9.21.2004

Translating Hemingway's The Snows of Kilimanjaro

I'd like to introduce a new segment here at Coney Island. I think Ernest Hemingway sucks, so I'm going to translate The Snows of Kilimanjaro from English to English. If I still think this is fun after the first paragraph, I will continue.

Hemingway writes...
"The marvelous thing is that it's painless," he said. Thats's how you know when it starts."
"Is it really?"
"Absolutely. I'm awfully sorry about the odor though. That must bother you."
"Don't. Please don't."
"Look at them," he said. "Now is it sight or is it scent that brings them like that?"
The cot the man lay on was in the wide shade of a mimosa tree and as he looked out past the onto the glare of the plain there were three of the big birds squatted obscenely, while in the sky a dozen more sailed, making quick moving shadows as they passed.

Cap'n Pete writes...
Circling around them like children's scribbles, I invent reds and browns that antagonize. I am banished. I am unequivocal.
"Why do you leave me this costume? Your quick movements are uninspired."
They fumble about with their sights and smells and a dozen more notions of shadows.
"Look at them," I said. "They walk on the sticks, hair and straw that make up my words. These pages line my walls. They stick with mud and sap. They have left their maize for me and I will utilize their hastiness. From above I will destroy their shadows like a procuress destroys will."

Do we peck like birds or like typewriters?

And from the sky they appear motionless. Their epitaphs are written on their teeth and their rosaries have wilted. Their shadows are holes a ditch digger has made and from this point they have passed.
"I hope the reds and browns that run through their veins are of a darkish hue. It will make better ink that way."

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