Tra i mille progetti sempre in sospeso la traduzione della Leggenda in lingua inglese. Ci sto provando, più di un traduttore si è fatto avanti, nessuno ha superato ad ora la prova di lettura. Mi spiego. Il mio inglese è risicato, come posso valutare la bontà della traduzione? Non posso. A leggerlo deve essere un Lettore madrelingua, o meglio ancora bilingue. Un interprete o un lettore che SA l'inglese ben sopra il livello medio. E qui mi rivolgo a voi. Qui di seguito l'ennesimo tentativo di una traduzione del primo capitolo del primo romanzo. Fatemi sapere se è leggibile, coerente, fedele, e quant'altro. Non escludo ci siano errori grossolani, ne sbagliate interpretazioni. E' una prova e prendetela come tale. Se pensate di poter correggere questo tentativo, qualora ve ne fosse bisogno, contattatemi al seguente indirizzo di posta. Se pensate di poter far meglio di così, meglio ancora.
Come fare il paragone con la versione italiana? Semplice, scaricate il primo libro della Leggenda sull'app kindle disponibile per ogni dispositivo esistente. Dovete avere un account amazon, acquistare il libro (gratuito ovviamente) e leggere. In alternativa potete anche leggere un estratto direttamente da Amazon.
Quindi passo la palla a chiunque voglia collaborare con il sottoscritto e aiutarmi a far divenire questo romanzo ancora più grande.
Laleggendadeisettesigilli@gmail.com
Agg x1
Giustamente mi avete fatto notare che ben poco si può capire da un capitolo solo. Il lavoro di traduzione richiede tempo, e nemmeno il mio. Ho qualche capitolo di prova, e da quelli dovrò decidere se proseguire il lavoro o meno. Ho aggiunto anche il secondo capitolo, ma mi fermerò qui. Se volete darmi una mano avrete anche il resto (oltre che una serie di cose da stabilire nel caso vogliate collaborare con il sottoscritto). Il che potrebbe voler dire tutto e niente direte. Sarebbe facile motivarvi, ma lo scopo non è trovare solo un traduttore, correttore. Lo scopo è trovare qualcuno che condivida questa passione e vi metta impegno senza mollare il colpo. Potrebbe essere un OTTIMA occasione, e se riuscissimo nell'impresa concretizzarsi in qualcosa che potrebbe stupire entrambi. Già detto troppo. Buona lettura.
Agg x2
Sembra che la traduzione sia decisamente fedele per ora. Un solo errore importante e qualcuno marginale mi è stato segnalato. Il che mi sta portando a cambiare priorità. Il ritmo di traduzione è, per quanto veloce, decisamente lungo. Circa 1000 caratteri al giorno... quindi il tempo richiesto è devastante. A questo si unisce il tempo di rilettura e verifica. Insomma è un'altra pazzia che però sembra concretamente realizzabile. Cambio di priorità, al lavoro sporadico di scrittura del nuovo romanzo, inserirò con più impegno questo tentativo di traduzione. Troppi progetti in ballo, lo so. Il nuovo romanzo prosegue ma molto molto lentamente. Un capitolo a settimana o due se va bene. Conto di recuperare nel mese di Dicembre, dove spero di poter fare sessioni ininterrotte per un pò di giorni. Vedremo...
Chapter 1
-Down there in the Plains-
Chapter 1
-Down there in the Plains-
They weren't thunderclaps.
He realized it only when a thick blanket of smoke rose over an already gray sky. Only then did Neril begin to run.
He soon got rid of the meager game he had managed to procure after a rather fruitless day on the outskirts of the Plain, but he was still far from the village and he immediately realized that he had to abandon the saddlebag with the small items in order to increase his pace. He pulled out without stopping the buckles that secured it to his shoulders and then threw it without much caution into a green bush next to a large pine tree, memorizing the position to retrieve it later. He could certainly leave it on the pavement, but it would be foolish to allow a lucky passerby to take possession of it, and then perhaps discover that all the smoke in the distance was nothing but a barn on fire. Nothing less likely, because there in the Plain, it happened not infrequently. Although the lightning rods worked well, sometimes a bolt of lightning escaped their field of action and more than once the people of the village and their homes had been the victims.
Only two months before Gart's silos had been hit but had not suffered much damage. The fire had been quickly tamed with the help of rain.
Neril, however, was not convinced that it was lightning. The cloud of smoke became bigger and denser: not even the wet hay in the largest barn could have equaled it.
He increased his pace again, leaving the dirt road that had now turned into mud, and continued on the edge zigzagging quickly through the low vegetation. A twig tore the leather hood of his jacket but the boy kept running, heedless of the raindrops that wet his hair and face. When he reached the village, his eyes filled with terror and disbelief.
Everything was burning. The thing that upset him was that all the inhabitants, instead of extinguishing the flames as he had so often seen them do, ran and screamed like crazy.
An arrow passed so close that it brushed his clothes, then disappeared in an unlikely direction. Then he understood.
As if suddenly awakened, he drew his hunting dagger from his belt and ran for home. On the way he tried several times to stop someone to find out who was attacking the village, but he met the enemy even before he got an answer.
It appeared before him suddenly, as if out of nowhere: a human-looking being, wrapped in a worn robe that brushed the ground, face and hands wrapped in filthy, dirty bandages, black glasses made from the bottom of two dark bottles of Gurus held together by a string.
It moved slowly, but from the speed with which it had appeared, it could be deduced that this being was capable of serpentine movements. In fact, it threw itself at him with a high-pitched scream and a dagger, already dripping with blood, appeared out of nowhere.
Neril instinctively tried to dodge the blow, but it reached him anyway, causing a long cut on his clothes. The monster seemed surprised for a moment, but then it launched itself at him a second time. Neril not only managed to quickly dodge the blow, but with a very rapid movement he stuck his hunting dagger into his opponent's forearm until it passed through completely.
The scream was very loud and much sharper than the first one, so much so that it hurt his hearing. The monster writhed, waving its injured arm in the air. He dropped his weapon and only worried about pulling Neril's dagger out of his body. The boy took advantage of it and after picking up the weapon from the ground, he hit him violently on the shoulder, piercing it from side to side. The monster didn't scream, as if the wound caused by his own weapon didn't exist, continuing to worry only about extracting Neril's dagger from his forearm. He succeeded on the third attempt and for a few seconds he looked at his new weapon. He looked at the boy in front of him now unarmed and, swaying slightly, began to approach him brandishing the dagger with his healthy arm.
He had to retrace his steps twice because the streets were blocked by collapsed buildings and burning rubble. When he arrived in front of the house, he collapsed to his knees, trembling. All that was left in front of him was a heap of smoldering beams.
"Haggy," he said.
Then he burst into tears.
Chapter 2
-Razed to the ground-
He stood in the rain with his knees in the mud, crying for several minutes, ignoring the heat of the flames that consumed the remains of his home, ignoring the acrid smoke that stung his lungs and burned his nostrils, ignoring the screams of people asking for help. A woman ran into him, making him fall. Then he got up cursing and ran away, ignoring the rest. Immersed in his pain he ignored Haggy's powerful hand that rested on his shoulder. Only when the hand shook him did he turn and was speechless when he saw his friend. In a few minutes he had lost and found him. He did not notice that tears continued to fall copiously on his cheeks, but if before they were tears of pain, now they were tears of joy.
Haggy's eyes were also bright, evidently as surprised as he was, but, albeit with difficulty, he prevented them from crossing the border of his lashes.
"Hey, it's okay," said the big man in an uncertain voice.
Neril couldn't help himself and hugged him, still crying. He never thought he was so vulnerable. He sobbed in those mighty arms, breaking the silence only with weak incomprehensible words.
"Are you feeling better? I think we both got scared!"
"I thought you were dead," Neril replied, breaking away.
"Me too."
A brief embarrassed silence, then they both turned toward their house and stood side by side watching the work of a lifetime go up in smoke.
***
Alphel was practically razed to the ground. Only a few houses had escaped the flames and explosions. A couple of stables remained standing, the entire east wing of the Bramus villa, the school, and some shops including the herb shop, Carok's butcher shop and the blacksmith's. Haggy and Neril spent the whole afternoon giving first aid to the wounded and saving people trapped in the rubble.
Fortunately, the people who died during the attack were much less than the estimates, just a dozen, half of whom were killed by the collapse of buildings. During those hours, Neril told his friend what had happened to him, from the unsuccessful hunt in the Plain to the fight with the blindfolded being and its disappearance at the sound of the horn.
Haggy was impressed to discover who had devastated the village and even more to see Neril alive and well after the encounter with that particularly dangerous being.
He also explained who he had dealt with, but advised him never to reveal anything about that meeting. Then he told him that he had avoided the attack thanks to Bolder who had dragged him to the Mill outside the village to repair a pulley.
He had run as soon as he heard the sound of the explosions, but he had only managed to see three figures in the distance fleeing, followed by a fourth trying to reach them.
In the late afternoon Haggy was called to attend an extraordinary meeting of the Council to deal with the crisis immediately.
