Kirjahaku

An engaging and unabashedly opinionated examination of what translation is and isn't.For some, translation is the poor cousin of literature, a necessary evil if not an outright travesty-summed up by the old Italian play on words, traduttore, traditore (translator, traitor). For others, translation is the royal road to cross-cultural understanding and literary enrichment. In this nuanced and provocative study, Mark Polizzotti attempts to reframe the debate along more fruitful lines. Eschewing both these easy polarities and the increasingly abstract discourse of translation theory, he brings the main questions into clearer focus: What is the ultimate goal of a translation? What does it mean to label a rendering "faithful"? (Faithful to what?) Is something inevitably lost in translation, and can something also be gained? Does translation matter, and if so, why? Unashamedly opinionated, both a manual and a manifesto, his book invites usto sympathize with the translator not as a "traitor" but as the author's creative partner.Polizzotti, himself a translator of authors from Patrick Modiano to Gustave Flaubert, explores what translation is and what it isn't, and how it does or doesn't work. Translation, he writes, "skirts the boundaries between art and craft, originality and replication, altruism and commerce, genius and hack work." In Sympathy for the Traitor, he shows us how to read not only translations but also the act of translation itself, treating it not as a problem to be solved but as an achievement to be celebrated-something, as Goethe put it, "impossible, necessary, and important."

An elegant consideration of the Surrealist movement as a global phenomenon and why it continues to resonate “Mr. Polizzotti carefully balances the movement’s aspirations and attainments against its flaws and contradictions, hoping to recuperate Surrealism’s ‘critical and imaginative essence’ for the present. . . . The best concise account of the movement available.”—Michael Saler, Wall Street Journal Selected by Art in America as an “Essential Book About Surrealism” Why does Surrealism continue to fascinate us a century after André Breton’s Manifesto of Surrealism? How do we encounter Surrealism today? Mark Polizzotti vibrantly reframes the Surrealist movement in contemporary terms and offers insight into why it continues to inspire makers and consumers of art, literature, and culture. Polizzotti shows how many forms of popular media can thank Surrealism for their existence, including Monty Python, Theatre of the Absurd, and trends in fashion, film, and literature. While discussing the movement’s iconic figures—including André Breton, Leonora Carrington, Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, Man Ray, and Dorothea Tanning—he also broadens the traditionally French and male-focused narrative, constructing a more diverse and global representation. And he addresses how the Surrealists grappled with ideas that mirror current concerns, including racial and economic injustice, sexual politics, issues of identity, labor unrest, and political activism. Why Surrealism Matters provides a concise, engaging exploration of how, a century later, the “Surrealist revolution” remains as dynamic as ever.

An elegant consideration of the Surrealist movement as a global phenomenon and why it continues to resonate “Mr. Polizzotti carefully balances the movement’s aspirations and attainments against its flaws and contradictions, hoping to recuperate Surrealism’s ‘critical and imaginative essence’ for the present. . . . The best concise account of the movement available.”—Michael Saler, Wall Street Journal Selected by Art in America as an “Essential Book About Surrealism” Why does Surrealism continue to fascinate us a century after André Breton’s Manifesto of Surrealism? How do we encounter Surrealism today? Mark Polizzotti vibrantly reframes the Surrealist movement in contemporary terms and offers insight into why it continues to inspire makers and consumers of art, literature, and culture. Polizzotti shows how many forms of popular media can thank Surrealism for their existence, including Monty Python, Theatre of the Absurd, and trends in fashion, film, and literature. While discussing the movement’s iconic figures—including André Breton, Leonora Carrington, Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, Man Ray, and Dorothea Tanning—he also broadens the traditionally French and male-focused narrative, constructing a more diverse and global representation. And he addresses how the Surrealists grappled with ideas that mirror current concerns, including racial and economic injustice, sexual politics, issues of identity, labor unrest, and political activism. Why Surrealism Matters provides a concise, engaging exploration of how, a century later, the “Surrealist revolution” remains as dynamic as ever.

"Highway 61 Revisited" resonates because of its enduring emotional appeal. Few songwriters before Dylan or since have combined so effectively the intensely personal with the spectacularly universal. In "Like a Rolling Stone", his gleeful excoriation of Miss Lonely (Edie Sedgwick? Joan Baez? A composite "type"?) fuses with the evocation of a hip new zeitgeist to produce a veritable anthem. In "Ballad of a Thin Man", the younger generation's confusion is thrown back in the establishment's face, even as Dylan vents his disgust with the critics who laboured to catalogue him. And in "Desolation Row", he reaches the zenith of his own brand of surrealist paranoia, that here attains the atmospheric intensity of a full-fledged nightmare. Between its many flourishes of gallows humour, this is one of the most immaculately frightful songs ever recorded, with its relentless imagery of communal executions, its parade of fallen giants and triumphant local losers, its epic length and even the mournful sweetness of Bloomfield's flamenco-inspired fills. In this book, Mark Polizzotti examines just what makes the songs on "Highway 61 Revisited" so affecting, how they work together as a suite, and how lyrics, melody, and arrangements combine to create an unusually potent mix. He blends musical and literary analysis of the songs themselves, biography (where appropriate) and recording information (where helpful). And he focuses on Dylan's mythic presence in the mid-60s, when he emerged from his proletarian incarnation to become the American Rimbaud. The comparison has been made by others, including Dylan, and it illuminates much about his mid-sixties career, for in many respects "Highway 61" is rock 'n' roll's answer to "A Season in Hell".

Bob Dylan blandar folkmusik med en rejäl dos blues och rock´n´roll. Lägg därtill hans texter, poesin, som nu belönas med Svenska Akademins Nobelpris i litteratur 2016. Mark Polizzottis bok om den legendariska skivan HIGHWAY 61 REVISITED ingår i den på svenska nystartade musikserien 33 1/3. Boken är en hyllning till dessa tidlösa kompositioner och tankar som Bob Dylan själv har i mitten på 60-talet.En av hans absolut bästa skivor är HIGWAY 61 REVISITED, som ingick i den trilogi han spelade in på knappt ett år, 1965-66. Förutom denna så ingick också BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME och BLONDE ON BLONDE i tilogin. När Bob Dylan slog igenom så gjorde han det som folkmusiker i Woody Guthries anda. 1965 tog han istället med sig musiker in i studion, och inte vilka som helst, utan till exempel Michael Bloomfield, Al Kooper och Bobby Greggs. Den viktiga svarta producenten hette Tom Wilson. Higway 61, är vid sidan av Route 66, den mest legendariska vägen i USA och sträcker sig från Kanadas gräns i norr ner till Mexikanska golfen i söder. Vägen passerar platser där både Elvis Presley och Muddy Waters är födda, och Bob Dylans uppväxt- och gruvstad Hibbing ligger också strax intill. Mark Polizzottis är musikskribent och författare från Boston. Hans bok handlar mycket om hur Bob Dylan ser på sig själv och sin musik, hur inspelningarna av albumet gick till och vad texterna handlar om. Stor konst som till slut belönas med både Polarpriset och Nobels litteraturpris. Tidigare utgivningar i serien är Patti Smiths HORSES och Neil Youngs HARVEST.

Bob Dylans skiva, HIGHWAY 61 REVISITED, är en av hans mest betydelsefulla. Denna bok handlar om skivan, som gavs ut 1965. Där finns klassiska låtar som Lika A Rolling Stone och den nionde och avslutande låten Desolation Row. Där förvandlas den amerikanska drömmen, i tio verser, till en mardröm. En mardröm dit Highway 61 Revisited leder. Detta är första pocketboken i musikserien 33 1/3.Highway 61 är vid sidan av Route 66 den mest legendariska vägen i USA och den sträcker sig från Kanadas gräns i norr ner till Mexikanska golfen i söder. Vägen passerar platser där Elvis Presley och Muddy Waters föddes. Och Dylans uppväxt- och gruvstad Hibbing ligger strax intill.Många har haft åsikter om Bob Dylans låtkatalog. Så bestämde sig Svenska Akademien för att tilldela honom Nobelpriset 2016. Deras motivering löd: "Nobelpriset i litteratur 2016 tilldelas Bob Dylan som skapat nya poetiska uttryck inom den stora amerikanska sångtraditionen."