Translating King

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Goran

Goran

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Hello, all. I've been reading King's work since the late 70s, and I can count myself lucky for being able to translate some of his best books to Serbian - "It", "The Stand", "The Dark Tower 1-3"... and currently I am finishing the translation of "Different Seasons." A beautiful book, one of my favorites. However, in the novella "The Body", there is a sentence where he says: "We talked about who was the best DRAGGER in Castle Rock..." Could anyone help with the exact meaning of the noun "dragger"? I cannot pinpoint it from the context (the boys are just preparing to spend the night in the woods and they are chit-chatting), and the only two meanings I was able to find were the fishing boats dragging nets, or the devices for fixing the baseball field. This also raises the question: is Castle Rock on the seaside (as shown in the movie "Needful Things"), or not?
Thanks in advance for all constructive replies!
 
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not_nadine

not_nadine

Comfortably Roont
Nov 19, 2011
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Behind you
Rob Reiner's logo for Castle Rock. (Director of Sk's movies and a friend. - and don't forget he was meathead) :)

I don't know if this helps, or really means anything.


maxresdefault.jpg
 
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GNTLGNT

GNTLGNT

The idiot is IN
Jun 15, 2007
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Goran said:
Hello, all. I've been reading King's work since the late 70s, and I can count myself lucky for being able to translate some of his best books to Serbian - "It", "The Stand", "The Dark Tower 1-3"... and currently I am finishing the translation of "Different Seasons." A beautiful book, one of my favorites. However, in the novella "The Body", there is a sentence where he says: "We talked about who was the best DRAGGER in Castle Rock..." Could anyone help with the exact meaning of the noun "dragger"? I cannot pinpoint it from the context (the boys are just preparing to spend the night in the woods and they are chit-chatting), and the only two meanings I was able to find were the fishing boats dragging nets, or the devices for fixing the baseball field. This also raises the question: is Castle Rock on the seaside (as shown in the movie "Needful Things"), or not?
Thanks in advance for all constructive replies!
Click to expand...
.....I think "dragger" had to do with auto racing...like street drag racing, or baseball in the sense of a "drag bunt"....my copy isn't readily at hand, but maybe that will help...and Castle Rock is near the water...but not right on the shore
 
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Bev Vincent

Bev Vincent

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Yeah, this isn't definitive but I would say "best drag racer" as nothing else really fits in the context. Castle Rock has a river flowing through it (hence the train trestle the boys cross) -- it's not on the coast. There is some talk about "dragging the ponds" in the vicinity while looking for the missing boy, but that's something different. Not something the boys would be talking about that way.
 
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Goran

Goran

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Mar 21, 2015
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Thank you for your kind help. I thing "drag bunt" is closest to home. Now I'm stumped with something else, a bit further down the novella: "...that's why all the verbs in stories have -ed endings, Keith my good man, even the ones that sell millions of paperbacks. The only two useful artforms are religion and stories."
What exactly is the meaning of "-ed endings"? That the verbs are in the past tense? It doesn't seem very logical in the context of the paragraph, so I figure it must be something else...
 
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Neesy

Neesy

#1 fan (Annie Wilkes cousin) 1st cousin Mom's side
May 24, 2012
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Goran said:
Hello, all. I've been reading King's work since the late 70s, and I can count myself lucky for being able to translate some of his best books to Serbian - "It", "The Stand", "The Dark Tower 1-3"... and currently I am finishing the translation of "Different Seasons." A beautiful book, one of my favorites. However, in the novella "The Body", there is a sentence where he says: "We talked about who was the best DRAGGER in Castle Rock..." Could anyone help with the exact meaning of the noun "dragger"? I cannot pinpoint it from the context (the boys are just preparing to spend the night in the woods and they are chit-chatting), and the only two meanings I was able to find were the fishing boats dragging nets, or the devices for fixing the baseball field. This also raises the question: is Castle Rock on the seaside (as shown in the movie "Needful Things"), or not?
Thanks in advance for all constructive replies!
Click to expand...
Welcome - could they be talking about 'drag racing'?
 
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Walter Oobleck

Walter Oobleck

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At the end of section 17 the boys are talking...Chris talking about the milk money. He says he wants to leave Castle Rock, go to where nobody knows him, but doesn't know if he can. Why not? People. People drag you down. Page 380 in my USA paperback copy. Your friends drag you down, he tells them. Like drowning guys who are holding onto your legs...you just drown with them. There's a nice linkage to The Stand here...I think this is after the leeches? Larry Underwood out in California...the bloodsuckers on him, dragging him down. What a drag it is getting older. Mother's Little Helper from the Stones. Drag is/was a common expression used during the turbulent 60s...perhaps into the 70s. What a drag, man...knowing someone or some thing that is a "downer"....another expression from the time, the 60s. Bummer...another...

I'm not finding the exact usage...oh! here it is...on page 382, section 18. Gordie narrating...not in speech...his narration. Says they talked about "who was the best dragger in Castle Rock, if Boston could maybe stay out of the cellar this year, and about the summer just past."

Could be cars, fast cars, drag racing. When I was young...and never needed anyone...anyway, the older boys would drive all around, right, in their muscle cars, jacked up, the back end raised up somehow, fat tires all around, they'd turn around by the old school, spin their wheels. Be loud, be somebody. I don't know how much actual drag racing...two cars lining up side by side...they run hell-bent for leather down the highway. Although we did race from time to time...more of a spontaneous thing...two cars heading back from BB practice...guy behind decides he's going to pass? Guy in front says uh uh, not today you're not. Off to the races.
 
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Walter Oobleck

Walter Oobleck

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Goran said:
And yet another puzzler in The Body (chapter 24, 1st paragraph): "...as unpleasant as week-old river corpses brought to surface by cannonfire." What cannonfire is that? What am I missing here?
Click to expand...

That is a reference to Huckleberry Finn from Mark Twain. Apparently, at one time, it was common practice to fire a cannon over the water to do what is described.
 
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Bev Vincent

Bev Vincent

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It's a little bit like going fishing with dynamite. Cannonfire stirs things up and bodies that are tangled in tree roots or anything else in the water can be jarred to the surface.

"The only reason anyone writes stories so they can understand the past." This is the context for the -ed endings. There are stories told in present tense (parts of Mr. Mercedes, for example), but they deal with what's happening now. He's talking about how stories are generally written in past tense: because they are an attempt to understand the past.

Given that the next phrase in the "dragger" sentence is about Boston (Red Sox) staying out of the cellar (last place), I'm more inclined to go with the drag-bunt theory now.
 
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Goran

Goran

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OK, here's another reference that is not clear to me - in The Breathing Method, when the narrator explains that "the club" is not your regular club for gentlemen:
"There is no box of white marbles and black balls."
What exactly does this mean?
 
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