Let a hundred flowers wilt bloom

Or at least three or four.
This blog is branching out. Look at the bottom of this page and you will see three new links (don’t try them just now):

– to เรื่องสั้นไทย | thai to english fiction, where, if all goes as planned,
(Ah-hum! Take a deep breath, Marcel.)
starting next Friday, I will publish, every other Friday, one contemporary or classical Thai short story in both Thai and English with side remarks on translation problems and solutions – and comments will be welcome indeed;

– to Thai fiction in English, where I’ll offer, as a bonus to amateurs of good Thai tales, some or perhaps even all 28 short stories that were published in the Bangkok Post between 2008 and earlier this year – to make them freely and easily accessible, which is no longer the case at the esteemed periodical, which charges for Archives stuff – and a few more from earlier days; I’ve already posted a good dozen of them, to be made public as soon as the above blog starts; and

– to Thai fiction in translation, if you feel like ordering (PDF-formatted) e-books, now that digital reading platforms are becoming a must-have – let’s all Kindle that fire. But perhaps, given the below-par performance of the site, I and potential buyers would be better off with a link to a more professionally run platform, immatériel.fr, which peddles the very same books (they even offer EPUB versions now, thanks to Apple Stores!). Let me think about it and consult my elders.

Actually, I also have a fourth blog at WordPress, entitled Chansongs, where I intend to regroup all the songs and poems – about a hundred so far – I translate as a pastime from French into English and occasionally vice versa. But it is dormant and it can wait.

The next step, if my heart holds and my nemesis agrees, will be to regroup these budding flowers into a single bouquet, a fully fledged website where I will call the shots. But this might prove to be a tall order.

Oh, by the way, why Friday next?
It happens to be someone’s birthday.

Bob Dylan et Bibiche

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Damn those recurrent digital troubles! I babysat my IT whiz kid for two hours today and what works now within the back office setup through either Explorer, Google Chrome or Firefox still doesn’t work from the homepage of thaifiction.com, which means that it still is impossible for visitors to the site to preview-read the latest two offerings (Alphaville Hotel and Four Reigns). The other ‘teaser’ files are fine – go figure.
And that’s to say nothing of digital troubles at home with the retooled laptop: a belated surprise visit by my wizard of a neighbour this evening has finally lifted the curse on its PDF files and reestablished the connection with the printer.

All right, enough of that nonsense. Let’s have a vintage Dylan song for a change. ‘Just like a woman’ has known many variations in words throughout the years. You’ll find the version I prefer at videos.sapo.pt/QCpNLsqEoGNU6JHpPc58, but youtube.com/watch?v=yZJrACgsHEc&feature=related isn’t bad either: only different, a bit less coherent.

Just Like a Woman – Bob Dylan – 1966

Tout à fait comme une femme

Nobody feels any pain
Tonight as I stand inside the rain
Everybody knows that Baby’s got new clothes
But lately I see her ribbons and her bows
Have fallen from her curls

Personne ne ressent la moindre douleur
Ce soir alors que je suis debout sous la pluie
Tout le monde sait que Bibiche a des vêtements neufs
Mais ces derniers temps je vois que les rubans noués
À ses boucles de cheveux sont tombés

She takes just like a woman, yes she does
She makes love like a woman, yes she does
And then she aches just like a woman
But she breaks just like a little girl

Elle accapare tout à fait comme une femme, oh ça oui
Elle fait l’amour comme une femme, oh ça oui
Et puis elle souffre tout à fait comme une femme
Mais elle craque tout à fait comme une gamine

Queen Mary, she’s my friend
Yes I believe I’ll go see her again
Nobody has to guess that Baby can’t be blessed
Till she sees finally that she’s like all the rest
With her fog, her amphetamine and her pearls

La reine Mary, c’est mon amie
Oui, je crois que je vais retourner la voir
Personne ne doit deviner que Bibiche ne peut être comblée
Tant qu’elle n’aura pas compris qu’elle est comme toutes les autres
Avec son brouillard, ses amphétamines et ses perles

She takes just like a woman, yes she does
She makes love like a woman, yes she does
And then she aches just like a woman
But she breaks just like a little girl

Elle se sert tout à fait comme une femme, oui vraiment
Elle fait l’amour comme une femme, oui vraiment
Et puis elle souffre tout à fait comme une femme
Mais elle craque tout à fait comme une gamine

It was raining from the first
And I was dying there of thirst
So I came in here and your long-time curse hurts
But what’s worse is this pain in here
I can’t stay in here. Ain’t it clear that I just don’t fit?
Yes, I believe it’s time for us to quit
But when we meet again, introduced as friends
Please don’t let on that you knew me when
I was hungry and it was your world

Il pleuvait depuis le début
et je mourais de soif là dehors
Alors je suis entré et tes crampes récurrentes font mal
Mais le pire c’est la douleur ici dedans
Je ne peux pas rester ici. N’est-il pas évident
que ce n’est tout simplement pas ma place ?
Oui, je crois qu’il est temps qu’on se sépare
Quand on se rencontrera à nouveau
Amis pour la galerie
Je t’en prie ne dis pas que tu m’as connu quand
J’avais faim et que le monde était à toi

Ah, you take just like a woman, yes you do
You make love like a woman, yes you do
And then you ache just like a woman
But you break just like a little girl

Ah, tu te sers tout à fait comme une femme, oh oui alors
Tu fais l’amour comme une femme, oh oui vraiment
Et puis tu souffres tout à fait comme une femme
Mais tu fonds en larmes tout à fait comme une gosse

One giant leap for mankind

.As of today, 25 of the 50 or so books stored at thaifiction.com are also on sale as e-books at immateriel.fr, initially in PDF format – to read on computer and some book-reader screens or to print out. Go to the ‘Librairie’ page. Since there are over 15 000 titles there, they are unlikely to show, but if you type ‘thaifiction publishing’ in ‘Rechercher’, here they come, over three pages – help yourselves.

From The Circus of Life to The White Shadow, seventeen of the Thai Modern Classics series of twenty are there, plus more recent translations from the likes of Saneh Sangsuk, Chart Korbjitti, Wimon Sainimnuan and Siriworn Kaewkan.

As soon as I’ve secured new ISBN identities for them and most of the remaining titles, they’ll also be available in EPUB format, needed to read conveniently on the smallest screens, including portable phones.

Immatériel.fr caters to the main digital bookshops (besides its own) in France as well as to the Apple Store, more professionally than thaifiction.com ever could – so, I hope, no more hassles in the ordering and payment procedure for the customer.

The next ‘small step for man’ will be to access those meccas of marketing, Amazon, eBay, Barnes & Noble, that all insist on their providers of e-books having US bank accounts – so much for globalisation.
And guess what? A kind soul has offered to open such an account for me. It pleases me no end that someone I’ve never met (only talked to on the phone and exchanged emails with) is sufficiently concerned about Thai literature in translation and its lack of reach worldwide to freely offer his help to make it better known.
Thanks, man.

A further step should be publishing on demand, when some outfit in France or elsewhere will make it appealing to do so. Since it was part of my premise when I remodelled thaifiction.com last year, quite a few of its books already have all the formatting required for digital printing.

In the past few weeks, I’ve been messily, archly, at time exhilaratingly busy with all of the above and with … teaching myself how to make EPUBs, plunging feet first into digital gobbledygook, but, chin up and gasping for breath, I’m slowly getting there. Oh boy! At 65, and with literary translation reduced to a sideline activity.
My latest victims? Rewat Panpipat (read all about it in the Bangkok Post of Nov 1st) and Prachakhom Lunachai…