"Les vibrations exacerbées de la vie"
English translation: the exacerbated vicissitudes of life
| 20:26 Jul 7, 2012 |
| French to English translations [PRO] Art/Literary - Poetry & Literature | |||||||
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|  Selected response from: cc in nyc Local time: 21:39 | ||||||
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| Discussion entries: 5 | |
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Answers
51 mins confidence: 
peer agreement (net): +1
peer agreement (net): +1...replace the heightened tremors of life Explanation: I feel like this is more about a life wearing you down kind of thing, as in the effect time and life can have on your body (looking old before you are supposed to). His body is degrading at an insane pace, and the different - but just as meaningful - change to his face reflects all of this all the more. -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 53 mins (2012-07-07 21:19:52 GMT) -------------------------------------------------- You could possibly replace "tremors" with "quivers", but I like "tremors" best. |
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1 hr confidence:
Life's exacerbating hard knocks/beatings Explanation: suggestion vibrations = beatings |
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1 hr confidence:
the increasingly wild pulsations of life Explanation: my suggestion |
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4 hrs confidence:
"the pulsations of life pushed to the edge" Explanation: "[Sa silhouette de jour en jour s'exténuait, s'amincissait,] mais le visage vivait terriblement, d'une espèce d'éveil lugubre et mécanique où l'esprit ne prenait aucune part, tous les traits devenus étrangement, involontairement contractiles dans leur immobilité tendue de plante sensitive, comme s'ils n'eussent servi qu'à amplifier, qu'à remplacer les vibrations exacerbées de la vie ."" …but his face kept a terrifying life of its own, a kind of gloomy and robotic awakening devoid of any spirituality, having become prone to strange, uncontrollable twitching in its tense immobility of a fragile plant, as if its traits were there only to be a reflecting mirror, a replacement for the pulsations of life pushed to the edge. |
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4 hrs confidence: peer agreement (net): +1
peer agreement (net): +1| les vibrations exacerbées de la vie the exacerbated vicissitudes of life Explanation: Or "life's exacerbated vicissitudes." This definition of "vicissitudes" (from the online dictionary) seems to fit fairly well: vicissitudes, successive, alternating, or changing phases or conditions, as of life or fortune; ups and downs: They remained friends through the vicissitudes of 40 years. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/vicissitude?s=t |
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5 hrs confidence: peer agreement (net): +1
peer agreement (net): +1the heightened buzz of life Explanation: I think buzz works for both a literal vibration (cf. the tic?) and a metaphorical high (especially apt for drug use). Example sentence(s):
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14 hrs confidence:
[his] life whirring out of control Explanation: I understand the "vibrations exacerbées" as about his life running out at excessive speed - lost, undirected energy. Whirring rather than vibrations seems to work in English. |
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42 mins confidence:
vibrations = pulse / heartbeat Explanation: Figuratively speaking, of course, and I imagine the imagery can stretch to cover many other representations of Life, but my guess is this is the immediate association the writer is pointing at. The man's body has become a lifeless shell, a heap of skin and bones, but his face is "horribly alive", his suffering written all over, convulsing and twitching uncontrollably from the effects of the disease (probably also drugs); the constant twitching and contractions are the only sign he is still alive, and so they have metaphorically replaced his heartbeat/pulse, which is the "conventional" proof of life. Exarcerbées means that he has pushed himself - his life - to the limit, there's nothing left but the plant-like palpitations reflected in his face; no more life-force, no more consciousness. I'm sure there are other interpretations, though; that's my explanation :-) -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 14 hrs (2012-07-08 11:20:01 GMT) -------------------------------------------------- Here are my tentative translations of the last part of the last sentence: (1) "...as if they served merely to amplify, to supplant the overstrained pulsations of life" (alternatives to overstrained: strained, worn out, overwrought, overstretched). (2) "...as if they merely served to amplify, to supplant the throbbing pulsations of a life pushed to its limits" (throbbing pulsations is an instance of tautology, but may be acceptable if throbbing is taken to mean painful). As I see it, the writer's intention is to illustrate the extent to which suffering now defines the man's existence; he has no more heart, as it were (along with everything that the heart represents, such as vitality, passion, desire, willfulness), no more "pulse"; he's practically lifeless, the pain and suffering written on his face are all he has left. His "heartbeat" (or life-energy) has disappeared, replaced instead by involuntary facial contractions. He's alive, but no longer living, no better off than a plant. |
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