Where is the Author?

 These readings provided an interesting continuation of last week's, especially in the case of Nabokov. While in his introduction last week he advocated for strict fidelity, in his correspondence he asks for changes such as cutting up a long Russian sentence into several shorter English ones. This highlights the difference in perspective between approaching this issue as a translator vs. as a writer. When it came to his own work, he seemed open to changes from the Russian as long as they were dictated by him. Therefore it seems as if the problem is not what changes are made in translation but who is making the changes--and by what "authority". The Vanderschelden continues this line of thought in its discussion of author-translator collaboration, mentioning several of the material benefits of this collaboration in terms of efficiency and as a "safety net". However, these practicalities presented a much less appealing possibility than the approach of Pierre Menard, a sort of immersion and becoming that allows for the complete creation of a work. It embodies the "reading and writing" that Damion Searls discussed.

Grace Ashton