Just heard this morning that the new French publisher Panama has made an offer on So Yesterday.
The French have been very, very good to me. This is the fourth of my books to be published there, after Evolution’s Darling and Risen Empire/Killing of Worlds. I’ve gotten great reviews in mainstream papers like L’Express and Le Monde, and one of my translators won an award for his work on ED. Much more of this, and I will become the Mickey Rourke of science fiction. But you can’t argue with excellent Google-translated reviews like this.
Interestingly, the title of Evolution’s Darling was translated as L’I.A. et son double, or The A.I and Its Twin. This has historical precedents in a whole sub-theme of French titling, most famously The Theatre and Its Twin, by Atonin Artaud.
This whole weird title-transaltion thing reminds me of when I first got to college. I was on the same floor as a woman from Italy. Whenever we talked about American films, she would crack us up with the literal translations of the Italian release titles. All I remember is that Airplane was called “The Craziest Airplane in the World.”
After learning this, my friends and I spent the next four years refering to all movies this way.
Thus:
The Godfather became “The Craziest Family in the World.”
Jaws: “The Craziest Fish in the World.”
Terminator: “The Craziest Cyborg in the World.”
All the President’s Men: “The Craziest Quaker in the World.”
Etc.
So here’s a contest for you all: The first commentor to correctly guess the name of So Yesterday in French will win:
a) A signed copy of the trade paperback edition of So Yesterday, or;
b) If you already own SY, you can have whatever else you want (that’s on my author’s copy shelf).
Only one guess per commentor!
My guess is “The Craziest Cool-Hunter in the World.”
Note: I don’t know what the title will be yet. So the contest will end when the translator and publishers make up their mind.
Bon chance!
May 18th, 2005 14:59
My guess – “C’est Grave de Chez Grave!”
May 18th, 2005 18:18
Um, “It’s serious at Club Serious”?
A sheepish request: please provide literal English translation for those of us who are devastatingly monolingual.
May 18th, 2005 19:52
I am going with something simple: Très Hier
translation:
Very Yesterday
I know it’s not very creative, but my french is aweful!
May 18th, 2005 20:06
Since I didn’t take French either (or is it Freedom now?) I don’t know that I can give a faithful translation. I found it on a BBC website of French slang, and as best I can tell it’s the type of thing one says if something is out of fashion. (They said it loosely means “boring”.)
May 18th, 2005 20:29
The website I visited had this to say:
“Again it can be used on its own, in which case it means boring, sad, awful: Les boy bands, c’est grave de chez grave. Also after another expression: J’ai pris une claque grave de chez grave.
”
I just did a google on ‘BBC French slang’ and found that under Music…
May 19th, 2005 08:51
I’ll go with “Depeche Mode,” which is French for “Fast Fashion,” and would be rather appropriate here, plus it’ll hitch a free ride on a certain popular music combo.
May 19th, 2005 10:02
Tres Demode (n’est-ce pas?)
May 19th, 2005 10:04
oops, translation: Very Unfashionable.
They’ll probably go with a more fashionable title though. hehe
May 19th, 2005 11:10
Super Passe, which needs an accent grave on the last e, but I am too dense to do that on this computer, sorry. Means ‘very unfashionable’ as well, though I wouldn’t take my word for it. I like ‘Sacre Bleu!’ very much, too, as a title. And congratulations on the wonderful news!
May 19th, 2005 11:26
“The Craziest Shoes in the World,” I would think. (Though maybe that’s the Italian version.)
May 19th, 2005 12:21
Je chasse cool, cool me chasse
“I hunt cool, cool hunts me,” with the naughty/trendy anglicized use of cool instead of detendu or whatever the hardcore “protectors” of French would use.
I don’t know how to do accents and diacriticals and so on in a Windows environment, sorry.
May 19th, 2005 12:57
Check that shinizzle out, I misspelled my own name! Also didn’t mean to capitalize the “j” in “Je,” because lower case is so hot with the french kidz.
May 19th, 2005 22:20
Hmmmmm…..would it be “Tellement hier?” “Tellement vieux?”
May 20th, 2005 19:30
Ne c’est pas cool is my guess. It means Not Cool.
June 2nd, 2005 13:41
[...] iggest names in French publishing is going to publish Magic or Madness on the same list as Scott’s So Yesterday! It’s going to be translated into French! Woo hoo! This means Magic and So [...]
June 8th, 2005 18:28
[...] ntly funny. I’m glad to see that I was right. I didn’t think of this when the French rights sold, but I’m very curious as to how the Spoonerisms in the book will work. (For you wh [...]
July 10th, 2005 11:44
ne plus être à la mode…meaning out of fashion
July 19th, 2005 21:23
[...] r caution, I’m very pleased about Italians joining the party. As I explain in detail here, I had an Italian friend in college who always cracked me up with literal translations of Italian movi [...]
October 5th, 2005 11:36
just curious…isn’t there a word in French that means So? I know Malay and Chinese both have a word for it…but I don’t take French.