Howard Goldblatt on Translation

[Stewart]

I've stumbled across an interview with Howard Goldblatt, a Chinese translator. I've read one of his translations, Bi Feiyu's The Moon Opera, which I thoroughly enjoyed. So, I thought I'd pick a few things from the interview.

On who he translates for:

I believe first of all that, like an editor, the translator's primary obligation is to the reader, not the writer. I realize that a lot of people don't agree, especially writers. I don't think that these things have to be mutually exclusive, but I do think that we need to produce something that can be readily accepted by an American readership. Ha Jin can get away with writing unidiomatic English and many people are charmed by it, but a translator's English is expected to be idiomatic and contemporary without being flashy.

On problems translating Chinese to English:

...the thing that's really killing translation in our field is literalism. Too many translators are afraid of the text, especially when they're first starting out. And I understand that, because I was too. They're all afraid of the text. You need to overcome your fear of the text, put some distance between you and it. You have to because Chinese and English are so different.

On the editing of books:

Editors are held in such low regard in China. They're no better than copy editors. And then there are the authors. One editor told me about the time a well-known writer brought in this great big brick of a novel. The writer handed it over and said just one thing: ?Don't change a word? (一个字不改). Maybe Joyce could have said that to his editor, but I couldn't help thinking, ?he's not that good.?

On social relations in contemporary Chinese lit:

Historical fiction is what they like to do the most, and I think that they write least well when they're dealing with things like normal human interaction. Have you read Ian McEwan's Saturday? It's a good novel. You really understand how these people deal with each other. In Chinese writing I don't see much of that. I don't think that they get far enough below the surface. They don't get into psychological possibilities, why things happen. I think they want to narrate what happens. And most of the negative reviews I get?except for those about how the translator probably ruined it?say that there's just no sense of getting below the surface, of what makes these people tick. We see what they've done but we're not altogether sure why they do it because Chinese culture doesn't encourage people to express their feelings.

There's plenty more in there, such as how he got started in the translation game, authors, editors, and rearranging texts.

[Eric]

Barring the use of ideograms, the problems that translators have when translating out of any language are the same as Howard Goldblatt mentions. With the exception of the fact that in Britain and Europe editors tend to be conscientious people.

I had to look up Ha Jin on the Wiki. It turns out that he is a Chinese that emigrated to the USA. That's how he gets away with writing unidiomatic English. Goldblatt must have assumed we all knew who he was.

Goldblatt says:

I believe first of all that, like an editor, the translator's primary obligation is to the reader, not the writer. I realize that a lot of people don't agree, especially writers. I don't think that these things have to be mutually exclusive, but I do think that we need to produce something that can be readily accepted by an American readership. Ha Jin can get away with writing unidiomatic English and many people are charmed by it, but a translator's English is expected to be idiomatic and contemporary without being flashy.

I very much agree with his last sentence here. It's a tightrope walk for a translator: getting the maximum information and feel from the original source text over to the reader without writing wooden or over-flowery English.

[Stewart]

I chanced across another Howard Goldblatt article from a few years back in the Washington Post.

I am sometimes asked why I translate, since to many it seems a thankless vocation. Why, they ask, don't I write my own novels, since I have lived (they assume) an interesting life and must by now have an idea of what a novel should be? I can only say that not all translators are closet novelists, and that I do not consider translation to be a lesser art -- one that ought to lead to something better. The short, and very personal, answer to the question is: Because I love it. I love to read Chinese; I love to write in English. I love the challenge, the ambiguity, the uncertainty of the enterprise. I love the tension between creativity and fidelity, even the inevitable compromises. And, every once in a while, I find a work so exciting that I'm possessed by the urge to put it into English

[Eric]

Howard Goldblatt says:

I love to read Chinese; I love to write in English. I love the challenge, the ambiguity, the uncertainty of the enterprise. I love the tension between creativity and fidelity, even the inevitable compromises. And, every once in a while, I find a work so exciting that I'm possessed by the urge to put it into English.

You can substitute any language for "Chinese", and I think Howard Goldblatt makes valid points.

That's certainly how I felt with a couple of the Estonian books I translated. You think that the book in question ought to be available to a wider audience. You, as a potential translator, feel: it'd be nice to discuss this book with someone from my culture (British, in my case) or language (English). But if no one can read the book, that discussion will never take place.