Ring Lardner Tonight: Part 6 of "Champion" -- Back in Milwaukee, the champ rearranges more old arrangements

"'What do you want?' [Midge] demanded.

"'I guess you know,' said Lou Hersch. 'Your wife's starvin' to death and your baby's starvin' to death and I'm starvin' to death. And you're dirty with money.'"

-- in Part 6 the champ receives a visit from his
brother-in-law (it doesn't turn out well for Lou)

by Ken

We come tonight to the next-to-last installment of "Champion."

As I mentioned last night, Ring's son Bill (Ring Jr.) comments in his 1976 memoir The Lardners: My Family Remembered on the late flowering of his father's work in other languages.

The most impressive development in recent years has been the spread of his work into foreign countries. During his lifetime and for thirty years after his death, he was practically unknown outside the English-speaking world; this year [1976] there are collections of his stories on sale in France, Italy, West and East ermany, Rumania, Norway, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and a number of other countries. How full an appreciation of his work there can be in all these new languages, I am not competent to judge, but clearly some obstacles have not been surmounted:

The rhythm at least of "And he give her a look that you could pour on a waffle" is lost when it becomes "E le diede un'occhiata che avreste potuto spalmarla benissimo su una fettina di pane."

And the reader is not getting the same sense of the character speaking the line when "I've saw outfielders tooken sick with a dizzy spell" is converted to "J'ai vu des joueurs de l'extérieur avoir une attaque de vertige."

In 1975 I accepted an offer from Pakistan (of two hundred and fifty dollars, no less) for the amateur theatrical rights in the Urdu language to a revue sketch of Dad's that contains the exchange:

"Me? I was born out of wedlock."

"Mighty pretty country around there."

I'm still waiting to hear how this holds up in Urdu.

FOR PART 6 OF "CHAMPION," CLICK HERE.

RING'S "CHAMPION" -- THE WHOLE STORY

Part 1: We make the acquaintance of young Michael Kelly
Part 2: In Milwaukee, Midge makes connections
Part 3: In Boston, Midge makes his mark
Part 4: In New Orleans, Midge reads some mail
Part 5: Back in his hometown, the champ knows how to deal with a sponger
Part 6: Back in Milwaukee, the champ rearranges more old arrangements
Part 7: In New York, the champ meets the press
Postscript: How "Champion" found its way into book form

THURBER TONIGHT (including BENCHLEY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, BOB AND RAY, E. B. WHITE, and JEAN SHEPHERD TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

#