The Mistranslation

"I already sensed then that I would later adopt his manner and life-story as my own. There was something in his language and his turn of mind that I loved and wanted to master. A person should love the life he has chosen enough to call it his own in the end; and I do."

I think this quote, more than any other, parallels with the mistranslation. First off, in the second sentence the narrator speaks of some alternate way of living that is mysterious and attractive to him. The mistranslation starts "To imagine that a person who intrigues us has access to a way of life unknown and all the more attractive for its mystery....we will begin to live only through the love of that person..." Although this connection matters, I think the more important connection is the question of his identity. In the mistranslation, "Marcel" says that you begin to live through the love of that person. To me that triggers all sorts of alarms. It makes me think that the writer (whoever that is) is living through Hoja....so maybe is Hoja? There it gets hazy...I think it comes down to the interpretation of that line - "live only through the love of that person". Throughout the book he says things about choosing a life, fictionalizing a life. You could interpret that line as living vicariously, as adopting an identity, or as literally being one and the same with that person. It not only reflects on the writer, but also the relationship between the direct narrator and Hoja. As the relationship becomes stronger, the narrator starts to reveal, or become Hoja. I'm still reading so we'll see how it plays out....