Gist
by Michael Marshall Smith
A dealer in old books, lost books — books no-one knows even exist. A man who works for him, prizing meaning from places where it is deeply hidden. A book, at first unintelligible…but which begins to reveal its secrets in ways the translator could never have guessed.
This is the story of The Gist, but that’s only the beginning of the journey. Michael Marshall Smith’s original novelette was then translated into French by Benoît Domis, before being rendered back into English by Nicholas Royle —who had no access to the original text or author during the process.
All three versions are presented in this edition. The idea is to discover what happened during the process, how much the story changed while passing through two other minds and another language…
To see if The Gist survived.
This ambitious collaboration attempts to get at the very roots of storytelling…Smith’s short story explores the ways information morphs during translation. Opening in a specialty store for ‘lost books,’ the tale follows barfly John as he struggles to translate an esoteric volume for porcine bookseller Maurice Portnoy. Although skilled in over 15 languages, John is stumped by the mysterious book, which he assumes to be written in code. Days are spent in the local bar pouring over the pages, but to no avail. Then one morning after an all-night bender, John awakens in a private, enclosed park where a man speaking a cryptic language that strikes John as somehow familiar. As John’s drinking continues, so too does his descent into this enigmatic tongue.
2 editions available
Editions
A dealer in old books, lost books — books no-one knows even exist. A man who works for him, prizing meaning from places where it is deeply hidden. A book, at first unintelligible…but which begins to reveal its secrets in ways the translator could never have guessed. This is the story of The Gist, but that’s only the beginning of the journey. Michael Marshall Smith’s original novelette was then translated into French by Benoît Domis, before being rendered back into English by Nicholas Royle —who had no access to the original text or author during the process. All three versions are presented in this edition. The idea is to discover what happened during the process, how much the story changed while passing through two other minds and another language… To see if The Gist survived. This ambitious collaboration attempts to get at the very roots of storytelling…Smith’s short story explores the ways information morphs during translation. Opening in a specialty store for ‘lost books,’ the tale follows barfly John as he struggles to translate an esoteric volume for porcine bookseller Maurice Portnoy. Although skilled in over 15 languages, John is stumped by the mysterious book, which he assumes to be written in code. Days are spent in the local bar pouring over the pages, but to no avail. Then one morning after an all-night bender, John awakens in a private, enclosed park where a man speaking a cryptic language that strikes John as somehow familiar. As John’s drinking continues, so too does his descent into this enigmatic tongue.