passepartout’s mind: “Have you any idea what you’re getting into now?”

 

Terry Harpold

Associate Professor of English

Director, Imagining Climate Change

 

https://people.clas.ufl.edu/tharpold/

https://imagining-climate.clas.ufl.edu

https://sciencefiction.group.ufl.edu

 

"Have you noticed my pink brains?

 You can see 'em work."