The Reading Room

6:34 AM

0

Q: Why did Waley choose to transcribe the titles of some chapters as opposed to translating them in The Tale of Genji?

Arthur Waley seems to be a champion, practitioner, and repeat offender of domesticating translation. This Q&A tells us his translation of Journey to the West significantly abridges the original work and alters the moral of the story. My own answer to this question here also demonstrates how consp...

user185131

8:57 AM

Using VoiceOver is much more difficult than I thought it would be :(

Tsundoku

9:20 AM

@Bookworm @NorthLæraðr That question about Mein Kamp only has downvotes. If we collectively ignore it by not answering it, the roomba will delete within a few weeks. It's not a scalable solution but might work now.

@Brahadeesh I'm not surprised. You can't start using a screen reader without some preparation. Check e.g. Apple's VoiceOver User Guide and Deque's handy list of shortcuts.

user185131

Yes, the first thing I did was to go through Apple's tutorial, but I need a lot of practice it seems.

Tsundoku

Everybody does :-)

user185131

@Tsundoku I second this. It's already off the front page since it has a score <= -4.

Tsundoku

@Bookworm Calling Waley's translation of Journey to the West an abridgement is very kind ;-) I own a full translation in four volumes. Waley's version is shorter than each of those four volumes.

user185131

@Bookworm Would this question (and perhaps some others) benefit from an arthur-waley tag? I'm not sure what the policy is on tagging questions about a specific translation of a work where the translator is known.

Tsundoku

9:32 AM

We have never before created tags just for translators, as far as I know. Since every non-English work we have questions about has a translator, that would mean dozens of extra tags.

user185131

Ah, makes sense...

Tsundoku

I can see the point if a translator intervenes so strongly into a text that it becomes an adaptation instead of a pure translation, as in the case of Waley's Monkey. We want proper attribution of translations but we don't have a policy about tagging translators.

user185131

Right

Tsundoku

This leaves a grey zone for authors who also translated other people's works. For example, Christopher Marlowe is an author in his own right but also translated some of Ovid's Amores and Lucan's Pharsalia. If someone posts a question about either of those translations, do we tag that question just with ovid / lucan or also with christopher-marlowe?

user185131

Even in this case, I think the point you made earlier stands, namely that unless Marlowe's translations can be considered adaptations of the original text, questions about these works should only by tagged with ovid / lucan and not also with christopher-marlowe.

Tsundoku

9:43 AM

The same would apply to Proust's translation of Ruskin or Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf.

@Brahadeesh Yes, for consistency with what we've done so far, those questions should not be tagged with christopher-marlowe.

user185131

For some reason I'm unable to toggle VoiceOver on my Mac using Cmd+F5. Having to go to System Preferences every time to turn it on and off...

Tsundoku

I'm not a Mac user, so I'm afraid I can't help you :-(

user185131

Ah, no worries...!

Knight

Is there a difference between a juror and a judge?

Tsundoku

A juror is a member of a jury. That's very different from a judge.

All court cases require a judge; most proceed without a jury, which is typically reserved for murder trials (I think).

Knight

9:52 AM

Is a juror any normal man with any profession whatsoever?

Tsundoku

A judge is a public official who has been appointed to preside over trials. In development countries, I think you need at the very least a degree in law in order to become a judge. Any person can be called upon to serve on a jury.

Knight

How can any person be trusted to decide “who is lying and who’s not?” ?

I’m amazed and at the same time glad too!

Tsundoku

As far as I know, the potential jurors are examined by both the prosecution and the defence, to check that they are up to the task. This includes checking for prejudice for or against the defendant.

@Knight You could also ask: how can any person be trusted to vote for competent politicians?

Knight

@Tsundoku But there no one’s life is at stake.

@Tsundoku Why defendants are allowed to chose the jurors too? In this way a big shot will have influential juror in jury, won’t he?

But it’s an awesome system, I never knew about it.

Tsundoku

@Knight Donald Trump's incompetent handling of the Covid-19 pandemic has cost many more lives compared to what a competent politician would have done. Politicians also need to decide about going to war or not, which can put many lives at stake. And that are just the most obvious examples.

@Knight The jurors need to be acceptable to both parties, not just the defence.

Knight

10:01 AM

But our decision will not directly cost someone’s life, but in the other case it will.

It’s a matter of direct vs indirect

Tsundoku

It's not only a matter of direct versus indirect, there is also a difference in scale. A jury decides about the life of at most a few persons. Politicians make decisions that affect the lives of millions of people. For example, deciding whether to support a good healthcare system versus increasing a bloated military budget.

Knight

Can anyone nominate themselves for Jury membership?

Tsundoku

Anyway, jury trials are not infallible, as you might expect. See for example the case of the Birmingham Six, whose conviction was found to be false after they had already spent roughly 20 years in prison.

I think the first step is a random selection process. I doubt that you can nominate yourself. I don't think I would like to do it. Sharing the decision about a person's life or death is not something I would take lightly.

Knight

I appreciate your thoughts

user185131

10:17 AM

Does this question need a tag for The Urantia Book?

user185131

9

Q: Who wrote The Urantia Book?

On the Wikipedia page, the author is unknown. On the website it's said the authors include universe beings (such as archangels, chief of Seraphim, etc.) However somebody had to write the book. Is there any evidence pointing to who did it?

apocryphal-works

Tsundoku

10:34 AM

@Brahadeesh You can now have a go at the tag wiki excerpt ;-) Unless you want to leave it to @NorthLæraðr.

user185131

I'll take it up :) Unless @North gets to it before I'm done with lunch!

Tsundoku

10:55 AM

@Randal'Thor The first LoTR question was written by Hamlet, who apparently also added the tag.

Knight

1:21 PM

If I could get the possible meanings of this line

> men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind

I would be happy. Whirl means to fold, but what bits of paper mean here? Does it refer to The Bible?

And also I need some thoughts on this line

> Not here the darkness, in this twittering world.

(these lines are from Burnt Norton, section III of the poem)

Knight

2:07 PM

> Here is a place of disaffection
Time before and time after
In a dim light: neither daylight
Investing form with lucid stillness
Turning shadow into transient beauty
With slow rotation suggesting permanence
Nor darkness to purify the soul
Emptying the sensual with deprivation
Cleansing affection from the temporal.
Neither plenitude nor vacancy. Only a flicker
Over the strained time-ridden faces
Distracted from distraction by distraction
Filled with fancies and empty of meaning
Tumid apathy with no concentration

So, finally I have got the meaning the first line "Here is a place of disaffection", well it refers to those people who knows what good or evil is but they don't do nothing.

It refers to those people whom Dante also described in his Inferno. Those "neutral" people.