The Magician of Vienna by Sergio Pitol

Author:Sergio Pitol [Pitol, Sergio]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781941920480
Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing
Published: 2005-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

1 Pitol may be referring to the essay “The Sedulous Ape,” in which Stevenson writes, “I have thus played the sedulous ape to Hazlitt, to Lamb, to Wordsworth, to Sir Thomas Browne, to Defoe, to Hawthorne, to Montaigne, to Baudelaire and to Obermann.”—Trans.

2 Translated by Alan S. Trueblood and Edwin Honig. (Where possible, I will use existing English translations for the majority of quotations from other works. These translations will be indicated by a footnote. Otherwise, the translation will be mine.—Trans.)

3 Titles of works that appear in the original language followed by a translation in brackets indicate works that have yet to be translated into English. In these cases, the translations are usually literal. The bracketed translation will appear following the first occurrence only.—Trans.

4 Translated by James E. Irby.

5 From “El libro” [The Book], one of five lectures delivered by Borges at the Universidad de Belgrano in Buenos Aires on June 24 and 25, 1978. The lectures were later published as Borges, oral.—Trans.

6 Translated by Raymond Rosenthal.

7 Both the original Italian and Rosenthal’s English translation include the adjective “horizontal.”

8 Pitol lists the spelling as “Rousell.”—Trans.

9 Jan Kott, Shakespeare, Our Contemporary.

10 Hamlet, Act IV, scene v.

11 This is the most common English translation of the title. As you will read later, Pitol takes the title from a line in Hamlet.—Trans.

12 The Spanish title is a play on the idiom creerse la divina garza, literally “to believe oneself the divine heron,” which is roughly equivalent to the English “think oneself the queen bee” or “the queen of Sheba.”

13 Translated by George Henson. The Art of Flight.

14 The title, of course, is a reference to Bach’s Die Kunst der Fuge. The Spanish fuga, however, means both “fugue” and “flight.” As the translator, I was faced with resolving the polysemy. The ambiguity, moreover, is intentional; in fact, Pitol makes various references within the text to “fleeing.”—Trans.

15 Pitol lists this entry as “December 16.” According to Sieburth’s translation, the date of the entry is the “14th (written on the 15th).”—Trans.

16 Translated by Richard Sieburth. Moscow Diary. Harvard University Press.

17 I was unable to find a source for this name. Given the context in which it appears, I suspected that Pitol might have intended the name to be Hitler, but the name Haier appears in every version of the text I have found. It is also possible that Pitol is referring to Jörg Haider, a former leader of the right-wing populist Freedom Party of Austria. –Trans

18 Translated by Susan Bassnett.

19 Pitol lists the chapter as 39.—Trans.

20 Pitol lists her name as “Otta.”

21 Bashevis Singer wrote exclusively in Yiddish. His works were co-translated into English by the author and a team of (always female) translators. The role of the translators in the production of his work has been the subject of much debate. This quote was taken from “The Shadow of the Crib,” which appeared in the collection Spinoza of Market Street and Other Stories, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. The co-translator is not credited.—Trans.

22 Because

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