Thursday, January 19, 2006

Picayune

Eli Weisel's "Night" has been republished with a new translation.

So...

So some people are being picayune.

In the New York Times, this story appeared: The Translation of Wiesel's 'Night' Is New, but Old Questions Are Raised By EDWARD WYATT

and here are the relevant sections:

Some scholars who have studied Holocaust memoirs have also raised questions about how much of the book can be verified.

Yesterday, Marion Wiesel, Mr. Wiesel's wife and the translator of the new edition of "Night," said in an interview that among the changes were a reference to the age of the book's narrator - that is, Mr. Wiesel - when he arrives in 1944 at Birkenau, the entry point for Auschwitz.

In the previous translation, published in 1960, the narrator tells a fellow prisoner that he is "not quite 15." But the scene takes place in 1944. Mr. Wiesel, born on Sept. 30, 1928, would have already been 15, going on 16. In the new edition, when asked his age, he replies, "15."

Other alterations in the new edition, Ms. Wiesel said, include a change to a description of furtive sexual activity by some of the young prisoners as they traveled to Auschwitz in a cattle car. Ms. Wiesel said the original English translation used the word "copulate," a reference that was changed in later printings to "flirt." In the new translation, the youths "caressed one another."


That's all, folks.

On this someone wants to claim that Weisel had fictionalized his reminisces?

You gotta be kidding.

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