War machine, nom de guerre... french translation struggles with Deleuze...

http://davecormier.net/war-machine-nom-de-guerre-french-translation

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March 7, 2012

War machine, nom de guerre... french translation struggles with Deleuze and Guattari
The following quotes were stolen from http://tuxcafe.org/~renee/textes/deleuze/vocabulaire_deleuze.pdf Apologies to all my ancestors for the terrible translations below. The point here is that the 'machine de guerre' as it's translated from the french in Deleuze and Guattari, loses much of its meaning when we say 'war machine'. In my mind the phrase 'machine de guerre' is very close in its meaning to 'nom de guerre'. The phrase 'nom de guerre' is in its strict meaning a reference to an alias that you might use during a war. It's broader meaning, of clandestine french resistance folks, of using a false name during a love affair, all point to being 'outside' the system. This does not come through in the statement 'war name'. So... i put forward that the use of 'war machine' for the D&G translation is very misleading and loses much of its cultural context. Machine de guerre : Nous dfinissons la machine de guerre comme un agencement linaire qui se construit sur des lignes de fuite. En ce sens, la machine de guerre n'a pas du tout pour objet la guerre ; elle a pour objet un espace trs spcial, espace lisse, qu'elle compose, occupe et propage. Le nomadisme, c'est prcisment cette combinaison machine de guerre-espace lisse. (Gilles Deleuze, Pourparlers, Ed. Minuit, 1990, p. 50.) (bad dave translation) We define "war machine' as a linear construct that constructs itself on lines of flight. In this sense war machine doesn't have war as it's object, but rather a flattened? space that it occupies and propagates. Nomadism is precisely this combination of war machine/flattened space. - En quel sens la machine de guerre n'a pas la guerre pour objet [?]. L'ambigut d'o la machine de guerre tire son nom vient de ce qu'elle ne laisse pas de trace autre que ngative dans l'histoire (Dialogues, p. 171). (bad dave translation) In what sense does the war machine not have 'war as an object'? the ambiguity of where the war machine draws its name comes from the fact that it doesn't leave any other than a negative trace in history. **** in these two quotes you can kind see some of that 'mystery-ness' implied by the related meaning to 'nom de guerre'. At least... that's what i've always heard in the meaning. *** En tmoigne le destin de toute rsistance, d'tre qualifie d'abord de terrorisme ou de dstabilisation, puis de triompher amrement, quand elle triomphe, en passant dans la forme de l'Etat : c'est qu'elle relve du devenir, du devenirrvolutionnaire , et ne s'inscrit pas dans l'histoire (Pourparlers, pp. 208- 209 ; Quest-ce que la philosophie ?, p. 106). (Franois Zourabichvili, Le vocabulaire de Deleuze, Ed. Ellipses, 2003, p. 48.) -

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4/11/2012 9:28 AM

War machine, nom de guerre... french translation struggles with Deleuze...

http://davecormier.net/war-machine-nom-de-guerre-french-translation

(dave struggling to translate... this really needs to be translated better) a witness of the destiny of all resistence, to be qualified to terrorize (perform terrorism?) or to destabilize, and... to triump and pass into the state, that what it want to become, a becoming/revolutionary, and doesn't leave it's trace in history

Ce qui caractrise la machine de guerre est l'extriorit de son rapport l'Etat. Consubstantiellement lie au nomadisme, son dplacement (mme sur place), sa vitesse absolue (Mille plateaux, 1980, p.460), son espace sans stries ni repres (ibid., p.477), la machine de guerre entretient en outre un rapport l'invention du nombre nombrant (ibid., p. 482) et l'activit d'une pense du dehors (ibid., p. 467). (Robert Sasso et Arnaud Villani, Le vocabulaire de Gilles Deleuze, Les Cahiers de Noesis n 3, Printemps 2003, p. 354.) (bad dave translation) What characterizes the 'war machine' is its externalness with regards to the state. linked to its nomadism, to it's displacement, to its absolute speed....)

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4/11/2012 9:28 AM