Actually, let’s clarify this one, a little more. They are obviously a couple, and were always written to be a couple. What else would they be? (No, they aren’t sisters, they have different names.)
“We never married, so we’re undivorceable,” they sang in the Stephin Merritt musical of Coraline…
(They were based on my long ago elocution teacher and her partner.)
Yet another. I appear to have answered this one many many times on Tumblr alone (and on Twitter, alav ha-shalom, and even on my blog, before that).
And what I find oddest about it, is if it had been an elderly man and an elderly woman as neighbours, who had been living in the flat downstairs for the past thirty years or more, you’d just assume they were a couple, and would not be writing to the author to find out if they were a brother and sister or perhaps roommates.
Sometimes, we don’t always realize what we’re doing until later.
Oh no actually that’s part of what I love about it.
I have exactly the same reaction to my old RP logs and looking back at playing Little Fox 15 years ago. “Haha just a little free from gender shapeshifter!”
Miss Spink and Miss Forcible. They are a couple, yes.
As Stephin Merritt had them sing, in the 2009 musical
“I am Miss Spink–” “And I am Miss Forcible–”
“Elderly thespians fallen from grace–”
“We never married so we’re undivorceable–”
“Tripping on clippings all over the place.”
So, this is page 18 of a recent printing of the Italian translation of Coraline (actually the second page of the actual book, after the Preface).
The underlined part says, literally, “both I and my sister Forcible were famous actresses, in our time.”
I read Coraline in English way back when and had always assumed they were a couple. I just came across this translation today at my parents’ and was taken aback, thinking I probably got it wrong at the time.
So I checked the English text and GUESS WHAT. I didn’t get it wrong. The original sentence reads, “both myself and Miss Forcible were famous actresses, in our time.” The translator decided Miss Spink and Miss Forcible must be sisters and, to this end, added a word that wasn’t there.
As a literary translator, queer person, and Neil Gaiman fan, I could write much (MUCH) more about this but honestly? I haven’t felt this furious in a long time, and I wouldn’t be too eloquent, I guess.
Honestly the best bit about this whole answer-storm is it’s reminded me to talk to my agent about the Italian edition.
rinsing the sink, running the garbage disposal, fork balanced on bowl slips off and slides into the drain, subconscious reflexes kick in as I shut disposal off just in time, staring at fork, only conscious thought in brain is pitch perfect recreation, ten years buried, like i tripped and hit play on a dusty tape recorder lying forgotten in the room, of let’s do the fork in the gaaarbage disposal!! dingdingdingdidingdingding
POV it’s 2013 and at least one of your friends is chronically involved in the high school theater department
Die Deutsche Bahn: eine gammelnde Aktiengesellschaft (Till Reiners) | he…
“Es ist selten dass es bei einem Versagen die eine Wurzel allen Übels gibt. Hier schon! Sie heißt Privatisierung.” Können wir bitte nicht über meine privaten Probleme sprechen? Boundaries??
