Title: Le Ton Beau De Marot: In Praise Of the Music of Language Author: Douglas R. Hofstadter Genre: Non-fiction, Poetry Rating: 7/10 # pages: 632 Date read: August, 2007 |
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Summary: In the fall of 1537, a child was confined to bed for some time. The French poet Clément Marot wrote her a get-well poem, 28 lines long, each line a scant three syllables. In the mid-1980s, the outrageously gifted Douglas R. Hofstadter first attempted to translate this "sweet, old, small elegant French poem into English." He was later to challenge friends, relations, and colleagues to do the same. The results were exceptional, and are now contained in Le Ton Beau De Marot, a sunny exploration of scholarly and linguistic play and love's infinity. Less sunny, however, is the tragedy that hangs over Hofstadter's book, the sudden death of his wife, Carol, from a brain tumor. (Her translation is among the book's finest.)
Hofstadter's talents lie in linking his intoxication, erudition, and vision with humor, autobiography, and free association. His book takes on "rigidists," asks questions like, "Is plagiarism potentially creative?" and strives to define linguistic soul. Along the way, it accords the same level of respect to the seemingly trivial: sex jokes, Texas jokes, The Seven Year Itch, and the puzzle of how someone you love can hate a food that you adore. Throughout there is pun, ingenuity, and above all, love for language--which can compress distance and, through constraint, lead to freedom.
Review: As you'll know by now, I'm typically a very fast reader. This book, however, took me almost a year to get through. I started in September 2006 and only just finished this morning. It's not that it's a bad book - in fact, it's really interesting! - it's just incredibly heavy to get through so I could only cope with a little bit each day.
I'd highly recommend this book to anybody interested in translations and language in general as Hofstadter has a fascinating way of describing both. I don't quite agree with everything he says, and must admit to finding him somewhat arrogant at times (for instance an entire section was dedicated to explaining why I, as a woman, should be offended when people include me in "you guys". I don't think so. 'Guys', when used in that manner, has been understood to include both males and females for at LEAST 17 years. I'm not about to start being offended by it NOW. But I digress.), and I think he'd appreciate L.M. Montgomery's poem
"Free Verse" if he ever were to stumble across it... Hmmm... maybe I should send it to him! ;)
I ended up loving the poem that inspired this book, although I'd be hard pressed to say which translation I prefer! ;) All in all, I'm very pleased to have finially finished the book.
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