The Stone Dance ’sub-site’ is intended to enhance the experience of anyone reading the books. As such it is my best attempt to provide you with whatever information I feel is likely to do this. But, of course, my idea of what you might want and what you actually might want may well differ. So could you please let me know if there is anything you want to know about that is not already on the site, any links you feel should be put in from one page to another, any suggestions about how information is organized and any bugs, errors etc you come across… if I could I would have liked to make this into a sort of wiki… I will appreciate any sensible *grin* suggestions…
Tags: portugal
Not that I’m impressed a lot, but this is a lot more than I expected for when I found a link on Digg telling that the info is quite decent. Thanks.
er… thanks, I think… *grin*
Of course. Interpretations are an important part of the reading experience. There is always more to a book than just the words…
Yesterday, I went to the bookstore to order The Third God. I can’t wait to lay my hands on it… :)
I don’t even want you to. ;)
I’m glad you feel that way! The Stone Dance is, among other things, something that I have constructed in a way that I hope will surprise my readers… and I have been trying to be careful not to give anything much away… As for interpretation: I had my own levels that I put in at the beginning deliberately, then a lot more later on, then I started discovering a lot more levels of deeper interpretation that I had not realized were there at all… At this point, I’m only dimly aware of the shadowy depths… and, down there, your interpretations will be as valid as my own…
So true. To be honest, I was a little irritated by how certain things were translated. When I started reading The Stone Dance in English, it was like a wholly new experience, in a positive way.
It’s funny to hear you say your titles can be interpreted in various ways, because I have been thinking on that, as well. ‘The Chosen’ can be both singular or plural. Same goes for ‘The Standing Dead’. In Dutch, ‘The Chosen’ is translated to ‘De Uitverkorene’, which is singular. In this case, the title refers to only one of the Chosen, most likely Carnelian. Before the title of your third book was announced, I thought that ‘The Chosen’ and ‘The Standing Dead’ were plural, and that the third book would have a similar title, referring to all of the Chosen. Now I’m not so sure about that theory… ;)
Each of the titles for the individual books has at least three meanings… that I know of *grin*… but I’m not going to give anything more away just now… :)
I couldn’t agree more. Reading a synopsis is a completely different experience than reading a book. I actually wanted to add that right after I submitted my last post…
The Dutch translation of The Chosen was what introduced me to The Stone Dance. I came across it in the library and read both books. But then I discovered that those books were actually only one book, the first part of The Stone Dance of the Chameleon. Strangely enough, that title is nowhere to be found in the Dutch translation of The Chosen. The translation itself is pretty good, but like I said, I prefer reading books in the language in which they are written. That is, of course, as long as I master the language well enough. :P
I met the translator, and he was a nice man, but when he asked me: ‘What do you mean by “sea-ivory door”, do you mean “white door”‘, my confidence in him was shaken a little. If you apply that kind of approach to my books, especially to The Chosen, then I feel they will lose all their colour – and that is not actually there just for decoration…
As for the title of the whole work, I have discovered that it is very difficult to translate into other languages. In the German editions, for example, it was turned into Der Steinkreis des Chamäleons which I understand to be: The Stone Circle of the Chameleon, and that isn’t right at all! Each of my titles can be interpreted in various ways, and something is lost when this kind of thing happens… Of course, translation transforms a text, perhaps for the better – at least according to my mother who said of the Portuguese translation: “It really makes the story come alive” *wide grin* – I almost cried out: “but that’s NOT THE ONE I WROTE” *wider grin* – but, of course, she is Portuguese, and I don’t think she had read anything like this since she was a teenager… and, so, in Portuguese, my books were particularly resonant for her…
That would be very interesting indeed. :)
I am aware that The Chosen was translated into Dutch (I have copies of both books), but there it ends. The Standing Dead was never translated, and although I read The Stone Dance in English myself, I think that’s a real shame. My father read the translation of The Chosen, but he couldn’t read The Standing Dead because of his minor understanding of the English language. That is one reason I wanted to translate the book. I really want it to be read. Now that you have put those synopsises online, I suppose I could translate those…
ah… I see. Was the Dutch translation good, do you think? There may be a chance that, now it is finished, a new Dutch translation may come along. The problem with translating the synopses is that they actually spoil the experience of reading the books AND I’m not going to write synopses of The Third God – and wouldn’t want one written – and, so, your father wouldn’t be any better off… Translating the whole of the The Third God is not a trivial matter… it’s 300, 000 words long!!! It’s a hard one :(
The language I have in mind is Dutch. I read The Stone Dance in English, but I like translating texts from English to Dutch, perhaps because I write in Dutch myself. The Standing Dead was never translated into Dutch, and I have found a challenge in trying to make my own translation of the book. Especially names can be pretty hard to translate. For instance, I haven’t found a proper translation for “Earthsky” yet. The literal translation of the words “earth” and “sky” added together doesn’t have any kind of flow at all… :P
ah… are you actually talking about translating the books!?! By the way, they were translated into Dutch – at least, The Chosen was – into two books by Het Spectrum…
I do understand the problem with translating names and terms. So much so that I have provided my translators with a guide… explaining how I feel they should look at the different kinds of names… I suppose I could put that on the site…
I’m particularly interested in how to translate pages into other languages, like you mentioned would be possible in the mail introducing your new website. How can this be done?
I don’t have time at the mo to deal with this properly… but, basically, people become ‘accredited’ by me and then this allows them to log in to an online editor from where they can translate pages… I think that, after that, I would have to patch them in to the site… There would be a series of flags to allow the site to change language… I promise I’ll deal with this the moment I get some time… oh, and, out of curiosity, what languages did you have in mind…? :)