Le Ton Beau De Marot
Le Ton Beau De Marot
I found Le Ton beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language to be a fabulous, world-view-shattering work, even more influential than GoedelEscherBach. I did not like the first half, and even complained in various forums about it (I found it somewhat repetitious as he restates some of his themes he has developed in earlier works). But the second half... oh wow.
If you're interested in meaning, message, and communication, you'll immediately like this. If you wonder about "soul" and its relationship to self... if you find yourself exploring love, loss, grief, joy, and wonder how it "fits" with "all this pattern stuff"... then this is the book for you!
-- TomStambaugh
A book deeply personal and true, beautifully written. I don't think there's anything else like it. Now where are the software books written with this cogency, passion and style? -- DavidHarvey
Well, there's FluidConceptsAndCreativeAnalogies... but maybe that's cheating. ;)
I didn't like it. I've read most of the author's other work, and I felt he had already covered the most interesting material elsewhere. I am not multi-lingual nor especially interested in poetry. Which isn't to say it has nothing of value, of course, but this is the last of his books I'd enthuse about. -- DaveHarris
Based on the above, I bought the book. Read sections of it, then gave it away to a former English major with hopes she might find something worth her time in it. Maybe one of you can name something in the book you found interesting or worthwhile, besides just "oh, wow!". -- AlistairCockburn
There may be several translations of a book - i.e. once you accept, against Nabokov, that there may be any. This implements a surprising application of the open-closed principle of software.
An other domain of application could be the myth (see Tournier or Barthes). Nobody owns the "original", yet the various authors using it are not indiscriminate.
The book offers many variations on the theme of creation under constraints. Translation is seen as some kind of constraint. So is poetry. Many other kinds, some very sophisticated, are explored (e.g. Perec).
-- MarcGirod
I also found the book somewhat tedious, especially the first half. If I have a criticism, it is that he requires a strong and merciless editor. But for me, the strengths of the second half compellingly overwhelm the weaknesses of the first. He uses the groundwork that he's laid out in the first half to explore, in a way that I find deep and profound, some of the mysteries of meaning, information, communication, soul, and faith.
For me, staying with this book (I'm now rereading it a third time, in as many years) is an act of discipline akin to repeating keyboard exercises every morning (I'm also a piano player) or a daily office as part of a monastic rule. Yes, it is sometimes repetitious. It is intentionally so. The familiar structure that is constant allows that structure to become "background" to the portions that change. As the text is read more often, more elements become familiar...changing the background, and changing the resulting nature of the foreground.
It is, in my view, strikingly similar to listening to a Bach fugue. At first, nothing is familiar, and the music creates one impression. As it is reheard, certain voices become familiar. As they do, I find myself letting one voice (or a few voices) come into the "foreground", and that process defines a "background", formed by the rest of the music. As my focus changes from voice to voice, the whole experience of the music changes. I thus find a depth and richness in the music that is constantly changing, even though the bits are recorded permanently in plastic and thus the sounds are exactly the same.
-- TomStambaugh
The theme of creation under constraint clinched it for me. I found that if you do as he suggests, and write your own translations as you read, only turning to the next chapter when you are satisfied with your work, you come to grips with what he is discussing. You gain true appreciation for the translations, are just as excited as he is about subtle play or variations, and discover how creative you really can be, under self-imposed constraints.
Makes me think that I should learn piano before I try to listen to Bach fugues again. (Isn't that how they enjoyed them back when he wrote them?)
I found it a very touching, emotional, tribute to Hofstadter's wife, in addition to the joys and challenges of translation of poetry. You probably have to read the whole book to get this viewpoint. -- KeithRay
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