Musings of Navigating The Finite remainder of life from Porchville, with the hope of a glimpse of The Infinite

Sunday, October 17, 2010

A Few Thoughts

Most of the reason for this post is to get a small post in front of that monstrosity, Tunnels 1, 2, & 3 so that I can get to the post archives on my Kindle. The Kindle format places the archives at the end of the post, which is hundreds of pages for Tunnels on the Kindle.

Now for a few thoughts.

The final count of my brother-in-laws California trip was 335 new species. Unfortunately, I lost the breakdown and do not want to trouble him for it again.

I read some quotes by St. Teresa of Avila. She writes in a remarkably modern conversational style for someone who died in 1588. I suspect the translations are somewhat inaccurate.

Old Baguette, having been born in the middle of August, you are as much a daughter of the Perseid Meteor Showers as you are a Leo. Perhaps my mother saw a falling star during your birth.

3 comments:

  1. Teresa's writing is considered by many to be the finest Spain has produced, and that includes Cervantes. Would be interesting to compare the Peers and Kavanaugh translations. I suspect both would be "accurate".

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  2. Yes, I guess inaccurate was not the word I should have used. I don't question the accuracy of the translation of what she has said. It is the tone of voice that trouble me. It seems too breezy and in a too modern style compared to say Shakespeare or other English language authors of that period.

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  3. "Breezy" is a great word for Teresa. Even in the oldest translations she sounds breezy. The Autobiography was written with a light touch. I first read it about 60 years ago (the Peers translation probably) and the first few pages had me laughing out loud.

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