From one of France's most famous novelists, this story of lost love set in 1960s Paris is richly translated, with an afterword by Douglas Hofstadter. Set in high-society Paris in the mid-1960s, "That Mad Ache" recounts the intense battle unleashed in the heart of Lucile, a sensitive but immature young woman, when she finds herself caught between her carefree, tranquil love for fifty-year-old Charles, a gentle, reflective and well-off banker, and her impetuous passion for thirty-year-old Antoine, a hot-blooded, impulsive and struggling publisher. She goes back and forth but in the end must choose, and the way her heart carries her is both unsettling and poignant. Like her best-selling work "Bonjour Tristesse", Francoise Sagan's subtly explores many of the same philosophical questions raised by her contemporaries, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Douglas Hofstadter's lively essay on the art of translation, his most extended essay on the subject in fifteen years, describes the subtle traps he encountered at every turn, such as the difficulty of making chic Parisians speak fluent, Standard English. Hofstadter fans and Sagan lovers alike will adore this intimate portrayal of the art of translation.
That Mad Ache: A Novel/Translator, Trader: An Essay
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"a compulsive read for us Francophiles of a romantic disposition. Paris itself has never seemed so gloriously enticing - you'll be booking on to Eurostar for a bargain break before you've reached the last page."
-- The Daily Mail, Friday 10 July 2009
-- The Daily Mail, Friday 10 July 2009
About the Author
Francoise Sagan - nee Francoise Quoirez - (1935-2004) was most famous for her first novel, Bonjour Tristesse (1954), an international bestseller that made her, at 19, the youngest author to that point ever to reach number 1 on the New York Times bestseller list. Her work represents one of the purest and most finely drawn expressions of her postwar generation's cynicism and rebelliousness. Douglas R. Hofstadter, is the author of Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, Le Ton beau de Marot, and most recently I Am a Strange Loop. His translation of the Pushkin's Eugene Onegin: A Novel in Verse was published in 1999. He is currently a Professor of Cognitive Science and Computer Science at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
By Snow White
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I highly recommend reading this book! It certainly deserves a place in any bookshelf.
Skilfully translated, it maintains Sagan's style and beautiful descriptive manner.
Skilfully translated, it maintains Sagan's style and beautiful descriptive manner.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.2 out of 5 stars
5 reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Prose poetry
6 Aug 2009
By Rosalie Maggio
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
To luxuriate in lovely language, to visit another time, another place, another mindset, check out this new translation of "La Chamade." Lucile is a one-of-a-kind character, but Sagan's writing, and Hofstadter's translation, make her accessible even to those of us who couldn't imagine, on our own, living the type of life she leads. Like the end of a good mystery, her final choice is at once surprising and predictable. A good read. (Almost as interesting is the appended 100-page essay on the art of translation.)
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
unworthy translation
18 April 2010
By Kathleen Cornell
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
The beautiful french novel La Chamade, universally acknowledged as one of Sagan's best, suffers tremendously in this funky, inadequate translation. Even the English title delightedly concocted by the translator (see his rationale in the book's accompanying essay) is ill-conceived. Mr. Hofstadter has Pulitzer credentials and a professed love of the original. But in my opinion, he fails to capture the essential subtlety in the characters, the sophisticated sensibilities of the narrative, and the mesmerizing original prose. I agree with many of his opinions regarding the various roles of a translator, but I wish he had had the courage to recognize that in this case they do not justify the publication of his very personal exercise, and left it to remain unpublished. The R. Westhoff version (E.P.Dutton, 1966) is far superior, and I hope readers choose to search for this as their bridge to the wonderful mind of Ms. Sagan.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hofstadter is such an awesome thinker/writer
15 April 2010
By Jason Rennie
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
This is really two books in one. "That Mad Ache" was originally written in French by Sagan and is translated here by Hofstadter. "Translator, Trader" is an essay Hofstadter wrote about translation while translating the Sagan work. The essay is a masterpiece. Some would have you believe that translation is a craft---dictionary lookup plus application of grammar rules to rewrite one set of words into another. Hofstadter delves into the reason why this belief is wrong. There are a number of paradoxes in translation and trying to stay too true to the original text leaves you with a "translation" which no master of the destination language would ever write. Hofstadter properly views translation as moving from text to ideas and then back to text. So, in many cases, he "adds" and/or "removes" text which might cause another translator's jaw to drop. But, when reading "That Mad Ache", I find the text to be something an excellent (American) English writer might writer rather than an obvious "translation." I haven't fully read "That Mad Ache" yet, but my wife loved it. It's essentially a classic story of a lady deciding between a wealthy, elderly gentleman and a young, dynamic stud. The main character is greedy in her relationship decisions, but the view from her soul that Sagan/Hofstadter provides does not feel this way as you read it---she is human and sincere and she struggles with decisions as we all do.
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4.2 out of 5 stars
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