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Originally Posted by nnyhav
All necessary prerequisites, but literary competency is also needed. That is, beyond style and voice (which may themselves have to be translated into the target language/culture), maintaining the ability to support several readings where such openness to interpretation is present in the source, whether at different levels of the narrative, or as embedded ambiguities intrinsic to the story or its telling (e.g., hingeing on how an early passage is parsed, with the story seemingly developing in one direction but then resolving into a consistent alternate interpretation). It's at this level that translation rises above mere craft.
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This facet is especially interesting to me, but I think you've made somewhat of a misappropriation here by assigning what I sense is "literary scholarship" to "literary competency," with the word competency having rudimentary connotations--to myself, at least. But enough with semantic nitpicking...
I have fun equating original works to sheet music and the translated material to the music of the performance, where a rubbish translation might drone as if imported into a MIDI app, and the virtuosic to the playing of a virtuoso. And I really hate it when I realize I'm listening to MIDI music.
The part of your quote I made bold reminds me very much of something I stumbled upon while reading a different translation of Borges', who I imagine most are familiar with, metaphysical detective story
Death and the Compass.
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Originally Posted by Death and the Compass
"We needn't lose any time here looking for three-legged cats," Treviranus said, brandishing an imperious cigar.
"No need to go off on wild-goose chases here," Treviranus was saying, as he brandished an imperious cigar.
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A major aspect of the story is about what appears to be a series of three at the onset, but is in fact a series of four, in which "three-legged cat," the first line of dialog, references. I suppose the translator thought this was a cultural idiom (it isn't, as far as I know) that needed transposing? I hope so, because the other options are meddlesome
What level of scholarship is reasonable to demand of translators, or is it impractical altogether given various constraints, intellectual, time, and market alike?