French review & Yiddish fairy tales

[ellenkushner]

Just found (via Twitter, of all things) this lovely & loving review of the French edition of my Thomas the Rhymer.  In the online 'zine Yozone.fr, reviewer Nicolas Soffray concludes his review of Thomas le Rimeur with: "Ellen Kushner est une voix majeure de la fantasy merveilleuse, hélas bien rare en français...." --and adds something nice about « À la pointe de l’épée », as well (which their other reviewer really hated - oh, well... It got plenty of nice French reviews elsewhere.  And that cover...!)

And in today's NYTimes, a big piece on KlezKamp ("a Yiddish Brigadoon" that meets annually to revive the language & folkways of the living culture the Nazis pretty successfully demolished) enlightens us as to the origins of a phrase I'd always translated as "old wives' tales":

Michael Wex, a Canadian author and philologist, taught one group about the derivation of the term bubbe mayse — literally “a grandmother’s fable” but an expression used for any implausible tale. It was, he revealed, based on a 16th-century chivalric story about a Christian knight named Bovo who improbably marries a princess under a chupah — a Jewish wedding canopy — and arranges a circumcision for twin sons. Over time, few Jews were familiar with Bovo, so the expression morphed into something said by a bubbe.

Comments

[csecooney.livejournal.com]

I shall have to read that article when I have a moment! Thanks! And what a cool French review. I just glanced at it, and as I'm not fluent I will have to spend some more time either with my dictionary or, erm, Babelfish. I'd love to have more than just the vaguest gist!

[jay-of-lasgalen.livejournal.com]

I love the cover of Swordspoint, but my French isn't up to translating the rest of the review :(

[ndgmtlcd.livejournal.com]

It's written in complicated academic French, with twisty phrases and parenthetical asides. Nobody can translate that kind of thing.

I mean, just look at this:

Nanti d’une écriture soignée, à la musicalité malicieuse, à l’érotisme latent et à la préciosité amusée...

It's just too much!

[msss.livejournal.com]

I was just thinking about you yesterday while at a legal conference, of all places! The speaker was telling us about duels being used to settle slander in 1911, over Marie Curie's reputation, and the fact that as a woman she was almost invisible in these otherwise public affairs of honour. And I immediately thought of Katherine and all the good things about TPotS.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Nice!

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

KlezKamp sound like a fine group of people. Thank you for the link.

[sandial.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked that article. I thought you would.