Date: Mon, 06 Dec 1999 10:32:47 -0600
From: Bryan Alexander <balexand-AT-centenary.edu>
Subject: Re: BENJAMIN'S "Briefe" (Correspondence) in English


Looks like it is U. Chicago.
Here's the amazon.com brief on the cloth version:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0226042375/qid=944497732/sr=1-3/103-0772653-5840614

L Spencer wrote:
> 
> >THE CORRESPONDENCE OF WALTER BENJAMIN, 1910-1940, ed. & annotated by Gershom Scholem & Theodor W. Adorno, trans, ed. & annotated by Manfrewd R. & Evelyn M. Jacobson.
> >
> >1994,  ISBN 0-226-04237-5
> >
> >Sale price: $10 (cloth, I think) Chicago University Press?
> 
> I am not sure if our attention is being drawn to the very reasonable
> price tag on what is actually a huge and well-printed hard-back
> edition.
> 
> This is an English (or rather AMERICAN) translation of the 2-volume
> Suhrkamp edition of Benjamin's "Briefe" edited by Scholem and Adorno
> and first issued, I think, in 1955.
> 
> Suhrkamp allowed this English translation only on the condition that
> no changes were made - none of the letters found in the years since
> could be added etc. (In fact, they departed from this in the case of
> the famous exchanges between Benjamin and Adorno where Adorno was
> criticising Benjamin's methods and achievements.)
> 
> Suhrkamp are now more than half-way through re-issuing Benjamin's
> correspondence in 6 volumes!
> 
> Two problems affect the Chicago edition. One is that Adorno and
> Scholem introduced many small cuts into the letters without making
> this clear. And the Chicago edition does not make this good but could
> only reproduce the letters in their abbreviated form. Comparison with
> the new Suhrkamp edition tends to bear out the assertion made by
> Adorno and Scholem that nothing of great theoretical value was ever
> removed. But the omitted passages do allow insights into Benjamin,
> the man - his financial wrangling etc.
> 
> The other problem is the translation itself. It follows practices
> which seem standard in American translations of sacrificing
> everything - every and any ambiguity or nuance - in favour of the
> most fluid translated version. Key terms are sometimes translated by
> means of three or four different English words within the same letter
> with no way for the uninitiated to grasp that this is indeed the
> case. From the point of view of intellectual inquiry it is simply not
> a reliable translation - although it is highly competent and
> certainly reads fluently.
> 
> But at 10 dollars I wish I could get my hands on 3 or 4 copies. One
> could just be a place to make marginal notes. And it is beautifully
> bound and printed.
> 
> lloyd
> 
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-- 
Bryan Alexander
http://www.centenary.edu/~balexand
(318) 869-5082 (office)
(318) 869-5139 (FAX)
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