Date: Thu, 22 Aug 1996 17:31:32 -0400 (EDT)
From: Joshua LaBare <joshbear-AT-acpub.duke.edu>
Subject: Re: Pataphysics


On Mon, 19 Aug 1996, W Ted Rogers wrote:

> Date: Mon, 19 Aug 96 07:23:15 EDT
> From: W Ted Rogers <WTR100F-AT-oduvm.cc.odu.edu>
> To: baudrillard-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
> Subject: Re: Pataphysics
> 
> I have always interpreted Baudrillard's use of Jarry's pataphysics as a
> game (jeu) which is also a challenge (enjeu). I have also interpreted
> Jarry in much the same light. It seems to me that to say it is a joke
> takes it too far down that trajectory -- a game being a bit more serious
> than a joke. Just my tuppence worth. Ted
> 

I am clueless vis-a-vis B. or anyone else's use of pataphysics: what 
might one mean by "the science of imaginary solutions"?  It's not that I 
don't know what it means, but simply that it means too much to me, or too 
little; so I guess I don't really know what it means.

But this message is concerned with translation.  Only in the loosest 
sense would one say that "enjeu" means "challenge": anyone who knows 
French knows that this means rather "the stake(s)" -- what is at stake, 
what are the stakes, what is "en jeu" (what is to be gained or lost in 
the game)?  I don't know what passage you're thinking of, Ted, but I 
wonder about the translation you are using/making: perhaps specific 
passages _would_ justify the use of "challenge" in English for "enjeu" in 
French (though I'm having trouble thinking of any instances, obviously).

And while on the subject of translation, I'd like to know people's 
reactions to the use of "imaginary" (as in "an imaginary" or "the 
imaginary") in English translations of Baudrillard.  I recently came 
across this in an interview and found it to be gibberish.  What can "an 
imaginary" mean in English.  This is obviously the translation for "un 
imaginaire", but in my opinion, this word is not translatable and 
should simply be rendered as "imaginaire".  I'd like to know, from those 
of you who read french but especially from those of you who _don't_, what 
your reaction is to reading "imaginary" (as a noun) in a B. translation.  
Is this the standard translation?  Etc.  I speak as one who has read very 
little Baudrillard in English translation.

thanks,
joshua