"Maintenant je parle sans porte-voix. Sans ravin dans la poitrine. Sans éclisses dans le coeur. Je parle comme je respire. Je respire comme una pierre. "

"I don't use a megaphone when I speak anymore. There is no ravine in my chest. There are no splints in my heart. I speak in the same way as I breathe. I breathe like a stone." --Dupin, translated by Auster.

It seems to me that this brief poem (or section of a longer poem) needs to be treated more delicately. The first thing I notice is that Auster destroys the discursive continuity of "sans porte-voix . . . sans ravin .... sans éclisses." He should have said "Now I speak without megaphone. Without a ravine in my chest..." He does the same thing by translating the word "comme" as "in the same way as" instead of simply translating: "I speak like I breathe. I breathe like a stone." Precisely because this poetry is so "pure," so devoid of extraneous material, it is encumbent on the translator to preserve repetitions of words whenever possible. There are numerous other examples of this kind of translation in this book.