This makes his writing very pleasing to read: João Gilberto Noll pays attention to detail, but only to certain details. And it’s never easy to foresee which details will send the narrator or the plot in an unsuspected direction.
ADAM MORRISSome critics have commented that understanding the specific Brazilian political context of the novel is helpful for reading Quiet Creature. This may be true, but it’s not prerequisite for understanding it.
More Adam Morris Quotes
-
-
I am not one of those translators who think that working closely with the writer will yield the best translation.
ADAM MORRIS -
Once I looked into it, I was taken aback to learn that pretty much nothing by Joao Gilberto Noll was available in English translation.
ADAM MORRIS -
Unless you count the political backdrop, which in any case is a familiar one to many international readers
ADAM MORRIS -
Some critics have commented that understanding the specific Brazilian political context of the novel is helpful for reading Quiet Creature. This may be true, but it’s not prerequisite for understanding it.
ADAM MORRIS -
I translated the novel and still it remains a mystery as to how exactly how this works. Noll thinks more like an experimental filmmaker than a novelist.
ADAM MORRIS -
I have a few minor rules for myself but I break them all the time. For example, when translating from Romance languages to English, there is often a choice between a Latinate cognate and a Germanic equivalent.
ADAM MORRIS -
The transcendent aspect of the psychedelic experience is totally absent.
ADAM MORRIS -
Noll is highly respected in Brazil, and at the same time divisive, somewhat like Hilda Hilst. Neither of them enjoys the universal acclaim you might associate with Clarice Lispector, whom everyone adores, myself included.
ADAM MORRIS -
Strength and power in fiction is being able to resist these intoxicating voices, recognizing that they are the signatures of other writers and not one’s own.
ADAM MORRIS -
I realized I had some cultural capital to spend, and I wanted to use it to introduce another author who might be considered a risk by conventional publishers. Michael Noll was at the top of my list.
ADAM MORRIS -
Jorge Luis Borges was lamenting a variety of Orientalism that was used to measure the alleged authenticity of Argentine and Latin American writers in the midcentury.
ADAM MORRIS -
Even my editor at Melville House, who championed the project form the outset, told me she was surprised by the response. After this, editors began asking my opinion about which Latin American writers ought to be translated.
ADAM MORRIS -
Jorge Luis Borges had the soapbox and the authority to complain about this myopic understanding of the duty of Latin American writers
ADAM MORRIS -
An easy example would be the Portuguese escuridão:
ADAM MORRIS -
With My Dog-Eyes by Hilda Hilst got more exposure and reached far more readers than I ever expected.
ADAM MORRIS