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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then I opened the book and have read it again,

from the beginning to the end

It’s only 12 chapters, only 222 verses

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

and one of its most humane books.

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

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.

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.

Since that moment I came back to this book frequently

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

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

At least it seemed that way

A lot of seemingly unrelated things happen to a man while he's moving on a path of life.

However, more often than not, as I was looking through my camera's viewfinder or pressed a button to take a photo, or as I was sitting at home leasurely looking at the new photos, I had a fleeting sensation that certain images look very familiar.

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

Vibrant and blurry at the same time.

Somewhat reminicent of an attempt to recall a dream.

As a rule the feeling quickly eroded and disappeared.

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

They pass, apparently, without a trace.

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

Everything came together for me in one moment as I clicked my camera's shutter button.

Fate took me a chinese town of Makao

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

It's a Las Vegas's Chinese twin.

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

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.

The stream of people leisurely flowed by.

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

I took a closer look.

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

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

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

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

I zoomed in, focused my camera and took a picture.

His face was fragmented by deep lines.

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

In other words the ones that do not require subtitles.

Practically every one of them had a direct quote or image from "Ecclesiastes".

There were more images than qoutes.

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

That uncertain fleeting sensation that I didn't understand earlier, became focused and I could name it.

Here before you... It's hard to choose the right words...

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

And what is most important, ambiguous.

Rather strange phrase - ambiguos translation.

Mutually exclusive. But first let's talk about unfamiliarity.

It is different because in addition to a normal human language it also uses the language of photography.

It is very difficult to translate "Ecclesiastes" using verbal definitions.

Not just from Hebrew to other languages.

Paradoxically, it is tricky to just translate it to modern Hebrew. After thousands of years since it's been written, some images, connections and words have blurred, chaged their colors and sometimes just changed altogether.

It is quite a feat to attempt to comprehend it in it's native language, if you will.

So when it comes to other languages, it's near impossible.

Any translation automatically interprets a text within the values and morals of the translator, which don't always coincide with the values or morals of the reader.

That phenomenon is not translator's mistake or fault.

They just don't have a choice.

Figurative images are impossible to describe in words.

Images, just like their system of morals, each person has to grasp and build for themselves.

Or to be more precise, doesn't have to, but has a right.

Now, lets talk about the ambiguity of translation.

Every picture, used in this translation, is connected to the text, in one way or antoher.

Sometimes, it's a direct and easily recognizable quote from the text, and sometimes.... not even a likeness,

but more like a feeling.

It would have been logical to use a photo that directly correspond to each Ecclesiastes' phrase, if I was to follow traditional translating rules.

But I'm not going to do that. That way I would be doing exactly what's described above: interpretation of The Book from the standpoint of the moral structure of a particular person.

By no means, even indirectly, would I want to ifluence your own realization and perception of the Book and rob you of a chance to create your own interpretration free from the limitations inevitably imposed on the process by using words.

The interpretation is broken up in chapters.

There are 12 of them according to the Book of Ecclesiastes.

You will hear text and see photos flowing from one to the next, as you open each chapter.

Sometimes they will match the images from previous chapter, and sometimes they might be linked to other chapters.

It is absolutely irrelevant because these connactions are based on my perception and associations, and I hope you will have your own.

The text I'm using is the classic synodical bible translation,

and tot because it's the best.

There are better ones, in my opinion.

The reason is, actually, in something else.

There is this great russian phrase: "namolennoe mesto" which loosely translates as "prayed out place"

To me this translations seems to be the most prayed or blessed one.

However, I'll let myself make one correction: the famous "vanity of vanities"

In Hebrew, the word "Hevel" is used.

There's no simple translation for that word.

An "exhalation", or maybe a "breath vapor"... Probably the closest translation would be "unimportant", "empty", "nothing".

And the last point.

Every chapter begins with a photo, or to be more precise an image of a man.

Let's call him "The Author". We don't know how he looked.

Strictly speaking, we don't even know who he was.

According to the Bible, Knig Solomon wrote the book.

But, most likely, he did not.

We know practically nothing about him.

The Book talks about it too: " For of the wise man, even as of the fool, there is no memory for ever, since in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. Indeed, the wise man must die just like the fool!"

Sometimes I think the Preacher was a mature man, and sometimes - a profoundly old man.

Sometimes, I think he was happy, and sometimes - glum.

Sometimes, that he was rich, and sometimes - poor.

These images for each chapter are the only ones that I allowed myself to give a definition.

The rest if up to you. And now, let's start the interpretation.

And I hope very much that you can get your own interpretation.

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http://notabenoid.org/book/43896/172659

Переводчики: yanarepkin, vrepkin