# a boca a se colar no chão



## utrehou

a boca a se colar no chão 
Does this mean literally what it sounds like or it an expression? In English, if we say "jaw-dropping" or something similar, we mean something stunning, amazing, but this refers, I think, to exhaustion or fatigue. Any ideas?


----------



## Vanda

According to the context from the other thread I understand it as if having nothing to eat, having no money to survive. I can't remember the whole situation right now, so I am basing only on that excerpt about being ''na lona''.


----------



## mglenadel

Also from the other thread, I believe this expression means she had stooped down as low as it was possible, that she had been defeated by life.


----------



## Vanda

Achei o trecho:


> o dinheiro era emprestado, ela raciocinou tortamente que não era dela e então podia gastá-lo. Assim pela primeira vez na vida tomou um táxi e foi para Olaria. Desconfio que ousou tanto por desespero, embora não soubesse que estava desesperada, é  -- Página 90  que estava gasta até a última lona, a boca a se colar no chão. Não foi difícil achar o endereço da madama Carlota e essa facilidade lhe pareceu bom sinal.



Como o pessoal disse> emocionalmente gasta. A boca colada no chão pois não tinha como abaixar mais do que isso; no fundo do poço.


----------



## utrehou

Obrigado. Estou tentando achar uma maneira de dizê-lo sem repetir, para manter o ritmo da frase original. Não estou encontrando ainda... 

"I suspect that desperation is what made her so daring, even though she didn't know she was desperate, because she was [completely worn out, she'd hit bottom]" or something? I feel the Portuguese is more expressive. Any suggestions?


----------



## Vanda

I like hit the bottom. Yes, Portuguese is always more expressive!


----------



## utrehou

Again, Vanda: is "a boca a se colar no chão" a regular expression or is it something Clarice invented? Because hitting bottom is also a cliché and if it's not that way in Portuguese we should try to think of something else...


----------



## mglenadel

Sugestão: "I suspect she dared so out of desperation, though she did not know she was desperate…"


----------



## Ariel Knightly

utrehou said:


> Again, Vanda: is "a boca a se colar no chão" a regular expression or is it something Clarice invented? Because hitting bottom is also a cliché and if it's not that way in Portuguese we should try to think of something else...


It is something Clarice invented.


----------



## utrehou

Then what would you think of "face-down in the dirt" which would avoid the problem of just using another standard expression?


----------



## Ariel Knightly

utrehou said:


> Then what would you think of "face-down in the dirt" which would avoid the problem of just using another standard expression?


It seems good to me. And I think it's a great idea to avoid using standard expressions when translating Clarice into English. Sometimes, even when you're talking about existing idioms, they're usually among those of very infrequent use and sound as literary as those invented by Clarice herself.


----------



## utrehou

Yes, it is almost never a good idea to translate Clarice with any sort of cliché. It was a terrible mistake to try to flatten the strangeness of her Portuguese into a standard phrase in English. Unfortunately, that is what the previous translator of "A hora da estrela" did, and that is the reason that I (graças a Deus) have the opportunity to redo it. 

Realmente do jeito que ficou é um ato de vandalismo cultural que a grande Clarice não merece.


----------



## William Stein

utrehou said:


> Yes, it is almost never a good idea to translate Clarice with any sort of cliché. It was a terrible mistake to try to flatten the strangeness of her Portuguese into a standard phrase in English. Unfortunately, that is what the previous translator of "A hora da estrela" did, and that is the reason that I (graças a Deus) have the opportunity to redo it.
> 
> Realmente do jeito que ficou é um ato de vandalismo cultural que a grande Clarice não merece.



I generally agree with your point, but it's important to distinguish between narration and dialog. Look at Proust, for example: he never uses clichés in his narration but his characters' dialogs are full of them because that's the way they really talk. It would seem contrived to make ordinary people come out with beautiful metaphors all the time.


----------



## Ariel Knightly

William Stein said:


> I generally agree with your point, but it's important to distinguish between narration and dialog. Look at Proust, for example: he never uses clichés in his narration but his characters' dialogs are full of them because that's the way they really talk. It would seem contrived to make ordinary people come out with beautiful metaphors all the time.


Bom, isso depende da narração e do diálogo. De fato, normalmente os diálogos têm um falar mais próximo da linguagem do cotidiano, mas isso não é uma regra.


----------



## William Stein

Ariel Knightly said:


> Bom, isso depende da narração e do diálogo. De fato, normalmente os diálogos têm um falar mais próximo da linguagem do cotidiano, mas isso não é uma regra.



What I mean is that a writer can be very creative in narration and description and still use a lot of clichés in the dialogs, if that's the way people talk. Zola, for example, has very poetic descriptions but his dialogs are full of clichés, not because he's a boring person but because he's a good observer and he's reproducing their speech realistically. It's true that there are exceptions, like Oscar Wilde's "Portrait of Dorian Grey" where some of the characters say nothing but polished epigrams, but it seems artificial to me, and even in that book the speech of the uneducated people can be coarse and cliché. It's possible for an author to use a "narrator-character" who speaks poorly or is even an idiot, as in Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury", but I was talking about impersonal narrators.
Anyway, I haven't read Clarice but my point is that it night be a a mistake to look for poetry and metaphor in every line of dialog of uneducated characters because the author might just be reproducing the way people really talk, which is amazingly full of clichés.


----------



## gvergara

Olá,

Mas _gasta _neste caso quer dizer sem dinheiro ou em mau estado? Ou ambas? 

_Desconfio que ousou tanto por desespero, embora não soubesse que estava desesperada, é que estava gasta até a última lona, a boca a se colar no chão._


----------



## Ari RT

Consumida (ES), extenuada (ES), sin fuerza, vacía, sin más medios.


----------

