Questions about "La Geometrie"
To the translators: Please don't hesitate to ask questions about language or culture. I'll try to remember to post answers here since the question that one person has is likely to arise for others.
One translator wanted clarification on the allusion to "Boulder." He also wanted to make sure that Joseph and Dan were lovers, and he used the word "queen."
Boulder is a city, yes. Boulder, Colorado. It is where the University of Colorado is, and it is also a famously liberal town. During the 1960's and 1970's, it was a place where many hippies lived, and they were supposedly likely to give their children names like Rain or Rainbow for girls and Forest or Walker for boys. Actually, such names were never terribly common in Boulder and would be less common today, but people from other parts of Colorado and elsewhere in the U.S. still have the idea that Boulder is a town of hippies.
You do indeed understand the relationship between Dan and Joseph. First, a primer in some of the terminology: The inoffensive word for speaking about homosexuals in the U.S. is "gay." The word can apply to male or female homosexuals, although for women the word "lesbian" is usually preferred as it is more specific to women. "Queer" as an adjective or noun applies to homosexual men or women. It is mildly offensive, but homosexuals will use it casually to refer to themselves. "Queen" means a homosexual male, especially an effeminate male.
My own sense of the story is that Joseph is gay and not interested in women at all. Dan is clearly interested in a woman but will settle for a man, making him bisexual. But neither of these men is a queen. That is, Joseph is not effeminate, because otherwise Rain would be able to guess that he is not interested in girls. And Dan apparently presents himself to Rain as a masculine man, so that Rain does not guess either of his sexual relationship with Joseph.
One translator wanted clarification on the allusion to "Boulder." He also wanted to make sure that Joseph and Dan were lovers, and he used the word "queen."
Boulder is a city, yes. Boulder, Colorado. It is where the University of Colorado is, and it is also a famously liberal town. During the 1960's and 1970's, it was a place where many hippies lived, and they were supposedly likely to give their children names like Rain or Rainbow for girls and Forest or Walker for boys. Actually, such names were never terribly common in Boulder and would be less common today, but people from other parts of Colorado and elsewhere in the U.S. still have the idea that Boulder is a town of hippies.
You do indeed understand the relationship between Dan and Joseph. First, a primer in some of the terminology: The inoffensive word for speaking about homosexuals in the U.S. is "gay." The word can apply to male or female homosexuals, although for women the word "lesbian" is usually preferred as it is more specific to women. "Queer" as an adjective or noun applies to homosexual men or women. It is mildly offensive, but homosexuals will use it casually to refer to themselves. "Queen" means a homosexual male, especially an effeminate male.
My own sense of the story is that Joseph is gay and not interested in women at all. Dan is clearly interested in a woman but will settle for a man, making him bisexual. But neither of these men is a queen. That is, Joseph is not effeminate, because otherwise Rain would be able to guess that he is not interested in girls. And Dan apparently presents himself to Rain as a masculine man, so that Rain does not guess either of his sexual relationship with Joseph.
posted by Bruce Holland Rogers at
8:23 AM
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