On November 28, the Armenian Language and Literature Club organized a book discussion on Ray Bradbury's novel "Dandelion wine."
The translator Zaven Boyajyan also participated in the discussion. "During the translation, which is, as it is commonly said, the slowest way of reading, I was constantly focusing on the fact that I felt Saroyan sighs and breath. "Zaven Boyajyan drew parallels between Bradbury and Saroyan," he added. "After searching, I found out that Bradbury had a lot of respect for Saroyan.
There are many parallels between Bradbury and Saroyan, starting from the biographical facts. They both did not graduate from any educational institution; they received their education in the library. One American critic even said that Bradbury would have become a much better writer if he had got rid of Saroyan's influence. "But I do not think it bothers Bradbury; on the contrary, that breath was instilled in his handwriting, became one of his characteristic features," said the translator.
The discussion of the book started with the title. Then, the students brought out some information about the dandelion wine, which became famous thanks to the novel. "Bradbury did not invent the wine of the dandelion; it exists; there is a technology of preparation; it exis
symbolic in the book. It's more about the medicinal plant juice that the writer presents beautifully," the translator summed up what the students presented.
The exciting extracts from the novel were read first in the original and then in the Armenian translation to make comparisons and pay attention to essential translation details.
"Adults and children fight because they are from different generations. Look, they are not like us. We are not like them, different generations that will never come together," excerpts from Douglas Notebook.
"Why are we fighting with our elders," said one of the students, "because they are from a different generation, from another time, where they grew up, got education. Nowadays, when we use our phones to do something or read information, it is unfamiliar, making them crazy. "
Most adults forget that they used to be children; they will be milder and more tolerant if they remember that.
"I think that the adults are always to blame for this contradiction because they do not consider that they were younger. The children haven't been adults yet," said Tamar Aleksanyan, head of the Scientific-Methodological Center.
The topics presented in the book allowed adults' relationships, childhood memories, values, adolescents' perceptions and fears of life and death, happiness, and memory "machines" to deeply "flip through the pages of the book" and mentally retell the intimate parts. "In that sense, it is a sage book, simple-wise, which, in addition to its external plot lines, has a deep context, constantly forces us to return to the book through associative ways," said Zaven Boyajyan.