Και ξέρεις, εσύ θα το φχαριστηθείς περισσότερο, αν, βέβαια, σου αρέσει αυτό το είδος, γιατί όλο το βιβλίο εκτυλίσσεται σε ένα παράλληλο κόσμο στο London Underground, και έχει πολλές αναφορές σε μέρη και περιοχές έτσι ώστε, αν δεν έχεις πάει ποτέ στο Λονδίνο, όπως εγώ, δεν τις πιάνεις. Γι' αυτό και το βιβλίο έχει εκδοθεί σε 2 versions: στην αμερικάνικη και στην αγγλική.
Λέει ο Gaiman στο τέλος του βιβλίου:
It’s funny because Americans occasionally get slightly huffy at me when I tell them that I’ve written Neverwhere more than once. On occasion, there is a slight sort of huffiness as if, “What, you don’t think we’re bright enough to have read the English version?” And that’s not actually it at all. In fact, I think the American version is a much better book for me than the English version. In the English version, I could say something like “he walked down Oxford Street,” and know that everybody reading
my book knows that Oxford Street is a large metropolitan street in the central west-end of London filled with large shops. I don’t expect anybody in Kansas to know that. If somebody in Kansas read that, they might think, “Oxford Street, maybe it’s a street with a University on it or something.” I would not make fun of that person for thinking that. They don’t know - nor should they. So what I tried to do was, in the American version, just add information, add details.
Sometimes I’d hide the details or the information in the book. In the English one there is a joke which is at one point, one character says, “We’re going to this market but it’s in a really nasty area of London.” And the hero says, “Where’s that?” And she says, “Knightsbridge.” Which is very funny if you know London, then you know this is the nicest area of London. But people who haven’t been to London merely know that
they are missing a joke there.
Και γλωσσικό σημείωμα:
Yes. I changed some of the dialogue. It’s been interesting talking to Americans about this who, again, get a little bit huffy, asking, “What? We aren’t good enough to get the words?” But that’s not the point. For example, in the English version Richard, our hero, meets Door, our, for want of a better word, heroine. He stumbles over her bleeding on the pavement. In the American version, he stumbles over her bleeding on the sidewalk. English people ask me, “Why did you change that?” And I say,
“Because it’s a word that means two different things. The English word pavement literally means sidewalk. In America pavement is the paved area; it’s actually the road. If I left her bleeding on the pavement in the American version, for reasons of cultural superiority, she would be in a different place. People would understand it differently.”
Παρεμπ., η έκδοση που σας έστειλα είναι η αγγλική.
