Rolling Obituary Thread: 2019

I wasn't just thinking about the pamphlets but fair point nonetheless.

i liked journey to the end of the night but it was definitely a book that i knew would've been a thousand times better in the original (an example that i've read bilingually would be vargas llosa's la ciudad y los perros, which loses of the slangy, demotic spanish in translation, hell even the translated title "the time of the hero" loses something)

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/05/fierce-row-over-plans-to-publish-antisemitic-texts-by-french-writer-louis-ferdinand-celine

It seems like most of the controversy wasn’t so much about whether the pamphlets should be published, it was about Gallimard’s imprimatur being associated with the writings. Like this would mean giving the pamphlets some kind of prestige as canonical literature.

I'd say that as historical documents, they should be available in some form or another.

It seems like most of the controversy wasn’t so much about whether the pamphlets should be published

Nah, that was definitely the crux of it.

I'd say that as historical documents, they should be available in some form or another.

― jmm, Friday, November 22, 2019 12:05 PM (fifteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah, in an archive and scanned, not released for people to spend money on for the enrichment of a publisher and an estate

Tbf it was meant to be a critical edition. The pamphlets themselves are readily available online with no historical framing whatsoever.

Maybe proceeds should go to a de-radicalization organization?

As far as I know, that possibility was never alluded to by the publisher. Which is indeed quite telling.

Is that a thing lots of publishers have done?

Not to my knowledge, but Gallimard could certainly afford it.

I have no way of knowing but JTTEOTN positively sings in translation, it seems more alive than Dostoevsky for example. different language but every translation I've read of Dostoevsky (exactly 2) were stiff as a board. and I know they're very different writers.

idk dry, creaky translations bum me out. Thomas Bernhard works imo, another language but closer to Celine

I think Ralph Mannheim (?) did such a great job with Celine imo, just a great sense of rhythm: “impotent hatred grown rancid in the pissy idleness of dormitories” is a sentence that pops into my head from time to time. Death On Credit is less conventionally well written but maybe better, I read later things and found them a bit of a slog

He had no good words to say about his patients but apparently “could never turn anyone away” even if they couldn’t pay, I don’t think being a basically decent physician makes up for his frothing antisemitism tho

Manheim, yeah this translation is great

having never read either, i oft confuse Celine and Colette, and forget one was male

no slur on manheim but celine wasn't the first fash he translated - his first commission was mein kampf

having never read either, i oft confuse Celine and Colette, and forget one was male

"We listened to the crackling song of the frying pans, a tempest of rancid fat. In the great shapeless desert surrounding the city, the rot in which its false luxury ends, the city shows everyone who wants to look the garbage piles of its enormous posterior. There are factories one avoids when out for a stroll, which emit smells of all sorts, some of them hardly believable. The air roundabout couldn't possibly stink any worse. Nearby a little street carnival molders between two chimneys of unequal height, the wooden horses cost too much for the rickety dribbling children with nosefuls of fingers, who long for them and stand spellbound, sometimes for weeks on end, attracted and replied by their forlorn rundown look and the music. What efforts are made to keep the truth away from these places, but it comes back again and again, to grieve for everybody. Drinking is no help, red wine as thick as ink, nothing helps, the sky in those places never changes, it's a vast lake of suburban smoke, shutting them in."

RIP Michael J.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SxuAOgjnog

That's nice, but it doesn't sound like Voyage au bout de la nuit at all.

xp

'rancid fat' for 'graillon' is nowhere near as colloquial and misses the fact that it's grilled; 'great shapeless desert' is a platitude next to the sheer inventiveness of 'grand abandon mou'; 'one', although technically correct, simply cannot capture the everyday familiarity and mild informality of 'on'; etc.

It's true that this translation sings, and wondrously so. Céline himself claimed that he was transcribing a 'petite musique', but the emphasis, to my mind, is on 'petite' ('la grande musique' being classical music): the Voyage is an epic that unceasingly undercuts its epic character, whereas this Journey comes across as opulent and smugly virtuosic in comparison – 'false luxury' ('le mensonge de son luxe') indeed.

More here on all matters Celine here:

Celine

Last survivor of the Hindenburg disaster dies at age 90
https://apnews.com/76ab386f0f184276a215ee1716dd4ae5

According to Mark Harris, critic and all around insufferable bastard John Simon at the age of 94.

Last night the critic John Simon died. He was 94.

— Mark Harris (@MarkHarrisNYC) November 25, 2019

and it's about time

(wrote well on Bergman tho)

Architect (and Richard's son) Dion Neutra, at 93.

https://www.latimes.com/obituaries/story/2019-11-25/dion-neutra-architect-dead

Can't find an online obit as yet, but Facebook friends are reporting the sad news that the cartoonist Howard Cruse has died of cancer. This poster by Cruse was the first time I ever heard the verb 'to rim':

https://image.invaluable.com/housePhotos/Swann/65/644565/H0132-L173961529.jpg

aw that's a bummer; he's one of this generation's greats and severely underrated.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-50570852

Gary Rhodes, British chef mainly responsible for the popularisation of Nouvelle Cuisine and owner of very rigid hair.

The Nigel Kennedy of sugar adverts, only 59, wonder what he died of.

wow

let's be honest, his recipes weren't exactly colossal

First Michelin Star at 26 - didn't know that.

Jonathan Miller has died

BREAKING: Theatre director, writer, broadcaster and actor Jonathan Miller died this morning aged 85 https://t.co/zxzzSKWOnI

— Evening Standard (@standardnews) November 27, 2019

don't pay much attention to the theatre but always enjoyed seeing him on television

I enjoyed his occasional documentary series, RIP JM

The Mortal Instruments actor Godfrey Gao dies on set aged 35

RIP Jonathan Miller, annoying as he could be.

I thought he was in his 70's

it means Alan Bennet is the last surviving member of Beyond The Fringe, and that was on stage during the Macmillan era

And now Clive James, blimey

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-50578512?ns_source=twitter&ns_linkname=news_central&ns_campaign=bbc_breaking&ns_mchannel=social

Miller was a mensch, James not so much

about fucking time tbh, he’d lingering in death’s doorway for the better part of 10 years

feel like you could have used some brexit catchphrases on Clive James before he finally got his act together: "just finally get death done for goodness sake" "you've got an oven ready deal with death sitting there unused!"

I was just thinking about Clive James when I read the other obits "look at all the people he's outliving" etc.

I’ll believe it when I see it re James tbh

*wins at the service with an axe and a crowbar, looking for his opportunity to jemmy open the coffin*

clive jemmies

too late, he's already been buried. two steps ahead of you there, wins, guess you'll never know