Related: last month's NY Times article about Wilson:
A Translator’s Reckoning with the Women of the Odyssey
31–40 of 50 posts
Re: A Translator’s Reckoning with the Women of the Odyssey
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hmm, that's an interesting take I had not considered before. I can totally see where our modern sense of sexuality/morality could get in the way of some of Homer's subtler themes.
Although I'm very partial to Fitzgerald for the Odyssey and to Lattimore for the Iliad, I'm really looking forward to Wilson's translation.
I also love Fitzgerald's Odyssey. I tried Wilson's, and it just didn't sing at all, which really put me off.
Re: A Translator’s Reckoning with the Women of the Odyssey
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/57886-all-great-literature-... You wanna argue with Tolstoy? I might refer you to TVtropes. All stories are the same eventually.
Oh, it's a URL battle now. Sure, I'll take it. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/05/06/two-plots/
"Boy meets girl; girl gets boy into pickle; boy gets pickle into girl" --Jack Woodford on plotting.
Re: A Translator’s Reckoning with the Women of the Odyssey
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh, it's a URL battle now. Sure, I'll take it. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/05/06/two-plots/
"Boy meets girl; girl gets boy into pickle; boy gets pickle into girl" --Jack Woodford on plotting.
This has a couple of advantages over the made-up Tolstoy thing:
- Jack Woodford might have actually said it
- It works (sort of) for Anna Karenina
Re: A Translator’s Reckoning with the Women of the Odyssey
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is strong historical evidence for civilizational cycles.
Cycles appear in hindsight, sure. Where's the cycle in foresight if everyone always thinks the young appear selfish and without morals?
There is no historical evidence that everyone always thinks the young appear selfish and without morals. Very often the youth have lead moral revivals (or panics, according to tastes.)
I don't mean to be unpleasant, but the idea that there has always been an oppositional libertine youth culture of selfishness is a modern canard.
Re: A Translator’s Reckoning with the Women of the Odyssey
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Boy meets girl; girl gets boy into pickle; boy gets pickle into girl" --Jack Woodford on plotting.
This has a couple of advantages over the made-up Tolstoy thing: - Jack Woodford might have actually said it - It works (sort of) for Anna Karenina
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/57886-all-great-literature-...
Who's making stuff up?
Re: A Translator’s Reckoning with the Women of the Odyssey
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Boy meets girl; girl gets boy into pickle; boy gets pickle into girl" --Jack Woodford on plotting.
This has a couple of advantages over the made-up Tolstoy thing: - Jack Woodford might have actually said it - It works (sort of) for Anna Karenina
Upon further investigation, it looks like Woodford repeated it rather than originated it. Also, he was applying it to Hollywood movie plots, and later TV plots.
In Woodford's autobiography he attributes it to H. Allen Smith: https://books.google.com/books?id=AckQU9DPMnwC&pg=PT299&dq=J...
Re: A Translator’s Reckoning with the Women of the Odyssey
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
This has a couple of advantages over the made-up Tolstoy thing: - Jack Woodford might have actually said it - It works (sort of) for Anna Karenina
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/57886-all-great-literature-... Who's making stuff up?
There just isn't any evidence Tolstoy ever said or wrote that. Nor would it make sense for someone who wrote Anna Karenina. You should read the link in my last reply. And/or Anna Karenina.
Re: A Translator’s Reckoning with the Women of the Odyssey
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
This has a couple of advantages over the made-up Tolstoy thing: - Jack Woodford might have actually said it - It works (sort of) for Anna Karenina
Upon further investigation, it looks like Woodford repeated it rather than originated it. Also, he was applying it to Hollywood movie plots, and later TV plots. In Woodford's autobiography he attributes it to H. Allen Smith: https://books.google.com/books?id=AckQU9DPMnwC&pg=PT299&dq=J...
I think that entire category of quotes is handily won by Pat Conroy:
"My mother, southern to the bone, once told me, "All southern literature can be summed up in these words: 'On the night the hogs ate Willie, Mama died when she heard what Daddy did to Sister.'"
And it's easy to attribute!
Re: A Translator’s Reckoning with the Women of the Odyssey
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a story about a man trying to get home, and a woman staying faithful in the face of uncertainty. Anything else is reading too much into it. That's the story as summarized in a potential entry for a 'most trite message board comment' competition of some sort. The actual story is another story. Either that or people have been doing it wrong and reading too much into it for a couple of thousand years.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/57886-all-great-literature-... You wanna argue with Tolstoy? I might refer you to TVtropes. All stories are the same eventually.
Counterexample: Waiting for Godot. Also Macbeth. And Romeo and Juliet. And all the many, many other stories not about journeys.