GROSSMAN: EVERYTHING FLOWS: a workshop that employs the disabled

[Timothy Sergay]

Dear Robert,

I would only suggest reconsidering the phrase "set off a chain reaction"
to handle "zarazil srazu kogo." The mid-1950s in any case seems very early
to be reaching for a ready metaphorical use of the term "chain reaction,"
particularly since the author's figure is not at all "tsepnaia reaktsiia,"
but kak raz "zaraza." Whatever your own doubts about the scientific
appropriateness of the "contagion/infection/communicability" figure, it,
and not "chain reaction" (i.e., medicine, not nuclear physics) is the
figure the author has used. A medical context naturally included a medical
figure of speech (zarazil); I think the same dynamic should obtain in the
translation and can be achieved naturally enough ("proved catching,"
"spread to others," etc.) without a sideways leap to physics. Whether
that's overly literal is of course up to you to judge.

Best wishes to all,
Tim Sergay

 There was one occasion when one man
> had
> a fit and this set off a chain reaction; in different corners of the
> workshop young and old alike were writhing on the floor and screaming.”
>
> Does anyone understand just what is going on here? It seems like the first
> person has an epileptic fit, but epileptic fits are not, as far as I know,
> communicable in this way.
>
> Best Wishes,
>
> Robert
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
> options, and more. Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
> http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>  Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
>   options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
>                     http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------