{"product_id":"astonishment-of-words","title":"Astonishment of Words","description":"\u003cp\u003e One, two! one, two! And through and through\u003cbr\u003e The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!\u003cbr\u003e He left it dead, and with its head\u003cbr\u003e He went galumphing back. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e Un deux, un deux, par le milieu,\u003cbr\u003e Le glaive vorpal fait pat-à-pan!\u003cbr\u003e La bête défaite, avec sa tête,\u003cbr\u003e Il rentre gallomphant. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e Eins, Zwei! Eins, Zwei! Und durch und durch\u003cbr\u003e Seins vorpals Schwert zerschniferschnück.\u003cbr\u003e Da blieb es todt! Er, Kopf in Hand,\u003cbr\u003e Geläumfig zog zurück! \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e The late Victor Proetz was by vocation a visual artist who created many distinguished architectural and decorative designs. His favorite avocation, however, was to explore the possibilities (and impossibilities) of words, especially words in translation, and to share his discoveries. As Alastair Reid says in his foreword, \"He turned words over in his head, he listened to them, he unraveled them, he looked them up, he played with them, he passed them on like presents, all with an unjadeable astonishment.\" \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e What, Proetz wondered, do some of the familiar and not-so-familiar works of English and American literature sound like in French? In German? \"How,\" he asked, \"do you say 'Yankee Doodle' in French—if you can?\" And \"How do they say 'Hounyhnhnm' and 'Cheshire Cat' and things like that in German?\" And, in either language, \"How, in God's name, can you possibly say 'There she blows!'?\" \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e This book, unfortunately left incomplete on his death in 1966, contains many of his answers. They are given not only in the assembled texts and translations but also in his wry, curious, sometimes hilarious commentaries. None of it is scholarly in any formal, academic sense—\"and yet,\" Reid reminds us, \"his is precisely the kind of enthusiastic curiosity that gives scholarship its pointers.\" \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"University of Texas Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Product","offer_id":54228220936536,"sku":"9780292729384","price":19.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0278\/1295\/4195\/files\/9780292729384__677e0daf1ccbb.jpg?v=1741135111","url":"https:\/\/agendabookshop.com\/products\/astonishment-of-words","provider":"Agenda Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}