Visiting Jane Austen’s final resting place

In June, I finally got to visit the Jane Austen’s House Museum in Chawton, Hampshire. 

In September, I visited Jane Austen’s grave at Winchester Cathedral. 

There was a time I moved a bit away from Austen (and closer to Chekhov), but slowly she’s again one of the writers dearest to my heart. 

Also, look at this edition of Austen’s novels that I recently bought! It’s gorgeous. 

Cecilia: “if he will play Romeo, you, I dare say, will play Juliet”

 1/ When I picked up Cecilia, I wanted to promote Frances Burney—why is she not better known and widely read? 

Look at her achievements. As Frances Burney focuses on manners and codes of conduct and types of people, that makes her novels rather different from other 18th century novels I have read by Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jonathan Swift, and Charlotte Lennox (and beyond English fiction: Voltaire and Choderlos de Laclos), but rather close to the plays of William Congreve and Richard Brinsley Sheridan. In other words, she’s going in another direction, pioneering the novel of manners*, which is later adopted (and developed) by Jane Austen. She also starts using free indirect discourse, which is later used extensively (and perfected) by Austen.  

*: Did anyone do it before her? No, I’m asking. I actually don’t know. 

The first half of the novel is about Cecilia living in the house of the Harrels and exploring fashionable society in London. She has seven suitors: Mortimer Delvile (I don’t know what Frances Burney was thinking, giving such a name to the love interest), Mr Monckton (who’s married), Mr Arnott, Mr Belfield, Sir Robert Floyer, Mr Marriot, and Lord Derford. No wonder Jane Austen’s more popular: it’s easier to relate to broke girls trying to find a normal and stable husband, than to an heiress pursued by seven men. 

After the final disaster of the Harrels, Cecilia moves into the house of Mr Delvile, another guardian. Then they go to Delvile Castle in the country, and get a visit from Lady Honoria Pemberton, a relative of the Delviles. 

She’s hilarious. 

“… cried she; “he has not the least spirit, and I dare say he would not fight to save the whole nation from destruction; but I’ll make him believe that it’s necessary, in order to give him something to think of, for really his poor head is so vacant, that I am sure if one might but play upon it with sticks, it would sound just like a drum.”” (B.6, ch.6) 

I know she’s volatile and airy and unthinking; I know she teases our heroine mercilessly and turns everything into a laugh; I know we’re supposed to disapprove of her; but Lady Honoria cracks me up. It’s especially funny when she teases the proud, stiff, self-important Mr Delvile. 

““For heaven’s sake, Lady Honoria,” said Cecilia, “could you find no better entertainment for Mr Delvile than ridiculing his own house?”

“O,” cried she, laughing, “did you never hear us quarrel before? why when I was here last summer, I used to affront him ten times a day.”

[…] “And do you call it so small a matter to wish a man’s whole habitation annihilated?”

“Lord, I don’t wish anything about it! I only say so to provoke him.”” (B.6, ch.9) 

That proud and insufferable Mr Delvile deserves some mockery and derision and he’s not going to get any from our amiable Cecilia, so I’m glad he gets it from the “unladylike” Lady Honoria. 

(Some of you may have noticed that Frances Burney seems to like female names that end in an a: Evelina, Cecilia, Camilla, Augusta Delvile, Priscilla Harrel, Henrietta Belfield, Lady Honoria…). 

There is, I should say, an important difference between many conversations in the fashionable society of London and her talks: many conversations in the earlier part of the novel don’t contribute much to the plot and their function is to depict the various types of people in high society, which can get exhausting (I don’t watch reality TV because I don’t want to listen to vapid people); the chatter of Lady Honoria is not all empty chatter, because she either reveals something about the Delvile family, including Mortimer, or she teases Cecilia and betrays her discomfort to Mrs Delvile. 

“And then, with the hope of appearing unconcerned, [Cecilia] raised her head; but meeting the eyes of Mrs Delvile fixed upon her face with a look of penetrating observation, abashed and guilty, she again dropt it, and resumed her work.” (B.6, ch.7) 

In these chapters, Frances Burney also gives us some pointed conversations between Cecilia and Mrs Delvile, and a few moments when they leave things unsaid, which Henry James would have enjoyed. 

“The state of her mind seemed read by Mrs Delvile, who examined her with eyes of such penetrating keenness, that they rather made discoveries than enquiries.” (B.6, ch.8) 

That whole scene is very, very good.

2/ The novel is around 940 pages. Cecilia falls in love with Mortimer Delvile (what a dreadful name) around page 250, so you can tell that they have to go through lots of soap opera stuff before they can get their happily ever after. 

In the first half of the novel, Frances Burney however focuses on society, the other suitors, and the baseness of Mr Harrel; it’s around page 450 or so that the marriage plot begins. 

I know I wrote that I wanted to praise and promote Frances Burney, but honestly one of the problems here is that Cecilia is extremely irritating: her gullibility; her weakness and irresoluteness about the Harrels; her “modest” behaviour towards Mortimer Delvile. In an earlier blog post, I complained that there’s a misunderstanding and every time an opportunity came up to clear it, they got interrupted, and the misunderstanding got dragged out for about 170 pages. When they’re at Delvile Castle, there’s another confusion, and every time Mortimer tries to speak to Cecilia, she refuses to listen. When he becomes ill, she feels guilty, thinking that her refusal to listen is partly to blame. But what does she do when he later stumbles into her and asks for three minutes? 

““No, sir,” cried she, indignantly, “not for an instant!” and leaving him utterly astonished, she hastened to her own apartment.

She was then sorry she had been so precipitate; nothing had been clearly proved against him; no authority was so likely to be fallacious as that of Lady Honoria; neither was he under any engagement to herself that could give her any right to manifest such displeasure. These reflections, however, came too late, and the quick feelings of her agitated mind were too rapid to wait the dictates of cool reason.” (B.6, ch.7) 

See what I mean? Frances Burney has no compassion for my poor nerves.  

3/ There are some affecting passages, when Cecilia sees that Mortimer has left her, knowing that his proud family would never accept such a marriage: 

“… having now no part to act, and no dignity to support, no observation to fear, and no inference to guard against, she gave vent to her long smothered emotions, by weeping without caution or restraint.

She had met with an object whose character answered all her wishes for him with whom she should entrust her fortune, and whose turn of mind, so similar to her own, promised her the highest domestic felicity; to this object her affections had involuntarily bent, they were seconded by esteem, and unchecked by any suspicion of impropriety in her choice; she had found too, in return, that his heart was all her own; her birth, indeed, was inferior, but it was not disgraceful; her disposition, education and temper seemed equal to his fondest wishes; yet, at the very time when their union appeared most likely, when they mixed with the same society, and dwelt under the same roof, when the father to one, was the guardian to the other, and interest seemed to invite their alliance even more than affection, the young man himself, without counsel or command, could tear himself from her presence by an effort all his own, forbear to seek her heart, and almost charge her not to grant it, and determining upon voluntary exile, quit his country and his connections with no view, and for no reason, but merely that he might avoid the sight of her he loved!” (B.6, ch.10)

This is moving and you can feel her pain, because Frances Burney has taken the time to depict the other suitors: Mr Belfield is irresponsible and doesn’t dare to pursue her once he removed the façade of wealth; Sir Robert Floyer and Mr Marriot are despicable, especially the former; Lord Derford is a simpleton, courting her only because his father wants her money; Mr Arnott is the only good man who loves her tenderly (I like that Burney doesn’t paint all the suitors as unlikeable), but Cecilia cannot return his feelings. Mortimer has everything she wants and they love each other, but he gives her up because the will dictates that she can only keep the inheritance if the man she marries takes her last name.  

When Mortimer discovers that she too loves him, he can no longer give her up. He proposes a secret marriage (like Romeo and Juliet). She doubts. She hesitates. She agrees. She struggles. She considers breaking the engagement. She freaks out after a conversation with the (villainous) Mr Monckton (that she stupidly trusts). She tries to break the engagement. Am I harsh on the 21-year-old Cecilia? Perhaps I am, but: 

“Cecilia returned to Mrs Charlton to acquaint her with what had passed; and notwithstanding the sorrow she felt in apparently injuring the man whom, in the whole world she most wished to oblige, she yet found a satisfaction in the sacrifice she had made, that recompensed her for much of her sufferings, and soothed her into something like tranquility; the true power of virtue she had scarce experienced before, for she found it a resource against the cruellest dejection, and a supporter in the bitterest disappointment.” (B.7, ch.7) 

Is that not irritating? Frances Burney does test my patience. 

But she doesn’t stop there. Cecilia writes to break the engagement but the letter doesn’t reach Mortimer (like Romeo), so she and Mrs Charlton have to hurry to London to find him, but they get interrupted on the way—Frances Burney just throws one thing after another at the characters—when I saw that the chapter had more than 15 pages left of Cecilia being held captive by those chatty, frivolous people of fashionable society, I had no patience left and closed the book mid-chapter. 

Am I going to continue? I do not know. I was near page 600. But the book, brilliant at times, is drawn-out and exasperating. Most of my reading this year, as it turns out, has been educational—I want to read something I really enjoy. 

The headline quotes Lady Honoria, B.6, ch.9. 

Cecilia: “the VOLUBLE […] are flirting, communicative, restless, and familiar, and attack without the smallest ceremony”

1/ Evelina, Frances Burney’s first book, is an epistolary novel, but because it’s mainly composed of Evelina’s letters narrating her experiences in London, it very quickly stops looking like letters, and looks more like a first-person narrative—with scenes, dialogue, characters, etc. Cecilia has a third-person narrator, though Frances Burney mainly focuses on the perspective of Cecilia Beverley. 

“… This, added to the behaviour of young Delvile, made her suspect that some engagement was in agitation on his own part, and that while she thought him so sedulous only to avoid her, he was simply occupied in seeking another. This painful suggestion, which every thing seemed to confirm, again overset all her schemes, and destroyed all her visionary happiness. Yet how to reconcile it with what had passed at their last meeting she knew not; she had then every reason to believe that his heart was in her power, and that courage, or an opportunity more seasonable, was all he wanted to make known his devotion to her; why, then, shun if he loved her? why, if he loved her not, seem so perturbed at the explanation of her independence?” (B.4, ch.10)

That’s an example of free indirect discourse, though Frances Burney doesn’t use it extensively in the novel. 

“Her pity, however, for Miss Belfield was almost wholly unallayed by jealousy; she harboured not any suspicion that she was loved by young Delvile, whose aspiring spirit led her infinitely more to fear some higher rival, than to believe he bestowed even a thought upon the poor Henrietta; but still she wished with the utmost ardour to know the length of their acquaintance, how often they had met, when they had conversed, what notice he had taken of her, and how so dangerous a preference had invaded her heart.

[…] Would she obtain them? no; the most romantic generosity would revolt from such a demand, for however precarious was her own chance with young Delvile, Miss Belfield she was sure could not have any; neither her birth nor education fitted her for his rank in life, and even were both unexceptionable, the smallness of her fortune, as Mr Monckton had instructed her, would be an obstacle insurmountable.

Would it not be a kind of treachery to gather from her every thing, yet aid her in nothing? to take advantage of her unsuspicious openness in order to learn all that related to one whom she yet hoped would belong ultimately to herself, and gratify an interested curiosity at the expence of a candour not more simple than amiable? “No,” cried Cecilia, “arts that I could never forgive, I never will practice; this sweet, but unhappy girl shall tell me nothing; betrayed already by the tenderness of her own heart, she shall at least suffer no further from any duplicity in mine. If, indeed, Mr Delvile, as I suspect, is engaged elsewhere, I will make this gentle Henrietta the object of my future solicitude; the sympathy of our situations will not then divide but unite us, and I will take her to my bosom, hear all her sorrows, and calm her troubled spirit by participating in her sensibility. But if, on the contrary, this mystery ends more happily for myself, if Mr Delvile has now no other engagement, and hereafter clears his conduct to my satisfaction, I will not be accessory to loading her future recollection with the shame of a confidence she then cannot but repent, nor with an injury to her delicacy that may wound it for ever.”” (B.5, ch.9) 

Frances Burney narrates Cecilia’s feelings; then uses free indirect discourse, blending the narrator’s voice with the thoughts of Cecilia; and then switches to direct speech (why does Cecilia make such a long speech to herself though?). 

2/ When I read Vanity Fair (1848) a couple of years ago and came across the passage “I wonder how many families are driven to roguery and to ruin by great practitioners in Crawley’s way?—how many great noblemen rob their petty tradesmen, condescend to swindle their poor retainers out of wretched little sums and cheat for a few shillings?...” (ch.37, it’s a long passage), I wrote: 

“… personally I find it interesting because I often read 19th century novels and don’t think other writers directly address, as Thackeray does, the impact on the tradesmen and employees when a person of higher class lives beyond their means and cheats them, or goes bankrupt and cannot repay debts.” 

We don’t see this in, say, Madame Bovary or The Custom of the Country. But look at Cecilia: not only had Frances Burney done it in 1782 but she also went further, letting us meet the workmen and the creditors. 

3/ Except for the heroine, the characters in Cecilia are largely characterised through dialogue, which would make it easy should anyone intend to adapt it for the screen (hint hint). Cecilia would work best as a TV series, but a lot would still have to be cut: lots of scenes could be shortened or cut altogether; Mr Gosport could easily be removed; Mr Morrice could go; etc.

Unfortunately I think a lot of these things should have been cut from the novel itself. I have always defended the length of Moby-Dick and War and Peace (and read both from cover to cover twice), but Cecilia should be significantly shorter: there is too much dialogue; most scenes are too long; many conflicts and misunderstandings are too drawn out… 

Take for example the development of the Harrels. Cecilia has three guardians after her uncle’s death: Mr Harrel, Mr Briggs, and Mr Delvile. She moves into Mr Harrel’s house because his wife Priscilla was her childhood friend, and at first she has a nice time as the Harrels are merry people and she gets introduced to high society and all sorts of amusements in London. Gradually Cecilia realises that the Harrels live a life of extravagance and dissipation: not only do they live beyond their means, paying no heed to the poor workers and tradesmen, but Mr Harrel is also a gambler. Mr Harrel is one of the most well-delineated, well-developed characters I’ve come across in fiction—Frances Burney doesn’t hold back—she depicts the recklessness and duplicity and treachery of Mr Harrel as he becomes more and more desperate. The development of Mr Harrel, as Burney gradually removes the layers and exposes his base character, is excellent. Mrs Harrel is also very well-written—she is shallow and callous and selfish, living as though actions have no consequences. I can’t help wondering, was Thackeray influenced by Frances Burney? Was George Eliot? Was Edith Wharton? Were Emily and Anne Bronte?

Frances Burney’s depiction of Cecilia’s naïveté and gullibility (though extremely irritating) is also excellent, especially when Cecilia struggles with herself: 

“… Startled by this consideration, she most severely reproached herself for a compliance of which she had so lightly weighed the consequences, and thought with the utmost dismay, that while she had flattered herself she was merely indulging the dictates of humanity, she might perhaps be accused by the world as an abettor of guile and injustice.” (B.5, ch.9) 

At the same time, parts of the novel are too long. Do we need pages and pages of vapid conversations? Do we need Mr Gosport’s analysis of various types of people in high society? Do we need so many scenes—and such long scenes—of Cecilia getting manipulated by the Harrels? Do we need such a long elaborate scene at Vauxhall, with all the empty talks thoroughly and meticulously written down, before the fatal act? I don’t think we do. It gets exhausting and I think a lot of the dialogue could be cut. Frances Burney has great talent for giving each character an individual voice, but she doesn’t know when to stop—very often I find myself thinking, all right Fanny, you have delighted us long enough.

The quote in the headline comes from B.1, ch.5. 

If This Be Magic and Shakespeare in translation: some further thoughts

 1/ When asked whether we know a writer if we only read them in translation, I suppose most people would say either yes or no. I think it depends: I think some but not too much is lost if we’re talking about Jane Austen, Trollope, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Fielding, Balzac, Zola, Molière…; but Nguyễn Du in translation is no longer Nguyễn Du and I’d say the same about Shakespeare, Melville, or Wodehouse; and I can’t help feeling that I don’t really know Homer, Sophocles, Virgil, or Ovid. 

There’s a reason that non-Russians name Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, or Chekhov as the greatest Russian writer, whereas Russians say Pushkin. 

That doesn’t mean we reject everything in translation. We look at different translations; we do what we can. Am I going to learn ancient Greek? No, I have no gift for languages. To read as widely as I aim to do, I need translators, for whom I’m forever grateful. I’m just saying that sometimes we do lose a lot: Wodehouse’s comic genius is in the phrasing, so what do we have when his sentences are now rephrased by someone else? It’s something to keep in mind. 

2/ In my previous blog post about Daniel Hahn’s If This Be Magic: The Unlikely Art of Shakespeare in Translation, I wrote: 

“When people read or watch Shakespeare in translation, his poetry is lost but his other qualities—his metaphors, his range, his characterisation and psychological insight, his examination of power and politics, his understanding of human nature, his sense of pacing and understanding of drama, and so on—are still there. When I read Racine, I suspected that much of his greatness was in the French alexandrine verse that got lost in translation.” 

Glad to later find Hahn making the same point in his book: 

“… Jean-Michel cited this distinction to explain why we see so few plays by Racine staged in English—he’s a writer for whom language is everything. A play like Bérénice has very little plot— ‘it’s all music, it’s all language.’ It’s a beautiful literary play, but Racine never wrote anything as generously, theatrically user-friendly as A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” (ch.32) 

The plays of Racine are all talk talk talk. 

If we leave aside the ancient Greek plays (different tradition of drama, with lots of singing), I have noticed that sometimes a long speech in someone else’s play is just the author writing poetry, whereas long speeches in Shakespeare are usually either rhetoric (a character trying to persuade another, which moves the plot forward), or a soliloquy (which depicts a character’s stream of thoughts). Spanish Golden Age playwrights, except for Lope de Vega, very often write those long speeches which neither move the plot forward nor do anything for characterisation (I’m looking at you, Tirso de Molina—what’s the point of that four-page speech about Lisbon?). The closet plays of Seneca, or Goethe’s Faust, have many passages and scenes that I know wouldn’t work well onstage. 

Shakespeare and Molière are performed widely around the world—in translation—because they understand theatre so well, having such a great sense of pacing and tension and pitch and dramatic effects (I once saw a bad production of Othello which still managed to make me tear up at the end).  

I’ve also noted that some of the playwrights who do well onstage in translation wrote in prose: Chekhov, Ibsen (except for some early plays)… Different beast, then. 

3/ Daniel Hahn’s book makes me have immense respect for translators of Shakespeare into other languages, and I do think many of the examples—the choices, the solutions to the problems inherent in translating Shakespeare—are brilliant. But at the same time, the book reinforces my view that Shakespeare is best appreciated in English, that I’m glad to read and watch his works in the original, and that it’s silly to call for a translation of his plays into today’s English. 

(Yep, over the years I’ve encountered lots of philistines who think readers of Shakespeare in translation have an advantage over us). 

When a translator finds a clever solution for a joke or a pun in Shakespeare, it might be funny (and the translator deserves an applause), but that joke or that pun is not Shakespeare’s. Hahn also explores many other problems and not everything gets a neat solution. What do you do when Shakespeare plays with the coexistence of Latinate/ Romance and Germanic words in the English language? Or when he marks an accent or regional dialect? Or when he includes words from another language? Or when he includes words from the target language itself (i.e. what does a French translator do with the French passages in the plays)? And if you make a choice between domestication and foreignisation, how far do you go and where do you draw the line? 

The translator is thus the second author. 

Hahn raises a million questions—sometimes there’s a brilliant answer, sometimes there’s no neat solution—and the book gets one to think more deeply about Shakespeare and about the art of translation. One aspect I’ve never considered, for example, is that a translator of Shakespeare tries to think about beats, rhythm, and rhyme, which is challenging enough if some languages (such as Italian or Greek) have longer words than English does, but things could be even further complicated by accents: a play translated by a Brazilian might end up losing some effects in the mouth of a Portuguese actor, as they pronounce syllables differently.

4/ This is interesting: 

“Just as everyday English carries idioms drawn from our own greatest canonical translation, the 1611 King James Bible (and its more quietly influential predecessors), so translated Shakespeare looms large in other languages, phrases from his work inflecting people’s speech.” (ch.37) 

I like that. 

(Does this happen in Vietnamese? I have no idea). 

“We readers can become attached to [translations] in just the same way, and it’s hard to imagine the validity of alternative interchangeable versions. Just recall the stories that mattered most to you as a kid, when some of the strongest bonds were formed. For me, those books included classics that were definitely not called ‘Gretel and Hansel’ or ‘Cindergirl’, Lindgren’s Pippi Longsocks, Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘Small Mermaid’.” 

In Vietnam, some titles of classics—Giấc mộng đêm hè (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), Bắt trẻ đồng xanh (The Catcher in the Rye), Đỉnh gió hú (Wuthering Heights), Cuốn theo chiều gió (Gone with the Wind), Tội ác và trừng phạt (Crime and Punishment), and so on—have become so iconic that retranslated titles would flop, or new translators don’t bother. It’s like Dostoyevsky’s Братья Карамазовы: since Constance Garnett, everyone has called it The Brothers Karamazov even though some later translators (such as Ignat Avsey) translated it as The Karamazov Brothers. 

We become attached to translations: I love Constance Garnett’s translations of Chekhov (still going through the 13 volumes); Aylmer and Louise Maude’s versions of Tolstoy are dear friends, including their War and Peace (revised by Amy Mandelker), though now the Anna Karenina copy I keep is by Rosamund Bartlett; I suspect I’m also attached to Robert Fitzgerald’s translations of Homer, which is why I (unreasonably) stick to Akhilleus when everyone else says Achilles, and so on. 

If This Be Magic is a very good book—a celebration of Shakespeare and a celebration of translators—and it’s certainly one of the books I’ve enjoyed most this year. 

On Sense and Sensibility (2026)

I suppose I’m part of the problem.  

“Why do they keep adapting Jane Austen a zillion times instead of Frances Burney?”, I asked. And yet I went to see the new Sense and Sensibility (and might even see the new Pride and Prejudice). It is—I’m going to be frank—an unnecessary and mediocre film.    

But let’s start with the positives. I like Daisy Edgar-Jones as Elinor. Everyone agrees that the 1995 film by Ang Lee is (more or less) perfect, but most people would agree that the 36-year-old Emma Thompson, though wonderful, is a bit too old for the role, yes? Daisy Edgar-Jones is 28 and can get away with playing the 19-year-old Elinor, and I think she conveys well the restraint and reticence and pain of the character. Fiona Shaw is brilliant as Mrs Jennings, often a scene-stealer, and I have no complaints about George MacKay as Edward Ferrars. The young audiences (that the film targets) would probably love that couple. 

The film however has two major problems. One is Esmé Creed-Miles, who is dreadful as Marianne. The new Sense and Sensibility fails to capture the bond between the Dashwood sisters, and fails to convince the audience (I mean me) that in the end Marianne is developing her feelings for Colonel Brandon, both of which I think are because of the actress. 

The other flaw is in the writing (Diana Reid) and directing (Georgia Oakley). When the trailer came out, lots of people commented on the historically inaccurate hair and costumes—where are the bonnets, why do they wear their hair down, why does everything look so drab and miserable in films these days, and so on. But the film is even more erroneous and George Oakley doesn’t seem to understand—or doesn’t care—that Jane Austen’s world is governed by strict rules for social conduct and this is a fundamental part of the novels. Oakley’s characters do many things that would never have been considered acceptable in Regency England. Why does Willoughby lift up Marianne during a dance, and later carry her in front of everyone at the ball? Why does Elinor run through people at the party, drawing people’s attention to herself and her sister? Why does Marianne shout “Willoughby!” and question him and make a scene in front of Miss Grey and in front of everyone at the party? Why do Colonel Brandon and Willoughby have a duel right in front of the house, where they can be—and are—seen by the Dashwoods? Why does Edward Ferrars discuss with Elinor his engagement to Lucy Steele? (The circumstances of the engagement are also changed). Why does Elinor speak of her feelings first, in the end? Some people may not care (like those numerous film reviewers I read who did not mention these changes), but I do. One critic even complained that the new adaptation fell flat as Oakley didn’t drag Austen’s novel into the present (why should filmmakers?), but this is not the Regency: the dialogue may not be modern but the behaviour is—all these things I mentioned are not the way Austen’s characters behave.  

There are other things. I don’t like Colonel Brandon in the film, though it’s mainly because of the writing rather than the actor Herbert Nordrum. Some of you won’t like that Mr Palmer is for some reason played by Eliot Sumner, who is female, which takes one out of the story or is at least distracting (especially if you go see the film with someone who doesn’t know the story). 

(Incidentally there are a few nepo babies in the film: Eliot Sumner is the daughter of Sting and Trudie Styler; Esmé Creed-Miles is the daughter of Charlie Creed-Miles and Samantha Morton, who’s in Nolan’s Odyssey; Frank Dillane, who plays Willoughby, is the son of Stephen Dillane and Naomi Wirthner. Whom did I miss?)  

As for cinematography and production design, you can tell from the trailer: there are some nice shots but the film looks dull and drab. 

Overall, it’s not a disastrous adaptation like the 2022 Persuasion or ridiculous like the 2026 Wuthering Heights, but it’s not good. 

I should watch Ang Lee’s film again. 

Shakespeare in translation [updated]

1/ A Shakespeare fan never runs out of things to read. 

I’ve been enjoying If This Be Magic: The Unlikely Art of Shakespeare in Translation by Daniel Hahn. 

When the Royal Shakespeare Company commemorated the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, they had a sketch in which a bunch of (famous) Shakespearean actors argued about where to put the emphasis in “To be or not to be, that is the question”—the first “be”? the second “be”? “or”? “not”? “to”? “that”? “is”? “question”? In one chapter of If This Be Magic, Hahn listed (and briefly discussed) 15 different translations of the line into Spanish. 

A translator has to think about meaning, double meaning, ambiguity, tone, register, the constraints of language, the choice to make when a word in the source language is ambiguous but has to be one or the other in the target language, etc.; a translator of Shakespeare also has to think about verse form, rhyme, rhythm, metre, sound, speed, emphasis, performance, dramatic effects, puns, jokes, wordplay, homophones, etc. Much is lost in translation but also much is gained, Hahn argues (though of course he would say that, as he’s a translator himself). It’s a thought-provoking and fascinating book, and I like that he’s funny. 

(My only regret is that the book doesn’t discuss Vietnamese; it also doesn’t include Norwegian, but I’d make do with Danish).  

A similar book about translations of Homer (into English) would also be interesting, though of course I would understand it less as I can’t read Homer in the original.

If you like Shakespeare and/or language and translation, read If This Be Magic. 

2/ Is Shakespeare in translation still Shakespeare? I tend to think not. But it’s a fact—an interesting fact—that Shakespeare is one of the few playwrights who hold the global stage very well in translation. If we compare French dramatists, Molière is performed widely in many languages around the world—I have read Molière as translated by 5-6 different people and he’s always a hoot—but Racine doesn’t have the same appeal. When people read or watch Shakespeare in translation, his poetry is lost but his other qualities—his metaphors, his range, his characterisation and psychological insight, his examination of power and politics, his understanding of human nature, his sense of pacing and understanding of drama, and so on—are still there. When I read Racine, I suspected that much of his greatness was in the French alexandrine verse that got lost in translation.

Shakespeare in Swahililand by Edward Wilson-Lee is also an interesting read by the way. 

3/ I suppose I don’t need to tell you what I think about translating Shakespeare from English into (today’s) English. 

Have you heard of Shakespeare’s Sonnets: Retold by James Anthony? Let me ruin your evening/ morning. 

Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29: 

When in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes

I all alone beweep my out-cast state,

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,

And look upon myself and curse my fate.

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,

Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,

Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,

With what I most enjoy contented least;

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,

Haply I think on thee, and then my state,

(Like to the Lark at break of day arising

From sullen earth) sings hymns at Heaven’s gate;

For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,

That then I scorn to change my state with Kings.

James Anthony’s rewriting: 

What awful luck! I’ve been humiliated,

And so I sob alone for no one cares;

Not even God hears I’m infuriated;

Only my mirror duplicates my swears.

I wish I could be far more optimistic,

With ample friends who’ve got so much to say,

Like writers, thinkers, anyone artistic

Who’d help me look on life a different way.

Yet when I’m in despair, with self-made scorn,

I fondly think of you, then thoughts deploy,

Just like a warbling songbird marking dawn,

Alleviating pain with songs of joy.

For when I dream of you, my heart grows rich;

If offered wealth, I would decline to switch.

Ugh. 

Addendum: I suppose I could (and should) say that Daniel Hahn’s book is less about Shakespeare—whether Shakespeare is still Shakespeare in translation, why he has held the world stage so well for hundreds of years, and so on—than about the art of translation and the creativity of translators. The idea is essentially, this is what Shakespeare wrote and what he was doing, and these are the constraints of the language, so what do the translators do with it? 

Thơ Hồ Xuân Hương về phụ nữ

Hồi trước, tôi đã gom lại một mớ bài thơ tục của Hồ Xuân Hương. Nhưng Hồ Xuân Hương tất nhiên đâu chỉ viết thơ tục. Giờ gom lại một số bài về phụ nữ.

 

Bánh trôi nước

Thân em vừa trắng lại vừa tròn,

Bảy nổi ba chìm với nước non.

Rắn nát mặc dầu tay kẻ nặn

Mà em vẫn giữ tấm lòng son.

 

Thương thay phận gái

Thương thay phận gái cũng là người

Nỡ bỏ xuân xanh quá nửa đời

Ông Nguyệt nỡ nào trêu quải mãi

Chị Hằng khéo nhẽ éo le thôi

Hoa còn phong nhụy ong ve vãn

Gió đã phai hương bướm tả tơi

Quá ngán thợ trời ghê gớm bấy

Xuân xanh được mấy chút thương ôi

 

Thương ôi phận gái

Thương ôi phận gái cũng là chồng

Ghét bỏ nhau chi hỡi Nguyệt ông

Rồng tắm ao tù từng phận tủi

Mưa gieo xuống giếng uổng lòng mong

Xót thân hoa nở song lầm cát

Thẹn mặt trần ai đứng giữa vòng

U hẳn tiền nhân sao đấy tá

Thôi đành một kiếp thế cho xong

 

Lấy chồng chung

Kẻ đắp chăn bông kẻ lạnh lùng

Chém cha cái kiếp lấy chồng chung

Năm chừng mười họa hay chăng chớ

Một tháng đôi lần có cũng không

Cố đấm ăn xôi xôi lại hỏng

Cầm bằng làm mướn mướn không công

Nỗi này ví biết dường này nhỉ

Thời trước thôi đành ở vậy xong

 

Thương

Há dám thương đâu kẻ có chồng,

Thương vì một nỗi hãy còn không.

Thương con cuốc rũ kêu mùa Hạ,

Thương cái bèo non giạt bể Đông.

Thương cha mẹ nhện vương tơ lưới,

Thương vợ chồng Ngâu cách mặt sông.

Ấy thương quân tử thương là thế,

Há dám thương đâu kẻ có chồng...

 

Không chồng mà chửa

Cả nể cho nên hoá dở dang,

Sự này có thấu hỡi chăng chàng.

Duyên thiên chưa thấy nhô đầu dọc,

Phận liễu sao mà nảy nét ngang.

Cái tội trăm năm chàng chịu cả,

Chữ tình một khối thiếp xin mang.

Quản chi miệng thế lời chênh lệch,

Chẳng thế nhưng mà thế mấy ngoan.

 

Thân phận người đàn bà

Hỡi chị em ơi có biết không

Một bên con khóc một bên chồng.

Bố cu lổm ngổm bò trên bụng,

Thằng bé hu hơ khóc dưới hông.

Tất cả những là thu với vén

Vội vàng nào những bống cùng bông.

Chồng con cái nợ là như thế,

Hỡi chị em ơi có biết không?

 

Hồ Xuân Hương 

Lúc nào đó chắc phải nhìn thử mấy bản dịch tiếng Anh xem thế nào.

7 Greeks: Translations by Guy Davenport

The first thing I’m gonna say is that I don’t particularly like reading poetry in translation (look, I don’t even read much poetry in the original). However, Tom (Wuthering Expectations) gave me this book because of my fascination with the ancient Greece, so here we go. And it’s interesting.   

Artilochos 

A bigger problem than reading in translation is that we don’t have the poems in their entirety—only fragments. Artilochos seems good though. 

There are some interesting bits about war. 

3 

Let him go ahead. 

Ares is a democrat. 

There are no privileged people 

On a battle field. 

184 

In the hospitality of war

We left them their dead 

As a gift to remember us by.

My favourite bits are the dirty, raunchy ones. 

11 

Like Odysseus under the ram 

You have clung under your lovers 

And under your love of lust, 

Seeing nothing else for this mist, 

Dark of heart, dark of mind. 

36 

He comes, in bed, 

As copiously as 

A Prienian ass

And is equipped 

Like a stallion. 

96 

To engage with an insatiable girl, 

Ramming belly against belly, 

Thigh riding against thigh. 

These horny poems make me think of Aristophanes. 

Sappho 

I have read Sappho before, in the Penguin translation by Aaron Poochigian. I know she’s important and highly regarded, but can’t say I have any strong feelings about the fragments I’ve read. 

I suppose I like these: 

15 

Desire has shaken my mind

As wind in the mountain forests 

Roars through trees. 

65 

I

Percussion, salt and honey, 

A quivering in the thighs; 

He shakes me all over again, 

Eros who cannot be thrown, 

Who stalks on all fours

Like a beast. 

II 

Eros makes me shiver again

Strengthens in the knees, 

Eros gall and honey, 

Snake-sly, invisible. 

213 

I 

The moon has set, and the Pleiades, 

It is the middle of the night, 

Hour follows hour. I lie alone. 

II 

The moon has gone 

To her Endymion 

The Pleiades

Their seven lovers please. 

Since Esperos glistened 

And the moon rose red

I have listened 

Alone in my bed. 

Alkman 

Judging by these fragments, the poems of Alkman (or Alcman) aren’t raunchy like the poems of Artilochos, nor erotic like Sappho’s.  

4 

There is the god’s revenge. 

Happy the man of calm mind 

who weaves his day 

unweeping. But I sing

the light of Agido: I see 

her as the sun, which she, 

Agido, calls 

to shine, its witness. 

But I may not 

praise or blame her. 

Our mastersinger

must come first, 

as in a field

the sleek, galloping 

stallion, 

winner of races, 

stands apart, 

as if seen in a dream. 

I like that image. 

7 

And is not Hagesikhora, 

the fine-ankled, ours? 

Does not she keep close to Agido? 

She honors the feastday. 

Hear them, gods, 

gods whose ends they fulfil. 

O choirmaster, 

I am a mere girl, 

I sing like the rafter owl, 

yet I sing

to welcome the goddess of the dawn, 

the queller of pain, 

the Hagesikhora has led us 

the lovely way to peace. 

Anakreon 

Guy Davenport has a rather interesting section in the Introduction talking about the real Anakreon versus a group of poems by imitators that “inspired and was imitated so beautifully by Belleau, Ronard, and Herrick” (it wasn’t discovered till the 19th century that those poems were not by Anakreon). 

The fragments in this book are by the real Anakreon. 

I like a few. 

19 

In the month of Posideion, 

When the clouds are fat with rain, 

Wild storms bring us Zeus. 

20 

Can myrrh rubbed on a chest 

Sweeten the great round heart inside? 

33 

I climb the white cliff again 

To throw myself into the grey sea, 

Drunk with love again. 

53 

And now my hair is thin and white, 

Grizzled the locks above my ears. 

Youth’s gone, and with it, all delight. 

My teeth are going with the years. 

What time remains is short and sweet. 

Therefore I often cry and dread 

Dark Tartaros where I shall meet 

In dreary rooms the weeping dead. 

For Hades’ house is dark, and black

The downward road, the hateful way, 

Unwilling and with no way back, 

Downward ever, and there to stay.

Who says the ancient Greeks were alien? Who says we can’t relate to their writings? 

Herakleitos 

Better known as Heraclitus, he’s a philosopher, not a poet like the previous ones in the collection. His central ideas are the unity of opposites, and change (everything is constantly changing, becoming). 

Ovid may have been influenced by him? 

21 

One cannot step twice into the same river, for the water into which you first stepped has flowed on.

I didn’t know that line was from an ancient Greek! 

65

At night we extinguish the lamp and go to sleep; at death our lamp is extinguished and we go to sleep.

101 

Sea water is both fresh and foul: excellent for fish, poison to men. 

Diogenes 

Another philosopher. I don’t particularly care for his writings. 

There are just some funny lines. 

17 

How proud you are of not being proud, Plato says, and I reply that there is pride and pride. 

58 

I’m turning that invitation down: the last time I was there, they were not thankful enough that I came. 

Herondas

Herondas (or Herodas) was a poet who wrote “mimos, or mime played by a single maskless actor taking all the parts, probably in city squares of an afternoon or on small stages in wine shops”, notes Guy Davenport.  

I have nothing to say, as I just find them strange—unlike any drama I’ve read. Judging by Herondas and Aristophanes, the ancient Greeks seem to like bawdy jokes. 

My favourites in the collection are Artilochos, Anakreon, and Herakleitos. 

Cecilia: “I have ever since felt ashamed of my own discernment”

1/ Look at the defence of novels in Northanger Abbey: 

““I am no novel-reader—I seldom look into novels—Do not imagine that I often read novels—It is really very well for a novel.” Such is the common cant. “And what are you reading, Miss——?” “Oh! It is only a novel!” replies the young lady, while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame. “It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda”; or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language…”” (ch.5) 

All that praise for Cecilia is deserved. Frances Burney’s characters are all distinct and full of life; and compared to the characters in her first novel Evelina, the ones in Cecilia are more complex—they are capable of surprise. My main complaint is that even though Burney doesn’t place a shallow, selfish, and materialistic character at the centre of the story (like Undine Spragg in Edith Wharton’s The Custom of the Country), we still have to spend so much time with airheaded people and listen to their vapid conversations—imagine being constantly in the tedious company of Caroline Bingley or the Bertram girls—I think Austen learnt from Burney’s faults. But at the same time, Burney is more ambitious than Austen: Cecilia and Camilla are both over 900 pages; and her novels depict a larger world, different classes and different environments—these aren’t “two inches of ivory”.  

The highlight of Volume I is the masquerade scene: fascinating, full of mystery and excitement, rich in meaning. In Volume II, one of the highlights is the characterisation of Mr Belfield, one of Cecilia’s suitors—Frances Burney removes some layers and reveals more underneath—she has deep psychological insight and I think the story of Mr Belfield elevates the novel into something more than a comedy of manners. 

2/ As I wrote in the previous blog post, after the death of her uncle, Cecilia moves into the house of Mr Harrel, one of her guardians, and gradually she realises that her childhood friend Priscilla—now Mrs Harrel—has become someone different. 

She says to Mr Monckton: 

“I cannot but own that my esteem for her, even more than my affection, has lessened almost every day since I have been in her house; but this morning, when I ventured to speak to her with earnestness, I found her powers of reasoning so weak, and her infatuation to luxury and expence so strong, that I have ever since felt ashamed of my own discernment in having formerly selected her for my friend.” (B.3, ch.3) 

Cecilia is handsome, clever, and rich, but her power of discernment is dreadful—she is similar to Elizabeth Bennet or Emma Woodhouse—the novel is closer to Pride and Prejudice however, as Frances Burney lets us see Mr Monckton’s calculations and Cecilia’s blindness, instead of using the free indirect discourse to make readers see things through the heroine’s biased perspective, as Jane Austen later does in Emma.  

“He quitted her, therefore, with unusual satisfaction, happy in his power over her mind, and anticipating with secret rapture the felicity he had in reserve from visiting her during the absence of the family.” (B.3, ch.8) 

Cecilia is not only a novel about a beautiful heiress being pursued by seven men (!)—Frances Burney also explores manipulation and the evil of having power over someone else’s mind—in this, she goes further than Jane Austen. 

3/ I have complained about the frivolous characters in the novel. If we compare Cecilia to Anna Karenina, which is also over 900 pages, or War and Peace, which is 1,200 – 1,400 pages, Tolstoy has a few characters who think deeply (even if we disagree with them), and writes many interesting conversations and discussions about various subjects; Frances Burney tells us but doesn’t depict the stimulating conversations between Cecilia and Mortimer Delvile or Mrs Delvile, but she meticulously depicts all the trivial and insipid talks in high society, which can be trying at times (even if one admires her ability to capture their voices and some of the characters are funny, such as Miss Larolles or Mr Meadows). 

I have other complaints. One irritating thing is that there’s a misunderstanding between Cecilia and Mortimer Delvile that gets dragged out—whenever an opportunity to clear it comes up, they get interrupted—you can see Frances Burney deliberately drag it out for nearly 170 pages. 

Another thing is that Cecilia is so naïve and gullible to the point of being stupid. I’m glad she’s not a Mary Sue, but you don’t fully realise how stupid she is and how much of a “thorough scoundrel” Mr Harrel is—to use Mr Monckton’s phrase—till you convert the amount of money she gives him to today’s money. It’s shocking! 

However, Frances Burney is undoubtedly a great writer. She depicts very well the selfishness and recklessness of Mr Harrel—you don’t doubt that people such as Mr and Mrs Harrel exist. One of the things Burney explores in Cecilia is the obsession with appearance, the obsession with appearing rich and high-class and fashionable: we see that in almost everyone in the high society of the novel, but the extremes are Mr Belfield, and Mr and Mrs Harrel—even when they’re near death, or on the verge of destruction, they remain fixated on how they appear to the world. It’s very well-done. 

“… the rest of the house was very differently employed; feasting, revelling, amusements of all sorts were pursued with more eagerness than ever, and the alarm which so lately threatened their destruction, seemed now merely to heighten the avidity with which they were sought. Yet never was the disunion of happiness and diversion more striking and obvious; Mr Harrel, in spite of his natural levity, was seized from time to time with fits of horror that embittered his gayest moments, and cast a cloud upon all his enjoyments. Always an enemy to solitude, he now found it wholly insupportable, and ran into company of any sort, less from a hope of finding entertainment, than from a dread of spending half an hour by himself.” (B.5, ch.3) 

That is especially good.