Rutger Hauer - familiar name?

Eric · #1 (**permalink**) 13-Dec-2009, 10:25

I asked this question on another thread, but thought I'd highlight it again here:

During our Dutch-into-English literary translation workshop yesterday, we ran into a problem. We were dealing with a short-story by the Fleming Annelies Verbeke and came across the name Rutger Hauer in the text.

This author writes fairy-tales-for-our-time, often with slightly surreal or magical input. In one story, Verbeke invented a character, a dwarf, who is called Rutger Hauer. Should a translator leave the name or change it? Is Rutger Hauer well enough known internationally for the name to be left as it is? Does the name Rutger Hauer resonate with people reading this, or not? We in the workshop were wondering whether, when the story finally appears in a British anthology, the irony of name versus person will be understood by both British and American readers?

saliotthomas · #2 (**permalink**) 13-Dec-2009, 10:39

The man is a hero.

Clarissa · #3 (**permalink**) 13-Dec-2009, 10:46

I believe Rutger Hauer is a German actor who has had quite a career in the USA. Never seen a film with him in it but I know the name. Probably Amrican moviegoers might just know the name but Schwarzenegger he ain't.

Eric · #4 (**permalink**) 13-Dec-2009, 11:56

Thanks Saliotthomas and Clarissa for your swift replies. As you come from different backgrounds (am I right: a Frenchman in Morocco; an Englishwoman in Britain?), it gives a slight indication that this Dutch actor is, in fact quite well known in the outside world. I'd like to hear what others have to say.

I must be frank and say that I had never heard of this Dutchman and environmentalist, as I was neither in the Netherlands when the Dutch knew him best - as a young blond beast of an actor back in the Floris costume dramas back in the 1970s as Saliotthomas demonstrates from the photo - nor as an older actor in American B-movies.

The author of the short-story in question, Annelies Verbeke, is a Dutch-writing Fleming i.e. a Belgian, and is published in Amsterdam, Netherlands. She will have been quite confident that both a Dutch and Flemish audience would know Hauer and his appearance. As part of her story hinges on a kindly dwarf (in the medical sense) of that name who rescues the young alter ego of the author when her car breaks down, it is essential that the irony of the name of the tall blond actor versus the height of the man in the story is immediately obvious.

So there would be no need at all to transpose or change the name if Hauer is world famous. This is a problem that affects me in real life beyond any workshop, as I am editing an anthology of Flemish stories, and the man leading the workshop yesterday is the translator. So I'm adamant to make sure that if the translator leaves the name as it is, a good percentage of British readers will twig.

Bubba · #5 (**permalink**) 13-Dec-2009, 12:05

We certainly knew him in the US. He was almost as famous as Jean-Claude Van Damme. I don't think anybody ever really knew where he was from, though. Somewhere in Euro-land, in any case.

**Bjorn** · #6 (**permalink**) 13-Dec-2009, 14:33

I'd say Rutger Hauer is a well-known name to people born before a certain year. He hasn't really done a lot in recent years, but in the 80s, he was something of an icon. Do yourself a favour and watch Blade Runner, Eric.

Mirabell · #7 (**permalink**) 13-Dec-2009, 14:56

but the question is not is he well know but is he better known in anglophone countries than in the netherlands?

I doubt that, at least not significantly.

saliotthomas · #8 (**permalink**) 13-Dec-2009, 15:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bjorn

I'd say Rutger Hauer is a well-known name to people born before a certain year. He hasn't really done a lot in recent years, but in the 80s, he was something of an icon. Do yourself a favour and watch Blade Runner, Eric.

Hitcher was not bad too.

**Bjorn** · #9 (**permalink**) 13-Dec-2009, 15:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by saliotthomas

Hitcher was not bad too.

Absolutely. One of the best horror movies of the 80s. And Ladyhawke, which is cheesy as hell but good fun if you can ignore the soundtrack.

He was in the Buffy movie as well, and then he and Donald Sutherland repeated the exact same roles 15 years later in the remake of Salem's Lot. Both those movies can be safely ignored, though.

Galatea92 · #10 (**permalink**) 13-Dec-2009, 20:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eric

I asked this question on another thread, but thought I'd highlight it again here:

During our Dutch-into-English literary translation workshop yesterday, we ran into a problem. We were dealing with a short-story by the Fleming Annelies Verbeke and came across the name Rutger Hauer in the text.

This author writes fairy-tales-for-our-time, often with slightly surreal or magical input. In one story, Verbeke invented a character, a dwarf, who is called Rutger Hauer. Should a translator leave the name or change it? Is Rutger Hauer well enough known internationally for the name to be left as it is? Does the name Rutger Hauer resonate with people reading this, or not? We in the workshop were wondering whether, when the story finally appears in a British anthology, the irony of name versus person will be understood by both British and American readers?

For me, the name immediately recalled the face. So I guess he's pretty well known over here.

**Stewart** · #11 (**permalink**) 13-Dec-2009, 21:36

Not a starring role, but he was in Batman Begins.

Eric · #12 (**permalink**) 13-Dec-2009, 22:10

Björn, I'm not sure that I'd do myself a favour watching "Blade Runner", unless it was late at night and I wanted a bit of light entertainment. Watching a replicant like Hauer would be more interesting for sci-fi buffs. The only two things, rather different, that I have liked in that genre are Tarkovsky films and Buffy (the TV series, not the movie).

mirabell, it's a question of whether the readers of the forthcoming dedalus book of flemish fantasy are the same sort of people that watch american sci-fi, or whether they are a different audience

Galatea adds to Saliotthomas' and Clarissa's assurance that he should be known. So if a few more replies like theirs come along, from people located in Britain or the USA, I'll recommend to the translator that he keep the name Rutger Hauer. But in matters of translation, the translator and publisher have the last say.

pontalba · #13 (**permalink**) 15-Dec-2009, 02:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bjorn

Absolutely. One of the best horror movies of the 80s. And Ladyhawke, which is cheesy as hell but good fun if you can ignore the soundtrack.

He was in the Buffy movie as well, and then he and Donald Sutherland repeated the exact same roles 15 years later in the remake of Salem's Lot. Both those movies can be safely ignored, though.

I remember those films well, and Hauer's name is well known to me also, here in the Southern U.S.A.

Peeping Tom · #14 (**permalink**) 15-Dec-2009, 03:55

Rutger Hauer is very familiar to me. And I'm in the middle of the Pacific.

Jayaprakash · #15 (**permalink**) 16-Dec-2009, 03:51

Rutger Hauer is indeed a familiar name to me. More to the point, will it be familiar to people who are likely to read the book?

saliotthomas · #16 (**permalink**) 16-Dec-2009, 09:42

Just change it for another less known Nordic name like , say , john travolta or Al pachino.
What?

Clarissa · #17 (**permalink**) 16-Dec-2009, 10:33

Quote:

john travolta or Al pachino.

They won't do. It's the contrast between the character in the story (a dwarf, if I remember rightly) and the physique of a Rutger Hauer. If a change of name, a hefty US beefcake filmstar with a sixpack would be better.