The Art of Translation

[nnyhav]

Stupid questions are often the smartest ones. I think that the greater the familiarity with the languages (both source and target) the more faithful the translation can be, but that doesn't make it more lasting. There's a practice of saying after So-and-so, rather than a translation of So-and-so, to distinguish remade poetry. I think the Poetry Translation thread probably covers this ground better.

[Eric]

Liam, you have to be crystal clear about what you mean by "translating". Is this getting someone else to do a rough version, polishing it a bit, then taking all the credit for the translation, when in fact all you have done is improved it a bit, without knowing the source language? This is what people such as David Hare do with plays.

If Ted Hughes did not know the source languages, he may be a co-translator with someone who does. They will have worked together. In which case, this other person, the one who knows the language, should get equal credit. Basking in one's famous name and shoving the original translator out of the limelight is immoral and unjust.

You cannot translate from a language you do not know. Another ploy would be to translate from someone else's published translation into, say, French, a language that most educated Brits know.

However beautiful Hughes' version of the Juhász, unless someone compares it with the original, we don't know if Hughes took liberties with words or images, just to beautify the text, at the expense of what Juhász actually said.

In many other European countries, great authors also translate things as well. This was often the case in the Soviet bloc, where authors needed the money, or were banned for a while from writing their own things, so resorted to translation. Britain is different in that few British authors have ever translated anything from any language. By delving into the workings of other languages and literatures, with the direct access afforded you by reading the original, you understand things better, learn things from other countries and cultures than your own.

Look at the Estonian author Jaan Kross. He was brought up with German as first school language in the 1930s. He spent 8 years in the Gulag (i.e. Russian labour camps). No one in Russia speaks Estonian; he will have known labour camp Russian slang as well as, say, Solzhenitsyn. Apart from becoming maybe the most important post-war Estonian prose author, he translated poetry from German, Finnish, Russian, French, and a crime novel from Swedish. Authors whose works he translated and published include Brecht, Rolland, Hochhuth, Carroll, Diktonius, Shakespeare, Heine, Turtiainen. And he still managed to write some 15 novels of his own.

I would claim that what often contributes to making an author great (also Nabokov, for instance) is their capability of discovering directly or indirectly, i.e. with or without translation, what people in other countries are writing. Now, not in 1850. Most British authors are crippled on two counts: there are very few translations of contemporary European literature available; and they don't know any languages to read anything in the original. So they remain shut out of European literary developments until decades later, when someone bothers to translate a book. I am still waiting for the likes of Monica Ali, Jonathan Coe, Blake Morrison, Zadie Smith, Andrew Motion, Simon Armitage, Martin Amis, and so on, to stun the world by announcing they have translated a novel or poetry collection directly from a foreign language.

This is all part and parcel of the art, craft, skill, world, whatever, of literary translation. It helps writers, too.

I've got more to say on whether you need to know a language perfectly. Nnyhav brings up a couple of pertinent points. But I'm going out now. Until next time.

[Eric]

Literary translation is alive and kicking in Estonia. Here's a quick translation of a newspaper article covering a recent meeting for new translators, principally talking about comments and suggestions by the translator Krista Kaer who works as an editor at a publishing house, but has also, with her daughter, translated all the Harry Potter books into Estonian. Practice makes perfect. Maybe there are few really new or controversial points, but it does show that there are people out there that think about the mechanics, as opposed to the thory, of translation:

Learning how to translate should be done by translating

14th November 2008, Mari Klein, Eesti Päevaleht [daily]

The Estonian Publishers’ Association in conjunction with the Cultural Endowment Fund invites Estonian translators to undergo the same training


The fact that such training is necessary was shown by the completely full hall and the fact that the course was full within the space of a few weeks.

"People are talking all the time about how badly books are translated. But nothing is done to improve the situation. We thought that if no one else will do it we’d have to do it ourselves," said one of the initiative-takers, the translator and critic Kätlin Kaldmaa, from the Eesti Päevaleht publishing house.

In Kaldmaa’s words, the large amount of interest expressed is obviously caused by the fact that 90% of literature appearing in Estonia is translated literature, so that there is more work than translators, and the quality of translation varies considerably. It is rumoured that even secondary school pupils are offered translations.

The most interesting talk from the point of view of literary translators was given by Krista Kaer, a talk which was full of examples that sent the hall into gales of laughter.

Kaer stressed the fact that you have to have your heart in the work you translate and you have to enter the text you translate and live with it for several months. If the work is not suitable for the translator, the translation too will suffer.

"For literary translation you needn’t use your imagination. I have seen texts where imagination has been used and believe you methey make pretty interesting reading. But they bear no relation to the original." Kaer noted. She mentioned that there are two types of translator who are not on the right road: the ones that try to add to the plot and those that try to abridge the text.

It is possible to translate the same text in several different ways, said Kaer, translations which may only have a few words in common.
Kaer stressed that in an ideal situation, you should do not work on your translation for several weeks, anything up to a month, before going through it again in a new light.

The principal faults involve translating idiomatic words and phrases too literally.

Although the [publisher’s] editor is the right-hand man of the translator, someone who must find all the translator’s shortcomings and mistakes, it does happen that the editor has understood the text wrongly in one way, the translator in another...

She added that elsewhere in the world the editor is a very rare occurrence. For example, literary agent took quite some persuading as to the meaning of the term "editing", as Pratchett did not need editing, according to the agent.

"In my opinion, editors will constantly be needed in Estonia, and this situation will not change for some time to come," Kaer affirmed. And she added that when the translator adopts a certain regognisable style, the editor should remain "invisible". The editor must know the original language in which the work is written, and help make the text a supple one.
The saddest thing, according to Kaer, is when errors in translation begin to affect our home-grown use of the Estonian language. She has received on her publisher’s desk several examples of manuscripts that look like raw translations.

Krista Kaer’s examples:


** Madam you are barking under the wrong tree (following the English idiom - but not quite right, and it doesn’t exist in Estonian).
** I stepped into the Orthodox church where the minister was saying mass. (No free-church clergymen in the Russian Orthodox Church.)
** The sun was shining and the birds singing. A beautiful spring. (But the translator had interpreted it as the bouncy type of "bo-oi-i-nggg" spring!)
** I went upstairs and changed. (But in the werewolf metamorphosis sense.)
** I got there quickly on account of my CD. (A "Corps diplomatique" plate is not a compact disk!)

Krista Kaer’s suggestions:


** The translator ought to be clear about the topic of the book, whether it be music or Middle Ages.
** The translator should translate maps, tables, captions, dedications and acknowledgements and check concepts and terms.
** One dialect should not be replaced by another. For instance, Yorkshire dialect with that of Vtrumaa. But if a character does speak dialect, it should be marked, by, for instance a few concrete words.
** Always check names, which tend to be different in English. For instance, Aesop should become Aisopos; Bavaria, Baierimaa.
** The translator should also check phrases in third languages.
** You don’t have to translate quotations and poems yourself. If a version exists, use it.
** In fantasy fiction you should not translate names as a rule. If you really need to, use a footnote to explain.
** Nevertheless, footnotes are not to be recommended in literature.
** The translation should be into adequate Estonian. A high level of language should not be exchanged for idiosyncratic usage.
** The translator must put in the corrections made by the editor himself or herself. Only then will he or she see their faults.

Translated from the Estonian by Eric, 20th November 2008

Source: Tõlkijaks saab õppida ainult ise tõlkides - Eesti Pevaleht

***

Maybe you can argue with some of Kaer's points. But she does at least think about the problems in an active way. I wonder how much training there is in the UK or USA for specifically literary translators.

For me, the news was that 90% (!) of books published in Estonia are translations (as opposed to 3% in the UK and USA). Estonia only has one million or so potential readers of literature and non-fiction in the Estonian language, but there is still a huge appetite to catch up, even more than 15 years after Estonia left the Soviet Union, where censorship and book quotas were rife.

[nnyhav]

Blogspotting:

Knitting his terrible brow, bellowing, he will launch
bolt-fastened utterances, ripping them apart board by board
with gigantic blast of breath.

Literally. Literarily it's something else again:
Varieties of Unreligious Experience: Two Plays in One Fitts

[jackdawdle]

conrad roth's paean to etymology, though impressive, doesn't persuade.

knowledge is a bottomless pit and to think any one person or group has a monopoly of it is as foolish as to think, if you'll pardon the cliche, a leopard will change its spots.

as to his dismissal of nabokov's eugene onegin -- surely he jests. nabokov's english has few peers and as to his russian...

moving on, can a poet whose allegiance precludes his intimate knowledge of one of the two he is trying to bridge, successfully translate? my answer is yes, provided he has a thorough knowledge of one and linguistic mastery of the other.

[nnyhav]

jackd00d, your take is noted in update to said blogpost, and I'd add that it's Pitts not Roth taking the harder line on Nabokov's approach (who himself takes a hard line, and renders it harder). But as Nabokov's approach is itself worth study, I've had to defer his Verses and Versions until after I tackle his Eugene Onegin in full (part of the new year's resolve to thin the bookshelf of good intentions). The argument is not for the primacy of any single angle of attack; the literal frontal assault may incur greater losses when not combined with flanking actions, however diversionary they may seem in and of themselves (so I'll also be using Chas Johnston's rendering of Onegin in parallel).

Moving on, the thread on Poetry in Translation noted upthread takes up the followup question.

[nnyhav]

CipherJournal (via)

Launched in 2003, CipherJournal aims to be something new in the domain of online literary journals.
We believe in the place of translation to inspire stronger literature; without cross-fertilization, no growth can last. We aim to focus on literary translation in its broadest sense, cracking open this often-neglected field by melding the invisibility of the translator with the identity of the artist.
We will achieve this by publishing creative works of art & literature that call attention to the process of translation. We will also include reviews of translated literature—both new and old—with a special emphasis on the merits of the translation.

[Cavalier Bizarre]

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.

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.

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.

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?

[nnyhav]

Originally Posted by Cavalier Bizarre

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...

Welcome aboard! I certainly don't mean to confuse competency with scholarship: the latter can contribute to competence but can also detract (when narrow results are broadly applied). Artists are seldom scholars by common measures; I'd rather translation preserve the art. But ...

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.

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 ...

Thanks for this, it ties into an interest in this that I've elaborated elsewhere. Even if it is an equivalent idiom, it isn't.

[johnr60]

I know I've posted this entertaining, if not enlightened link before, but not in regards to the 3 to 4 process.

iaap.org : International Association for Analytical Psychology - Melville's Vision of Evil

search "four"

[johnr60]

Does anyone out there have enough Latin to tell me if Wolfe's quote from Look Homeward Angel: Et ego in Arcadia is a misquote of the more familiar Et in Arcadia ego or is there a literal interpretation of significance?

[Sevigne]

I am reading Benedetta Craveri's The Age of Conversation. The translator uses and reuses the phrase "society life" instead of "social life". Why, God, why?

I may have to give up on reading the book.....

[nnyhav]

Originally Posted by johnr60

Does anyone out there have enough Latin to tell me if Wolfe's quote from Look Homeward Angel: Et ego in Arcadia is a misquote of the more familiar Et in Arcadia ego or is there a literal interpretation of significance?

Word order isn't such a big deal in Latin, and both variants occur quotably from many sources (as a quick Google should reveal; most relevant is Faulkner's almost concurrent transposition); any coloration may be a matter of slight emphasis (And [even] I am in Arcadia / And [even] in Arcadia am I) enforced by metric stress.

(btw thx getting started on Graves)

(( and you'll be amused by the Russian rendering: И я в Аркадии ))

[johnr60]

EVEN I seems a lot different than EVEN IN.

I just finished O Lost the unedited version of Look Homeward Angel. Can't say that I was newly impressed, but there are many stand alone short stories in there. I dont think its a patch on the ass of Raintree County, although the latter is certainly indebted.

I'll do Graves again. Where?

Note the Nabokovian shave on the first page. What's the Russian mean?

[nnyhav]

Originally Posted by johnr60

[1] EVEN I seems a lot different than EVEN IN. [...] [2] I'll do Graves again. Where? [...] [3] Note the Nabokovian shave on the first page. [4] What's the Russian mean?

[1] I did say slight
[2] not here; TBD
[3] Housmanian actually (common referent)
[4] same as the Latin ... it just struck me that И я в (& I am in) was graphically similar to B-L-N / B-R-A

[Eric]

'Scuse me, I note the original posting by Nnyhav about the art of translation, but how many of you who discuss on this thread actually do literary translation on a regular basis, and if so, from which languages into which other[s]?

Why I ask, is because I am involved almost every day translating prose, and more rarely, poetry. Over the past week or so, I have translated a couple of thousand words of Swedish literary prose (novel excerpt), and several hundred from an Estonian novella. Into English, my mother-tongue.

What puzzles me about the discussion here is that there's a lot of juggling with words such as "competency", "craft", "coloration", "scholarship", "parsing", "transposing", "connotations", and so on, with some admission that you can indeed read, say, Latin or Russian. But what is discussed seems indeed to be nit-picking (Cavalier Bizarre) mixed in with subtle one-upmanship and put-downs, trying to catch out those who are not au fait with the latest buzz word.

I really do wonder, given the fact that only 3% of books in Britain and the USA are translations, whether people wouldn't be more gainfully employed doing some translation themselves, and holding up the fruits to the criticism of peers, rather than once again name-dropping with Bakhtin, Borges or Nabokov.

[nnyhav]

Shorter Eric: "You shouldn't talk about translation unless you do it a lot, like me! Like you shouldn't talk about music unless you're a virtuoso! Or about novels, until you've written one yourself! So stop using big words that I don't get!"

[Cavalier Bizarre]

Eric, there's a fair amount of hypocrisy in your post and one might think it was intentionally satirical, but I'm not so sure Perhaps you should list your discussion standards so they go unviolated.

But thank you for your translation efforts. I hope I'll be fluent and competent enough one day.

Thanks for the link as well, nnyhav; I've ordered Irwin's book.

[Sevigne]

"I really do wonder, given the fact that only 3% of books in Britain and the USA are translations, whether people wouldn't be more gainfully employed..."

Perhaps we didn't know that we need be "gainfully employed" when on this site. I come to the site to be "gainfully" at leisure.

[westend1]

The 'three-legged cat' mentioned above is relevant to the Borges story. It is - according to Irwin - referencing the riddle dished out to Oedipus by the Sphinx. Translated as 'wild goose chase' it loses this connection.

La muerte y la brújula, Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)