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17th Translation Contest: "The Sounds of Silence" » English to Slovenian » Entry #23305


Source text in English

Translation #23305

A theme of the age, at least in the developed world, is that people crave silence and can find none. The roar of traffic, the ceaseless beep of phones, digital announcements in buses and trains, TV sets blaring even in empty offices, are an endless battery and distraction. The human race is exhausting itself with noise and longs for its opposite—whether in the wilds, on the wide ocean or in some retreat dedicated to stillness and concentration. Alain Corbin, a history professor, writes from his refuge in the Sorbonne, and Erling Kagge, a Norwegian explorer, from his memories of the wastes of Antarctica, where both have tried to escape.

And yet, as Mr Corbin points out in "A History of Silence", there is probably no more noise than there used to be. Before pneumatic tyres, city streets were full of the deafening clang of metal-rimmed wheels and horseshoes on stone. Before voluntary isolation on mobile phones, buses and trains rang with conversation. Newspaper-sellers did not leave their wares in a mute pile, but advertised them at top volume, as did vendors of cherries, violets and fresh mackerel. The theatre and the opera were a chaos of huzzahs and barracking. Even in the countryside, peasants sang as they drudged. They don’t sing now.

What has changed is not so much the level of noise, which previous centuries also complained about, but the level of distraction, which occupies the space that silence might invade. There looms another paradox, because when it does invade—in the depths of a pine forest, in the naked desert, in a suddenly vacated room—it often proves unnerving rather than welcome. Dread creeps in; the ear instinctively fastens on anything, whether fire-hiss or bird call or susurrus of leaves, that will save it from this unknown emptiness. People want silence, but not that much.
Duh današnje dobe se vsaj v razvitem svetu vrti okoli človekovega hrepenenja po tišini, ki nikoli ni uslišano. Prometni hrup, neprestano piskanje telefonov, digitalna obvestila na avtobusih in vlakih, donenje s televizijskih zaslonov celo v praznih pisarnah predstavljajo brezkončni napad na človeka in njegovo zbranost. Hrup pije kri človeštvu, ki hlepi po njegovem nasprotju – bodisi v divjini, na širnih vodah oceana bodisi v katerem od letovišč, predanih iskanju miru in zbranosti. Alain Corbin, profesor zgodovine, o problematiki piše iz varnega zavetja na Sorbonski univerzi, Erlin Kagge, norveški raziskovalec, pa navdih črpa iz svojih spominov na širjave Antarktike, kamor sta oba skušala pobegniti.

In vendar, kot izpostavlja Corbin v svojem delu »A History of Silence« (Zgodovina tišine), danes najbrž ni nič več hrupa kot pa nekoč. Pred cviljenjem pnevmatik so po mestnih ulicah odmevali oglušujoči žvenket kovinskih koles in udarci podkev ob kamnito podlago. Preden smo se z uporabo mobilnih telefonov odmaknili od soljudi, je potniške kabine na avtobusih in vlakih zapolnjevalo kramljanje. Prodajalci časopisov svoje vroče robe niso puščali nemo čakati na bralce, ampak so jo glasno oglaševali, tako kot prodajalci češenj, vijolic in svežih skuš. V gledališčih in operah so se v kaosu prepletali vriski ter vzkliki odobravanja. Še na podeželju so kmetje peli med garaškimi opravili. Danes ne pojejo več.

Ni se toliko spremenila raven hrupa, o kateri so tožili tudi v preteklih stoletjih, kot pa raven odvračanja pozornosti, ki danes zavzema kotičke, katere bi si lahko prisvojila tišina. Tu na površje sili še en paradoks. Namreč, ko si tišina le uspe prisvojiti naše trenutke – morda globoko v borovem gozdu, v praznini puščave ali v nenadno izpraznjenem prostoru – ji namesto dobrodošlice namenimo vznemirjenost. V misli se prikrade strah; ušesa se nagonsko oprimejo česar koli, bodisi sikanja ognjenih plamenov, ptičjega petja ali pa šumenja listov, samo da bi se rešila neznane praznine. Ljudje si želijo tišine, a ne tako zelo.


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