"The Lover" & "Celestial Bodies"

베트남에서 태어난 프랑스 작가 Marguerite Duras의 소설

"The Lover"와 오만(Oman) 작가 Jokah Alharthi 의 첫 소설

"Celestial Bodies"는 David Damrosch 의 "Around the

World in 80 Books" (2021)에서 처음 알게 됐다. 도서관에서

빌려다 읽었다.

 

 

Marguerite Duras, "The Lover" (불어 원본 1984, 영영본 1985)

 

"It was already too late when I was eighteen. Between eighteen

and twenty-five my face took off in a new direction. I grew old

at eighteen. I don't know if it's the same for everyone. I've never

asked. But I believe I've heard of the way time can suddenly

accelerate on people when they're going through even the most

youthful and highly esteemed stages of life. My aging was very

sudden. I saw it spread over my features one by one, changing

the relationship between them, making the eyes larger, the

expression sadder, the mouth more final, leaving great creases

in the forehead, But instead of being dismayed I watched this

process with the same sort of interest I might have taken in

the reading of a book.

 

 

 

Jokah Alharthi, "Celestial Bodies" (2010, Marilyne Booth 영역본 2018)

아랍어 원본은 “Sayyidat al-Qamr” (“Ladies of the Moon”)

현대의 Oman 이 무대인 소설이어서 특히 재밌었다.

 

"Listen, son, Salima said to her daughter's husband.

Abdallah, listen -- about your wife, here. She's had her

first child and it's a girl. Girls are a blessing. A girl helps

her mother and raises her younger brothers and

sisters. What we need for this new mother are forty

live chickens and a big jar of good pure mountain

honey. Plus a pot of samna, the best country butter

churned straight  from a cow." (p.9)

 

뉴욕 타임즈 서평

 

Jokah Alharthi (위 서평에서)