Damon’s Reviews > Babel > Status Update

The origins of the word anger were tied closely to physical suffering. Anger was a chokehold. Anger did not empower you. It sat on your chest; it squeezed your ribs until you felt trapped, suffocated, out of options. Anger simmered, then exploded. Anger was constriction, and the consequent rage a desperate attempt to breathe.

He had the oddest feeling of disappearing as he spoke, of fading into the background of a painting depicting a story which must have been old as history. Perhaps it was the drink, but he was fascinated by the way he seemed to drift outside himself, to watch from the awning as her hiccupping sobs and his murmurs mingled, floated, and became puffs of condensation against the cold strained-glass windows.

He had the oddest feelings of disappearing as he spoke, of fading into the background of a painting depicting a story which must have been old as history. Perhaps it was the drink, but he was fascinated by the way he seemed to drift outside himself, to watch from the awning as her hiccupping sobs and his murmurs mingled, floated, and became puffs of condensation against the cold strained-glass windows.

The translator needs to be translator, literary critic, and poet all at once -- he must read the original well enough to understand all the machinery at play, to convey its meaning with as much accuracy as possible, then rearrange the translated meaning into an aesthetically pleasing structure in the target language matching the original. The poet runs untrammeled across the meadow. The translator dances in shackles.

Auferre trucidare rapere falsis nominibus imperium atque ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant.

Robbery, butchery, and theft -- they call these things empire, and where they create a desert, they call it peace.