I loved Ned Zeman’s new book The Rules of the Tunnel, which I read during a long plane flight. Not only does it combine three of my favorite subjects — high-end magazines, bipolar disorder, and the crappiness of modern psychiatry — but it’s very well-written and revealing. I haven’t enjoyed a book so much in a long time.
Zeman once wrote for Spy, as did I. Long ago, I met him at a Spy party. I suppose I could have gotten a free copy of his book but I bought it. I wanted something great to read on the plane.
Edward Jay Epstein, the investigative journalist whom I praise here, offers free copies of his latest books (which include Myths of the Media, Who Killed God’s Banker?, and Armand Hammer, The Darker Side, all Amazon Kindles) to those who will write Amazon reviews. I took him up on it. You can reach him at ed ~at~ edwardjayepstein.com.
In college and afterwards, I tried to educate myself by reading well-written stuff. At first, I went through back issues of The New Yorker in the Caltech library. Later I stuck with books. For example, I learned about molecular biology by reading The Eighth Day of Creation. The Torchlight List by Jim Flynn (discoverer of the Flynn Effect, the slow increase in IQ scores) has the same underlying philosophy: a good way to learn is to read books you enjoy. (more…)
Thanks to Oskar Pearson.
Ann Beattie, a great writer, has a new book out called The New Yorker Stories. I loved her early stories. Her first story in The New Yorker (1974) was “A Platonic Relationship“. I still remember this:
When he did have a beer he would take one bottle from the case and put it in the refrigerator and wait for it to get cold, and then drink it. . . . One night Sam asked her if she would like a beer. . . . He went to his room and took out a bottle and put it in the refrigerator. “It will be cold in a while,” he said quietly.
Last night I put a Diet Coke in the freezer. It will be cold in a while, I thought, remembering this passage.
Alas, I haven’t liked her work over the last 20 years as much, although I am looking forward to reading Walks With Men, her latest novel.
Someone asked Lydia Davis: Why another translation of Madame Bovary? She replied:
In the case of a book that appeared more than 150 years ago, like Madame Bovary, and that is an important landmark in the history of the novel, there is room for plenty of different English versions. For example, 1) the first editions of the original text may have been faulty, and over the years one or more corrected editions have been published, so that the earliest English translations no longer match the most accurate original; 2) the earliest translators (as was the case with the Muirs rendering Kafka) may have felt they needed to inflict subtle or not so subtle alterations on the style and even the content of the original so as to make it more acceptable to the Anglophone audience; with the passing of time, we come to deem this something of a betrayal and ask for a more faithful version. 3) Earlier versions may simply not be as good in other respects as they could be—let another translator have a try.
This reminds me of my three-part answer to the question a journalist asked me: why it mattered that butter improved my arithmetic speed by 5%.
Just as I disliked my answer, I disliked Davis’s answer. It’s hypothetical (“may have been faulty”, “may have felt”, “may not be as good as they could be”). It’s flat and obvious (earlier versions may have room for improvement). It’s irrelevant (bad translation of Kafka does not justify new translation of Flaubert).
I had trouble figuring out a better answer to what I was asked, but I could instantly say what Davis should have written: The story of how she decided to do a new translation. (“I began to think about doing a new translation when . . . “) That would have been a lot more emotion-laden and not hypothetical, obvious, or irrelevant.
As soon as I thought what Davis should have said, I could see what I should have said. I should have answered the journalist’s question like this: Why does 5% matter? Let me tell you why I was so excited by this. . . .Â
Via Marginal Revolution.
Today was my first day of class at Tsinghua. I am teaching a seminar called Frontiers of Psychology. There was only time for about half of the 40-odd students to identify themselves, which included saying their favorite book. Three girls said their favorite book is Pride and Prejudice. Two said The Little Prince. One said Harry Potter. One said Rebecca by Daphne Du Marier (published 1938). One boy said he didn’t have a favorite book — reading books was a waste of time. One boy said his favorite book is Ulysses.
Most of them, perhaps 80%, chose a non-Chinese book as their favorite. One French, two German, the rest English (which they may have read in Chinese translation). At first I was surprised but then I realized it made sense. Chinese civilization was more advanced than European civilization for a long time but when Gutenberg invented the Western version of the printing press everything changed. In Europe, unlike China, books became cheap and literacy spread. With literacy came a book industry. A large number of Europeans have been reading books for 500 years. In contrast, the Chinese language, with thousands of characters (in contrast to 26 lower-case and 26 upper-case letters) made printing difficult. With reading material rare, so was literacy.
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