{"id":9927,"date":"2013-02-20T08:46:05","date_gmt":"2013-02-20T12:46:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=9927"},"modified":"2013-02-20T09:57:20","modified_gmt":"2013-02-20T13:57:20","slug":"new-translation-of-vaneigem-classic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/new-translation-of-vaneigem-classic\/","title":{"rendered":"New Translation of Vaneigem Classic"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"RV\"<\/a>One of the most essential books for my own coming of (political) age in the sixties was Raoul Vaneigem’s Trait\u00e9 de Savoir-vivre…<\/em>, one of the two core texts of the Situationist International<\/strong> (the other one being Guy Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle<\/em>). As readers of this blog will know, I have kept up with Vaneigem’s writings over the years \u2014 here<\/a> & here<\/a> & here<\/a> \u2014 and so it is a pleasure to report on a retranslation of the Trait\u00e9<\/em> by Donald Nicholson-Smith. If I were on the West Coast I’d check out his appearances around the Bay Area (see below) where he will be talking about the launch of the new\u00a0Revolution of Everyday Life<\/em>. Here is what Nicholson-Smith wrote about this in September 2011:<\/p>\n

\n

As for the Trait\u00e9\u2019s<\/em> life in English translation, the version which I settled\u00a0 for in 1983, published jointly by Rebel Press in London and Left Bank Books\u00a0 in Seattle, was the culmination of the efforts of several translators in the\u00a0 1970s (see my preface to that edition below). In the effervescence of the\u00a0 sixties and seventies portions of the book were very widely circulated as\u00a0 pamphlets in the English-speaking world. In those days (and I believe I can\u00a0speak for all of us), we wanted to maximize the practical impact of Raoul\u00a0 Vaneigem\u2019s words, to produce a texte de combat<\/em>, and to this end we subordinated the customary criteria of literary translation to considerations of\u00a0 accessibility and topicality. We thought (correctly, I think) that the text\u00a0 belonged to us\u2014to \u2018our party\u2019 in the sense in which Marx and Engels used this expression\u2014and that we could (and should) do more or less what we\u00a0 liked with it\u2014or rather what best served our collective aims.<\/p>\n

Much time has passed, and when I returned to the translation I\u00a0 discovered to my surprise\u2014and somewhat to my distress!\u2014that a proper\u00a0revision would entail not perhaps a reversal, but at least a shift of perspective. What I now offer, therefore, is a version much more faithful to the\u00a0original, making no attempt to find \u2018English\u2019 equivalents for cultural\u00a0 references, and striving, so far from \u2018updating\u2019 anything, to preserve a\u00a0 feeling for those times. Which said, it is my hope that this newfound fidelity to the French and respect for the venerability of Vaneigem\u2019s work\u00a0 will in no way detract from its enduring relevance and power to provoke,\u00a0 not to mention its stunning prescience. How far I have succeeded in this\u00a0 I naturally leave it to the reader to judge.<\/p>\n

D. N.-S., September 2011<\/p>\n

——————————————————<\/span><\/p>\n

Date: Wednesday 20 Feb
\nTime: 7.30pm
\nWhere: Shaping San Francisco
\nAddress: 518 Valencia, SF, CA
\nwebsites:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.shapingsf.org\/<\/a><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.pmpress.org\/content\/calendar_event.php?eid=20121105115537569<\/a><\/p>\n

Date: Thursday 21 Feb
\nTime: 12.00pm
\nWhere: San Francisco Art Institute
\nAddress: 800 Chestnut St, SF, CA
\nwebsites:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/events\/428093520609346\/<\/a><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.pmpress.org\/content\/calendar_event.php?eid=2013011617071418<\/a><\/p>\n

Date: Thursday 21 Feb
\nTime: 7.00pm
\nWhere: Sol Collective \/ The Marxist School of Sacramento
\n2574 21st St, Sacramento, CA
\nwebsites:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.marxistschool.org\/<\/a><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.pmpress.org\/content\/calendar_event.php?eid=20130116170921248<\/a><\/p>\n

Date: Friday 22 Feb
\nWhat: In Conversation with Sasha Lilley
\nTime: 7.00pm
\nWhere: California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS)
\nAddress: 1453 Mission St, SF, CA
\nwebsites:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.pmpress.org\/content\/calendar_event.php?eid=20130116171051518<\/a><\/p>\n

Date: Sat 23 Feb
\nTime: 7.00pm
\nWhere: The Public School
\nAddress: 2141 Broadway, Oakland, CA
\nwebsites:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/theNpublicschool.org\/node\/32527<\/a><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.pmpress.org\/content\/calendar_event.php?eid=2013020610531582<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the most essential books for my own coming of (political) age in the sixties was Raoul Vaneigem’s Trait\u00e9 de Savoir-vivre…, one of the two core texts of the Situationist International (the other...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[99,103],"tags":[1356,629,1740],"class_list":["post-9927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-situationist-international","category-translation","tag-donald-nicholson-smith","tag-raoul-vaneigem","tag-situationist-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9927"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9927\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9943,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9927\/revisions\/9943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}