To Kill a Translator

Un petit extrait du Pynchon (en anglais…), qui pourrait faire, ma foi, un fort joli test de traduction… On ne s'en relèvera pas de si tôt…

"Earlier that day Alonzo had paid his weekly visit to the "Old Man," Out the window breathed a spring afternoon, a sunny verdigris campus, dipping away to a windbreak of Lombardy poplars all at that distance in a green mist of budding, while before the window-frame bobbed the kindly seamed face of the Commandant, with its closely maintained white mustache and gold teeth which flashed when he smiled—to appearance the slow and amiable smile of the drug habitué, but in fact an all but nihilistic dismissal of whatever the world might present him — opiatedly explaining meanwhile to the young informant, as he had dozens of times previous, everything, everiything — Chromatic Harp Safety, and the particular need to keep those nasal hairs closely trimmed lest one or two be caught between cover and plate and get pulled out, which beyond the pain and humiliation carried as well the risk of brain infection, and where and when the units slept and who stood the different kinds of watches such as Pitch Integrity Guard, protecting through the hours of darkness the famous D-Flat Reverberating Harmonica from the Phantom Filer, known to sneak in with a full set of professional harmonica-reed files to alter notes and create difficulties for soloists upon the instrument, obliging them at times to shift over to sucking the tonic chords and blowing subdominant ones, producing a vaguely Negroid sound — though the intruder must take care to avoid as well the Provisional Anti-Urination Watch, up against late-night visits to the latrine, peculiar, indeed pee-culiar, goings-on in there having been recently reported... Out the window behind the Commandant on the Activity Fields could now and then be made ements of the Harmonica Band engaged in "Physical Education," though not the usual Rugby Union or Lacrosse, no it was rather some horrible… nonregulation Combat-Inside-Ten-Meters, as the musicians, tiny figures in red sweatshirts bearing the golden crest of the Academy, attempted to strangle, kick, or, if suitable rocks happened to be to hand, beat each other, apparently, into unconsciousness if not further ... bodies had begun, actually, to fell, and screams delayed by distance to float at last up from the green fields and through the Commandant's window to accompany his long recitation, punctuated with tuneful quotations on his personal gold-plated I.G. Mundharfwerke "Little Giant," from behind a desktop chaotically littered with books, papers, and (embarrassingly) outright refuse, such as orange peels, peach pits, and cigar stubs, drifted in places to depths of two feet and more, somewhat repelling Meatman, who had after all only come here to "rat" on his classmates, who would soon, bearing their playing-field casualties, come marching back between the magnolia trees, to the sprightly Offenbach air "Halls of Montezoo-HOO-ma!" the tranquil Old Man with syrup-slow ease continuing his digression, fading through the afternoon, into obsessively detailed allegations of odd latrine behavior, evoking in short flashes white porcelain fittings voluptuous of form, not necessarily toilets, though in some way vehicles for the mysterious but as yet unspecified "pee-culiar goings-on," presently allowing the whole picture to be viewed, a rapid swoop down between the ranks of white fixtures, blurring moistly violet at the edges, into the Latrine itself, into dark proximities including—unavoidably— corruption and death, the rows of mirrors facing each other through a haze of secular use, the breath, atomized dentifrice and shaving preparations, ascents of tapwater vapor bearing traces of local minerals, each set of images chaining away for uncounted leagues, everything reflected, headed for the Point at Infinity along a great slow curve..." (Against the Day, pp. 421-422)

Bon, vous avez vingt minutes, parce qu'il en reste encore sept cents dans ce genre… (Pour vous aider, n'hésitez pas à recourir à des techniques éprouvées, comme le saut à l'élastique radioactif accompagné d'inhalations de gaz d'hélium ou la course nu dans les bois la nuit, un hérisson dans chaque main).