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1polutropos
Welcome to all old and new friends. I have had a shell-shocked December which meant no reviews of anything, no keeping track of anything, many books started and abandoned, many not remembered even a few days later....
I like to say "I don't know how it is possible that I have a 21-year old daughter when I am still 21 myself", but recently I have felt more like 81.
I hope this year brings more good health, more concentration, more writing and thinking time and less stress.
Those who have visited my thread last year know that I translate from the Czech and Slovak. Since I have been alerted that some publishers may consider a posting in a public forum a "publication" and therefore they would lose interest in potential publication in their journal, I have stopped posting my translations publicly. However, any lovers of poetry or translations from Slavic languages can send me a PM and I would be happy to share my efforts with you privately.
I will later attempt to summarize my 2009 reading, and perhaps even set some 2010 goals.
Let us raise a glass to good books, good friends and good conversation!
I like to say "I don't know how it is possible that I have a 21-year old daughter when I am still 21 myself", but recently I have felt more like 81.
I hope this year brings more good health, more concentration, more writing and thinking time and less stress.
Those who have visited my thread last year know that I translate from the Czech and Slovak. Since I have been alerted that some publishers may consider a posting in a public forum a "publication" and therefore they would lose interest in potential publication in their journal, I have stopped posting my translations publicly. However, any lovers of poetry or translations from Slavic languages can send me a PM and I would be happy to share my efforts with you privately.
I will later attempt to summarize my 2009 reading, and perhaps even set some 2010 goals.
Let us raise a glass to good books, good friends and good conversation!
2LisaCurcio
A votre santé, Andrew. and wishing you the time you need. Looking forward to your summary and your future reading.
3tomcatMurr
salut mon pot!
And here I make a standing request for any poems you translate to be PMed to me forthwith as a matter of SOP!
Viola!
And here I make a standing request for any poems you translate to be PMed to me forthwith as a matter of SOP!
Viola!
4polutropos
The Golden Mean by Annabel Lyon
2.5 stars
This book had so much promise! Written from the point of view of Aristotle, dealing with war, intrigue and philosophy, and a cast of characters including Alexander the Great, how can you possibly go wrong? And yet...
I was carried along by the story to about the halfway point when I started trying to put my finger on why I was not enjoying it more. Finally, it came to me. Annabel Lyon pulls off what seems to be impossible: she makes the lives of Aristotle and Alexander the Great dull. The little bits of Aristotle's thought we are given are dull. The battles we see, the history they are supposedly living, all are dull. Lyon lacks imagination or the skill to deal with the material. I have ordered the trilogy dealing with Alexander the Great written by Mary Renault. Those, I am sure, will be the antidote to this most disappointing book.
2.5 stars
This book had so much promise! Written from the point of view of Aristotle, dealing with war, intrigue and philosophy, and a cast of characters including Alexander the Great, how can you possibly go wrong? And yet...
I was carried along by the story to about the halfway point when I started trying to put my finger on why I was not enjoying it more. Finally, it came to me. Annabel Lyon pulls off what seems to be impossible: she makes the lives of Aristotle and Alexander the Great dull. The little bits of Aristotle's thought we are given are dull. The battles we see, the history they are supposedly living, all are dull. Lyon lacks imagination or the skill to deal with the material. I have ordered the trilogy dealing with Alexander the Great written by Mary Renault. Those, I am sure, will be the antidote to this most disappointing book.
5kidzdoc
Oh, that's disappointing. I ordered The Golden Mean last year, and was looking forward to reading it.
6polutropos
Yes,
I am alive.
Yes,
I am translating.
I have to post this article since it is so relevant to me:
Why translators deserve some credit
It's time to acknowledge translators – the underpaid and unsung heroes behind the global success of many writers
* Tim Parks
* The Observer, Sunday 25 April 2010
Who wrote the Milan Kundera you love? Answer: Michael Henry Heim. And what about the Orhan Pamuk you think is so smart? Maureen Freely. Or the imaginatively erudite Roberto Calasso? Well, that was me.
The translator should do his job and then disappear. The great, charismatic, creative writer wants to be all over the globe. And the last thing he wants to accept is that the majority of his readers are not really reading him.
His readers feel the same. They want intimate contact with true greatness. They don't want to know that this prose was written on survival wages in a maisonette in Bremen, or a high-rise flat in the suburbs of Osaka. Which kid wants to hear that her JK Rowling is actually a chain-smoking pensioner? When I meet readers of my own novels, they are disappointed I translate as well, as if this were demeaning to an author they hoped was "important".
There is complicity between globalisation and individualism; we can all watch any film, read any book, wherever made or written, and have the same experience. What a turn-off to be reminded that in fact we need an expert to mediate; what the Chinese get is a mediated version of me; what I'm reading is a mediated Dostoevsky.
Some years ago Kazuo Ishiguro castigated fellow English writers for making their prose too difficult for easy translation. One reason he had developed such a lean style, he claimed, was to make sure his books could be reproduced all over the world.
What if Shakespeare had eased off the puns for his French readers? Or Dickens had worried about getting Micawber-speak into Japanese?
Translation has been even more of an issue for Kundera, concerned his style was being made to sound banal. The translator's "supreme authority", Kundera thundered in Testaments Betrayed, "should be the author's personal style... But most translators obey another authority, that of the conventional version of 'good French, or German or Italian'."
Yet deviation from a linguistic norm only has meaning in the context of the language from which it sprang. When Lawrence writes of an insomniac Gudrun in Women in Love that "she was destroyed into perfect consciousness", he gets his frisson. But what if destruction was understood as a transformation; what if consciousness was seen negatively?
You'll never know exactly what a translator has done. He reads with maniacal attention to nuance and cultural implication, conscious of all the books that stand behind this one; then he sets out to rewrite this impossibly complex thing in his own language, re-elaborating everything, changing everything in order that it remain the same, or as close as possible to his experience of the original. In every sentence the most loyal respect must combine with the most resourceful inventiveness. Imagine shifting the Tower of Pisa into downtown Manhattan and convincing everyone it's in the right place; that's the scale of the task. Writing my own novels has always required a huge effort of organisation and imagination; but, sentence by sentence, translation is intellectually more taxing. On the positive side, the hands-on experience of how another writer puts together his work is worth a year's creative writing classes. It is a loss that few writers "stoop" to translation these days.
Of course, if the translator is poor there will be awkward moments of correspondence (you get the content but not the style); alternatively the prose will be fluent but off the mark (you get style but not content). The translator who is on song – the one who has the deepest understanding of the original and the greatest resources in his own language – brings style and content together in something altogether new that is also astonishingly faithful to its model.
Occasionally, a translator is invited to the festival of individual genius as the guest of a great man whose career he has furthered; made, even. He is Mr Eco in New York, Mr Rushdie in Germany. He is not recognised for the millions of decisions he made, but because he had the fortune to translate Rushdie or Eco. If he did wonderful work for less fortunate authors, we would never have heard of him.
This is why one has to applaud Harvill Secker for launching a prize for younger translators, one of the few prizes to recognise a translator not because he is associated with a famous name, but for translating a selected story more convincingly than others.
Each generation needs its own translators. While a fine work of literature never needs updating, a translation, however wonderful, gathers dust. Reading Pope's Homer, we hear Pope more than Homer. Reading Constance Garnett's Tolstoy, we hear the voice of late-19th-century England. We need to go back to the great works and bring them into our own idiom. To do that we need fresh minds and voices. For a few minutes every year we really must acknowledge that translators are important, and make sure we get the best.
I am alive.
Yes,
I am translating.
I have to post this article since it is so relevant to me:
Why translators deserve some credit
It's time to acknowledge translators – the underpaid and unsung heroes behind the global success of many writers
* Tim Parks
* The Observer, Sunday 25 April 2010
Who wrote the Milan Kundera you love? Answer: Michael Henry Heim. And what about the Orhan Pamuk you think is so smart? Maureen Freely. Or the imaginatively erudite Roberto Calasso? Well, that was me.
The translator should do his job and then disappear. The great, charismatic, creative writer wants to be all over the globe. And the last thing he wants to accept is that the majority of his readers are not really reading him.
His readers feel the same. They want intimate contact with true greatness. They don't want to know that this prose was written on survival wages in a maisonette in Bremen, or a high-rise flat in the suburbs of Osaka. Which kid wants to hear that her JK Rowling is actually a chain-smoking pensioner? When I meet readers of my own novels, they are disappointed I translate as well, as if this were demeaning to an author they hoped was "important".
There is complicity between globalisation and individualism; we can all watch any film, read any book, wherever made or written, and have the same experience. What a turn-off to be reminded that in fact we need an expert to mediate; what the Chinese get is a mediated version of me; what I'm reading is a mediated Dostoevsky.
Some years ago Kazuo Ishiguro castigated fellow English writers for making their prose too difficult for easy translation. One reason he had developed such a lean style, he claimed, was to make sure his books could be reproduced all over the world.
What if Shakespeare had eased off the puns for his French readers? Or Dickens had worried about getting Micawber-speak into Japanese?
Translation has been even more of an issue for Kundera, concerned his style was being made to sound banal. The translator's "supreme authority", Kundera thundered in Testaments Betrayed, "should be the author's personal style... But most translators obey another authority, that of the conventional version of 'good French, or German or Italian'."
Yet deviation from a linguistic norm only has meaning in the context of the language from which it sprang. When Lawrence writes of an insomniac Gudrun in Women in Love that "she was destroyed into perfect consciousness", he gets his frisson. But what if destruction was understood as a transformation; what if consciousness was seen negatively?
You'll never know exactly what a translator has done. He reads with maniacal attention to nuance and cultural implication, conscious of all the books that stand behind this one; then he sets out to rewrite this impossibly complex thing in his own language, re-elaborating everything, changing everything in order that it remain the same, or as close as possible to his experience of the original. In every sentence the most loyal respect must combine with the most resourceful inventiveness. Imagine shifting the Tower of Pisa into downtown Manhattan and convincing everyone it's in the right place; that's the scale of the task. Writing my own novels has always required a huge effort of organisation and imagination; but, sentence by sentence, translation is intellectually more taxing. On the positive side, the hands-on experience of how another writer puts together his work is worth a year's creative writing classes. It is a loss that few writers "stoop" to translation these days.
Of course, if the translator is poor there will be awkward moments of correspondence (you get the content but not the style); alternatively the prose will be fluent but off the mark (you get style but not content). The translator who is on song – the one who has the deepest understanding of the original and the greatest resources in his own language – brings style and content together in something altogether new that is also astonishingly faithful to its model.
Occasionally, a translator is invited to the festival of individual genius as the guest of a great man whose career he has furthered; made, even. He is Mr Eco in New York, Mr Rushdie in Germany. He is not recognised for the millions of decisions he made, but because he had the fortune to translate Rushdie or Eco. If he did wonderful work for less fortunate authors, we would never have heard of him.
This is why one has to applaud Harvill Secker for launching a prize for younger translators, one of the few prizes to recognise a translator not because he is associated with a famous name, but for translating a selected story more convincingly than others.
Each generation needs its own translators. While a fine work of literature never needs updating, a translation, however wonderful, gathers dust. Reading Pope's Homer, we hear Pope more than Homer. Reading Constance Garnett's Tolstoy, we hear the voice of late-19th-century England. We need to go back to the great works and bring them into our own idiom. To do that we need fresh minds and voices. For a few minutes every year we really must acknowledge that translators are important, and make sure we get the best.
7avaland
Interesting piece, Polutropos. He is certainly correct when he says that we'll never know what a translator has done - at least true for those of us who are unable to speak the original language.
8janeajones
I'm just finishing up teaching a 2 semester survey of World Lit -- most of it in translation, so this article speaks volumes to me. It's so tricky talking about the skill and choices of an author when what we've actually read is a collaboration between the author and the translator.
9RidgewayGirl
A few years ago I was asked to translate into English from French and German a few WWII era letters. The content was straightforward and it wasn't like I had to preserve literature or anything, but I still ran into words that had slightly different meanings depending on the language and expressions that had no equivalent in English. I can only imagine how much more complex the task is when the subject matter is a novel and where the translator has a much more complete knowledge of the cultures and the languages concerned.
Seriously, these guys aren't earning the big bucks?
Seriously, these guys aren't earning the big bucks?
11tomcatMurr
interesting article, very interesting, thanks for posting this P.
Of course translators should get the credit they deserve for a thankless and ill-paid job. (Here in Taiwan, translators are paid pittance, as I know from personal experience).
Reading Constance Garnett's Tolstoy, we hear the voice of late-19th-century England. We need to go back to the great works and bring them into our own idiom. I strenuously object to this. This kind of thinking leads to travesties of translations, such as Douglas Hoffstadter's translation of Eugene Onegin.
When I read Tolstoy, I want to hear the voice of 19th century Russia- ie: Tolstoy's voice, not have his voice updated to some version of illiterate valleyspeak.
Of course translators should get the credit they deserve for a thankless and ill-paid job. (Here in Taiwan, translators are paid pittance, as I know from personal experience).
Reading Constance Garnett's Tolstoy, we hear the voice of late-19th-century England. We need to go back to the great works and bring them into our own idiom. I strenuously object to this. This kind of thinking leads to travesties of translations, such as Douglas Hoffstadter's translation of Eugene Onegin.
When I read Tolstoy, I want to hear the voice of 19th century Russia- ie: Tolstoy's voice, not have his voice updated to some version of illiterate valleyspeak.
12nobooksnolife
Many thanks for posting the article in #6! I feel a huge debt of gratitude to translators, but it wasn't until my husband and I tried it ourselves that we glimpsed what a true 'labor of love' it is...a very difficult and underpaid job.
13dchaikin
#11 Murr - I was wondering about that comment too. I've heard complaints about Garnett, but simply having lived in that era seems like it would give her some credibility over modern translators. We don't translate Dickens for the modern reader. It seems like the conventional wisdom is to use the most recent and modern translations, and that is reasonable in the sense that a new translation should be the best available, or why bother publishing it... somehow this post is probably just showing my ignorance here.
15urania1
Nice book review, p. I don't think it is my sort of book at least not at the moment but perhaps later. I have bookmarked it on my computer.
16dchaikin
Andrew - yes, excellent review. I'm interested...
by the way, I've opened The Prospector and suddenly I'm really into it.
by the way, I've opened The Prospector and suddenly I'm really into it.
17tomcatMurr
yes, nice review P. It's great to be made aware of South American writers, of whom I am woefully ignorant.
