Re: Meaning of a title of Stieg Larsson (swedish)

On Jul 8, 10:50 am, Lanarcam <lanarc...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
Edward Hennessey wrote:
Pierre Jelenc wrote:
Sébastien de Mapias  <sglrig...@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
Hi,
Someone can tell me what the following title means exactly ?:
Luftslottet som sprängdes
L'idée de "luftslott" se traduit par "château en Espagne" en
français. Littéralement donc "Le château en Espagne qui a explosé".

Pierre

PJ:  schl

"Castle in Spain" is, indeed, a rare phrase in English and the ancestral
one to
"castle in the air". This may derive from various sources on which either
research or
intelligent conjecture by parties in Spain or France may shed more light.
One possibility
is invidious, the French may have rightly or wrongly conceived that castles
were of
rare occurence in Spain.

You are right. I did not know the origin before
searching the Web.

I will not translate everything, the text in French
is given below. "This very old expression (dating from
le Roman de la Rose 13th century) stems from the
fact that castles were very rare in the countryside
in Spain. The Maures could not find refuge in them.
"Les chateaux en Espagne" is the metaphore for
what is deemed unfeasible.

That translation was the best I could achieve.

"Cette expression très ancienne (datant du Roman de la
Rose - XIIIième siècle) est entrée dans le langage courant
au XVIème siècle. Pasquier, en 1531, explique que cette
expression prend sa source dans le fait qu'en Espagne,
on ne trouve aucun château dans les campagnes : les Maures
se trouvaient ainsi sans possibilité de se réfugier dans
une demeure assurant leur retraite en toute sécurité.
C'est ainsi que les "châteaux en Espagne" sont devenus
la métaphore de ce qui est jugé infaisable."

http://www.francparler.com/syntagme.php?id=124



The other, more intriguing idea is that there the
phenomenon
of a fata morgana--or something similar--was observed by the French which
resembled
castles in the air over the Pyrenees appearing to be in Spain. Other
explanations are welcome.

It would be interesting to see if kindred phrases like luftshlösser or
schlösser im
Mond will be found in the German translation.

Regards,

Edward Hennessey- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

L:

There exists a synthetic way of looking at this. There were few
castles in Spain, paritally explaining
the Moorish conquest as you note. Ergo, one looking for castles there
would be best advised to fancifully
imagine them in the sky. Though it would take the local knowledge of a
climatologist, if rain clouds
piled up along the borderland mountains, that would be a tip for
inventive cloud fantasists.

Regards,

Edward Hennessey

.

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