G+ LoME Archive
Post izno96aE7Ro
Tamas Ferencz, Poetry, translations, Richard Rohlin

Tamas Ferencz Jan 26, 2015 (10:20)

A Quenya translation of a couplet by C.H. Auden I read in a John le Carré novel, and caught my imagination.

Alme laita, eke ké, i *amatolya nér,
mal yas' aistalme *úquen, er i kaitala quen.

Let us praise if we can the vertical man
Though we value none but the horizontal one.

eke ké: impersonal construction 'if [it is] possible'
am(b)atolya: 'sticking upwards, upright, vertical' AM2, TOL
mal yas(se): but meanwhile, although, albeit
úquen: no one

Richard Rohlin Jan 26, 2015 (13:38)

Incidentally, I love LeCarre.

Tamas Ferencz Jan 26, 2015 (13:51)

+Richard Rohlin​
he does have a strong, lean prose I like very much, and I am also a sucker for spy/intelligence/secret service stories. And he excels in that Whitehall-bureaucrat lingo I will never fully comprehend let alone master.

Richard Rohlin Jan 26, 2015 (14:24)

+Tamas Ferencz, my own published works, which up till now have been a fusion of the spy and superhero genres, have been heavily influenced by him and contain many direct references I suspect non-LeCarre fans aren't picking up.