Bon mots

Earion

Moderator
Staff member
Αντιγράφω γράμμα αναγνώστη προς το TLS:

Sir, --In her review of two recent books on the Greek historian Polybius (May 31), Mary Beard noted the problem with this difficult author --“rather tedious”, “off-puttingly intricate” and “more often skimmed than read”. But probably none has put it better than the great classical scholar B. L. Glidersleave in his wonderful Selections from the Brief Mention of Basil Lanneau Gildersleave (Baltimore, 1930): “He is scrupulous in the avoidance of hiatus, but there is one hiatus that he cannot escape, the yawn in the face of his reader”.
Ronald S. Stroud, 2716 Belrose Avenue, Berkeley, California 94705.​
 

Earion

Moderator
Staff member
He was extremely sympathetic and at the same time ruthless as a boor. He seemed to be talking about himself all the time, but never egotistically. He talked about himself because himself was the most interesting person he knew.

Ο Χένρυ Μίλλερ για τον Γιώργο Κατσίμπαλη (The Colossus of Maroussi, σ. 26-27).

Και η αντιστροφή, που σώζει τελευταία στιγμή το παιχνίδι:

I liked that quality very much -- I have a little of it myself.
 

nickel

Administrator
Staff member
I have a little of it myself.
Obviously an understatement. “A lot of it” would have been more accurate. Για τον Χένρι Μίλερ μιλάμε, έτσι; (Έστω, τον «Χένρυ Μίλλερ». :-))
 

Earion

Moderator
Staff member
Ο Κάρλος Γαρδέλ κι εγώ έχουμε ένα κοινό σημείο: και οι δυο μισούμε το τάνγκο

Χόρχε Λουίς Μπόρχες

Κατά διαβεβαίωση του μεταφραστή του στα ελληνικά Αχιλλέα Κυριακίδη (συνέντευξη στα Νέα του Σαββάτου 6 Σεπτ. 2014).
 

daeman

Administrator
Staff member
...
Ο Κάρλος Γαρδέλ μισούσε το τανγκό; Ο Κάρλος Γαρδέλ, "the most prominent figure in the history of tango," the "King of Tango"?!?
Αν είναι έτσι, από επαγγελματικό προσανατολισμό δεν έσκιζε.

Por una Cabeza


Por cuya cabeza?

Hell, rather than colinfirthing it, I'll Pacino it:

 

daeman

Administrator
Staff member
...
And then I'll Borges it:

El Tango (1965) - Astor Piazzolla & Jorge Luis Borges, con Luis Medina Castro


El tango

¿Dónde estarán? pregunta la elegía
de quienes ya no son, como si hubiera
una región en que el Ayer, pudiera
ser el Hoy, el Aún, y el Todavía.

¿Dónde estarán? (repito) el malevaje
que fundó en polvorientos callejones
de tierra o en perdidas poblaciones
la secta del cuchillo y del coraje?

¿Dónde estarán aquellos que pasaron,
dejando a la epopeya un episodio,
una fábula al tiempo, y que sin odio,
lucro o pasión de amor se acuchillaron?

Los busco en su leyenda, en la postrera
brasa que, a modo de una vaga rosa,
guarda algo de esa chusma valerosa
de Los Corrales y de Balvanera.

¿Qué oscuros callejones o qué yermo
del otro mundo habitará la dura
sombra de aquel que era una sombra oscura,
Muraña, ese cuchillo de Palermo?

¿Y ese Iberra fatal (de quien los santos
se apiaden) que en un puente de la vía,
mató a su hermano, el Ñato, que debía
más muertes que él, y así igualo los tantos?

Una mitología de puñales
lentamente se anula en el olvido;
Una canción de gesta se ha perdido
entre sórdidas noticias policiales.

Hay otra brasa, otra candente rosa
de la ceniza que los guarda enteros;
ahí están los soberbios cuchilleros
y el peso de la daga silenciosa.

Aunque la daga hostil o esa otra daga,
el tiempo, los perdieron en el fango,
hoy, más allá del tiempo y de la aciaga
muerte, esos muertos viven en el tango.

En la música están, en el cordaje
de la terca guitarra trabajosa,
que trama en la milonga venturosa
la fiesta y la inocencia del coraje.

Gira en el hueco la amarilla rueda
de caballos y leones, y oigo el eco
de esos tangos de Arolas y de Greco
que yo he visto bailar en la vereda,

en un instante que hoy emerge aislado,
sin antes ni después, contra el olvido,
y que tiene el sabor de lo perdido,
de lo perdido y lo recuperado.

En los acordes hay antiguas cosas:
el otro patio y la entrevista parra.
(Detrás de las paredes recelosas
el Sur guarda un puñal y una guitarra.)

Esa ráfaga, el tango, esa diablura,
los atareados años desafía;
hecho de polvo y tiempo, el hombre dura
menos que la liviana melodía,

que solo es tiempo. El Tango crea un turbio
pasado irreal que de algún modo es cierto,
el recuerdo imposible de haber muerto
peleando, en una esquina del suburbio.

Del libro: El otro, el mismo
de JORGE LUIS BORGES
Jorge Luis Borges: The tango was not necessarily and should not be sad

A relationship of conflict with the tango was the one that had Jorge Luis Borges. In news reports used to say reservations or he took care when explaining that where the lines were saying "tango" actually it should be read "milonga". There were not many but ancients the tangos which could be considered his favorite: El Marne, La Tablada, El choclo and La morocha, which is currently labeled as "La guardia vieja", a sort of halfway between the milongas of the late XIX and the tango-song that imposed Carlos Gardel back in 1917. So Borges, arguing that "Possibly a man born in 1899 may not like Gardel, because hr is in another tradition," he was right.

The Milonga and the creole tango, daughters of a mixture between the indigenous and the Spanish, were for the young Borges much higher than the sentimental Italian tango that arose out of the tango Mi noche triste. There Pascual Contursi, maybe without intention, he has created the figure of the abandoned men by women. And Borges said that the tone of regret in the lyrics (the tango until then, with few exceptions was only instrumental) was nothing but a blatant betrayal of the world of guapos and malevos (slang words used in tango to refer to men).

The reported maxim about the tango that emerged from the inspiration of Enrique Santos Discépolo, "a sad thought that is danced" was despised by Borges, in one of his early poems he had coined the phrase "a great joy to tango", the tango was not necessarily and should not be sad. And no friend would have complained that a woman did not love him, because that would have been a faggotry.

At the end of the 20s, Borges despised the female tango and cowardly accordeon, while praising the masculine soul of the milonga, later seen as an epic and romantic tango. The writer lamented that the brave and fighter climate of the milonga, was replaced by an heir of Petrarch's poetry that idealized the memory of the lost lover. But Borges eventually revised his opinions about the supposed evils of Italianization of tango, back in 1955, admitting he accused the Italians, and more precisely to the Genoese fans of Boca, of the degeneration. And in that sense he recognized that the old natives who created the tango were called Bevilacqua, Greco or Bassi.

According to tango historian and biographer of Borges, Horacio Salas, for the brilliant writer tango is one of the elements of the civic mythology, not history. "Roughly speaking, the guapos and the malevo were to the gaucho what the milonga was to the guitar folk from La Pampa (South Argentina)."
Borges, the carousel and Piazzolla

And in 1958, three years after the overthrow of Peron by General Eduardo Lonardi and his named Liberating Revolution, Borges published in a magazine his poem Tango. "Turn in the whole the yellow wheel / of horses and lions, and I hear the echo / of those tangos of Arolas and Greco / that I saw danced on the sidewalk." The wheel of horses and lions is not another symbol than the carousel of Independencia Street, to where Borges went as child wearing shorts. As Arolas and Greco were composers back in the first decade of the twentieth century, is to argue that the old tango is equated with distant childhood.

In 1965, Borges meets Astor Pantaleon Piazzolla, accordeon player, composer and revolutionary genius that since the mid-50s had been causing a phenomenon of urban music. They recorded an album that had as a reciter of verses Luis Medina Castro and the singer Edmundo Rivero, an idol among the tango, also specialist in milonga, slang and folklore. This vinyl, although it may sound as a lie, is virtually impossible to get in Argentina, because for decades it remained outside the catalogs. The development of this work took time and while the Borgesian verses were musicalized by Piazzolla, the composer's first wife, Dede Wolf, sang some milongas in order that Borges listened to the melodies made for his writings.

When finished recording a few months later with the voice of Edmundo Rivero, Borges was invited by Piazzolla to the studio, played him the album and eagerly asked his opinion. The writer, with its distinctive stutter, said it was ok but would rather prefer "as the girl sang." Is to imagine, between laughing, the faces that Rivero and Piazzolla had when listening to this unexpected Argentine genius of literature’s verdict.

He was never a friend of Astor

In his autobiography , Edmundo Rivero recalls that in his first encounter with Borges, he asked with what authority and knowledge he sang the milongas. “I sing them because I understand them and I understand because I have lived them, like you”, replied the gruff voice of the singer. Borges, simply and honestly told him that he had no such luck. "My mother did not want me to go out into the street," said Borges, and I was always behind bars. "

Regarding the link between Borges and Piazzolla, is to ensure that it never became friendship, inter alia, because the writer said publicly of Astor :"I do not want anything to do with this man ... he does not feel native; Rivero does, but he does not. "And a few years after Borges confessed that "One night I was taken to hear a concert of this man ... Piazzolla. And I told my cicerone I wanted to hear tangos but since he has not played just a single one, I go back to the hotel. "What Borges also questioned were the composer’s titles of his works, asserting that they were not of tango.

Other creations of Borges and Piazzolla was vocalized by Amelita Baltar and by thr Brazilian Ney Matogrosso and milongas of Borges also musicalized by Sebastian Piana. Jorge Luis Borges left perfect lyrics as Jacinto Chiclana or Alguien le dice al tango, and there were not Argentine poets who dared to transpose the border between literature and tango and it should be evoked about the recently deceased Ernesto Sabato confessed to the pianist Héctor Stampone, author of The last coffee, that he would have given several pages of his books in exchange for writing a tango like Sur of Homero Manzi and Anibal Troilo.

If Borges had obsessions, one of them is chaired by the lyrics of his milongas: the duels between the malevos "that take up the knife." In one of his stories, The Congress, Borges defined himself to be "a writer who has devoted to the study of ancient languages, as if the current were not enough crude and demagogic exaltation of an imaginary Buenos Aires of cuchilleros (knives users)."


Jorge Luis Borges had many fascinations—detective novels, gauchos, libraries, and labyrinths. Two prominent figures that occupied his mind, the tango and mythical monsters, appear in drawings Borges made in his manuscripts. Of the tango, Borges did much to spread the idea that the sensual Argentine dance originated in brothels. In his drawing above of a tango-ing couple, he writes at the top (in Spanish): “The tango is a brothel dance. Of this I have no doubt.”

Borges would repeat this claim on many occasions. In his 1930 biography of Evaristo Carreiego, he writes, “my informants concur on one essential fact: the tango originated in the brothels.” Why this history so intrigued Borges I do not know, but I do know that he once collaborated with Argentine composer Astor Piazzola on
an album of tangos in 1965. The drawing comes from the University of Notre Dame’s special collections (you can read a Spanish transcription of the rest of the text at their site).

www.openculture.com/2013/06/two_drawings_by_jorge_luis_borges_illustrate_the_authors_obsessions.html


Borges cantando tango



τανγκό, τάνγκο, ταγκό ή τάγκο; (Απαντήστε πριν διαβάσετε)

milonga = μιλόνγκα (της μιλόνγκας, οι μιλόνγκες)
 

Earion

Moderator
Staff member
Φυσικά και δεν αντιπαθούσε ο Μπόρχες το τανγκό. Πού ακούστηκε κάτι τέτοιο; Άλλο ήθελε, αλλού στόχευε :cool:

Ήθελε να βγάλει τον Γαρδέλ ... Γαρδέλη ! :😈😈😈
 

Earion

Moderator
Staff member
Ανακαλύπτω μερικά διαμαντάκια σε αυτόν τον κατάλογο 35 Author-On-Author Put-Downs, από τον ιστότοπο Shortlist.com.

Κάποια είναι γνωστά:

That’s not writing, that’s typing
(Τρούμαν Καπότε για τον Τζακ Κέρουακ).

Άλλα τα διαβάζω για πρώτη φορά:

There are a lot of daring people in the world who claimed that Cooper could write English, but they’re all dead now
(Μαρκ Τουέιν για τον Τζέιμς Φένιμορ Κούπερ).

He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary (Γουίλλιαμ Φώκνερ για τον Χεμινγουέι)

Every word she writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the’
(Μαίρη Μακάρθυ για τη Λίλλιαν Χέλμαν).

To say that Agatha Christie’s characters are cardboard cut-outs is an insult to cardboard cut-outs (Ρουθ Ρέντελ για την Άγκαθα Κρίστι).


An enthusiasm for Poe is a mark of a decidedly primitive stage of reflection (Χένρυ Τζέιμς για τον Έντγκαρ Άλλαν Πόε).
 

nickel

Administrator
Staff member
Καλημέρα. Διάλεξες τα πιο πνευματώδη. Κάποια είναι γνήσιες κακίες, όχι ιδιαίτερα πνευματώδεις. Και κάποια είναι αποκαλυπτικά και έχουν το ιδιαίτερο ενδιαφέρον τους.

“I finished Ulysses and think it a mis-fire. Genius it has, I think; but of the inferior water. The book is diffuse. It is brackish. It is pretentious. It is underbred, not only in the obvious sense, but in the literary sense. A first rate writer, I mean, respects writing too much to be tricky; startling; doing stunts. I’m reminded all the time of some callow board school boy, full of wits and powers, but so self-conscious and egotistical that he loses his head, becomes extravagant, mannered, uproarious, ill at ease, makes kindly people feel sorry for him and stern ones merely annoyed; and one hopes he’ll grow out of it; but as Joyce is 40 this scarcely seems likely. I have not read it carefully; and only once; and it is very obscure; so no doubt I have scamped the virtue of it more than is fair. I feel that myriads of tiny bullets pepper one and spatter one; but one does not get one deadly wound straight in the face — as from Tolstoy, for instance; but it is entirely absurd to compare him with Tolstoy.”
(Ολόκληρη η παράγραφος του ημερολογίου της Βιρτζίνια Γουλφ για τον Οδυσσέα του Τζέιμς Τζόις)
http://books.google.gr/books?id=o1AbAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT5060#v=onepage&q&f=false

Ο Γουέλς μάλωνε με τον Μπέρναρντ Σο για τον πόλεμο (τον Πρώτο Παγκόσμιο):

It is almost as if there was nothing happening in Flanders. It is almost as if there was no pain in the world ... All through the war we shall have this Shavian accompaniment going on like an idiot child screaming in a hospital, discrediting, confusing. He is at present ... an almost unendurable nuisance.
http://books.google.gr/books?id=h1qr1CF8uJEC&pg=PA131#v=onepage&q&f=false

Εκείνο, ωστόσο, της Γουλφ για τον Χένρι Τζέιμς (“I am reading Henry James… and feel myself as one entombed in a block of smooth amber”), το βρίσκω μόνο σε έμμεσες αναφορές.

Και το φλύαρο του Μάρτιν Έιμις για τον Άντονι Μπέρτζες είναι από το υστερόγραφο σε άρθρο που δημοσιεύτηκε στον Observer. Αξίζει να διαβαστεί ολόκληρο το κείμενο για τον Μπέρτζες. Ίσως και ολόκληρη η συλλογή πορτρέτων Visiting Mrs. Nabokov and Other Excursions, που κάποιος καλός άνθρωπος ανέβασε εδώ:
http://freelibs.com/sites/default/f...isiting_mrs._nabokov_and_other_excursions.txt
 

Earion

Moderator
Staff member
Αυτό δεν είναι βιβλίο. Είναι καταγραφή ενός υγρού ονείρου μιας δωδεκάχρονης το βράδυ αφότου πάτησε το λάθος βίντεο στο YouPorn, γραμμένη με τη γλώσσα μιας πουριτανής που προσπαθεί να κάνει cybersex.

Θοδωρής Γεωργακόπουλος στο Lifo (14.2.2015) για τις Πενήντα αποχρώσεις του γκρι.

Μια παρατήρηση μόνο: τα wet dreams δεν μεταφράζονται κατά λέξη «υγρά όνειρα», αλλά «ονειρώξεις».
 
Ερώτηση προς βαρβάτους αγγλομαθείς επί επικεφαλαιώδους ζητήματος του παρόντος νήματος: ποιος είναι ο συνηθέστερος πληθυντικός του bon mot; Το bon mots που κάνει τους γαλλομαθείς να υποφέρουν, ή το bons mots που τους δείχνει κάποια συμπόνια και μάλιστα αναφέρεται από μερικά λεξικά σαν μοναδικός πληθυντικός;
 

nickel

Administrator
Staff member
Καλημέρα. Η αναλογία χρήσης σε βιβλία (δηλ. σε πιο προσεγμένα γραφτά) γραμμένα στα αγγλικά είναι δύο κακά γαλλικά (bon mots) προς ένα σωστό (bons mots). Στα δεύτερα υπάρχουν λεξικά και παλιότερα κείμενα, του καιρού που οι άνθρωποι πρόσεχαν περισσότερο τι έγραφαν. Άρα η τάση είναι προς την αγγλική απολίθωση. Βέβαια, σωστό και λάθος προφέρονται το ίδιο, /bɒn ˈməʊz/, οπότε δεν ισχύει το «έχω ακούσει» του cougr. :-)
 

pontios

Well-known member
The general bonhomie (plural bonhomies? - is there even a plural?) on this forum is to be admired. :)
 

Earion

Moderator
Staff member
Ως αγγλική έκφραση την είχα στο νου μου όταν άνοιξα το νήμα, επομένως με αγγλοπρεπή πληθυντικό. Οι Γερμανοί, που έχουν πάρει κι αυτοί τη φράση από τα γαλλικά, προχώρησαν ένα βήμα παραπάνω και ένωσαν τις δύο λέξεις: bonmot, bonmots.

Ανακαλύπτω ότι υπάρχει και μουσικό συγκρότημα με αυτό το όνομα: The Bon Mots.
Φιλότιμη παρουσία, με έντονα κιθαριστικό ήχο, που δεν είμαι βέβαιος αν τους βοηθά να ξεχωρίζουν από εκατοντάδες άλλα.

Festival Girls

Under Pavement

Galahad
 

Earion

Moderator
Staff member
Bon mot : right word (French)

In English a ‘bon mot’ is a quip or witty remark. The phrase crossed over from France in around 1730 and became a fashionable way to describe the clever and amusing asides that entertained eighteenth-century high society. Oscar Wilde was later famous for peppering his plays with them. Sadly, many genuinely funny bons mots have been turned into clichés through over-use. The worst examples of these tend to be alcohol-related and can be found adorning the walls and menus of chain wine bars.

If you spent as much time studying as you dedicate to delivering bons mots to your classmates, Stevens, you might one day be able to graduate.’


Chloe Rhodes. A Certain Je Ne Sais Quois: Words We Pinched from Other Languages. London: Michael O'Mara, 2009, p. 32-33.
 
Αυτό δεν είναι βιβλίο. Είναι καταγραφή ενός υγρού ονείρου μιας δωδεκάχρονης το βράδυ αφότου πάτησε το λάθος βίντεο στο YouPorn, γραμμένη με τη γλώσσα μιας πουριτανής που προσπαθεί να κάνει cybersex.

Θοδωρής Γεωργακόπουλος στο Lifo (14.2.2015) για τις Πενήντα αποχρώσεις του γκρι.

Μια παρατήρηση μόνο: τα wet dreams δεν μεταφράζονται κατά λέξη «υγρά όνειρα», αλλά «ονειρώξεις».
Διάβαζα πάντως προ ημερών τη δήλωση της συγγραφέως (Wikipedia):
James has spoken of her shock at the success of the book. "The explosion of interest has taken me completely by surprise" she said. James has described the Fifty Shades trilogy as "my midlife crisis, writ large. All my fantasies in there, and that's it."
Ντόμπρα δήλωση.
Τώρα, ο συγκεκριμένος κριτικός γράφει "μιας δωδεκάχρονης". Δεν έχω διαβάσει το βιβλίο, αλλά υποπτεύομαι ότι αυτή η επιλογή ηλικίας μαρτυρά έναν ανειλικρινή αφυψηλουισμό. Προσωπικά, κοντεύω τα εξήντα και οι φαντασιώσεις μου είναι κατά 99% του ίδιου τύπου μ' εκείνες που είχα στα δώδεκά μου χρόνια. Σίγουρα η πείρα σού ανοίγει ορίζοντες, αλλά αυτό είναι το 1%.
 
Top