j_cheney: (Dragon)
[personal profile] j_cheney
From Propos Iconoclastes....not too hard to follow, but I don't know what they meant by "un huit clos"...which makes me think there's a typo...and perhaps that was meant to be haut, not huit. Regarding the story "The Dragon's Child" in Beneath Ceaseless Skies. ;o)

- The Dragon child de J Kathleen Cheney nous propose un huit clos dans la demeure d'un magicien. Celui ci se charge de l'éducation de sa fille qu'il maltraite. Mais la tante de la petite fille va tout faire pour l'arracher à ses griffes. C'est un récit prenant et sans temps morts et où l'auteur sait ménager les surprises dans un récit qui au départ semble classique. En plus les relations entre les personnages sont très réalistes.

Favorable enough, so I'm happy ;o)


...nous propose gives us

...un huit clos dans la demeure d'un magicien So, I've been told this should probably be 'huis clos' which is essentially a 'cosy'. So, I'll restructure this as:
'a cosy mystery about a fading wizard'.


Celui ci se charge de l'éducation de sa fille qu'il maltraite. He's training his daughter, whom he mistreats (abuses).

Mais la tante de la petite fille va tout faire pour l'arracher à ses griffes. But the girl's aunt will do anything to get her out of (extract her from?) his claws.

C'est un récit prenant et sans temps morts...It's an interesting story and doesn't have dead time (with good pacing).

...et où l'auteur sait ménager les surprises dans un récit qui au départ semble classique. ...and where the author managed to surprise in a story which, at the beginning, seemed classic (predictable). (I think that 'classic' here is meant to mean something more like 'predictable.')

En plus les relations entre les personnages sont très réalistes. And also, the interactions between the characters are very realistic. I have to like that part! ;o)

Date: 2009-01-25 09:22 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] aliettedb.livejournal.com
It's a pretty good review :)
A "huis clos" is, hum, something hard to translate in a single word. It's an expression that basically means your setting is very much isolated (think murder mystery in Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None), and where feelings between characters as well as suspense tend to be exasperated.
"mistreat" used for children is more like "beating", "abusing".
"classic" is totally "predictable".
Congrats!

Date: 2009-01-25 09:34 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] j-cheney.livejournal.com
Aha! An idiom after all. (I'm not fluent enough in French to catch idioms half the time.) I figured it was a typo of some sort, I just couldn't figure it out. I'll rethink that part of the translation.

Huis clos....that makes so much more sense than huit clos. In mystery terminology, a mystery with a setting like that is called a 'cosy' mystery.

Thanks! ;o)

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J. Kathleen Cheney

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