Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Introduction

Long story short:

I've been trying to read Alan Moore's Voice Of The Fire off and on for about 3 or 4 years now with absolutely no success. I've gotten repeatedly stuck, as I'm sure many have who've attempted to read the book, on the book's first chapter, and am too stubborn to simply skip it. (For those of you who haven't picked up the book: the first chapter, entitled Hob's Hog, is written from the point of view of a prehistoric boy who's a bit on the slow side, even compared to his peers. The language is, therefore, rather difficult to follow). The only way I've been able to get through it, I've found, is to go through the text sentence-by-sentence and, as closely as I can, "translate" it into modern English and write my "translation" down in a notebook. As I was doing this, it occured to me that I should post my "translation" on the Internet so that it might be of service to others who are attempting to read the book. Hence, this blog.

So, further without ado, here's my best shot at what's being said in the first couple of paragraphs of the Hob's Hog chapter of Alan Moore's novel Voice Of The Fire. The edition I'm using is the 2003 hardcover (ISBN 1-8918330-44-9), starting on page 5.

Paragraph 1:

Behind the hill, on the horizon, the sun is setting. I walk up the hill, out of breath. The grass is making my feet cold and wet.

Paragraph 2:

There is no grass on the top of the hill. There is only a circle of dirt, like a bald man's head. I stand there and I turn my face to the wind to sniff, and yet there are no smells coming from a long way off. My belly hurts in the middle of me. I burp, and the taste of it is like the taste of nothing. The scab on my knee is turning black and it itches. I scratch it and it starts bleeding again.

That's all for today. I'll try to post every day, even if it's just to put up a paragraph or two.

14 comments:

  1. I just got the book two days ago, and just finished the first chapter a few minutes ago. I have been impressed by Alan Moore many times in the past, but he really outdoes himself here. Yes, it is hard to read, but yes, it is so very rewarding.

    Without giving anything away, I can tell you that the story will reward your persistence if you can slog through the tough bits. The fact that you have to work to understand it almost makes it feel like you've earned the revelations your work has uncovered, and by the end it's like you don't even see the text, like a subtitled film where you stop being aware that there are words on the screen. Reading the last few pages was like reading the last few matching numbers on a winning lottery ticket... "wow!" and "what?" and "no way!!?!" all at the same time.

    I look forward to reading your interpretation. Thanks for sharing your work with us.

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  2. Thanks for commenting, Benny, and congratulations on getting through what has to be one of the tougher opening chapters in the history of English-language literature. The pleasure is totally mine in putting this stuff up on the net as long as someone is out there reading it!

    So how does it look so far? Is my interpretation close to the mark, or am I way off-base? Please keep the comments coming and let me know.

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  3. You seem spot-on so far.

    The 'Urk-kine' is the hardest bit to translate so far... it seems like it could be a (cultural) memory of the rise of Homo Sapiens over the neanderthals... the narrator comments that the Urk-kine have been missing from the world for 'big ice-whiles' = big winters = ice age? Some clues from later on in the book support this theory as well, but I won't spoil them for you.

    I also think it's interesting the relationship between 'Urk-kine' and the 'Orcs'/'Uruk'/'Uruk Hai' of fantasy literature. olkein was very well versed in the history of mythology, and the narrator in this book certainly makes the Urk-kine sound mythological with respect to his people.

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  4. Also, it comes from later in the history, but there is a place and a people called the Urk, in the Netherlands.

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

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  5. "You seem spot-on so far."

    Thanks.

    "it seems like it could be a (cultural) memory of the rise of Homo Sapiens over the neanderthals... the narrator comments that the Urk-kine have been missing from the world for 'big ice-whiles' = big winters = ice age?"

    Yeah, but why does he then describe Urk-kine as "little people", then? Were neanderthals smaller than Cro-Magnon man (it's been a little while since anthropology class in college)? I thought about "big ice-whiles" equating "Ice Age", too.

    Now I'm really eager to read on in the book!


    "Also, it comes from later in the history, but there is a place and a people called the Urk, in the Netherlands."

    Yeah, I saw that, too. Dutch neanderthals, perhaps? :)

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  6. I just realized that "bene pendentes" is Latin for "well-hung". Ha! :D

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  7. For the record, from what I've been able to glean (ha!) from the BBC's and the (U.S.) National Center for Biotechnology Information's websites, neanderthals were no shorter than their Homo Sapiens contemporaries, and were actually more robustly built.

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  8. This is a very interesting project! Not something I would've thought of doing. Personally I didn't find Hob's Hog that hard to read, though I know a lot of people do. Without stressing over every single word I found I could follow the gist, though sometimes it was necessary to go back over something and figure the meaning out. In fact some of the later chapters slowed me down more, with their verbose and formal language patterns.

    On this first page, I would have thought that "sun-set-down" is "west". Otherwise, good job! On page two, it seems to be that there never were any pigs - the boy simply mistook what he saw from a distance. What do you think?

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  9. Hey, loopy! Thanks for commenting.

    'Personally I didn't find Hob's Hog that hard to read, though I know a lot of people do.'

    It's actually gotten a lot easier as I've gone along. I think it's OCD that keeps me going on the sentence-by-sentence thing at this point. :)

    'On this first page, I would have thought that "sun-set-down" is "west".'

    Yeah, it should probably be "to the west" or "to the western horizon" or something like that. I think I "translate" it that way later on.

    'On page two, it seems to be that there never were any pigs - the boy simply mistook what he saw from a distance. What do you think?'

    That's an interesting interpretation. It's difficult to say because the narrator is so unsophisticated as well as being so limited in terms of his language skills. A big part of the my enjoyment of this chapter has been realizing that there are a number of different ways to puzzle out each section of narrative. I just generally put down on paper what initially occurs to me that he's saying and then post that on the site - it isn't supposed to be a definitive interpretation or anything.

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  10. Hey, just started reading, so I don't know if this has been brought up further, but I believe the Urk-kine are the "fairy folk".

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  11. Hey Dr. Hoopla! Thanks for commenting.

    Yeah, we pretty much figured out that they are some kind of variation of the "fair folk"/"little people", specifically the sinister Arthur Machen variety. >:>

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  12. I'm only just seeing all this, having followed a link over from your kind comments on my latest post on Glycon.

    This is actually something I've thought of doing myself, I have to say, so I'm very iknterested in it, and I'll read over the whole thing as soon as time allows. This might be a few weeks, as I'm to go into hospital tomorrow to have an operation, and may be out of contact for a week or two.

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  13. Hey, Pádraig!

    I'm enormously flattered that you took the time to check out my site, as I have admired your work for a while. Please let me know what you think when you get done reading it, and good luck with the operation!

    PS If you talk to Alan, please tell him not to sic his lawyers on me! ;)

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  14. Thank you so much, I just started the book and LOVE Alan Moore, but I keep getting stuck on the first page.

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