Hi everyone,
I have some news on Broken Music¹s Italian translation, a question for you
and an opinion on the book to share.
1. As you may remember I am a translator and last year I tried hard to be
assigned Sting¹s translation. I failed, because someone got the job only a
few weeks before, so I told them I would be glad to help them check and
review it once it was done anyway. Well, the translation has been done and,
as well as being written in pedestrian Italian by someone whose knowledge of
English is nowhere near as good enough, it¹s an awful mess of mistakes that
even a non Sting-addict like myself would find out at once. So, I¹m
currently working on it: it¹s extremely hard work, much harder than
translating it myself, but I¹m very proud of being in charge of it. Tomorrow
I¹m going to ask to at least appear as co-translator, so keep you fingers
crossed! Anyway, this is for Italian fans: che il mio nome compaia o no,
sappiate che il 90% di quello che leggerete è farina del mio sacco!
2. I may actually be able to correct an error by Sting himself. In the Miles
Davis episode, he mentions the Blue Turtles¹ bass player as DARYL Jones. I¹d
always thought it was DARRYL, two R¹s, and I checked out the cd booklet to
find that I was right: Darryl. Con you confirm this?
3. I thoroughly enjoy Sting¹s prose and his style. He obviously has a
natural talent for story-telling, irony and narrative rhythm, as we all know
from his lyrics. Nevertheless, I find his writing to be a bit too refined
and ³over-written². I mean, he seems committed to always use ³feign² instead
of ³pretend², or to choose among a limited range of ³high-sounding²
adjectives (sultry, sly, cantankerous, paltry, blasé, ludicrous,
lugubrious...) which I find somehow give an affected feel to his narration.
Anyone felt the same while reading the book?
Ciao!
Michele
