Just finished reading The Wooden Sea by Jonathan Carroll. It was a great romp, and interesting twist on old time travel paradoxes and generally a good time was had by all. Parts of it were riotously funny: I burst out laughing when the central character met his father during one of his time jumps. Very funny, very well done.
The only bad thing about the book was the title. In French it is translated as “À l’aube du huitième jour”. Now this is a theme in the book, and so is not so bad as The Amber Spyglass being translated as ‘The Amber Mirror’ as happened for Philip Pullman which is plain false and inexact. What annoyed me is that Carroll could have called his book, The Dawn of the Eighth Day quite easily. But he didn’t. He called it The Wooden Sea. That is part of his creative process, the book title is part of the book. So why do translaters (in France), or perhaps publishers, change the title? Ludivine postulates that they are frustrated writers and so this is an area where they exercise their ‘creativity’. It could be an answer, but it seems like a poor excuse.