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15 décembre 2023
- ISIDORE Id: 10670/1.237d95...
- hal: hal-05011433
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/ , info:eu-repo/semantics/OpenAccess
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Chloé Thomas, « A Wilderness of Mirrors: Eliot, Max Frisch and the CIA », HAL SHS (Sciences de l’Homme et de la Société), ID : 10670/1.237d95...
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This article will examine the occurrences of the phrase “The Wilderness of Mirrors”, from Eliot’s “Gerontion”, in a series of surprising contexts and translations. In particular, its use by CIA chief of counter-intelligence James Jesus Angleton to describe double agents will serve to explain how Eliot’s words became a commonplace item of pulp fiction and rock albums. “The Wilderness of Mirrors” is also the title chosen by the American translator of Max Frisch’s Mein Name sei Gantenbein (which translates literally as: “Let’s pretend I’m called Gantenbein”), although the novel does not mention Eliot – but it features, if not a double agent, at least a protagonist with a complex identity. The French translation of the novel is Le Désert des miroirs, that is, a translation of the English translation. Yet it does not use the most easily available French translation of Eliot, that of Pierre Leyris (“cette exubérance de miroirs”) and chooses instead a phrase that also echoes, probably on purpose, Le Désert des Tartares by Dino Buzzati. Navigating these convoluted transfers, this paper will argue that the “wilderness” at hand is not so much a “désert” as a forest of sorts.
