The sixth exercise...

in Harry Mathews' class (if I might go back to that) was a sort of translexical translation. The definition of translexical translation from Mathews & Brotchie's Oulipo Compendium reads: A form of homosemantic translation that preserves the sense and structure of a source text but substitutes a vocabulary drawn from a radically different semantic field.



We did a modified version of this exercise, taking a passage from Ford Maddox Ford's "A Call" and translating it into words we might actually say to another person in casual conversation. "Don't be literary," Harry ordered.



I can't find the original online, but it's the first paragraph of section 1, about Mr. Robert Grimshaw's resemblence to a seal. Here's an example:



Ford wrote: "He carried about with him usually, in the crook of his arm, a polished, light brown dachsund that had very large feet, and eyes as large, as brown, and as luminous, as those of his master. Upon the occasion of Pauline Lucas's Marriage to Dudley Leicester the dog was not upon his arm, but he carried it into the drawing-rooms of the many ladies who welcomed him to afternoon tea. Apparently it had no attractions save its clear and beautiful colour, its excellent if very grotesque shape, and its complete docility."



I wrote: "And he has this little wiener dog he carries around--brown with bold paws and big old eyes and the dog looks around just like this guy, like sniffing at everything with his eyes, his nose, his whole head. He didn't have his dog with him at Pauline & Dudley's wedding, but otherwise he always brings the damn dog. He brings it to the bar. He brought it to my house--and he knows I have cats! It's not like this dog is that fucking great. I mean, it's cute, but it's just a dog. It just sort of sits there."



Despite Harry's injunction, much of my attempt was in fact "literary." I found it very hard not to invent a persona--to speak through. We learn to pose as writers, and it's a difficult habit to break. It's incredibly challenging to be truly spontaneous and unself-conscious.



We talked about the differences between written and spoken language--the letters (present and emphasized in writing, but missing or occluded in speech), high/formal and low/familiar lexicons, our ums and ahs and likes. Harry also spoke about our names functioning as a kind of mask--but he'd get more into this on the second day.