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Reading through the poems, one in particular stood out to me, ‘A screw Fell to the Ground.’ While it was done eight months before his suicide, the context seems
by docbrown 8y ago
Reading through the poems, one in particular stood out to me, ‘A screw Fell to the Ground.’ While it was done eight months before his suicide, the context seems to be relatable to how he may have been feeling—mostly the sound of “someone” plunging and nobody hearing.
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《一颗螺丝掉在地上》
"A Screw Fell to the Ground"
一颗螺丝掉在地上
A screw fell to the ground
在这个加班的夜晚
In this dark night of overtime
垂直降落，轻轻一响
Plunging vertically, lightly clinking
不会引起任何人的注意
It won’t attract anyone’s attention
就像在此之前
Just like last time
某个相同的夜晚
On a night like this
有个人掉在地上
When someone plunged to the ground
-- 9 January 2014
- sovietmudkipz 8y agoGeez, that poem really hits me in the gut.
- shortoncash 8y agoSame, but I wonder what we lost in translation given what the other commenters wrote. I wonder if it hits harder in the native language.
- oh-kumudo 8y agoI think this translation did a great job in conveying of the emotion/expression of the original text. One thing that particularly gets me, while could be thought as somewhat lost in translation, is the expression of "掉在地上(fall on the ground)". It is rare to be used when the subject is a human, but rather when the subject is an object.
- nemo44x 8y ago> It is rare to be used when the subject is a human, but rather when the subject is an object. Thank you for that. That really adds to the humanity of the poem that the translation just couldn't possibly.
- guiltygatorade 8y agoHa! Before I came back to reread it that's exactly what I was thinking. Usually it's "摔" for a person who fell. To use the verb "掉" on a person is unusual, but I think it's exactly the author's point -- that the person is treated like an object.
- wbsun 8y agoI think the background story is needed in order to fully understand a poem like this, or maybe any poem. From that perspective, minor loss in translation doesn't hurt. Folks above may spend too much in translation, nitpicking a single word, maybe useful as academic, but reading the story which is ended with such a sorrowful poem already breaks people's heart, how accurate the translation is doesn't matter any more. I couldn't imagine such a miserable situation with desperate pressures that can drive people to commit to suicide. Xu in this story left with news report, poem and comments on HN, but many others left with nothing and forgotten by the world easily: feel so sad that a life is so meaningless when it becomes a number: see [1], [2]. [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jun/18/foxconn-life-death-forbidden-city-longhua-suicide-apple-iphone-brian-merchant-one-device-extract https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jun/18/foxconn-l... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides
- guiltygatorade 8y agoI really liked that one as well, but I don't like the fact that the translator translated "掉在地上" differently between the first and final lines, which are meant to mirror each other exactly in order to juxtapose the fate of a screw with the fate of a man. Neither were to receive any embellishments. They both simply fell or dropped. Here's my take: A screw fell to the ground On a night of overtime Straight down, a gentle clink Nobody noticed Just like last time On a night not unlike this one A person fell to the ground
- flippyhead 8y agoI like the first one because it's too easy to think someone just fell over instead of having committed suicide. Thanks for the insight though, interesting to see.
- guiltygatorade 8y agoYeah I didn't interpret it as having committed suicide. But his other poems hinted at him falling asleep at the line. So it could be exhaustion. Or, it could be metaphorical -- that a person's spirit fell to the ground and nobody cared.
- aerovistae 8y agoOh man, I'd really have to bend my perception pretty far to interpret this as anything but a reference to suicide, given how many there are among their workers.
- erikpukinskis 8y agoPeople collapse in industrial settings all the time. But a person jumping from a roof is more similar to a screw falling. I guess maybe if a person collapsed while working, others might stop working and help. But a suicide jump would be just another thing they can’t intervene in.
- guiltygatorade 8y ago
- cannabisceo 8y agoPoor soul had reached such of level of desperation that his digestion of self was like a duplicate object of industry. But as we may seem as copies of the same...we’re not. We are beings experiencing a reality through the scope of a subjective view. It’s all a matter of perspective.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- girzel 8y agoHere's my version! The only regret is the "man", which in Chinese should be "person", but "person" has always seemed so poetically dead, to my sense. 《一颗螺丝掉在地上》 A Screw Drops 一颗螺丝掉在地上 A screw drops 在这个加班的夜晚 In this overtime night 垂直降落，轻轻一响 The straight fall, the light clink 不会引起任何人的注意 That draws no one's attention. 就像在此之前 Just as once before 某个相同的夜晚 On a similar night 有个人掉在地上 A man dropped.
- girzel 8y agoNow I can't decide if 在地上 is really necessary to get in there. If so, the first line is: "A screw drops to the ground" And the last: "A man dropped to the ground"
- guiltygatorade 8y agoI think there's a sense of conclusiveness when "to the ground" is added. Something drops or falls can still be caught, but the author didn't leave that ambiguous.