Translation II

[Jedrzej Polak]

I can't help but wholeheartedly agree with you.
The funny thing is that as time goes by, more and more of those
cross-cultural references are becoming globalized and obvious, even in the
most remote parts of the world.

If I were to translate "The Crying..." now, the most obvious Polish
equivalent of a Tupperware party would be  a Zepter Party, but in a year
from now perhaps I'd leave Tupperware intact, as the other day I saw their
logo on one of the streets of my hometown.

The side effect of globalization is that I don't have to use footnotes
anymore.

> Or, there's the option of a textual companion, something like the
>> Weisenberger or Fowler guides to GR, or Moore's invaluable Reader's Guide to
>> Gaddis's *The Recognitions*, or the way some editions of Chaucer's tales and
>> Shakespeare's plays are set out. Cumbersome but effective.

Yes, the first translation of "The Crying..." (which btw is the only one of
Pnychon's novel available in Polish, with V. being translated as I write)
was published with a companion. Still, I'd go for an option to let the text
speak for itself, and leave companions for critics. When I was 16 I loved
Eliot's "Wasteland" despite the fact that I had no idea who the hell the
Fisher King was. The same applies to any type of good literature, and yes, I
like it more beautiful than faithful in translations.

Regards

JP

PS. While translating V. I realized that Polish had lost its once abundant
supply of Yiddish terms and idioms. Would you believe that four out of five
persons I asked, did not know who the schlemiel was. In a country which once
had one of the biggest Jewish populations in Europe! Despite that I've
decided to leave schlemiel as it is, and bring it back to Polish, where it
belongs along with galoshes, latkes and a countless number of other
forgotten words.

> From: "jbor" <jbor at bigpond.com>
> Date: Wed, 31 May 2000 12:06:36 +1000
> To: Jedrzej Polak <jedpolak at mac.com>
> Cc: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Subject: Re: Translation II
> 
> 
> Or, there's the option of a textual companion, something like the
> Weisenberger or Fowler guides to GR, or Moore's invaluable Reader's Guide to
> Gaddis's *The Recognitions*, or the way some editions of Chaucer's tales and
> Shakespeare's plays are set out. Cumbersome but effective. But the larger
> problem is always that any act of reading is, or contains, an act of
> translation, or interpretation. Inescapably. So *GR* in Polish is not only
> going to be by Thomas Pynchon, but by Jedrzej Polak and Thomas Pynchon.
> Indeed, *GR* in English is not only by Thomas Pynchon but by Thomas Pynchon
> and the current reader.
> 
> A majority of readers whose first language is English are unlikely to get
> all the references -- whether cultural, historical, linguistic -- in
> Pynchon's text, so that shouldn't really be a huge drama either. The texts
> themselves are incredibly multilingual already, so readers constantly need
> to be diving off to reference texts to translate a line of pseudo-Borges, or
> identify potential errors in German vocabulary and grammar. But jokes and
> slang don't translate well at all, nor do puns and proverbs: in fact,
> metaphoric idioms constantly befuddle second language learners and, as we
> all know, all language is metaphor ("a thrust at truth and a lie": *Lot49*
> p.89). Pynchon plays around with this overtly in *V.*, too, in that sequence
> when Benny, Geronimo and Angel are out "prowling for coño", and Profane
> fantasises of Lucille, one of the pieces of "jailbait" they have just met,
> how he would "show her his name was Sfacim after all."(138-142)
> 
> Further, cultural literacy is quite a separate issue. The trouble with the
> third option you propose is that the references are already
> culture-specific. It's important as a facet of Oedipa's characterisation to
> know that a Tupperware Party is (was?) where a group of middle class
> Anglo-Western women with too much time on their hands gather together at one
> of their homes on a rotating and semi-regular basis, ostensibly in order to
> purchase over-priced plastic containers and sup on pretentious morning or
> afternoon fare (Pynchon doesn't feel the need to translate "kirsch" or
> "fondue" even though many readers might not quite understand these
> references), but really also to indulge in a spot of oneupping and gossip
> and self-validation of the bourgeois ethos they each aspire to. It's not
> going to work with paella and a lace-weaving circle, because he's
> specifically invoking an aspect of 60s Americana: it's
> Kinneret-Among-the-Pines, not Castellón de la Plana.
> 
> So I agree with you that the whole process of translation is fraught, but I
> guess it's the imperfection of language wherein much of its beauty lies ...
> 
> 
> best
> 
> 
> ----------
>> From: Jedrzej Polak <jedpolak at mac.com>
>> To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>> Subject: Translation II
>> Date: Mon, May 29, 2000, 6:14 PM
>> 
> 
>> That's the question I often ask myself. There are three choices: you leave
>> them as they are, and take for granted that the majority of readers are
>> aware of the cultural background (which unfortunately is not true); you make
>> footnotes and render the text unreadable; you try to be creative, and find
>> cultural equivalents in the vicinity (that's my approach).
> snip
> 
> 
>