Before I settle down and read the whole thing which already looks lie quite a treat, I just want you to know that "Rather a meta notion for my simple soul" was a genuine LOL :)

See, now I really want to read this. I've only ever encountered this translation chain type creative process in a comedy setting, so I'm intrigued to see how it worked here. I absolutely adore the design choice, by the way.

I've been trying to find a copy for years. It's just one of those that I've always had a desire to read, "when I have time", like when my wife can't find more things for me to do at the weekends!

Sounds like a fascinating project. I just bought a mint signed copy on eBay!

Reminds me a little of Douglas Hofstadter's book Le Ton Beau de Marot, which delves into the highways and byways of translation while focusing on a single short poem.

I have to tell you that as a lifelong bookseller who has sold many a volume by the Roycrofters, I recognized that style on your cover instantly! Well done, and the novella sounds utterly fascinating.

I'm lucky enough to own a copy of this, it's a wonderful little gem.

NEATO!

So if you find the box in your garage, are you willing to sell one? 😀

How much did the story or meaning change between the versions and are you ever tempted to send it back along the chain with other language versions?!

I managed to find a used copy a year or so ago, and the concept was so intriguing. Good story and beautiful book, too. I’m sorry it had to be so scaled back from the original plan. It also reminded me, I’ve read that Raymond Chander learned to write mysteries by employing a technique he’d used in school where he translated lessons from Latin to English then back to Latin, but he used the plots of Erle Stanley Gardner stories.

I would not trouble you to ransack your garage. After everything I've read of yours, what lurks there would likely scare the bejasus out of a banshee. Thanks to the marginally less scary machinations of the internet, a copy is on its way to me from Burton, Michigan (presumably hand delivered by Hermes in person as the postage costs twice the book price.

The theme takes me back to a lecture George Steiner gave in my last year at Cambridge, so 55 years ago. It was entitled "The Unhoused Poet", referring to writers who elect or, are compelled, to write in a non-native tongue. I remember him very specifically on Nabokov and Becket and I think the third must have been Conrad, who would be everyone's obvious choice. Steiner said Nabokov translated Alfred de Musset into Russian and subsequently re-translated his own Russian back into French which, he maintained, improved on de Musset's original. On Godot, I recall him saying that where Estragon and Vladimir trade insults with each other, Estragon finishes Vladimir off in the English version with "crrrrritic!" but the French original is "arrrrrchitect!"

It's somewhere in the basement along with all the other books that probably won't resurface until my mortal remains are collected.

I think about it occasionally, though. It's that kind of book.

I love this thing, but I am disappointed in myself that 10 years on my French is still too poor to even try reading the first translation! Having Chat GPT translate it through the extra languages could indeed be a worthwhile exercise. It'd be interesting just to see how it fares at translating the story and vernacular versus the real writers who knew you and your work well.

The look of the thing is gorgeous. And I love this line from Paschalis Nikolaou’s review: “ The translations are permitted to cohabit with and haunt the original English story.” That sounds very you. Wish I knew enough (okay, any, other than swear words) French to enjoy the novella. Also a little sad that the haunting didn’t take place in more languages. What a terrifically fascinating concept!

As the least cleverest person in your substack (although the best looking), I'm still working out in my tiny brain (housed in a Cathedral of Beauty) the ins and outs of your post.

I'm going to use the word intriguing, as it makes me sound less confused...

Just as a point of interest, I had always assiduously avoided Subterranean Press. As a collector of signed first editions on a labourers wage, it always seemed like just another honey trap.

Then I got Only Forward for an affordable price. It was a great piece of publishing.

So now I've got two copies of The Gist.

I'm willing to sell a copy for eleventy million pounds if any body wants it...

My wife just called me an unfunny ©un7.