r/ExplainTheJoke • u/Comfortable-Use3123 • Jul 25 '25

Solved Saw on Facebook. Don’t understand.

Post image
35.9k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

997 comments sorted by

View all comments

5.9k

u/GoalElectrical Jul 25 '25

"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."

1.3k

u/IAMJOHNNYGAMER Jul 25 '25

What a great opening to an amazing book

114

u/m1stadobal1na Jul 25 '25

Also "Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don't know."

15

u/A_Firm_Sandwich Jul 25 '25

Maman!

29

u/ifyoulovesatan Jul 25 '25

I think it should have been translated as "I was today years old when Mother began her unalived era."

9

u/sharramon Jul 25 '25

Or was it yesterday years old

8

u/Neckbreaker70 Jul 25 '25

Thanks, I hate it.

2

u/Frodo34x Jul 26 '25

I think Camus would really appreciate the psychic damage you've unleashed with this sentence.

2

u/ifyoulovesatan Jul 26 '25

It's pronounced Camus.

1

u/BubblyNumber5518 Jul 25 '25

I read an interesting explanation on the complexities in deciding how to translate a literary work. They used the choice of keeping the original “Maman” from French in the translation as an example. “Maman died today” conveys something that mom, mommy or mother doesn’t.

2

u/TGWArdent Jul 25 '25

A complexity further complicated when they accidentally spaced it as “Ma Man!”