Translation can be fun - or, Googling for Como

[Eric]

Googling for Como

When I needed a rest from translating a story set in Como, the small Italian town at the southern end of the lake of the same name, I thought I'd check out some of the background. In the story, a procession of veterans in red garb snakes its way through Como. This is during the 100th celebrations of the birth of the man chiefly responsible for the Unification of Italy, Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882). Garibaldi liberated Como in 1859.

I knew virtually nothing but the basic facts about the Risorgimento, until I started Googling just now, but suffice it to say that translating is not only fun, but educative.

The author of this story, Eduard Vilde (1865-1933) will probably have experienced the 100th anniversary of the birth of Garibaldi at first hand in Como, as the story was published in 1908.

Googling helps you expand your vistas, and is a tremendous boon to the modern translator. I have now found palaces, lakescapes and other pleasant, sunny, summer pictures of Como and environs. I don't think that Como has changed all that much in the century since Vilde published the story.