Julian Barnes. Nothing to fear (№ 462492)

The awareness of the inevitability of death came to me early, at the age of thirteen or fourteen. The French literary critic Charles du Bose, Edith Wharton's friend and translator, coined a clever phrase for this: le réveil mortel. What's the best way to translate? “Death Alarm Ring” is a bit from the field of hotel services. “Death-knowledge”, “awakening to death” - smacks too much of German philosophy. "Awareness of death"? - but this suggests a condition rather than a pinpoint lightning strike. In a sense, the bad (first) translation of Dubosov’s expression fits best: it’s really as if you are in an unfamiliar hotel room, where your predecessor left the alarm clock set, and at a monstrous early hour you are suddenly torn from sleep into the darkness of the morning by panic fear and cruel realization that in this world you are just a guest.