Discussion

Hello! I would like to ask when will be released the spanish version of Granta 121. Thank you a lot!

Como un sabio sabor.

La candidez
de los sueños
aparece silente
como el llanto
del sol cuando
viene la noche:
siento el ardor
donde vive
el pasado.

Francesco Sinibaldi

Definitely Brazil will have to borrow just to prep up for the Olympics and World Cup, then the budget deficits that last for years and years... I've read something Octavio Paz wrote about Mexican fiestas,"...waste attracts abundance." I don't know much about the debt status of Brazil, but I do know it holds some of the most vibrant and biggest fiestas in the world...I saw it in Discovery channel special years ago. I think the world is counting on Brazil to liven up the rather sterilized and predictable atmosphere that seemed to have befallen the two world events in question recently. The Brazilians sure know how to party: sweat,blood - the Earth! Let's have it then: A ride on Mr. V's bike.

Ass for mate (the drink) you don't say whether you were using an English or Portuguese dictionary but I think you should appreciate the real world correction above explaining the way the word is pronounced rather than citing the dictionary.

Thanks for publishing this interview, a needed corrective to the biased journalism following Mo Yan's Nobel award.

LOL Love it! I will have my students translate the dialogues in the post to Portuguese. Good exercise :)

This was the most awesome story. So smart. Really amazing. I'm looking forward to the story and the novel.

Dans le flux la mélodie....

Gentiment,
comme le son
de la neige
qui donne le
matin, comme
la voix du soleil
qui chante
avec toi dans
l'aube d'une
pensée....

Francesco Sinibaldi

Sign of happiness.

In a secret
place you can
find the
atmosphere
that always
returns when
my memory
outshines....

Francesco Sinibaldi

Now that I saw the info about the author, we come from the same city.
I'd be happy if we could get in touch somehow. My email address is [chakampismo]ет Йахуу.ком

That is an incredible writing. I have played the very same instrument in an youth orchestra while in school, since I was 6 years old (now I am 26). I just played gadulka in the street of an Irish city. What can I add, other than I was incredibly lucky to have only one woman throw some coins in my case. Thank her, otherwise my first busking experience would have ended too miserable. I have always felt one way or another what is written in this text, and I have never been a good solo player, but I will keep trying!

I loved this story! The way it drew me in from the beginning was magical. The winding path that the author leeds the reader down is gnarled and unexpectedly abrupt. Thank you, I will certainly be looking for more works by Leandro Sarmatz.

"He said he had interviewed John Dillinger at his Arizona retirement home in the early 1970s ... We didn’t believe Nash was serious, but he never, ever admitted he was not."

...He wasn't serious.

Mr. Walsh-- I thoroughly enjoyed this essay! Please hurry and finish your book. I can't wait to read it!

El suave sol.

En el sol,
en el canto
dichoso que
llama el futuro,
en la rima
silente de una
noche estrellada....

Francesco Sinibaldi

"a fungi"?

Fungi is plural for heaven's sake. The author needs to drop the article "a" or, more botanically likely, write "a fungus."

Sorry to be a nit-picking reader, but the banality of:

"Ultimately, though, I don’t actually think it diminishes the pleasures of reading. The idea of a pure reading experience is a myth, anyway, because purity is a myth..."

diminishes what could have been an interesting article. The writer goes on to use words like 'over-determined', and 'Enlightenment', which leads me to believe that he or she has read far too much Foucault, Derrida, and all the other phonies of post-Modernism.

I love this post! What's up with people who don't know an m-dash from a hyphen? Grammar boors!

I love this post and decided to create an account. The page for creating an account contains the following: "If you are a subscriber to the magazine, having account will allow you to register for full access to our online archive."
s/b "...having an account..."

It never ends.

I have a very different relationship to copyediting -- so maybe I'm a freak among freaks -- but the more publications you work for, the more evident it is that right and wrong, good and bad are not the most productive ways of relating to articulation. Moreover, because language is essentially figurative, the drive for clarity is doomed in its inception; i.e., the worm is in the core. You can call that last bit redundant, but some people call it “repetition with a difference,” without which there would be very little shared reality. If you want to call it redundancy, then redundancy is built into language and its use; it is necessary if there is any hope in the dream of communication. In addition, the more you study the history of print and books, the more evident it is that standardization and consistency are not at all a requirement of literacy (be it the reading or writing kind), intelligence, or persuasiveness. These qualities are a function of one’s ability to recognize the possibilities of meaning and negotiate them in a given linguistic situation.

The existence of copyediting is in part a symptom of an ideological orientation toward Enlightenment rationality and order, and style guides are a kind of institutionalized “narcissism of small differences.” Though I wouldn’t want to begrudge anyone the opportunities for pleasure in this crazy world, I personally derive only moderate pleasure from rationality, order, and discriminating small differences. The greater pleasure I get from copyediting (when I get it) is not in correcting mistakes or being “right” or producing “good” copy. I don't generally see mistakes as such. When I am reading copy, I see the way language gets used both artfully and artlessly in all these creative, accidental, overdetermined, fascinating ways. For me the excitement is in the prism—the refraction—not in the rainbow (so to speak).

Like looking in a mirror.

Is should be "Have we been consistent in the way we punctuated." Also, you really should be using Webster's Eleventh, not Oxford Concise.

Signed,
Uptight Nitpicking Copy Editor

aslo_white, Thanks for pointing out the split infinitive in my reply to a comment! (It's true, it never ends.)

I do try to avoid split infinitives when possible, but I am of the school that they're not technically wrong.
http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/split-infinitives

FinalEyes, I can imagine that typography is another hazardous trade! An interesting comparison, and thank you for it and for your sweet enthusiasm. (PS: Copy-editing is hyphenated in our house style.)

Un soupir pour toi.

Dans le chant
harmonieux
d'une feuille
désolée je sens
la tristesse
et le son de
la neige...

Francesco Sinibaldi

Dear Yuka Igarashi. That's not a salutation as much as a term of endearment for your piece on copy editing. (Shouldn't that be one word?)

I was born a typographer and became a copyeditor (and proofreader) after the typesetting industry collapsed with the advent of the Mac. My design clients had taught me how to be a good typographer, and I became so persnickety about it that I couldn't read a book unless the type was at least cared for if not crafted. I remember reading an old copy of Conrad's "Heart of Darkness," in which the type was so poorly kerned I had to quit the book.

Both copyediting and typography are hazardous trades — ones we would never willingly relinquish. And you gave such perfect voice to the passion.

Thank you.