Aprendió a conocer ...

[aleCcowaN]

"He learned to know the ships by their voices, by the size of their lights on the horizon, and to sense that something of them came back to him in the flashing beacon of the lighthouse".

Translator: Edith Grossman
Publishing house: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Year: 1988

[Perikles]

Thanks very much - that is (more or less) how I would have translated it, except that I'm not quite sure if I actually understand the English. At least it comforts me to know there is nothing else obvious which I'm missing.

[aleCcowaN]

You're welcome. There's a sort of magic in the text: the sirens and foghorns become voices, and the vessels are like trying to "make a name" for themselves as if the blurry reflections of the beacon's light on them during a fraction of a second were sort of a card they use as an identification.

And an applause to Angélica de Alqueazar for her top notch translation. Poli's is good but he added some context to the text that is not in the novel -maybe following my bad example- (though it's very clever the analogy he did about the dog and its master)

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

@Perikles: García Márquez needs positivism put aside for a while.

@Alec: Gracias.