Monday, April 26, 2010

Une pause / A pause

Chers visiteurs de ce blog,

Pardon pour l'interruption momentanée des messages sur ce blog. Parfois, la vie réelle prend le pas sur la vie rêvée... J'ai manqué de temps pour nourrir ce blog...

J'ai eu besoin de temps, aussi,  pour prendre du recul, de la distance, laisser les rêves se développer, dans le silence, sans commentaires superflus.

Vous êtes nombreux à visiter ce blog, vous êtes très peu à laisser une trace de votre passage, sous forme de commentaire ou d'email.

Je ne sais pas ce que vous venez chercher ici, ni ce que vous y trouvez.

J'essaie de frayer un chemin entre histoire et fiction, entre rêve et réalité.

Disons que c'est un blog musical, où les lecteurs sont invités à écouter la musique subtile, allusive, d'un désir.

Bien à vous

Butterfly



Dear visitors of my blog,

I am sorry for the temporary lack of updates on this blog. Sometimes, real life is more powereful than dreamt life... I had not enough time to update my blog....

I needed time, also, in order to get the right distance, to leave dreams, my dreams, to unfold, in a silence way, without any useless commentaries.

My blog is visited by many of you... Those who leave a comment or who get in touch with me through email are very few...

I don't know what you are looking for here or what you find here...

I am just trying to open a path, between history and fiction, between dream and reality.

My blog could be considered as a musical blog, where visitors and readers are invited to listen to a subtle and allusive music, to the music of a desire.

With my best regards

Butterfly

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Vos rêves siciliens nous ont manqué, mais vous êtes pardonné.

Après tout, nous aussi, nous prenons le temps de rêver !

Anonymous said...

Hi Butterfly:

I was a French major at an American university in the late '60's when I found, quite apart from my coursework, Roger Peyrefitte's magnificent Les Amities Particulieres. Knowing there was no English translation currently in print I proposed, as a senior project, to do the translation and with it a paper on the author and his work.

My academic advisor quickly shot my idea down, declaring the book to be "A third rate novel by a fourth rate author." Shortly thereafter, I changed majors, but never forgot Les Amities....which remained one of my "sacred books," getting read at least once or twice a year. Always in the back of my mind was doing the translation, but it seemed there was never time.

In 1989 I found myself in prison, on charges Peyrefitte would be quite familiar with. Finally having spare time, I was able to buy a copy of the book, a French/English dictionary, and undertake a translation.

It was not easy. A prison library is not conducive to research. Fortunately, I had a very traditional French Canadian Roman Catholic upbringing, so i was on familiar ground there. I remembered some French history and culture from my university days, and boys I knew only too well.

The result was a rough translation of Les Amities....completed in the mid '90's. I know it needs a great deal of polishing, but who better to do a translation of such a book than one intimately familiar with the agony such a situation produces?

My translation sits in a large binder in my office, and I do not know if anyone will ever get to read it. Bringing it to print would require jumping through a lot of hoops I know nothing about.

All this to say I found your blog, have enjoyed the discussions on Peyrefitte, Van Gloeden, and others. You have introduced me to many other literary and artistic figures I was unaware of, and I am grateful.

If anyone wants to talk to me, I am at Chips48mr19@hotmail.com. I get by better in English these days but would welcome the opportunity to practice my French.

Mr. Chips