A query on translation

[P. Chevalier]

Had this experience with "On the Road" a couple of years ago... after 
having read "Sur la Route"...
Two different books, eventhough the translation was the best available. In 
the French version, Sal paradise was a teenage drop-out who started to cry 
for his mom as soon as he had turned the corner of the street; it sounded 
so artificial, so "acted"; in the original version, words were flowing so 
easily, it wasn't complain and despair anymore, but something far more 
lyrical, enthousiastic, nervous... And it was a pure translation though; 
you could recognize any single word... Just the melody had changed and 
someone else was telling the story.
I would be tempted to say the opposite; the translation left the text on 
the periphery, and the original text, even with entire parts that remained 
obscure for my french-thinking brain, brought me a lot closer to the 
"truth" of the book...

But I guess it depends a lot on the author.


At 01:07 14/04/2003 +0300, Cyrus wrote:
>If you don't mind, I would like to pose a question which has been bugging 
>me lately:
>
>Have any of you read a novel both in the original and in (good) 
>translation to your native language? Have you noticed any difference in 
>the way you perceive the two texts? -- as if (forgive me for being 
>simplistic) the translation addresses a "deeper" area in your brain? -- as 
>if your reading becomes less "intellectual" and more "direct", "intuitive" 
>and "intrinsic"?
>
>Cyrus