Posted by guillermo maynez
on 17/1/2011, 12:40:46, in reply to "Re: The Idiot"
189.141.136.8
I am close to finishing "The Idiot", and enjoying it very much. It would be strange if we didn't find substance for a good discussion, as the book treats several important themes.
--Previous Message--
: Well, what can I say to your comment except that I am
: obviously neither very perceptive nor well educated
: when it comes to people's facial expressions (or
: pretty much anything else, for that matter). I've
: never noticed a person suddenly turn pale that I can
: recall. (Blushing, yes.) As to "screwed up
: eyes," I've only seen the term in literature, and
: a squint just doesn't seem to fit the typical context.
: What I mostly envision in these situations would be
: better described as a narrowed brow. I even did a
: Google image search on the term once to see what it
: looked like, but what I mostly found were pictures
: where someone had messed up a Photoshop edit of
: someone's eyes.
:
:
: --Previous Message--
: Steven, I don't disagree with these expressions as
: literary shortcuts, but it seems strange to me that
: you don't know what "screwed up eyes" are or
: have never seen anyone pale. Occasionally, I see
: people either pale or flush as a response. I have
: certainly felt blood rush to my face or drain from it.
: As to "screwed up eyes," this is defined
: online as to "scrunch up eyes when viewing"
: and is related to squint. Not all that odd to me (he
: said with a shrug).
:
:
:
: --Previous Message--
: I've been reading The Idiot , am just into Part 2 and
: enjoying it very much. I assume that at least
: Guillermo will be reading it as well, since he was the
: one who nominated it.
:
: I'm reading the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation. They
: appear to have taken pains to make it a very literal
: translation even when the result is phrases that sound
: unnatural in English (e.g. a character referring to
: his father as "my parent" rather than
: "my father.")
:
: I don't recall any ironic glances, but I'll watch for
: them. To me this sounds similar to phrases such as
: "he paled at the thought," "he shrugged
: in reply," or "she screwed up her
: eyes." I've never seen anyone pale, I've rarely
: seen anyone shrug, and I have no idea what screwed up
: eyes would look like, but it sounds terribly painful.
: I wouldn't know how to describe an "ironic
: glance" either. These expressions are a
: conveniently brief way to represent a combination of
: subtle verbal clues, facial expressions, gestures and
: body language. Or in some cases maybe nothing is
: visible, but the author is just using these shortcuts
: to tell us how the character feels.
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