Louis Aragon’s Paris Peasant was certainly an easier read for me than Proust’s Swann’s Way was. I imagine it is to do with the translation, though of course the writing style of the original author. In fact, I found myself thinking about translation a lot while reading this book. There were parts that had very interesting metaphors and jokes that I would love to see in the original language. I especially noticed this in the F.M.R. section where even the translator made a note that the original pun worked so much better. I suppose this is one of the weaknesses of translation; you can never conserve all the layers of meaning within a word or a phrase because you always have to choose one. If you can find a way to make it work with more than one meaning then you’re lucky.
Posted in Aragon, Blogs | Tagged with avant-garde, communism, gender, Louis Aragon, opinion, paris peasant, perspective, religion, Surrealism, translation
Louis Aragon’s Paris Peasant was certainly an easier read for me than Proust’s Swann’s Way was. I imagine it is to do with the translation, though of course the writing style of the original author. In fact, I found myself thinking about translation a lot while reading this book. There were parts that had very interesting metaphors and jokes that I would love to see in the original language. I especially noticed this in the F.M.R. section where even the translator made a note that the original pun worked so much better. I suppose this is one of the weaknesses of translation; you can never conserve all the layers of meaning within a word or a phrase because you always have to choose one. If you can find a way to make it work with more than one meaning then you’re lucky.
Posted in Aragon, Blogs | Tagged with avant-garde, communism, gender, Louis Aragon, opinion, paris peasant, perspective, religion, Surrealism, translation
Going into this novel, all I knew of it was that it is considered one of the major works of surrealism. Knowing very little about this concept, I searched it up in the context of literature. I primarily found it to refer to the attempt of an author to merge reality and imagination. If this […]
Posted in Blogs, Proust | Tagged with Imagination, Philosophy
At first glance this book took me completely by surprise. The name and mention of Paris intrigued me and the notion I have of the word “peasant” drew images within my mind. Then, to read that this book is not traditional and breaking all rules in regard to narrative, plot, and character really caught me […]
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Being one of the most influential authors of the 20th century, Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time is an important piece in the literature of the Romance World, which gave us a good understanding about the everyday lives of French people in the late 19th century. This week’s reading Combray part 1 and 2 […]
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Hey Everyone, I found myself highlighting almost half of every page while reading Paris Peasant. All that and I still don’t understand the main concept. This is often the case for me when it comes to reading mixed-media pieces, as they do not necessarily make up a single story rather many small stories that intertwine. […]
Posted in Aragon, Blogs | Tagged with lepaysandeparis, louisaragon, paris peasant
Marcel Proust is an author who, despite the age of his works, portrays with great creativity the ever-present human condition–it is for this reason that his writing remains relevant. In his story “Combray,” readers are taken on a lucid journey not unlike a dream. The subjects ranging from childhood innocence to loves lost are made […]
For a lack of better introduction, this week’s reading reminded me of one solitary thing; the concept of deja-vu. I found that with the beginning of the chapter, the vivid imagery persisted and felt so increasingly reminiscent that I could no longer decipher whether the character was asleep or awake. I found myself making sense […]
Posted in Blogs, Proust | Tagged with affect, combray 1, deja-vu, effect, familiar, framing, mapping, power, the real
This is my first time reading Proust. What I liked about the reading was the power of his imagination that imbued his experiences. His imagination seems to constantly overpower his reality but he eventually manages to subsume his reality, which is often disappointing, into his imagination. Reading this novel is also a form of cultural […]
Posted in Blogs, Proust | Tagged with female archetypes
