Questions, Resources, and General Banter - The Golden Ass

[Jim]

The Golden Ass (or Metamorphoses) was written by Apuleius sometime between 160 and 180 AD. The tale is a wild, bawdy romp through the late Roman Empire with violence, magic, and sex around every corner.

A wiki page for the book can be found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gold...


Feel free to use this thread to ask questions and post links to resources for The Golden Ass.

Also, if you’ve written a review of the book, please post a link to share with the group.

[Thing Two]

I just read a section in the second book when the widow checks her husband's body for damages and I couldn't help picturing a rental car agent inspecting a vehicle.

[Whitney]

Anyone have recommendations for a particular translation? Looking at the different editions on Amazon, I'm tending toward the P. G. Walsh. The free one on Guttenberg is the Adlington with the archaic spellings, which I feare would waxe tiresome.

[Jim]

Whitney wrote: "Anyone have recommendations for a particular translation? Looking at the different editions on Amazon, I'm tending toward the P. G. Walsh. The free one on Guttenberg is the Adlington with the archa..."

I'm using this Penguin edition translated by E.J. Kenney. Translation is easy to read, modern English.

The Golden Ass: Or Metamorphoses

[Barbara]

Jim wrote: "Whitney wrote: "Anyone have recommendations for a particular translation? Looking at the different editions on Amazon, I'm tending toward the P. G. Walsh. The free one on Guttenberg is the Adlingto..."

For any Nook readers here, this Penguin edition that Jim recommends is only 99 cents on the Nook!! I'm getting it!!

[Whitney]

Barbara wrote: "For any Nook readers here, this Penguin edition that Jim recommends is only 99 cents on the Nook!! I'm getting it!!
..."

Are you finding it on B&N? If so, make sure that's what it really is. The ones showing the cover w. the Walsh and the Robert Graves translations turn out to be the Adlington. If that really is the one you think it is, please send me the link!

[Jim]

Whitney, et al,

Mekki located a full version of the Penguin Kenney translation at the Nader Library.

http://www.naderlibrary.com/goldenass...

I don't think you can download it, but you can get a sense of the translation before you buy a copy elsewhere.

[Nathan "N.R."]

I read the Ruden and found it quite enjoyable, quite contemporary without being at all condescending. The Ass might be a good one for which to have on hand a few translations. There's a lot which will call upon a translator's ingenuity, first among which are the number of hapax legomena, words which appear here only and nowhere else in the extant corpus of Latin literature. I've still got my eye on all the Walsh, Lindsey, and Kenney. And for those with a bit of Latin, I assume there's parallel languaged Loeb available.

[Jim]

Nathan "N.R." wrote: "I read the Ruden and found it quite enjoyable, quite contemporary without being at all condescending. The Ass might be a good one for which to have on hand a few translations. There's a lot which..."

Hmmm... I wonder if they were nonsense words created for storytelling purposes. Do you have any examples of the hapax legomena words and how translators dealt with them?

[Sasha]

Thanks for that translation comparison link, Ali! Very very helpful. I think I'll go with Kenney, although Walsh and Graves seemed perfectly good too.

[Barbara]

Whitney wrote: "Barbara wrote: "For any Nook readers here, this Penguin edition that Jim recommends is only 99 cents on the Nook!! I'm getting it!!
..."

Are you finding it on B&N? If so, make sure that's what i..."

Hi Whitney,

Here is the link to the Adlington version:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/golde...

and here is the link to the Robert Graves version:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-g...

and here is the link for a Halcyon Classics edition, which is also an Adlington translation:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-g...

Yesterday I found the Penguin edition, translated by E.J. Kenney for 99 cents, but now it's not on the B&N site anymore!!! (Or maybe I just can't find it!!! I wish I had posted the link here!!)

[Barbara]

Whitney, you are absolutely correct. I just found the Penguin edition which clearly SAYS it's the E.J. Kenney translation, but I opened a sample (on the B&N website) of the book and once opened it is the Adlington translation!! This is the link:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/golde...

And here is the link to the edition SUPPOSEDLY translated by P.G. Walsh, which, when I opened the sample on the B&N website, it ALSO opened to the Adlington translation:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/golde...

So now I'm wondering if this edition, which is SAID to be a translation by Robert Graves, is also Adlington. I was not able to open up a sample copy of this:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-g...

I'M SORRY FOR THE CONFUSION WITH ALL THESE LINKS.

But here's what I'm thinking: Is it possible that the Penguin Classics edition, translated by E.J. Kenney, simply opens to the Adlington translation JUST on the B&N website, but if I actually download it, it will be the correct E.J. Kenney edition?? (I'm having a problem downloading samples to my Nook, so I have to actually go into a B&N store to download anything.)

I will be able to see what's ACTUALLY inside each of these editions once I get to a B&N, which will probably be sometime tomorrow or over the weekend, at which point I'll be able to let any Nook readers here know which edition is actually Graves, which is Walsh, and which is Kenney.

Can anyone recommend another e-reader that's not more than $150??? My Nook is the Simple Touch version, which is now only around $80.00, but I've had it for over a year and I'm having downloading issues with it.

Should I just get a newer version of a Nook, or does anyone recommend a Kindle or anything else?? I'm just really frustrated that I have to go to an actual store (which is not the biggest deal in the world, since I live in Manhattan and there are B&N stores all over), BUT, I do miss the "immediate gratification" of being able to get a book immediately, which is the way it was for the first six months that I've had this Nook.

[Nathan "N.R."]

Jim wrote: "Hmmm... I wonder if they were nonsense words created for storytelling purposes. Do you have any examples of the hapax legomena words and how translators dealt with them? "

Unfortunately I don't have any examples. There is perhaps a catalog of some hundreds of such words from the classical literature, given what a great quantity has been lost over the past centuries.

Here's Ruden:
"This is so much more remarkable given the stylistic task Apuleius set himself, the unremitting but never cloying cleverness that no previous imaginative writer (whom we know of) undertook. He combines the slang of Plautus, the sophistication of Cicero, the mannerism of Seneca, poetic touches from epic and lyric--and some words found nowhere else. These are hapax legomena, 'things said a single time,' occurring only once in all of extant Latin literature."

Some will be due to so much literature lost over the centuries, but much will be due to his total immersion in linguistic creation, and I am reminded here of Darconville's Cat for which I'm in the middle of creating an annotation of vocabulary along with a few other Friends, and finding many existing nowhere else at all in all of internet land. It's what novels are all about. And in this case, why I suspect multi-translation readings would pay off with high dividends.

[Whitney]

Barbara wrote: "But here's what I'm thinking: Is it possible that the Penguin Classics edition, translated by E.J. Kenney, simply opens to the Adlington translation JUST on the B&N website, but if I actually download it, it will be the correct E.J. Kenney edition?? ..."

Sorry to clutter the thread with all the nook talk. Barbara - NO! I paid for the Walsh and got the Adlington. Someone else wrote that they paid for the Graves and got the Adlington. Be careful with any downloads of classics from B&N - always get the sample first. Re: downloading, do you turn on the wireless, then go to 'Shop'? That works for me.

[Jim]

Whitney wrote: "Barbara wrote: "But here's what I'm thinking: Is it possible that the Penguin Classics edition, translated by E.J. Kenney, simply opens to the Adlington translation JUST on the B&N website, but if ..."

Whitney and Barbara: This would be a good time to contact the CEO of B&N and explain that this kind of frustration is what will drive his customers to Amazon...

[Sasha]

Hate to say it, but this confusion happens on kindle too. None of the book sites, goodreads included, do a good job of distinguishing different editions. You'll see a lot of confusion in amazon reviews about this if you look.

The imperfect solution is to always download sample chapters when the edition matters (as when it's a translation). You can generally figure out what you're looking at from the sample.

[Barbara]

The only version I was able to get on The Nook was the Adlington translation, which, as Whitney warned, is VERY OLDE ENGLISH.

I started reading it, but this version can be a bit annoying.

SO, since I've already started Marlowe's Faustus and Woolf's To the Lighthouse, I may sit this one out. OR, I may just "do my best" to read this old English version. I'll wait until the discussion starts to make that decision.

[Barbara]

Oh, and by the way, in my addition it's The Golden Asse (NOT Ass). I just thought some of you may find that interesting (and fun, or funny).

[Sasha]

Asse!

I found the Kenney translation tonight at the mighty Harvard Bookstore...and then found the Graves one downstairs in their used section for less than half the price. And, honestly, after comparing the first pages of both, I kinda, slightly, preferred Graves after all. So I'm ready to read! As soon as I finish For Whom the Bell Tolls.

[Merinde]

I just got Joel C. Relihan's translation. I've only read the first two pages so far, but it looks pretty good to me - very lively!

[Nathan "N.R."]

May I request that some PB Ass readers might post their reviews?

I read the Ruden last year, but would probably pick up a second translation when I reread it, not against Ruden, but because I suspect that there is a lot of richness here which would open up a lot of translation possibilities. I did like the Ruden a lot. I've got a review over here: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

[Mala]

Here's my two cents– almost ashamed to post my link amongst such brainy folks but Jim asked the members for their reviews,so...

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

[Jim]

Mala wrote: "Here's my two cents– almost ashamed to post my link amongst such brainy folks but Jim asked the members for their reviews,so...

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/..."

Thank you for sharing Mala!

Please don't sell yourself short. You write well, and with clear insights into the texts you review.

[Mala]

Thanks a lot,Jim :-)