On January 4, 1960, the French writer and philosopher Camus died in a car accident on his way to Paris at the age of 47. But before his death, Camus had already written a wealth of works and became one of the most important authors of the time. In 1957, in gratitude to Camus for his great contribution to literature, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, and he became one of the youngest Nobel Prize-winning writers. Recently, the "Guo Hong'an Translation of Camus's Collected Writings" new book sharing meeting jointly sponsored by the French Embassy in China and Yilin Publishing House was held at the French Cultural Center in Beijing. Scholar and translator Guo Hong'an held a dialogue with translator and French literary research expert Yu Zhongxian and writer Ah Yi through online means to discuss Camus's works and ideas.
Albert Camus: A Work, a Spirit ("Guo Hong'an Translation of Camus's Collected Works" New Book Sharing Session) At the event site, writer Ah Yi was sharing his feelings about reading Camus's works. From left to right, Yao Yi, deputy editor of Yilin Publishing House and director of the Classic Literature Publishing Center, Yu Zhongxian, and writer Ah Yi.
In 2011, Yilin Publishing House published a three-volume "Camus Anthology", "The Myth of the Outsider Sisyphus", "The Fallen Exile and the Kingdom", and "Anti and Positive Wedding Collection Summer Collection", which was translated by Guo Hong'an, which won the Fourth Fu Lei Translation and Publication Award. In the same year, Yilin Publishing House also published Guo Hong'an's critical work "The Interweaving of Sunshine and Shadow: Guo Hong'an Reading Camus". Ten years later, yilin publishing house revised and revised these four works, and launched Guo Hong's newly translated "Notes of Camus: 1935-1959" (selected collections), forming a new five-volume edition of "Guo Hong'an's Translation of Camus's Collected Works".
"Guo Hong'an's Translation of Camus's Collected Works" (five kinds), by Albert Camus, translated by Guo Hong'an, Yilin Publishing House, May 2021.
To expound truth, freedom and dignity in the truest and most direct way
Since the 1980s, Guo Hong'an has been engaged in translating and researching Camus's works. At the event site, Guo Hongan introduced his own process of reading, researching and translating works. After learning French, Guo Hong'an approached Camus as a general reader and quickly accepted camus's ideas, and the first work he read was The Outsider. Since the 1980s, Guo Hong'an has continued to pay attention to Camus, and in addition to his research, he has gradually introduced Camus's works to Chinese readers. At that time, not many of Camus's works were translated into Chinese, and only the publicly published translations were The Plague. Because of this, there is no Plague in Camus's translation by Guo Hong'an.
In the afterword to The Interweaving of Sunshine and Shadow: Guo Hong'an's Reading of Camus, Guo Hong'an introduces his understanding of Camus's work. He believes that Camus is one of the few writers in the 20th century who pursues style, Camus's style is a noble style, as a translator, he also uses this as the basis for translation, advocating the principle of "moderation" in the translation process, neither "too" nor "too late". In the postscript to Camus's Notes: 1935-1959 (Selected Collections), Guo Hong'an mentions that in his notes, Camus said: "To write, you should always be slightly inferior in expression(compared with the past)." Don't rap anyway. "Real works of art are works that say less." What a person should do when writing is "to learn self-control." This is what Camus made of himself, and it is also what he asked of literary writing, and more distantly, of human expression. Camus was a writer who "believed in words" and an artist who consciously pursued style. When he talks about his writing, he often sees words such as restriction,, order, moderation, fence and other words that mean not excessive, in short, do not rap. This conscious awareness of "degree" gives Camus a tall and thin style in his writing.
Camus and his children, in Le Chambon on the Les Des-Lyons in 1948. The French Embassy in Beijing books and speculative culture commissioner Judith Oriol shared the video materials of Camus on the spot.
Yu Zhongxian's earliest readings of Camus's works were The Outsider and the Plague, and in China at the time, people talked more about existentialism and began to argue about whether Camus's existentialism was existentialism and the differences between Sartre and Camus. He believes that when you first read Camus's works, you may find the absurd ideas in them difficult to understand, but with the deepening of reading and the growth of experience, you will slowly appreciate this attitude, "Slowly you will be able to understand why "The Outsider" is called "The Outsider", and why Meursault is such an attitude towards life." ”
At the event site, Yu Zhong first used the character Gran in "Plague" to modify a sentence as an example to detail the understanding of Camus's style: Camus expounded truth, freedom and dignity in the most authentic and direct way. Yu Zhongxian said that the name Gelang means "tall", but he is actually an obscure small civil servant who participates in volunteer work to fight the epidemic. Because of the busy and ordinary life, Gran and his wife Jeanne, who is about fifty years old, are silent at the dinner table every night, which makes Jeanne feel bitter and tired, so she leaves a letter and runs away, "I used to love you very much, but now I am too tired... I don't feel happy leaving you, but I don't need happiness to start over. Gran wanted to write a letter to his wife, but it was difficult to write, and he could not find the right words, so he decided to write a novel. Over the years, Gran has repeatedly revised the first sentence of the novel, and in the process of continuous revision, he has changed the beautiful words of this sentence weaker and weaker, and the more simple and clear. In Yu Zhongxian's view, the representative of this figure is Camus.
Life needs a work like "The Plague" that combines his first half and second half
In The Interweaving of Sunshine and Shadow: Guo Hong'an Reads Camus, Guo Hongan mentions that for a long time, despite Camus's own repeated denials and Sartre's approval, he was still considered by many to be an existentialist. It was not until 1951, when he published L'Homme révolté (The Man Who Resisted), engaged in a year-long polemic with Sartre and finally broke with it, that some Critics in France woke up to their long-standing differences, and Camus's philosophy was recognized as "absurd philosophy" (philosophy of absurdity) and an existential hat was removed. But in England, the United States, and many other countries, and even in France, Camus continues to be regarded by some as an existentialist, or as a representative of the right wing of existentialism, for example, in his nobel prize for literature, it is stated: "Camus represents a philosophical movement that has become existential, and he has summarized the characteristics of man's situation in the universe by denying all personal meaning and seeing in it absurdity." In Guo Hong'an's view, Albert Camus is considered an existentialist writer, mainly based on his two works: the novella "The Outsider" and the philosophical essay "The Myth of Sisyphus".
Camus's birth certificate. The French Embassy in Beijing books and speculative culture commissioner Judith Oriol shared the video materials of Camus on the spot.
"Today, Mom is dead. Maybe it was yesterday, I don't know. I got a telegram from the nursing home saying, 'Mother dies.' Buried tomorrow. This is the subject of this notice. That doesn't mean anything. Probably died yesterday. This sentence is the beginning of "The Outsider", and while reading Camus's work, Ah Yi happened to read the most understandable novel in Camus's work. In Ah Yi's view, this sentence at the beginning of "The Outsider" overturns many of the hypocrisy he has been exposed to in literature in the past, which makes him feel that Camus is a real person. "Sincerity" is Ah Yi's biggest feeling after reading Camus's works. In the face of his mother's death, the protagonist Meursault did not make a sad gesture of crying and weeping at the funeral, but instead acted indifferent, which made Ah Yi realize that there are people like Meursault in the world who have the same emotions as himself.
In the eyes of A B at that time, "Caligula", "The Myth of Sisyphus", "The Outsider", "The Visitor" and so on were all works full of sharpness, while "Plague" was somewhat lacking. But later, Ah B changed his opinion, he believed that life needs a work like "Plague" to combine his first half and second half. But A's favorite work is still the absurd trilogy (The Outsider, Caligula, and The Myth of Sisyphus), which in his view are three consecutive collisions, as if three car accidents had occurred, all intense. Because he liked "The Outsider", Ah Yi repeatedly dismantled this work, and thus created a novella "Below, What Should I Do", paying tribute to this great writer.
Camus, 1945 in the Leyland Islands. The French Embassy in Beijing books and speculative culture commissioner Judith Oriol shared the video materials of Camus on the spot.
The work camus that Guo Hongan most wants to recommend is "The Fall", where he agrees with Sartre that "The Fall" may be Camus's "most beautiful and least understood work". Guo Hongan said that this shows that the work "Fallen" is very profound in content and contains many layers. In addition, it is also more special in form, a monologue work told by one person to another. Of course, his object is not a word, but the person who the author does not write the dialogue, which is presented through the language and expression of the protagonist Clemens, and there is still the existence of another person. Guo Hongan believes that this form is different from other archaic works of "The Fall".
Author 丨He An'an
Edited by 丨Rodong
Proofreading 丨 Lucy