Текст от переводчика / Interpreter's text: Текст от Переводчика

I have first read this book when I was nearing my 40s.

yanarepkin 18.09.13 в 00:23

Of course I have read it before, but have only comprehended it then.

yanarepkin 18.09.13 в 00:23

There is a world of difference between “reading” and “comprehending”.

yanarepkin 18.09.13 в 00:23

One doesn’t see what one doesn’t know or understand

yanarepkin 18.09.13 в 00:22

Apparently, by the time I reached 40, some things in life started to get in focus for me.

yanarepkin 18.09.13 в 00:23

I have finished reading it, turned the last page and have sat with my eyes closed for about 20 minutes.

yanarepkin 18.09.13 в 00:24

Then I opened the book and have read it again,

yanarepkin 18.09.13 в 00:26

from the beginning to the end

yanarepkin 18.09.13 в 00:27

It’s only 12 chapters, only 222 verses

yanarepkin 18.09.13 в 00:28

It is is one of the most controversial books of the Bible

yanarepkin 18.09.13 в 00:29

and one of its most humane books.

yanarepkin 18.09.13 в 00:28

It’s one of the Bible’s cornerstones - without it the whole thing would fall apart.

yanarepkin 18.09.13 в 00:29

I had a feeling that I was sitting in a loud smoky bar listening to a confession of a stranger with a deeply lined face.

yanarepkin 18.09.13 в 00:30

Confession of a man who lived through a lot, who have seen and understood much and did not lose the ability to feel, to be compassionate, to love life and people.

yanarepkin 18.09.13 в 00:30

Since that moment I came back to this book often.

yanarepkin 18.09.13 в 00:31

Not every year and not even every month. A lot more often.

yanarepkin 18.09.13 в 00:32

For quite some time photography and “Ecclesiastes” did not cross paths in my life.

yanarepkin 18.09.13 в 00:33

Or, at least, I thought so.

yanarepkin 18.09.13 в 00:33

A lot of seemingly unrelated things happen to a man while he is moving through his life.

vrepkin 18.09.13 в 00:36

Yet quite often when I looked through my camera's view finder, pressed the shutter button, or looked at the pictures I took in the quite of my house, I had a fleeting feeling, a sensation if you will, that the image I was seeing was strangely familiar.

vrepkin 18.09.13 в 00:43

Not a person or a setting, but the image. Strange feeling.

vrepkin 18.09.13 в 00:49

Vibrant and blurry at the same time.

vrepkin 18.09.13 в 00:49

Somewhat reminicent of an attempt to recall a dream.

vrepkin 18.09.13 в 00:50

As a rule the feeling quickly eroded and disappeared.

vrepkin 18.09.13 в 00:51

All that went on for a long time and didn't bother me that much: who can count how many fleeting sensations and emotions touch our souls during a day, seemingly without affecting us.

vrepkin 18.09.13 в 16:36

It has been happening for quite a while and didn't really bother me that much: who can register all those unclear sensations and emotions that visit our human souls every day.

yanarepkin 18.09.13 в 17:13

They pass, seemingly, without a trace.

yanarepkin 18.09.13 в 17:15

However, it only seems that way. Nothing passes without a trace.

yanarepkin 18.09.13 в 17:17

Everything came together for me in one moment - with a camera's shutter button.

yanarepkin 18.09.13 в 17:19

Fate took me a chinese town of Makao

yanarepkin 18.09.13 в 17:20

with many tourists, shops full of ersatz merchandise, hotels with plastic luxury - a lot of vanity.

yanarepkin 18.09.13 в 18:35

It's a Las Vegas's Chinese twin.

yanarepkin 18.09.13 в 18:38

But unlike it's American propotype, Makao has an Old Town. A real one.

yanarepkin 18.09.13 в 18:39

I have found myself in Makao in the dusk. I sat down on a stone in a corner of a small square to change memory card in my camera and looked around.

vrepkin 18.09.13 в 19:50

The stream of people leisurely flowed by.

vrepkin 18.09.13 в 19:55

Without an apperant reason people made a small detour before exiting the square and turning the corner.

vrepkin 18.09.13 в 20:01

I took a closer look.

vrepkin 18.09.13 в 19:56

An elderly man was sitting on the stone steps not far from the corner

vrepkin 18.09.13 в 20:04

It was him that caused the stream to make a gentle runaround.

vrepkin 18.09.13 в 20:07

There are people that have a respectful free space around them even in the densest crowd.

vrepkin 18.09.13 в 20:10

Such people a rare, but you do meet them ocasionally.

vrepkin 18.09.13 в 20:11

I zoomed in and took a picture.

vrepkin 18.09.13 в 20:50

The face was deeply lined...

vrepkin 18.09.13 в 20:50

...When I returned home, I looked over my old pictures that I thought have become independent.

yanarepkin 18.09.13 в 22:18

In other words the ones that do not require subtitles.

vrepkin 18.09.13 в 20:52

In practicaly every one of them I could see a direct quote from “Ecclesiastes” or an image painted by it.

vrepkin 18.09.13 в 20:54

There were more images than qoutes.

vrepkin 18.09.13 в 20:55

Strictly speaking, the text itself contains more images than direct definitions.

vrepkin 18.09.13 в 20:56

Uncertain feeling has focused and I could name it.

vrepkin 18.09.13 в 20:59

So here... I hesitate in choosing a definition.

vrepkin 18.09.13 в 21:01

It is probably a translation, just an unusual one. Or, more precisely, unfamiliar.

vrepkin 18.09.13 в 21:05