hello again, i don’t if you’ve been waiting for this part of this series to drop, but i’m sorry for being late, i was busy…anyway before i throw my questions now at you hoping you would answer i want to remind you about something i asked about in my second post ( here’s the link : [ ](https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/16xakkj/the_problems_i_faced_when_i_started_translating/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/16xr0zn/the\_problems\_i\_faced\_when\_i\_started\_translating/](https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/16xr0zn/the_problems_i_faced_when_i_started_translating/) )
the goose face metaphor, SebzKnight answered me and provided me with a good explanation, part of it was this :
” I think “gutter” has the advantage of both echoing the g-sounds of goose and gobble”
the good new is that i can preserve this alliteration in my translation but it won’t be the g sound, instead it will be the z sound with the arabic letter **ز**
goose means ” **إوزة**” , gobble means ” **ازدرد** ” , gutter means “**مزراب** ” or ” **ميزاب** ” and both of them has letter **ز**
i just find it intersresting that both language has aliteration of these words.
i used to play with this literary device in my writings a lot, i overused it, also, on a side note, i’m a novelist and my arabic is excellent, so rest assured, once i get the precise meaning i can transmute it in arabic in the best shape possible, that’s why i post these, to make sure that i capture the right meaning…
anyway, here are the questions
1 – “In this passage :
“he little boy had lagged and was grouting in the grass. Then the baby, Caro,
thrust her fist out over the coverlet and the furry bear was jerked
overboard. Amy had to stoop. George grubbed. The flower blazed between
the angles of the roots. Membrane after membrane was torn. It blazed a
soft yellow, a lambent light under a film of velvet; it filled the caverns behind
the eyes with light”
‘**Membrane after membrane was torn**’ is mentioned. Is this a metaphorical expression, possibly symbolizing something deeper, or should it be taken more literally? i myself think it’s a metaphor for petals or roots because the boy took the flower out of dirt, also there’s “**a film of velvet “** velvet is a fabric, and a film is it like a videotape, and there’s a flower, how to combine these three togather.
2 – in this passage :
“He
nodded and sauntered on, smoothing out the crumpled paper and
muttering, as he tried to find his line in the column, “A cry-baby–a cry-baby.”
But the breeze blew the great sheet out; and over the edge he surveyed the
landscape–flowing fields, heath and woods. Framed, they became a picture”
my question is the great sheet when it was blown out, did it come out entirely and flew then fell, or did come out of the newspaper but was still in his hand, also what is the great sheet, is it the first page of a news paper?
3 – and also heath and woods, my understanding is barren land and forests, like a contrast between the two, am i right? i might be wrong
4 – in this passage :
” and thus lie between them like a wire, tingling, tangling, vibrating–she groped, in the depths of the lookingglass, for a word to fit the infinitely quick vibrations of the aeroplane propeller that she had seen once at dawn at Croydon. Faster, faster, faster, it whizzed, whirred, buzzed, till all the flails became one flail and up soared the plane away and away. . . ”
here, what is meant by “flail” is the blades of the propeller, right? but flail is an old tool used for agreculture, but when use it in arabic it will be confusing, it would be clearer if it was just blades or vanes, do you think that metaphor is necessary
or can it be replaced?
5 – now who knows what’s this song’s name :
“Where we know not, where we go not, neither know nor care,” she
hummed. “Flying, rushing through the ambient, incandescent, summer silent . . .”
The rhyme was “air.” …. “There to lose what binds us here,” she murmured….. “With a feather, a blue feather . . . flying mounting through the air . . . there to lose what binds us here . . .”
6 – now, can someone explain to me what’s happening here…
She put down her brush. She took up the telephone.
“Three, four, eight, Pyecombe,” she said. “Mrs. Oliver speaking. . . . What fish have you this morning? Cod? Halibut? Sole? Plaice?”
“There to lose what binds us here,” she murmured. “Soles. Filleted. In time for lunch please,” she said aloud. “With a feather, a blue feather . . . flying mounting through the air . . . there to lose what binds us here . . .” The words weren’t worth writing in the book bound like an account book in case
Giles suspected.
so what i got out of this is, first she dictated that three digit number and then the name of a civil parish, is it like a phone number? ( that short?) and then she asked about the dish served and then she murmured, maybe waiting for the response? and then she ordered meaing she already got the response and it was hidden from me the reader (secret,ey? ) and then she started humming again which indicates that the phone call ended (i assume )
now the next words are puzzling, she said she wouldn’t write the words because giles may suspect ( that’s she’s in love with another man ) or is it that the words wouldn’t be of use?
i think it’s the first because it makes sense.
anyway, that’s where i have stopped, i konw that i’m a slow reader, i look up a word and then jump into rabbit holes connceted to that word that confused me and then i catch myself, so i go back to the novel and i realised that half an hour passed already, time goes so fast.
anyway, thanks in advance for anyone who helps me with some insights, see you next part, tomorow…. maybe
by SaidNadir2021
2 Comments
fascinating, thanks for the read.
1. Feels like a metaphor for birth, with the membranes tearing and filling dark with light.
2. The great sheet is the oversized piece of paper the newspaper is printed on. He’s still holding it, looking over the top.
3. A heath is a drier version of a moor, so more shrubs and grass than trees.
4. At this point “flail” probably confuses a lot of native English speakers too, unless they’re familiar with outdated farm equipment.
5. This may be something Woolf made up herself.
6. Back in the day of human switchboard operators, a few numbers and a place was how you told them who to connect you to. She’s calling the local fishmonger and asking what fish they have for sale that day and having some fish prepared so she can pick it up on her morning errands. It’s probably not significant that we don’t get to see the shopkeeper’s responses. And it sounds like she doesn’t want Giles to think there’s anything odd going on so she’s not writing things down.