Conjunctions Conjunctions magazine is really a …
Conjunctions
Conjunctions magazine is really a big paperback of new writing. Or at least new translations of old writing. I ordered two copies when they published Thomas Bernhard�s breakthrough novella Walking a few years back. The website tempts me to order more. What�s more I�ve just discovered a poem in translation by Bernhard.
The 20th anniversary edition has contributions from dozens of well-known US writers, too numerous to mention. And the Spring 2002 edition has an extract from the long-awaited translation (well I�ve been waiting for it) of Proust�s Swann�s Way by Lydia Davis. It will be great to read Proust again, particularly with such a lean writer as Davis. The famous Scott-Moncrieff translation, latterly improved by Terence Kilmartin, is criticised by French speakers for being less funny, more flowery than the original. Still, it�s one of the great works as it is and shouldn�t be missed despite what the cretin says in the customer review.
Davis was a pioneer translator of Maurice Blanchot, and I�m sure SPIKE reviewed her fiction once. Can�t find it though. Anyway, I remember it being not very understanding. Instead, here�s an interview with Salon, and I�m just off to read it.
Other Splinters posts of interest:
- Reader Response Required
- Tod is ein Meister aus …
- A modern antidreyfusard
- Swann’s Way back via The Way by Swann’s
- Joshua Davis: The Underdog
