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Title: Le Ton Beau De Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language by Douglas R. Hofstadter ISBN: 0-465-08645-4 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 01 May, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.89 (37 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: Generally I love Hofstadter, but...
Comment: ...I found this book infuriatingly in need of an editor!!! I bought a remaindered copy for $4 at Half-Price Books, but after reading it I realized I didn't get much of a bargain.
Doug starts out by praising himself for being in total control of this book -- typesetting, page design, content, direction... Well, he shouldn't be so smug. The typography is a jumbled mess, the chapter introductions are amateurish, the page breaks are artificial and distracting, the content wanders off the subject into numerous, endless (and pointless) digressions, and most of the 30,000 versions of the poem he translates are laughably bad.
There's a worthwhile message in here somewhere, buried under six tons of authorial effluvia -- something about the art of translation being a balance between form and content. But of the 632 pages here, only about 120 serve this purpose. Hofstadter has apparently become such a powerhouse author that he is allowed to wield total control, but it's a two edged sword and he proves himself no Galahad.
Doug man, you need an editor.
Rating: 5
Summary: Heathens! Blasphemers! Dilettantes!
Comment: I have seldom been more astonished in my life than in reading the obviously heartfelt but shockingly shortsighted criticisms levied by fellow Amazon.com readers. To myself it appears (pardon the pun) self evident that this is one of the greatest books currently in print. At this time yesterday I was only halfway through the book, and I had to (HAD TO, mark) stay up all night to finish it, ignoring my roommates, not returning phone calls, and seriously threatening my work this morning. Since this is not the sort of book one usually thinks of as an "up-all-nighter" I must explain what it was that compelled me to lose so much sleep. Simple. It's that good.
Le Ton Beau works on every imaginable level.
1) It works as a very moving piece of autobiography, not only focused on the author's tragic loss of his wife (though, I confess, I cried when he wrote after praising her own transcendent translation of the central poem, "But then I'm biased. I loved her so and still, still I do." (Apologies to the author for quoting from memory and therefore surely inaccurately))but also reflecting movingly on his love affair with Chopin, the French language, puzzles and word games, the human mind and, frankly, LIFE in all it's intricate mysteries. This is a man who, in spite of it all, has a passionate love for the world at large and the book would suffice in that alone if nothing else but,
2) It works as a work of art, it is a masterpiece of self referential, carefully constructed perfection. Just as a translator has to stick carefully to the text of the poem, and just as Marot in writing his poem had to stick to the three syllable per line, AABB rhyme scheme (and seven other restrictions that Hofstadter points out) Hofstadter gives himself literally hundreds of restraints ranging from the macro level (finishing the, enormous, book in one year in time for Marot's 500th birthday) to the mid-level (writing a chapter entirely in rhyme) to the micro level (translating long paragraphs into e-less English).
3) As a roster of great works. I found that one of the more surprising aspects of this book was how I kept reaching for pen and paper to write down things that I now will have to go look up for myself. The short list is a) I must read Eugene Onegrin b) and The Golden Gate by Vikram Seth. c) I will have to give another listen to Gershwin, d) and give Chopin a chance, e) and finally get around to reading Dante, f) and rent The Seven Year Itch. And that's only the beginning. I realize that this is a personal response, and not the most intellectual argument I could make for the book, but I so seldom come away from a book this fired up with enthusiasm to learn still more- and after a dose of knowledge this heavy I would usually feel overwhelmed if it were not for the incredibly light, loving hand of the author who steered me (not, unlike him, a physicist, or an AI expert, or a speaker of any foreign languages (though now I feel compelled to restart my abortive attempts at German and French))gently through such dangerous territory.
4) It works as a brilliant and (yes, to those of you who complained of it) exhaustive, lengthy treatise on language. Perhaps if it did not inspire you, you are simply not inspired by language. For myself, however, I was litera(ri)lly out of breath on several occassions. Although densely written, there is an overwhelming sense of fun here (as in the author's rather charming ire when he is unable to reproduce a section from The Catcher in the Rye, and his lengthy discussion of the German word for nipple), but the sense of fun is deadly serious as well, because it is such an essential element of language. Nothing is trivial in linguistics. One reviewer was upset that the author discussed typefaces, and typesetting as if this were somehow irrelevant in a book ABOUT POETRY. When, in fact typesetting and type face are often the only things that define poetry as such. If you don't believe me, look and see:
If you don't
Believe me,
Look- and see!
Still you won't?
Well ok, this is perhaps a slightly inane example, but what I'm trying to say here is that Hofstadter's point encompasses the entire range of human experience as it is capable of being expressed through ANY SYMBOLIC METHOD, with a particular emphasis on the linguistic method. Given that most of us live and die in the universe of symbols, I fail to comprehend the complaint that Hofstadter has, by any means, "Run out of things to say." To the contrary, the impression I get is that he is holding himself back in an attempt(perhaps unsuccessfully for some of you) to not run us over with the power of his enthusiasm, genius, and sheer, massive, overwhelming knowledge.
This may be the best book I have ever read. And the best part is I know I missed at least 30% of it the first time, so I will have the pleasure of picking it up again and getting 30% more ("for the price of one!") out of it. Maybe that's what I'll do tonight.
Rating: 5
Summary: Translation has the full complexity of language
Comment: I read the half of it the half it deserves (to borrow a Tolkien's expression), but I have no doubt about its uncommon qualities. The synthesis of cognitive science items, literature studies and personal experiences , together with an incredibly polished and refined language, into which English, French, Italian and others converge, makes this book a unique accomplished experiment. But I think it requires an unusual attention, and, unfortunately, I cannot afford to spend a very long time about translation difficulties, so distant from my daily activities. And even if Marot is neither Bach nor Escher (let alone Godel), and his poetry has none of their art, the strict entanglement between form and meaning Hofstadter successfully gives evidence to, raises interest also to the otherwise insignificant poem used as book's leitmotiv. Maybe, being Italian my mother tongue, my appreciation of the chapters about Dante' Comedy's translation could lead me to overestimation. The subject lacks of an appeal as wide as Godel, Escher, Bach, but the balance between a so personal style (the haunting memories diffused into the book) and a high level abstraction (the search for meaning), makes me feel the harmony of "the music of language".
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Title: Fluid Concepts & Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought by Douglas Hofstadter ISBN: 0465024750 Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Pub. Date: 01 March, 1996 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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Title: Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter ISBN: 0465026567 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 01 January, 1999 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
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Title: Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern by Douglas R. Hofstadter ISBN: 0465045669 Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Pub. Date: 01 March, 1996 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: Eugene Onegin: A Novel in Verse by Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, Douglas Hofstadter ISBN: 0465020941 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 20 September, 2000 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Mind's I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self & Soul by Douglas R. Hofstadter, Daniel C. Dennett ISBN: 0465030912 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: January, 2001 List Price(USD): $21.00 |
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