Ernest Hemingway

Register the story you will translate!

Záhada zlatého skarabea

Edgar Allan Poe je považován z jednoho ze zakladatelů klasického hororu - a je také autorem, který mezi prvními prezentoval použití analytického myšlení k řešení detektivního problému. Povídka Zlatý skarabeus využívá obou těchto specialit, a řadí se mezi Poeovy nejznámější a nejpopulárnější texty.

Fulltext je legálně k dispozici v projektu Guttenberg.

_____________________________________

1. Připomeňte si děj povídky (najděte si synopsi, přečtete si celý originální text)
2. Identifikujte charakteristické rysy textu, zamyslete se nad možnými překladatelskými problémy. Najděte klíčová slova a jejich překlad.
3. Přeložte obě části ukázky vyznačené tučně.
_____________________________________

"But," I interposed, "you say that the skull was not upon the parchment

when you made the drawing of the beetle. How then do you trace any

connexion between the boat and the skull--since this latter, according

to your own admission, must have been designed (God only knows how or by

whom) at some period subsequent to your sketching the scarabæus?"

"Ah, hereupon turns the whole mystery; although the secret, at this

point, I had comparatively little difficulty in solving. My steps were

sure, and could afford but a single result. I reasoned, for example,

thus: When I drew the scarabæus, there was no skull apparent upon

the parchment. When I had completed the drawing I gave it to you, and

observed you narrowly until you returned it. You, therefore, did not

design the skull, and no one else was present to do it. Then it was not

done by human agency. And nevertheless it was done.

"At this stage of my reflections I endeavored to remember, and did

remember, with entire distinctness, every incident which occurred about

the period in question. The weather was chilly (oh rare and happy

accident!), and a fire was blazing upon the hearth. I was heated with

exercise and sat near the table. You, however, had drawn a chair close

to the chimney. Just as I placed the parchment in your hand, and as you

were in the act of inspecting it, Wolf, the Newfoundland, entered,

and leaped upon your shoulders. With your left hand you caressed him and

kept him off, while your right, holding the parchment, was permitted to

fall listlessly between your knees, and in close proximity to the fire.

At one moment I thought the blaze had caught it, and was about to

caution you, but, before I could speak, you had withdrawn it, and were

engaged in its examination. When I considered all these particulars, I

doubted not for a moment that heat had been the agent in bringing to

light, upon the parchment, the skull which I saw designed upon it. You

are well aware that chemical preparations exist, and have existed time

out of mind, by means of which it is possible to write upon either paper

or vellum, so that the characters shall become visible only when

subjected to the action of fire. Zaffre, digested in aqua regia, and

diluted with four times its weight of water, is sometimes employed; a

green tint results. The regulus of cobalt, dissolved in spirit of nitre,

gives a red. These colors disappear at longer or shorter intervals after

the material written upon cools, but again become apparent upon the

re-application of heat.

"I now scrutinized the death's-head with care. Its outer edges--the

edges of the drawing nearest the edge of the vellum--were far more

distinct than the others. It was clear that the action of the caloric

had been imperfect or unequal. I immediately kindled a fire, and

subjected every portion of the parchment to a glowing heat. At first,

the only effect was the strengthening of the faint lines in the skull;

but, upon persevering in the experiment, there became visible, at

the corner of the slip, diagonally opposite to the spot in which the

death's-head was delineated, the figure of what I at first supposed to

be a goat. A closer scrutiny, however, satisfied me that it was intended

for a kid."

"Ha! ha!" said I, "to be sure I have no right to laugh at you--a million

and a half of money is too serious a matter for mirth--but you are not

about to establish a third link in your chain--you will not find any

especial connexion between your pirates and a goat--pirates, you know,

have nothing to do with goats; they appertain to the farming interest."

"But I have just said that the figure was not that of a goat."

"Well, a kid then--pretty much the same thing."

"Pretty much, but not altogether," said Legrand. "You may have heard of

one Captain Kidd. I at once looked upon the figure of the animal as a

kind of punning or hieroglyphical signature. I say signature; because

its position upon the vellum suggested this idea. The death's-head at

the corner diagonally opposite, had, in the same manner, the air of a

stamp, or seal. But I was sorely put out by the absence of all else--of

the body to my imagined instrument--of the text for my context."

"I presume you expected to find a letter between the stamp and the

signature."

"Something of that kind. The fact is, I felt irresistibly impressed with

a presentiment of some vast good fortune impending. I can scarcely

say why. Perhaps, after all, it was rather a desire than an actual

belief;--but do you know that Jupiter's silly words, about the bug

being of solid gold, had a remarkable effect upon my fancy? And then the

series of accidents and coincidences--these were so very extraordinary.

Do you observe how mere an accident it was that these events should have

occurred upon the sole day of all the year in which it has been, or may

be, sufficiently cool for fire, and that without the fire, or without

the intervention of the dog at the precise moment in which he appeared,

I should never have become aware of the death's-head, and so never the

possessor of the treasure?"

"But proceed--I am all impatience."

"Well; you have heard, of course, the many stories current--the thousand

vague rumors afloat about money buried, somewhere upon the Atlantic

coast, by Kidd and his associates. These rumors must have had some

foundation in fact. And that the rumors have existed so long and so

continuous, could have resulted, it appeared to me, only from the

circumstance of the buried treasure still remaining entombed. Had Kidd

concealed his plunder for a time, and afterwards reclaimed it, the

rumors would scarcely have reached us in their present unvarying form.

You will observe that the stories told are all about money-seekers,

not about money-finders. Had the pirate recovered his money, there the

affair would have dropped. It seemed to me that some accident--say the

loss of a memorandum indicating its locality--had deprived him of the

means of recovering it, and that this accident had become known to his

followers, who otherwise might never have heard that treasure had been

concealed at all, and who, busying themselves in vain, because unguided

attempts, to regain it, had given first birth, and then universal

currency, to the reports which are now so common. Have you ever heard of

any important treasure being unearthed along the coast?"

"Never."

"But that Kidd's accumulations were immense, is well known. I took it

for granted, therefore, that the earth still held them; and you will

scarcely be surprised when I tell you that I felt a hope, nearly

amounting to certainty, that the parchment so strangely found, involved

a lost record of the place of deposit."

"But how did you proceed?"

"I held the vellum again to the fire, after increasing the heat; but

nothing appeared. I now thought it possible that the coating of dirt

might have something to do with the failure; so I carefully rinsed the

parchment by pouring warm water over it, and, having done this, I

placed it in a tin pan, with the skull downwards, and put the pan upon

a furnace of lighted charcoal. In a few minutes, the pan having become

thoroughly heated, I removed the slip, and, to my inexpressible joy,

found it spotted, in several places, with what appeared to be figures

arranged in lines. Again I placed it in the pan, and suffered it to

remain another minute. Upon taking it off, the whole was just as you see

it now." Here Legrand, having re-heated the parchment, submitted it to

my inspection. The following characters were rudely traced, in a red

tint, between the death's-head and the goat:

  "53‡‡†305))6*;4826)4‡)4‡);806*;48†8¶60))85;1‡);:‡

  *8†83(88)5*†;46(;88*96*?;8)*‡(;485);5*†2:*‡(;4956*

  2(5*--4)8¶8*;4069285);)6†8)4‡‡;1(‡9;48081;8:8‡1;4

  8†85;4)485†528806*81(‡9;48;(88;4(‡?34;48)4‡;161;:

  188;‡?;"

"But," said I, returning him the slip, "I am as much in the dark as

ever. Were all the jewels of Golconda awaiting me upon my solution of 
this enigma, I am quite sure that I should be unable to earn them."

__________________________________________________

UKÁZKA PRASTARÉHO PŘEKLADU
Volně k dispozici na webu


Znění tohoto textu vychází z díla Zlatý chrobák tak, jak bylo vydáno nakladatelstvím Františka Šimáčka v roce 1894 (POE, Edgar Allan. Zlatý chrobák a jiné novely. Přel. Vácslav ČERNÝ. Praha: František Šimáček, 1894. 76 s. Levné svazky novel, sv. 1).

„Řekl jsem vám však, že to nebyla koza.“
„Pro mne tedy kozel – jaký vsak v tom rozdíl?“
„Velký rozdíl ovšem není – zcela správně, ale přece to není
docela totéž,“ odvětil Legrand. Zajisté slyšel jste o jistém kapitánu
Kiddovi.2 Co mne se týče, spatřoval jsem v obraze zvířete ihned
jakýsi druh hříčky slovní nebo hieroglyfickou značku, poněvadž
taková myšlénka musela přijíti každému, kdo si blíže umístění
podoby na pergamenu povšiml. – V umrlčí hlavě, ležící na protějším
rohu úhlopříčném, spatřoval jsem jakýsi znak nebo pečeť. Při tom
všem stále scházel k úplnému smyslu text: nebylo mi lze s tím co
počíti.“
„Bezpochyby domníval jste se, že odhalíte mezi umrlčí hlavou
a hieroglyfickou značkou nějaké písmo?“
„Ano, něco takového. Tolik aspoň jest jisto, že jsem měl bezděčně
předtuchu o nesmírném štěstí, jehož se mi má dostali. Proč jsem tuto
předtuchu pojal, nemohu nikterak říci. Možná, že to bylo spíše přáni
nežli předtucha nebo skutečná víra; věztež však také, že Jupiterova
pošetilá slova, dle nichž prý byl brouk z ryzího zlata, mocně
účinkovala na mou fantasii. A pak ona podivuhodná shoda
okolností. Pomyslete si jen, jak čirá náhoda tomu chtěla, že všecky
tyto události sběhly se právě v onom jediném dni, kdy bylo tak
studeno, že se oheň rozdělali musel. Bez ohně a bez psa, jenž vběhl
do pokoje právě ve chvíli, kdy se to vše dálo, nikdy bych nebyl
umrlčí hlavy spatřil a tedy také na poklad nepřipadl?“
„Jen pokračujte – nemohu se dočkati“
„Dobře, bezpochyby slyšel jste také mnohokráte pověsti, tisíceré
nejasné zprávy, dle nichž prý Kidd a jeho soudruzi zakopali na
neznámém místě atlantického břehu nesmírné množství peněz.
Takovéto pověsti nemohou však jen tak z ničeho povstati a se
rozšířili. A že se tak trvale a dlouho udržely, možno, jak se mně zdá,
jen odtud vysvětlili, že zakopaný poklad ještě v zemi odpočíval.
Kdyby byl kapitán Kidd své poklady jen na nějaký čas zakopal
a pak je vyzdvihl, nebyly by se zajisté pověsti ty v jejich původní
i nezměněné podobě až na nás udržely. Dojista jste pozoroval, že se
všude a vždy mluvilo a vypravovalo o pátratelích po pokladech,
nikdy vsak o nálezcích. Kdyby však byl pirát poklad vyzdvihl, bylo
by vše zapadlo ponenáhlu v zapomenutí. Zdá se mi však, že nějaká
nehoda – snad ztráta noticky označující umístění – učinila
nemožným, aby kapitán svůj poklad opět nalezl, jakož i že by snad
tento případ byl znám jeho soudruhům? Ti snad ani nezaslechli, že
by byl nějaký poklad zakopal. A ti pak, kteří se pokoušeli, ač marně,
ježto postrádali všech jistých vodítek, pokladu vydobyti, uvěřili
pouze pověstem vůbec rozšiřovaným. Či snad jste slyšel, že by se
bylo někomu podařilo pokladu dosíci?“
„Nikdy.“
„Právě tak známo jest, že byly poklady Kiddovy nesmírně veliké.
Přijal jsem tedy za pravdu, že jsou pod zemí skryty, a snad se
podivíte, když doložím, že ve mně vznikla naděje skoro až v jistotu
se stupňující, že by snad i proužek pergamenový, tak vzácným
způsobem nalezený, mohl udati, kde asi se poklady nalézají.
Proužek pergamenový byl mi jako ztracená noticka pirátova – tudíž
drahocenný dokument, k němuž jsem takovou náhodou přišel.“

„A jak jste pokračoval?“

2 Kidd – kozlík – mladý kozel.

Odpudivá historka o muži s měděnými prsty

Dorothy Lucy Sayersová patří k trojhvězdí britských detektivkářek dvacátého století. Její hrdina, lord Petr Wimsey, je druhorozený syn vévodského rodu, aristokrat s překvapivou (až společensky pohoršující) zálibou v řešení zločinů. Jeho přístup k problému připomína Sherlocka Holmese, jeho velice specifický styl vyjadřování je "překladatelským oříškem" prvního řádu.

Povídka THE ABOMINABLE HISTORY OF THE MAN WITH COPPER FINGERS přináší jak ukázky popisných pasáží přímo dickensovských, tak monologické odstavce přímé řeči s náležitým dramatickým spádem - přece jen je to detektivka!

1. Přečtěte si úvodní text charaterizující Klub egoistů. Vžijte se do atmosféry a prostředí (Londýn na konci dvacátých let dvacátího století).
Vyberte klíčová slova, najděte neznámé výrazy ve slovníku, přeložte celou pasáž (termín 22.11.)

____________________________________________________________

THE ABOMINABLE HISTORY OF THE MAN WITH COPPER FINGERS
D. L. Sayers

The Egotists' Club is one of the most genial places in London. It is a place to which you may go when you want to tell that odd dream you had last night, or to announce what a good dentist you have discovered. You can write letters there if you like, and have the temperament of a Jane Austen, for there is no silence room, and it would be a breach of club manners to appear busy or absorbed when another member addresses you. You must not mention golf or fish, however, and, if the Hon. Freddy Arbuthnot's motion is carried at the next committee meeting (and opinion so far appears very favourable), you will not be allowed to mention wireless either. As Lord Peter Wimsey said when the matter was mooted the other day in the smoking-room, those are things you can talk about anywhere. Otherwise the club is not specially exclusive. Nobody is ineligible per se, except strong, silent men. Nominees are, however, required to pass certain tests, whose nature is sufficiently indicated by the fact that a certain distinguished explorer came to grief through accepting, and smoking, a powerful Trichinopoly cigar as an accompaniment to a '63 port. On the other hand, dear old Sir Roger Bunt (the coster millionaire who won the £20,000 ballot offered by the Sunday Shriek, and used it to found his immense catering business in the Midlands) was highly commended and unanimously elected after declaring frankly that beer and a pipe were all he really cared for in that way. As Lord Peter said again: "Nobody minds coarseness but one must draw the line at cruelty."



2. Přečtěte si následující úryvek a pokuste se nejprve charakterizovat styl promluvy anglických gentlemanů. Pak přeložte vyznačenou část textu.

The effect of Wimsey's voice on Varden had been extraordinary. He had leapt to his feet, and turned the lamp so as to light up Wimsey's face.
"Good evening, Mr. Varden," said Lord Peter. "I'm delighted to meet you again and to apologise for my unceremonious behaviour on the occasion of our last encounter."
Varden took the proffered hand, but was speechless.
"D'you mean to say, you mad mystery-monger, that you were Varden's Great Unknown?" demanded Bayes. "Ah, well," he added rudely, "we might have guessed it from his vivid description."
"Well, since you're here," said Smith-Hartington, the Morning Yell man, "I think you ought to come across with the rest of the story."
"Was it just a joke?" asked Judson.
"Of course not," interrupted Pettifer, before Lord Peter had time to reply. "Why should it be? Wimsey's seen enough queer things not to have to waste his time inventing them."
"That's true enough," said Bayes. "Comes of having deductive powers and all that sort of thing, and always sticking one's nose into things that are better not investigated."
"That's all very well, Bayes," said his lordship, "but if I hadn't just mentioned the matter to Mr. Varden that evening, where would he be?"
"Ah, where? That's exactly what we want to know," demanded Smith-Hartington. "Come on, Wimsey, no shirking; we must have the tale."
"And the whole tale," added Pettifer.
"And nothing but the tale," said Armstrong, dexterously whisking away the whisky-bottle and the cigars from under Lord Peter's nose. "Get on with it, old son. Not a smoke do you smoke and not a sup do you sip till Burd Ellen is set free."
"Brute!" said his lordship plaintively. "As a matter of fact," he went on, with a change of tone, "it's not really a story I want to get about. It might land me in a very unpleasant sort of position—manslaughter probably, and murder possibly."
"Gosh!" said Bayes.
"That's all right," said Armstrong, "nobody's going to talk. We can't afford to lose you from the club, you know. Smith-Hartington will have to control his passion for copy, that's all."
Pledges of discretion having been given all round, Lord Peter settled himself back and began his tale.

3. Dočtěte si celou povídku (k dispozici na capse) a vyberte si k překladu úryvek textu o přibližném rozsahu jedné normostrany (1800 znaků), obsahující především promluvu Lorda Petra. Termín odevzdání 29.11.2016.

Hudba a text

Poválečná populární hudba, to bylo v padesátých a šedesátých letech především zázračné "rádio laxemberg," z něhož později čerpaly stále četnější české adaptace americké hudby. Ovšem poklesle kapitalistický anglický text byl v pokrokovém socialistickém státě nepřijatelný a nepřípustný! Od šedesátých let 20. století se tak intenzivně rozvíjela česká překladová textařina, a často bojovala s nesmyslnou cenzurou (v textu se například nesmělo objevit slovo bible - tak vznikla záhadná řádka z textu skupiny Spirituál kvintet "Ten starý příběh z knížky vám tu vykládám").
V současnosti má většina světových písní pop music anglické texty, bez ohledu na národnost autorů a interpretů. Ani ty, které posloucháme česky, nemusejí pocházet z domácí produkce - často čeští interpreti převezmou světový hit a dodají mu český text. Byznys je byznys!

Česká tradice písňových překladů sahá hluboko do historie.

Divotvorný hrnec
U nás doma (How Are Things In Glocca Morra): Burton Lane, V+W
Zpívá Soňa Červená, mluví Václav Trégl
Karel Vlach se svým orchestrem
ULTRAPHON C 15130, mat. 45770, rec. PRAHA 23.4.1948

Americký muzikál Finian´s Rainbow (Divotvorný hrnec) napsal Burton Lane na text E. Y. Harburga. Hudbu přepsal z původních gramofonových desek natočených 30.3. a 3,7,10.4. 1947 v New Yorku Zdeněk Petr, který hudbu i aranžoval. Pražské provedení bylo první v Evropě.

Ukázka ze slavné filmové verze


1. Znáte nějaké české verze původně anglických písní? Uveďte příklady v komentáři k blogu!

2. A jak se přeložené dílko proměňuje? Porovnejte:

Red river
Červená řeka

Three Ravens - A. Scholl
Three Ravens - Djazia
Three Ravens - vocal
Válka růží

L'important C'est la rose
Podívej, kvete růže

Všimněte si, jak se proměnilo i hudební provedení.

Další inspirace z oblasti téměř zlidovělé české popové klasiky zde - Ivo Fišer
http://www.casopisfolk.cz/Textari/textari-fischer_ivo0610.htm


I díla českých písničkářů jasně dokazují, že dobrý a vtipný text je silnou stránkou naší hudební scény.
Zuzana Navarová - Marie
Karel Kryl - Karavana mraků
Karel Plíhal - Nosorožec

Michal Tučný, Rattlesnake Annie - Long Black Limousine

My čekali jaro
... a zatím přišel mráz
Oh, dem golden slippers - parodie (info - WIKI)


3. Naším úkolem bude OTEXTOVAT píseň s původně anglickým textem. Nejsme nijak vázáni obsahem originálu, rozhoduje jedině forma, zpívatelnost - slovní a hudební přízvuky se musí překrývat. Zvolte si styl - a držte se ho, ať už to bude drama, lyrika nebo ostrá parodie.

Vyberte si buď jednu z níže uvedených tří skladeb, nebo si zvolte jinou dle vlastní preference - v tom případě ale musíte k přeloženému textu do komentáře k blogu uvést i odkaz na originální audiozáznam, nejlépe na youtube.

God rest you
As tears go by
Gangsta's Paradise



4. Že nepoznáte přízvuk ani v textu, natož v hudbě?

Zkuste si polohlasně zarecitovat a označit přízvučné slabiky:

Je to chůze po tom světě -
kam se noha šine:
sotva přejdeš jedny hory,
hned se najdou jiné.

Je to život na tom světě -
že by člověk utek:
ještě nezažil jsi jeden,
máš tu druhý smutek.

A teď si poslechněte zhudebněnou verzi - přízvuky jsou v ní patrné daleko lépe:
Pocestný

Délky not a slabik také hrají svou roli:
. . - - . . - -
. . - - . .
. . - - . . - -
. . - - . .


__________________________________________________________

Gott https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYG52fKoRw0
text Zdeněk Borovec  http://www.karaoketexty.cz/texty-pisni/gott-karel/uz-z-hor-zni-zvon-36571
Nedvědi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XagCL9YyBH8
Il Divo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYMLMj-SibU
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazing_Grace

Poesie? Je spletí hlásek...

Citát z Rostandova Cyrana otevírá nové téma.
Jak překládat poezii?  A překládat ji vůbec? Má přednost forma či obsah? Dají se na překlad poesie aplikovat pravidla, o kterých jsme mluvili?


1. Stáhněte si z capsy soubor s různými verzemi překladu Shakespearova sonetu.
Shakespeare_Sonet66_13prekladu.doc

Která verze se vám nejvíc líbí? Proč? Napište svůj názor do komentáře k tomuto blogu. Uvažujete nad formou a obsahem nebo více nasloucháte svým pocitům?

Sonet 66 English
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MWBW_c7Fsw

Sonet 66 Hilský
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJw5BQba7zQ



_______________________________________________________

What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
Co je po jméně? Co růží zvou, i zváno jinak vonělo by stejně.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/adventures-in-old-age/201001/was-shakespeare-wrong-would-rose-any-other-name-smell-sweet
 _______________________________________________________


2. Přečtěte si pomalu a klidně následující sonet. Vnímejte rytmus a zvukomalbu textu, při druhém čtení se teprve víc soustřeďte na obsah.

SONNET 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? 

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date: 

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; 

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st; 

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Pokuste se přeložit jedno ze tří čtyřverší + poslání.
Rozmyslete si, jak budete postupovat.

_______________________

Domácí úkol:
Vyhledejte jakýkoli český překlad své oblíbené básně a  anglický originál spolu s českou verzí vlože do komentáře k tomuto blogu.
Naučte se alespoň 8 řádek zpaměti - česky i anglicky. Zkuste si recitaci před zrcadlem, vnímejte rytmus básně, porovnávejte básnické prostředky použité v originále a v překladu.

Fantazie a odbornost - Měsíční prach

"It is vital to remember that information is not knowledge; that knowledge is not wisdom; and that wisdom is not foresight. But information is the first essential step to all of these."

Sir A. C. Clarke, jeden z hvězdné trojice autorů science-fiction konce dvacátého století (Asimov- Clarke - Heinlein), byl vzděláním fyzik a matematik. Jeho vědeckofantastické texty se vyznačují neobyčejnou přesností právě v oblasti fyziky a astronomie, a na hluboké znalosti faktů vyrůstá fantastická konstrukce světa blízké i vzdálené budoucnosti.

1. Zjistěte si něco více o autorovi.
http://www.clarkefoundation.org/
http://www.arthurcclarke.net/?scifi=12
http://www.csfd.cz/tvurce/12377-arthur-c-clarke/


2. Kdy vyšel poprvé román A Fall of Moondust? Kdy člověk poprvé stanul na Měsíci? Ve kterém roce se odehrálo drama Apolla 13?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Fall_of_Moondust


_______________________________________________________________

Arthur C. Clarke - A Fall of Moondust

Chapter 1

To be the skipper of the only boat on the Moon was a distinction that Pat Harris enjoyed. As the passengers filed aboard Selene, jockeying for window seats, he wondered what sort of trip it would be this time. In the rear-view mirror he could see Miss Wilkins, very smart in her blue Lunar Tourist Commission uniform, putting on her usual welcome act. He always tried to think of her as

"Miss Wilkins," not Sue, when they were on duty together; it helped to keep his mind on business. But what she thought of him, he had never really discovered.

There were no familiar faces; this was a new bunch, eager for their first cruise. Most of the passengers were typical tourists--elderly people, visiting a world that had been the very symbol of inaccessibility when they were young. There were only four or five passengers on the low side of thirty, and they were probably technical personnel on vacation from one of the lunar bases. It was

a fairly good working rule, Pat had discovered, that all the  old people came from Earth, while the youngsters were residents of the Moon.

But to all of them, the Sea of Thirst was a novelty. Beyond Selene's observation windows, its gray, dusty surface marched onward unbroken until it reached the stars. Above it hung the waning crescent Earth, poised forever in the sky from which it had not moved in a billion years. The brilliant, blue-green light of the mother world flooded this strange land with a cold radiance—and cold it was indeed, perhaps three hundred below zero on the exposed surface.

No one could have told, merely by looking at it, whether the Sea was liquid or solid. It was completely flat and featureless, quite free from the myriad cracks and fissures that scarred all the rest of this barren world. Not a single hillock, boulder, or pebble broke its monotonous uniformity. No sea on Earth--no millpond, even--was ever as calm as this. It was a sea of dust, not of water, and therefore it was alien to all the experience of men; therefore, also, it fascinated and attracted them. Fine as talcum powder, drier in this vacuum than the parched sands of the Sahara, it flowed as easily and effortlessly as any liquid. A heavy object dropped into it would disappear instantly, without a splash, leaving no scar to mark its passage. Nothing could move upon its treacherous surface except the small, two-man dust-skis--and Selene herself, an improbable combination of sledge and bus, not unlike the Sno-cats that had opened up the Antarctic a lifetime ago.

Selene's official designation was Dust-Cruiser, Mark I, though to the best of Pat's knowledge, a Mark II did not exist even on the drawing board. She was called "ship," "boat," or "moon bus," according to taste; Pat preferred "boat," for it prevented confusion. When he used that word, no one would mistake him for the skipper of a spaceship--and spaceship captains were, of course, two a penny.

"Welcome aboard Selene," said Miss Wilkins, when everyone had settled down. "Captain Harris and I are pleased to have you with us. Our trip will last four hours, and our first objective will be Crater Lake, a hundred kilometers east of here, in the Mountains of Inaccessibility Pat scarcely heard the familiar introduction; he was busy with his count-down. Selene was virtually a grounded spaceship; she had to be, since she was traveling in a vacuum, and must protect her frail cargo from the hostile world beyond her walls. Though she never left the surface of the Moon, and was propelled by electric motors instead of rockets, she carried all the basic equipment of a full-fledged ship of space-- and all of it had to be checked before departure.

Oxygen--O.K. Power--O.K. Radio--O.K. ("Hello, Rainbow Base, Selene testing. Are you receiving my

beacon?") Inertial navigator--zeroed. Air-lock safety--On. Cabin-leak detector--O.K. Internal lights--O.K.  Gangway--disconnected. And so on for more than fifty items, every one of which would automatically call attention to itself in case of trouble. But Pat Harris, like all spacemen hankering after old age, never relied on autowarnings if he could carry out the check himself.

At last he was ready. The almost silent motors started to spin, but the blades were still feathered, and Selene barely quivered at her moorings. Then he eased the port fan into fine pitch, and she began to curve slowly to the right. When she was clear of the embarkation building, he straightened her out and pushed the throttle forward.

She handled very well, when one considered the complete novelty of her design. There had been no millennia of trial and error here, stretching back to the first neolithic man who ever launched a log out into a stream. Selene was the very first of her line, created in the brains of a few engineers who had sat down at a table and asked themselves: "How do we build a vehicle that will skim over a sea of dust?"

Some of them, harking back to Ole Man River, had wanted to make her a stern-wheeler, but the more efficient submerged fans had carried the day. As they drilled through the dust, driving her before them, they produced a wake like that of a high-speed mole, but it vanished within seconds, leaving the Sea unmarked by any sign of the boat's passage.

Now the squat pressure-domes of Port Roris were dropping swiftly below the sky line. In less than ten  minutes, they had vanished from sight: Selene was utterly alone. She was at the center of something for which the languages of mankind have no name.

As Pat switched off the motors and the boat coasted to rest, he waited for the silence to grow around him. It was always the same; it took a little while for the passengers to realize the strangeness of what lay outside. They had crossed space and seen stars all about them; they had looked up--or down--at the dazzling face of Earth, but this was different. It was neither land nor sea, neither air nor space, but a little of each.

Chapter 24

Chief Engineer Lawrence was standing on the edge of the raft, his space-suited figure braced against the small crane that had been swung over the side. Hanging from the jib was a large concrete cylinder, open at both ends--the first section of the tube that was now being lowered into the dust.

"After a lot of thought," said Lawrence for the benefit of that distant camera, but, above all, for the benefit of the men and women fifteen meters beneath him, "we've decided that this is the best way to tackle the problem. This cylinder is called a caisson"--he pronounced it "kasoon"--"and it will sink easily under its own weight. The sharp lower edge will cut through the dust like a knife through butter.

"We have enough sections to reach the cruiser. When we've made contact, and the tube is sealed at the bottom--its pressure against the roof will ensure that--we'll start scooping out the dust. As soon as that's done, we'll have an open shaft, like a small well, right down to Selene.

"That will be half the battle, but only half. Then we'll have to connect the shaft to one of our pressurized igloos, so that when we cut through the cruiser's roof there's no loss of air. But I think--I hope--that these are fairly straightforward problems."

He paused for a minute, wondering if he should touch on any of the other details that made this operation so much trickier than it looked. Then he decided not to; those who understood could see with their own eyes, and the others would not be interested, or would think he was boasting. This blaze of publicity (about half a billion people were watching, so the Tourist Commissioner had reported) did not worry him so long as things went well. But if they did not . . . .

He raised his arm and signaled to the crane operator.

"Lower away!"

Slowly, the cylinder settled into the dust until its full four-meter length had vanished, except for a narrow ring just protruding above the surface. It had gone down smoothly and easily. Lawrence hoped that the remaining sections would be equally obliging. One of the engineers was carefully going along the rim of the caisson with a spirit level, to check that it was sinking vertically. Presently he gave the thumbs-up signal, which Lawrence acknowledged in the same manner. There had been a time when, like any regular spacehog, he could carry out an extended and fairly technical conversation by sign-language alone. This was an essential skill of the trade, for radio sometimes failed and there were occasions when one did not wish to clutter up the limited number of channels available.

"Ready for Number Two!" he said.

This would be tricky. The first section had to be held rigid while the second was bolted to it without altering the alignment. One really needed two cranes for this job, but a framework of I-beams, supported a few centimeters above the surface of the dust, could carry the load when the crane was otherwise engaged. No mistakes now, for God's sake! he breathed silently. Number-two section swung off the sledge that had brought it from Port Roris, and three of the technicians manhandled it into the vertical. This was the  sort of job where the distinction between weight and mass was vital. That swinging cylinder weighed relatively little, but its momentum was the same as it would be on Earth, and it could pulp a man if it managed to trap him on one of those sluggish oscillations. And that was something else peculiar to the Moon--the slow-motion movement of this suspended mass. In this gravity, a pendulum took two-and-a-half times as long to complete its cycle as it would on Earth. This was something that never looked quite right, except to a man who had been born here.

Now the second section was upended and mated to the first one. They were clamped together, and once again Lawrence gave the order to lower away. The resistance of the dust was increasing, but the caisson continued to sink smoothly under its own weight.

"Eight meters gone," said Lawrence. "That means we're just past the halfway mark. Number-three section coming up."

After this, there would only be one more, though Lawrence had provided a spare section, just in case. He had a hearty respect for the Sea's ability to swallow equipment. So far, only a few nuts and bolts had been lost, but if that piece of caisson slipped from the hook, it would be gone in a flash. Though it might not sink far, especially if it hit the dust broadside on, it would be effectively out of reach even if it was only a couple of meters down. They had no time to waste salvaging their own salvage gear.

There went number three, its last section moving with almost imperceptible slowness. But it was still moving; in a few minutes, with any luck at all, they would be knocking on the cruiser's roof.

"Twelve meters down," said Lawrence. "We're only three meters above you now, Selene. You should be able to hear us at any minute."

Indeed they could, and the sound was wonderfully reassuring. More than ten minutes ago Hansteen had noticed the vibration of the oxygen inlet pipe as the caisson scraped against it. You could tell when it stopped, and when it started moving again. There was that vibration once more, accompanied this time by a delicate shower of dust from the roof. The two air pipes had now been drawn up so that about twenty centimeters of their lengths projected through the ceiling, and the quickdrying cement which was part of the emergency kit of all space vehicles had been smoothed around their points of entry. It seemed to be working loose, but that impalpable rain of dust was far too slight to cause alarm. Nevertheless, Hansteen thought that he had better mention it to the skipper, who might not have noticed.

"Funny," said Pat, looking up at the projecting pipe. "That cement should hold, even if the pipe is vibrating."

He climbed up on a seat, and examined the air pipe more closely. For a moment he said nothing; then he stepped down, looking puzzled and annoyed--and more  than a little worried.

"What's the trouble?" Hansteen asked quietly. He knew Pat well enough now to read his face like an open book.

"That pipe's pulling up through the roof," he said. "Someone up on the raft's being mighty careless. It's shortened by at least a centimeter, since I fixed that plaster." Then Pat stopped, suddenly aghast. "My God," he whispered, "suppose it's our own fault, suppose we're still sinking."

"What if we are?" said the Commodore, quite calmly.

"You'd expect the dust to continue settling beneath our weight. That doesn't mean we're in danger. Judging by that pipe, we've gone down one centimeter in twenty-four hours. They can always give us some more tubing if we need it."

Pat laughed a little shamefacedly.

"Of course--that's the answer. I should have thought of it before. We've probably been sinking slowly all the time, but this is the first chance we've had to prove it. Still, I'd better report to Mr. Lawrence--it may affect his calculations."

Pat started to walk toward the front of the cabin; but he never made it.

Chapter 25

It had taken Nature a million years to set the trap that had snared Selene and dragged her down into the Sea of Thirst. The second time, she was caught in a trap that she had made herself.

Because her designers had no need to watch every gram of excess weight, or plan for journeys lasting more than a few hours, they had never equipped Selene with those ingenious but unadvertised arrangements whereby spaceships recycle all their water supply. She did not have to conserve her resources in the miserly manner of deep-space vehicles; the small amount of water normally used and produced aboard, she simply dumped. Over the past five days, several hundred kilos of liquid and vapor had left Selene, to be instantly absorbed by the thirsty dust. Many hours ago, the dust in the immediate neighborhood of the waste vents had become saturated and had turned into mud. Dripping downward through scores of channels, it had honeycombed the surrounding Sea. Silently, patiently, the cruiser had been washing away her own foundations. The gentle nudge of the approaching caisson had done the rest.

Up on the raft, the first intimation of disaster was the flashing of the red warning light on the air purifier, synchronized with the howling of a radio klaxon across all the space-suit wave bands. The howl ceased almost immediately, as the technician in charge punched the cutoff button, but the red light continued to flash. A glance at the dials was enough to show Lawrence the trouble. The air pipes--both of them--were no longer connected to Selene. The purifier was pumping oxygen into the Sea through one pipe and, worse still, sucking in dust through the other. Lawrence wondered how long it would take to clean out the filters, but wasted no further time upon that thought. He was too busy calling Selene.

There was no answer. He tried all the cruiser's frequencies, without receiving even a whisper of a carrier wave. The Sea of Thirst was as silent to radio as it was to sound.

They're finished, he said to himself; it's all over. It was a near thing, but we just couldn't make it. And all we needed was another hour.

What could have happened? he thought dully. Perhaps the hull had collapsed under the weight of the dust. No--that was very unlikely; the internal air pressure would have prevented that. It must have been another subsidence. He was not sure, but he thought that there had been a slight tremor underfoot. From the beginning he had been aware of this danger, but could see no way of guarding against it. This was a gamble they had all taken, and Selene had lost.

Rozhovor

Každá postava má specifický charakter, který se projevuje v jejích promluvách a je v celé knize nebo sérii konzistentní. Dobrým příkladem může být klasická britská detektivka!

Kolik postav vystupuje v následující ukázce? Jak se liší jejich promluvy?


Agatha Christie - MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS

Chapter 5
THE CRIME
Pirot found it difficult to go to sleep again at once. For one thing he missed the
motion of the train. If it was a station outside, it was curiously quiet. By contrast
the noises on the train seemed unusually loud. He could hear Ratchett moving
about next door—a click as he pulled down the washbasin, the sound of the tap
running, a splashing noise, then another click as the basin shut to again. Footsteps
passed up the corridor outside, the shuffling footsteps of someone in bedroom
slippers.
Hercule Poirot lay awake staring at the ceiling. Why was the station outside so
silent? His throat felt dry. He had forgotten to ask for his usual bottle of mineral
water. He looked at his watch again. Just after a quarter past one. He would ring
for the conductor and ask for some mineral water. His finger went out to the bell,
but he paused as in the stillness he heard a ting. The man couldn’t answer every
bell at once.
Ting. ... Ting. ... Ting. ...
It sounded again and again. Where was the man? Somebody was getting
impatient.
Ti-i-i-ing!
Whoever it was, was keeping a finger solidly on the push-button.
Suddenly with a rush, his footsteps echoing up the aisle, the man came. He
knocked at a door not far from Poirot’s own.
Then came voices—the conductor’s, deferential, apologetic; and a woman’s,
insistent and voluble.
Mrs. Hubbard!
Poirot smiled to himself.
The altercation—if it was one—went on for some time. Its proportions were
ninety per cent of Mrs. Hubbard’s to a soothing ten per cent of the conductor’s.
Finally the matter seemed to be adjusted. Poirot heard distinctly a “Bonne nuit,
Madame,” and a closing door.
He pressed his own finger on the bell.
The conductor arrived promptly. He looked hot and worried.
“De l’eau minérale, s’il vous Plaît.”
“Bien, Monsieur.” Perhaps a twinkle in Poirot’s eye led him to unburden
himself. “La dame américaine—”
“Yes?”
He wiped his forehead. “Imagine to yourself the time I have had with her! She
insists—but insists—that there is a man in her compartment! Figure to yourself,
Monsieur. In a space of this size.” He swept a hand round. “Where would he
conceal himself? I argue with her. I point out that it is impossible. She insists. She
woke up, and there was a man there. And how, I ask, did he get out and leave the
door bolted behind him? But she will not listen to reason. As though there were not
enough to worry us already. This snow—”
“Snow?”
“But yes, Monsieur. Monsieur has not noticed? The train has stopped. We have
run into a snowdrift. Heaven knows how long we shall be here. I remember once
being snowed up for seven days.”
“Where are we?”
“Between Vincovci and Brod.”
“Là-là,” said Poirot vexedly.
The man withdrew and returned with the water.
“Bon soir, Monsieur.”
Poirot drank a glass of water and composed himself to sleep.
He was just dropping off when something again woke him. This time it was as
though something heavy had fallen with a thud against the door.
He sprang up, opened it and looked out. Nothing. But to his right, some distance
down the corridor, a woman wrapped in a scarlet kimono was retreating from him.
At the other end, sitting on his little seat, the conductor was entering up figures on
large sheets of paper. Everything was deathly quiet.
“Decidedly I suffer from the nerves,” said Poirot and retired to bed again. This
time he slept till morning.
When he awoke the train was still at a standstill. He raised a blind and looked
out. Heavy banks of snow surrounded the train.
He glanced at his watch and saw that it was past nine o’clock.
At a quarter to ten, neat, spruce and dandified as ever, he made his way to the
restaurant car, where a chorus of woe was going on.
Any barriers there might have been between the passengers had now quite
broken down. All were united by a common misfortune. Mrs. Hubbard was loudest
in her lamentations.
“My daughter said it would be the easiest way in the world. Just sit in the train
until I got to Parrus. And now we may be here for days and days,” she wailed.
“And my boat sails day after to-morrow. How am I going to catch it now? Why, I
can’t even wire to cancel my passage. I’m just too mad to talk about it!”
The Italian said that he had urgent business himself in Milan. The large
American said that that was “too bad, Ma’am,” and soothingly expressed a hope
that the train might make up time.
“My sister—her children wait me,” said the Swedish lady, and wept. “I get no
word to them. What they think? They will say bad things have happen to me.”
“How long shall we be here?” demanded Mary Debenham. “Doesn’t anybody
know?”
Her voice sounded impatient, but Poirot noted that there were no signs of that
almost feverish anxiety which she had displayed during the check to the Taurus
Express.
Mrs. Hubbard was off again.
“There isn’t anybody knows a thing on this train. And nobody’s trying to do
anything. Just a pack of useless foreigners. Why, if this were at home, there’d be
someone at least trying to do something!”
Arbuthnot turned to Poirot and spoke in careful British French.
“Vous êtes un directeur de la ligne, je crois, Monsieur. Vous pouvez nous dire—
”
Smiling, Poirot corrected him.
“No, no,” he said in English. “It is not I. You confound me with my friend, M.
Bouc.”
“Oh, I’m sorry”
“Not at all. It is most natural. I am now in the compartment that he had
formerly.”
M. Bouc was not present in the restaurant car. Poirot looked about to notice who
else was absent.
Princess Dragomiroff was missing, and the Hungarian couple. Also Ratchett, his
valet, and the German lady’s-maid.
The Swedish lady wiped her eyes.
“I am foolish,” she said. “I am bad to cry. All is for the best, whatever happen.”
This Christian spirit, however, was far from being shared.
“That’s all very well,” said MacQueen restlessly. “We may be here for days.”
“What is this country anyway?” demanded Mrs. Hubbard tearfully.
On being told it was Jugo-Slavia, she said: “Oh! one of these Balkan things.
What can you expect?”
“You are the only patient one, Mademoiselle,” said Poirot to Miss Debenham.
She shrugged her shoulders slightly. “What can one do?”
“You are a philosopher, Mademoiselle.”
“That implies a detached attitude. I think my attitude is more selfish. I have
learned to save myself useless emotion.”
She was speaking more to herself than to him. She was not even looking at him.
Her gaze went past him, out of the window to where the snow lay in heavy masses.
“You are a strong character, Mademoiselle,” said Poirot gently. “You are, I
think, the strongest character amongst us.”
“Oh! no. No, indeed. I know one far, far stronger than I am.”
“And that is—?”
She seemed suddenly to come to herself, to realise that she was talking to a
stranger and foreigner, with whom, until this morning, she had exchanged only half
a dozen sentences.
She laughed, a polite but estranging laugh.
“Well—that old lady, for instance. You have probably noticed her. A very ugly
old lady but rather fascinating. She has only to lift a little finger and ask for
something in a polite voice—and the whole train runs.”
“It runs also for my friend M. Bouc,” said Poirot. “But that is because he is a
director of the line, not because he has a strong character.”
Mary Debenham smiled.
The morning wore away. Several people, Poirot amongst them, remained in the
dining-car. The communal life was felt, at the moment, to pass the time better. He
heard a good deal more about Mrs. Hubbard’s daughter, and he heard the lifelong
habits of Mr. Hubbard, deceased, from his rising in the morning and commencing
breakfast with a cereal to his final rest at night in the bed-socks that Mrs. Hubbard
herself had been in the habit of knitting for him.
It was when he was listening to a confused account of the missionary aims of the
Swedish lady that one of the Wagon Lit conductors came into the car and stood at
his elbow.
“Pardon, Monsieur.”
“Yes?”
“The compliments of M. Bouc, and he would be glad if you would be so kind as
to come to him for a few minutes.”
Poirot rose, uttered excuses to the Swedish lady and followed the man out of the
dining-car. It was not his own conductor, but a big fair man.
He followed his guide down the corridor of his own carriage and along the
corridor of the next one. The man tapped at a door, then stood aside to let Poirot
enter.
The compartment was not M. Bouc’s own. It was a second-class one—chosen
presumably because of its slightly larger size. It certainly gave the impression of
being crowded.
M. Bouc himself was sitting on the small seat in the opposite corner. In the
corner next the window, facing him, was a small dark man looking out at the snow.
Standing up and quite preventing Poirot from advancing any farther were a big
man in blue uniform (the chef de train) and his own Wagon Lit conductor.
“Ah! my good friend,” cried M. Bouc. “Come in. We have need of you.”
The little man in the window shifted along the seat, and Poirot squeezed past:
the other two men and sat down facing his friend.
The expression on M. Bouc’s face gave him, as he would have expressed it,
furiously to think. It was clear that something out of the common had happened.
“What has occurred?” he asked.
“You may well ask that. First this snow-this stoppage. And now—”
He paused—and a sort of strangled gasp came from the Wagon Lit conductor.
“And now what?”
“And now a passenger lies dead in his berth—stabbed.”
M. Bouc spoke with a kind of calm desperation.
“A passenger? Which passenger?”
“An American. A man called—called—” he consulted some notes in front of
him. “Ratchett. That is right—Ratchett?”
“Yes, Monsieur,” the Wagon Lit man gulped.
Poirot looked at him. He was as white as chalk.
“You had better let that man sit down,” he said. “He may faint otherwise.”
The chef de train moved slightly and the Wagon Lit man sank down in the
corner and buried his face in his hands.
“Brr!” said Poirot. “This is serious!”
“Certainly it is serious. To begin with, a murder—that in itself is a calamity of
the first water. But not only that, the circumstances are unusual. Here we are,
brought to a standstill. We may be here for hours—and not only hours—days!
Another circumstance—passing through most countries we have the police of that
country on the train. But in Jugo-Slavia, no. You comprehend?”
“It is a position of great difficulty,” said Poirot.
“There is worse to come. Dr. Constantine—I forgot, I have not introduced you.
Dr. Constantine, M. Poirot.”
The little dark man bowed, and Poirot returned the bow.
“Dr. Constantine is of the opinion that death occurred at about 1 A.M.”
“It is difficult to speak exactly in these matters,” said the doctor, “but I think I
can say definitely that death occurred between midnight and two in the morning.”
“When was this M. Ratchett last seen alive?” asked Poirot.
“He is known to have been alive at about twenty minutes to one, when he spoke
to the conductor,” said M. Bouc.
“That is quite correct,” said Poirot. “I myself heard what passed. That is the last
thing known?”
“Yes.”
Poirot turned toward the doctor, who continued.
“The window of M. Ratchett’s compartment was found wide open, leading one
to suppose that the murderer escaped that way. But in my opinion that open
window is a blind. Anyone departing that way would have left distinct traces in the
snow. There were none.”
“The crime was discovered—when?” asked Poirot.
“Michel!”
The Wagon Lit conductor sat up. His face still looked pale and frightened.
“Tell this gentleman exactly what occurred,” ordered M. Bouc.
The man spoke somewhat jerkily.
“The valet of this M. Ratchett, he tapped several times at the door this morning.
There was no answer. Then, half an hour ago, the restaurant car attendant came. He
wanted to know if Monsieur was taking déjeuner. It was eleven o’clock, you
comprehend.
“I open the door for him with my key. But there is a chain, too, and that is
fastened. There is no answer and it is very still in there, and cold—but cold. With
the window open and snow drifting in. I thought the gentleman had had a fit,
perhaps. I got the chef de train. We broke the chain and went in. He was—Ah!
c’était terrible!”
He buried his face in his hands again.
“as not suicide—eh?”
The Greek doctor gave a sardonic laugh. “Does a man who commits suicide stab
himself in ten—twelve—fifteen places?” he asked.
Poirot’s eyes opened. “That is great ferocity,” he said.
“It is a woman,” said the chef de train, speaking for the first time. “Depend upon
it, it was a woman. Only a woman would stab like that.”
Dr. Constantine screwed up his face thoughtfully.
“She must have been a very strong woman,” he said. “It is not my desire to
speak technically—that is only confusing; but I can assure you that one or two of
the blows were delivered with such force as to drive them through hard belts of
bone and muscle.”
“It was clearly not a scientific crime,” said Poirot.

Obyčejný text

________________________________________________________________

Michael Crichton – Jurassic park 2

The Lost World Hypothesis

The lecture ended, Malcolm hobbled across the open courtyard of the Institute, shortly after noon. Walking beside him was Sarah Harding, a young field biologist visiting from Africa. Malcolm had known her for several years, since he had been asked to serve as an Outside reader for her doctoral thesis at Berkeley.

Crossing the courtyard in the hot summer sun, they made an unlikely pair: Malcolm dressed in black, stooped and ascetic, leaning on his cane; Harding compact and muscular, looking young and energetic in shorts and a tee shirt, her short black hair pushed up on her forehead with sunglasses. Her field of study was African predators, lions and hyenias. She was scheduled to return to Nairobi the next day. The two had been close since Malcolm's surgery. Harding had been on a sabbatical year in Austin, and had helped nurse Malcolm back to health, after his many operations. For a while it seemed as if a romance had blossomed, and that Malcolm, a confirmed bachelor, would settle down. But then Harding had gone back to Africa, and Malcolm had gone to Santa Fe. Whatever their former relationship had been, they were now just friends.

They discussed the questions that had come at the end of his lecture. From Malcolm's point of view, there had been only the predictable objections: that mass extinctions were important; that human beings owed their existence to the Cretaceous extinction, which had wiped out the dinosaurs and allowed the mammals to take over. As one questioner had pompously phrased it, "The Cretaceous allowed our own sentient awareness to arise on the planet."

Malcom's reply was immediate: "What makes you think human beings are sentient and aware? There's no evidence for it. Human beings never think for themselves they find it too uncomfortable. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told -and become upset if they are exposed to any different view. The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity, and the characteristic result is religious warfare. Other animals fight for territory or food; but, uniquely in the animal kingdom, human beings fight for their 'beliefs.' The reason is that beliefs guide behavior, which has evolutionary importance among human beings. But at a time when our behavior may, well lead us to extinction, I see no reason to assume we have any awareness at all. We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists. Any other view of our species is just a self-congratulatory delusion. Next question."

1. Přečtěte si celou ukázku, nechte na sebe působit autorův styl a rytmus řeči. Zjistěte si něco víc o autorovi a jeho díle.
2. Identifikujte možné překladatelské problémy, vyhledejte neznámá klíčová slova.
3. Přeložte obě části textu vyznačenou tučně a překlad vložte do komentáře k tomuto blogu. 
Termín: pondělí 3.10.2016 8:00

Závěrečný projekt

Překládání krátkých úryvků je často náročnější než přeložit celý román - pokaždé se musíme znovu seznamovat s pozadím díla, osvojovat si nový autorský styl... V posledním projektu tohoto semestru se proto zaměříme na jediný text, krátkou povídku Raye Braburyho, a přeložíme ji celou.

1. V capse ve složce Bradbury najdete texty dvou povídek: Lafyette, farewell a By the numbers! Přečtěte si obě a rozhodněte se, kterou chcete překládat.
2. Rozhodněte se také, zda chcete pracovat samostatně nebo ve dvojici; v druhém případě se domluvte s partnerem.
3. Přečtete si povídku znovu, vnímejte, jak na vás text působí a proč.
4. Jaké stylistické prostředky autor nejčastěji používá?
5. Vědomě registrujte absolutní úspornost vyjadřování autora. Čím kratší povídka, tím víc záleží na každém slovu.

Začněte překládat. Výsledná podoba v češtině by měl a na čtenáře působit stejně jako anglický originál. Překlad prvních dvou stránek vlože do komentáře k tomuto blogu v obvyklém termínu.

Celý text se do blogu nevejde! Konečnou podobu budete posílat emailem na mou adresu.

Good luck!

Hallelujah - domácí práce

Tentokrát budeme méně překládat a více tvořit.
Pří překladech písňových textů totiž nejde o přesné převedení obsahu textu - záleží spíš na tom, aby byl text zpívatelný, tedy aby se shodovaly hudební a jazykové přízvuky a délky. Logické také je, když text sděluje stejné emoce jako hudba (ovšem existují i parodie, které využívají právě kontrastu).

Tvorba písňového textu je často velmi emotivní a intuitivní, vždyť převádíme do slov myšlenky a pocity, které bychom jinak nahlas možná nikdy nevyslovili. Proto tento úkol nemá obvyklý striktní termín odevzdání. Publikujte zde svůj text ve chvíli, kdy s ním budete spokojeni - nejpozději do zápočtového týdne.


Leonard Cohen - Hallelujah

1. Poslechněte si živou nahrávku v podání autora (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrLk4vdY28Q)
2. Nastudujte si víc o historii vzniku a rozšíření písně, poslechněte si další verze.
3. Tady se můžete podívat na využití písně Hallelujah ve filmu - ne, NENÍ to Shrek! (v české dabované verzi už píseň nenajdete - producent zřejmě zakoupil autorská práva jen pro nedabovanou zvukovou stopu).
4. Trochu přemýšlejte a trochu mapujte své pocity. Uvažujte, jakou myšlenku, asociaci, emoci byste do textu rádi vložili.
5. Napište nový text na dvě sloky. Refrén neměňte.
6. Odložte svůj text alespoň na týden a pak se k němu vraťte. Zkuste si ho zazpívat, sledujte, zda skutečně předává obsah a pocity, které jste do něj chtěli vložit.

_________________________________________________________________

More about the history of the song at http://www.rsrevision.com/hallelujah.htm

Leonard Cohen, Hallelujah (1984, Various Positions)

Now I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Chorus

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Chorus

You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

Chorus

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

Chorus

Leonard Cohen, Hallelujah (1988, released on Cohen Live, 1994)

Baby, I've been here before.
I know this room, I've walked this floor.
I used to live alone before I knew ya.
Yeah I've seen your flag on the marble arch,
But listen, love is not some kind of victory march,
No it's a cold and it's a very broken Hallelujah.

Chorus

There was a time you let me know
What's really going on below,
Ah but now you never show it to me, do ya?
Yeah but I remember, yeah when I moved in you,
And the holy dove, she was moving too,
Yes every single breath that we drew was Hallelujah.

Chorus

Maybe there's a god above,
As for me, all I've ever seemed to learn from love
Is how to shoot at someone who outdrew ya.
Yeah but it's not a complaint that you hear tonight,
It's not the laughter of someone who claims to have seen the light
No it's a cold and it's a very lonely Hallelujah.

Chorus

I did my best, it wasn't much.
I couldn't feel, so I learned to touch.
I've told the truth, I didn't come all this way to fool ya.
Yeah even though it all went wrong
I'll stand right here before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

Chorus