BlogSpy
12-May-2008, 18:17
Increasing the degree of difficulty: three canonical authors that resist translation, each in his own way:
Witold Gombrowicz, Trans-Atlantyk (http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300065039) (trans Carolyn French and Nina Karsov): Betwixt the Poles of Form and Chaos, Spurred like Buridan's Ass, running on Empty ... an extended riff on gawęda, a storytelling form of the early provincial gentry that itself riffs extensively, but which in time gave rise to the national epic, Pan Tadeusz (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Tadeusz); Fatherland here takes the place of the father in Bruno Schulz for this prodigal son. This makes for challenges to English rendering that the translators tackle ? la Pevear and Volokhonsky (http://www.thevalve.org/go/valve/article/translation_wars_once_more_into_the_breach_edition/), but into a 17c style (the OED [?!] their primary reference book)—not to everyone's satisfaction (http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/gombroww/atlantyk.htm)—Stanislaw Baranczak's introduction is essential to setting context, and my having essayed other Gombrowicz helped to mitigate the inevitable untowardness of this approach (or any other). A romp, exitentially.
More... (http://nnyhav.blogspot.com/2008/05/extreme-translation.html)
Witold Gombrowicz, Trans-Atlantyk (http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300065039) (trans Carolyn French and Nina Karsov): Betwixt the Poles of Form and Chaos, Spurred like Buridan's Ass, running on Empty ... an extended riff on gawęda, a storytelling form of the early provincial gentry that itself riffs extensively, but which in time gave rise to the national epic, Pan Tadeusz (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Tadeusz); Fatherland here takes the place of the father in Bruno Schulz for this prodigal son. This makes for challenges to English rendering that the translators tackle ? la Pevear and Volokhonsky (http://www.thevalve.org/go/valve/article/translation_wars_once_more_into_the_breach_edition/), but into a 17c style (the OED [?!] their primary reference book)—not to everyone's satisfaction (http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/gombroww/atlantyk.htm)—Stanislaw Baranczak's introduction is essential to setting context, and my having essayed other Gombrowicz helped to mitigate the inevitable untowardness of this approach (or any other). A romp, exitentially.
More... (http://nnyhav.blogspot.com/2008/05/extreme-translation.html)