Torgny Lindgren: The Way Of A Serpent

[Bjorn]

The Way of a Serpent, Torgny Lindgren

"Lord, to whom shall we go?"

Torgny Lindgren's breakthrough novel (first published in 1982) is a dark affair, reminiscent of one of Dostoevsky's heavy tomes condensed down to a 150-page "j'accuse" towards a seemingly uncaring God and the, if you will, tyranny of evil men.

The question at the start of this review is repeated like a mantra by our narrator, Johan - the grandson of a farmer in 19th century Northern Sweden who ends up in debt to the local merchant, who in these new times demands payment in cash rather than in kind. And when the family is unable to come up with the cash, the merchant - and his son after him - takes his tribute in other ways; the sins of the father are visited upon the daughter, and as the sole male heir, Johan grows up seeing first his mother and then his sisters used as currency. What follows is both a very disturbing and realistic-feeling description of what life could be deep in the woods, and a harsh examination of the themes of sin, atonement, charity and self-sacrifice. (Lindgren converted to catholicism about the same time as he wrote this; it's a deeply Christian novel, but one in which faith alone will never set things right, and where Bible phrases are as often used to justify oppression as to offer comfort.)

Torgny Lindgren is one of Sweden's most acclaimed authors (and a member of the Academy as well), but I only recently understood his greatness; this is the fourth novel of his I've read, and he just keeps impressing me and making me think with every short volume. I can't vouch for the English translation; I'm not sure whether to envy or pity his translators - not only is the entire novel based on the double meaning of the Swedish word "skuld", meaning both "guilt", "lack of innocence" and "debt", but it's narrated in a heavy archaic dialect which is a joy to read but must be hell to translate. But the story is universal, and this is one of the best novel(la)s I've read this year. *****

[Eric]

Bjorn, you say:



...it's narrated in a heavy archaic dialect which is a joy to read but must be hell to translate. But the story is universal, and this is one of the best novel(la)s I've read this year.


How do you think the translator should tackle the archa?c aspects?

[fausto]

Thanks, looks interesting. Translated into French a few years ago.

[Bjorn]

How do you think the translator should tackle the archa?c aspects?

You're the expert, you tell me. :cool:

First of all, I'd say the "dialect" part is trickier than the "archaic" aspect. Obviously you can translate 19th-century Swedish into general 19th-century English, but when the narrator's dialect places him in a very specific geographic spot you can't just switch that by translating it into, say, Glaswegian or Appalachian. It's nothing unique to Lindgren, obviously, but it struck me in this book as it's a) written in an unusually heavy dialect, to the point where I had trouble understanding it on occasion, and b) because I wrote this review for this forum. I'm not suggesting that it cannot be translated, I'm just curious as to how they did it.

[Eric]

Bjorn, I have no pat solutions. But I think about the problem a great deal.

I gave a talk at the Nordic Translation Conference in London in early March which touched on this problem. It was called "Macaronics and Regionalism in Finland-Swedish Literature". I gave it this bullshit title to make people take notice, as I am not an academic and wanted a few odd bods to attend my talk. You know how it is at conferences with parallel sessions - you miss half of what's going on. Anyway I got twenty people, or so.

Here I discussed the problems of translating dialect (poetry by Lars Huld?n) and of how to translate macaronic dialogue (Yiddish phrases in a story by Elmer Diktonius) and semi-lingualism (in an amusing story Utan modersm?l [No Mother-Tongue] by Jac. Ahrenberg). I deliberately stressed the fact that I wasn't coming with any definitive answers, and that translating regional Swedish (Munsala dialect in the case of Huld?n) will result in a compromise:

a) If you translate it into standard English, you lose the regional flavour;

b) If you translate it into a British dialect, three quarters of your British or American readers would not understand it. You are quite right about not just being able to switch to Glaswegian or Appalachian;

c) A compromise, with hints at dialect is perhaps the only solution, without going the whole hog.

But you have to tackle these things on a case-to-case basis.

Here's a Huld?n poem, so you can compare the dialect with the standard Swedish translation, by the author himself:



EVIGHETSSOMMAREN

Gubbarna ligger i jorden
inte s? l?ngt fr?n varandra.
Jag brukar h?lsa p? hos dem
n?r jag n?gon g?ng kommer dit?t.
Det blev s? mycket ofr?gat
som man borde ha f?tt veta.
Och m?nga g?nger ville jag fr?ga
hur jag skall g?ra, n?r jag inte vet r?d.
De ligger alldeles tysta.
Men det ?r som de skulle f?rst? mig
och bekymra sig f?r mig, ?nd?.

EEVIHEITSS?MAN

Gamb?gobban ligg?r i j?olin
itt s? langt fr??n varaad?r.
Ja pa gaa ?sta sk?da ?tt dem
t? ja nain gang k?mmb? tiid??t.
H? l?mmna s? mytji ?ofr??ga
s?m an sku ha b?oda f? v?ta.
? mang gang sku ja vila fr??g
huru ja ska j?ra t? itt jag veit.
Ti ligg?r ? kvitar it ?oli.
M?n h? ? s?di n?o sku fystaa m?
? bitjymmb? ? fy m?, ?nt?.

Here, as you can see, the dialect is a strong one, nearer to Old Norse than to modern Swedish. These two versions of the poem appear next to one another in a collection of poetry called Heim / Hem. But translating it into a third language, English, has the problems outlined above. You will note that a single vowel is consistently short in the dialect, and that long vowels are rendered by doubling. So "sk?da" is pronounced with two short vowels. I've heard this spoken.

*

I'm sorry to say that I have never read Ormens v?g p? h?lleberget (The Way of the Serpent on the Rock), nor seen the film with Stina Ekblad (herself a Finland-Swede from a strong dialect area near Vasa) and other Swedish actors. But I shall take a look at the English version one day to see how the translator tackled it.

[saliotthomas]

I loved this novel.I might be a bit sadistic but i like when terrible stories are told with a dry sense of humour.
It is mostly women in the farm and strong ones,the males are the weak ones.If the landowner take his income in flesh they give him hell to pay in return.There is a strange ambiguity in there relation,specialy the mother Tea and the Karl.The oppressed never really complain about there situation,they have a strange sense of security,as long as there is women good looking enough.It start turning sour when Tea looses her looks and karl turn to her daughter who is his bastard sister.This is abomination.
The way they are scandalized by the attitude of the land owner is always slightly ridicule.It's "oh not never better dying.." and they agree few minutes later whitout seeming to disturbed about it.
The characteres are all a bit exentric and the situation,even dramatic,are fait-accompli and dealed with accordingly.Nothing linger here,the rythm come with the music the women play all trough the novel.
If different in treatement,i'll associate this book with Blue flower by Penelope Fitzgerald and a stranger come to the farm by Waltari.There is also a bit of Moliere in the comic of situation.

I would be very interested to find "the light"(la lumi?re)who is said to be his masterpiece.Have you read ot Bjorn.

[Bjorn]

So glad you liked it!


I would be very interested to find "the light"(la lumi?re)who is said to be his masterpiece.Have you read ot Bjorn.
I haven't read that one, and I don't think I've ever seen it singled out as a masterpiece. (The problem with Swedish literature: even our best authors go out of print regularly, so novels older than 10 years are often difficult to find.) My favourite of his that I've read so far is the trilogy N?den har ingen lag, made up of the novels P?lsan (Hash), Hummelhonung (Bumblebee Honey) and Dor?s bibel (Dor?'s Bible). I'm not sure what the translation situation is on those, though; I know P?lsan is available in English, and Hummelhonung seems to be available in French as Miel du Bourdon.

[saliotthomas]

Thanks for the info.
In French by Act sud Jewell of a publishing house for translation and art book cover.
Bethsab?e,
La beaut? de M?rab(the beauty of Merab)
les 32 voix de dieu(The 32 voices of god)
La lumiere(the light)
I was already lucky to get this one here,i'll have to wait for France to get the rest.Next month.

[Bjorn]

Stumbled across this review of Lindgren's excellent Hash: http://kimbofo.typepad.com/readingmatters/2011/02/hash-by-torgny-lindgren.html It's interesting to read what people make of literature that's steeped in a tradition they're unfamiliar with... Paul Auster, really? But the book is great.

[Noane13]

I love Torgny Lindgren, one of my absolute favourite writers. Glad to see it is being discussed here