| By Lauren Taglienti |
Being an aspiring author not pursuing a degree is exactly like being in college. I work eight hours a day, like being in classes, except I’m paid for it, and after work, I do homework. My homework now, though, is self-assigned out of sheer passion. And it doesn’t feel like work at all. I’m doing what I love: writing, reading, learning, thinking.
I want to use my potential as a writer to the fullest, and as I’ve mentioned previously, a great professor of mine once told me something along the lines of “If you want to be a writer, and you write more than you read, then you’re doing it wrong.” While this sounds highly counterintuitive, it is a thought that perpetuates in my mind like a mantra.
I want to be an author, which means I get to write a lot, which means I get to read even more. I read just about anything and everything, and anywhere. I’m reading multiple books now, and I’ll read unconventional, functional, perceptibly mundane material too. If I see a notice written in English, I’ll read the Spanish and French versions which are surely to be nearby, like on a “Warning” sign or laundry instructions on the tag of clothing. Reading is perhaps a compulsion for me. I can’t just do it in English. I must know other languages and read in them. If I don’t, I feel like I’m depriving myself of a whole other realm of knowledge, one with its own culture and history, one that I am exceedingly eager to explore and understand.
I was just so invested in The Woman Destroyed by Simone de Beauvoir that I almost forgot that it was Thursday and that I was due to write something for this site tonight. The title The Woman Destroyed made me ponder the nature of the translation. In French, the adjective often follows the noun it describes. Hence the French name of the novel, “La Femme rompue.” Typically, English translations have the adjective come before the noun. Therefore, the colloquial translation would be “The Destroyed Woman.” However, this title is literally translated as “The Woman Destroyed.” Had I not been studying French, I would have never thought twice about such intricacies of language, and I would be missing out on the valuable specificities that translation offers the reader.
These thought processes bring me great joy and excitement, as though I’m a paleontologist uncovering the past decisions of translators, the choices they make with language, and analyzing the impact they have. “The Woman Destroyed” is a much more intriguing title than “The Destroyed Woman.” Perhaps the former translation as the title could have sold less books, made the book reach less people, and be less impactful. The power of a title is unmeasurable. The power of a translation is unmeasurable.
I once was able to not have such thought processes, as after my Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), I could not think at all, until various types of rehabilitative therapists nursed my cognitive functioning. Such thoughts as the ones above are so pleasant, and I fathom few thought processes that could interest me more or less, as I am interested in everything. My insatiable curiosity knows no bounds and bounds like a tiger after its prey as it chases a thought or discovery to its development. I think my curiosity and love of knowledge, thought, and wonder is a result of having the privilege of thought revoked from me by my TBI and other head injuries. I took my thoughts for granted prior to my TBI. I hated them even. I sought to put myself in states of mind where thinking was impossible. Years later, I realized that I should heed the advice of the old adage “Be careful what you wish for,” as I got what I wished for, the inability to think, but it was not in the way I wanted or how I wanted it to happen. I was alive, staring into space, not a thought in my mind. Despite being alive, I felt like I was dead while being alive. It felt like non-existence while existing.
What a gift it is to be able to write these musings today.
What a joy it is to know and to not know. What a gift it is to learn.
What a privilege it is to have thoughts, and what a nightmare it is to have none at all.
Photo by cottonbro via Pexels
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