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Hi, Helen. No, 'the mayor of D--' is as it's meant to be. In 19th century novels they often do this, to not name towns. Other people can tell you more about why, but you find this in English writers too.
They did the same thing for names back then; a main character in Samuel Richardson's Pamela is just known as "Mr. B---". As far as I recall, it was for a variety of reasons: sometimes it's anonymity under the guise of "This is a real person and a real place but names have been changed/omitted to protect the parties involved", to make it seem more real. Other times, I'm pretty sure it was just so they didn't have to select a specific location and you could imagine it happening anywhere, in a place of your choosing. Back in an age where you can't just hop on the Internet to pull up a likely small town to fit your purposes, I see it as a pretty reasonable authorial workaround.
After watching the PBS Masterpiece series, I knew I had to read this book for myself.A friend bought me the Julie Rose translation from Audible. As the length of this work would require a lot of sitting to read, i am appreciating taking Les Mis into every part of my life with Audible.
I was, shocked and confused by some of Rose's translations ( such as the Greasy Spoon, or referring to th Titanic early in the book). Now as I have researched the comments on Rose's translation, I am more OK with her style of translating. I just found it outside of my expectation initially.
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Bryn
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Jan 11, 2013 03:41PM
Hi, Helen. No, 'the mayor of D--' is as it's meant to be. In 19th century novels they often do this, to not name towns. Other people can tell you more about why, but you find this in English writers too.
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They did the same thing for names back then; a main character in Samuel Richardson's Pamela is just known as "Mr. B---". As far as I recall, it was for a variety of reasons: sometimes it's anonymity under the guise of "This is a real person and a real place but names have been changed/omitted to protect the parties involved", to make it seem more real. Other times, I'm pretty sure it was just so they didn't have to select a specific location and you could imagine it happening anywhere, in a place of your choosing. Back in an age where you can't just hop on the Internet to pull up a likely small town to fit your purposes, I see it as a pretty reasonable authorial workaround.
After watching the PBS Masterpiece series, I knew I had to read this book for myself.A friend bought me the Julie Rose translation from Audible. As the length of this work would require a lot of sitting to read, i am appreciating taking Les Mis into every part of my life with Audible.I was, shocked and confused by some of Rose's translations ( such as the Greasy Spoon, or referring to th Titanic early in the book). Now as I have researched the comments on Rose's translation, I am more OK with her style of translating. I just found it outside of my expectation initially.
