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John Gardner's "Grendel"

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Boro_Bandito:

--- Quote from: KharBevNor on 18 Dec 2007, 19:54 ---I already went over the 13th Warrior thing.

And please, barbarian savages? Actually, that's an interesting little historical point on the vikings. Ibn Fadlans largely responsible for the idea that the Vikings had pure hygeine. He actually calls them unclean because they wash and eat with the same hand and share their wash basins. Bathing every morning was a pretty high standard of cleanliness in the 9th century.

--- End quote ---

That was meant to be his point of view, should have put it in quotation marks. And you weren't really all too clear on saying that Ibn Fadlan was a historical figure, so I figured I would just make that a bit more crystal.

saeedrah:
Hi dear fellow lovers of Grendel

I recently embarked on the difficult task of translating Grendel into my language, Persian. And I hoped some native speakers could help me with my issues and questions. For now, I've translated the first chapter of the book and I'm gonna go ahead and give a list of the parts I couldn't clearly understand. so here we go:

* . I shake my head, muttering darkly on shaded paths
can u paraphrase this, what does darkly mean here?

* I am aware in my chest of tuberstirrings in the blacksweet duff of the forest overhead
- does it mean black in color and sweet in taste? and duff, it's rotten vegetables, right?

* I swim up through the firesnakes, hot dark whalecocks prowling the luminous green of the mere
- firesnake is a fictional creature, right? can it be translated into "Fiery Snakes"? Also I don't get the whalecock part, does he really mean the cock of whales, like prowling for sth to fuck?

* Space hurls outward, falconswift, mounting like an irreversible injustice, a final disease.
- can you describe the scene here? I don't get it clearly.

* I stand there shaking from head to foot, moved to the deep-sea depths of my being, like a creature thrown into audience with thunder
- a description of this scene would also help

* mute birds, pulsating, thoughtless clay in hushed old trees, thick limbs interlocked to seal drab secrets in.
- I also can't get this imagery in it's wholeness, please describe it for me if u can

A few little lizard tongues, then healthy flames: lizard tongues? wtf? healthy?
my pale slightly glowing fat mother: she's like glowing, as a monsterish thing?
steaming grass: I'm almost sure about this, but it doesn't bother to ask. it's like steam is coming out of the grass, right?
wolfslopes: i translated it into the slope of wolves
I stand in the high wind balanced: does it mean the wind blown on high cliffs or what?
cackle: laugh? right?
turning like falcons at warplay: what can i translate warplay into? a playful war maybe? or a warlike game?

thx in adv dear fellow literature loves

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