What are you reading

[Ya Sam]

It cuts both ways actually. Without translators such thing as world 
literature is impossible of course. So lucky are we when we come across good 
translations. On the other hand, we are very unlucky to read atrocious ones. 
I also have something to quote, by Robert Burns (my hero :)

On Elphinstone's Translation Of Martial's Epigrams

1787

O Thou whom Poetry abhors,
Whom Prose has turned out of doors,
Heard'st thou yon groan?-proceed no further,
'Twas laurel'd Martial calling murther.

http://www.robertburns.org/works/162.shtml





>From: bekah <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net>
>To: "Ya Sam" <takoitov at hotmail.com>, ottosell at googlemail.com
>CC: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Re: What are you reading
>Date: Sun, 15 Oct 2006 08:15:02 -0700
>
>But without translators I would never be able to read Pamuk who writes in 
>Turkish or Imre Kertész or Saramago or  many others.   I love international 
>fiction but I'm no linguist so  I would not even be able to read Marquez 
>Garcia without translation.    I would not know Tolstoy or Mahfouz or Camus 
>or Pasternak or Hesse or Grass or Mann or Undset or dozens of other 
>internationally acclaimed authors. Yes,  much of the style is lost,  but, 
>if the translator is worth his stuff,   the ideas remain and one of the 
>most important reasons I read is for ideas - with me it's probably more 
>important than style or plot or other elements of literature.   What good 
>is a stylist without ideas?
>
>There are special awards for translators now,  and John Carey (my hero) 
>gave a wonderful speech at the last Mann Booker International award 
>ceremony in which he gave praise to  translators. 
><http://www.canongate.net/News/John-Careys-Presentation-Speech>
>
>
>This brings me to the subject of translators. We should like, as judges, to 
>pay tribute to translators, without whose labours the International Prize 
>could not have happened. Translators, it seems to us, bring nations and 
>races together far more effectively than statesmen or politicians, who 
>often do the opposite. Translators are heroes, working against impossible 
>odds. For in truth there is no such thing as an accurate translation - no 
>such thing as a linguistic equivalent in one language for a word in 
>another. Languages are closed systems, separate planets with their own 
>atmospheres of thought and feeling. Even loan words from another language 
>become something different when they are transplanted into their new 
>climate. Brain scientists now tell us that the language we use modifies our 
>neural pathways, so that an English speaker's brain organisation, for 
>example, is different from that of someone who speaks, say, Italian or 
>Japanese. So translators are trying to join up differently organised 
>brains. Of course, translators must strive to hide these problems. They are 
>benign deceivers. They must make us feel that what we are reading is not a 
>translation at all, but the author's work. The judges are delighted that 
>the rules of the Man Booker International Prize have now been modified to 
>include a special award for the winning author's translator.
>
>It is a sign of the disrespect in which translators have customarily been 
>held, and a sign too of the parochialism of the British literary scene, 
>that foreign literature in translation is so neglected. As Alberto Manguel 
>pointed out in an article in the Spectator, if you speak Spanish or French 
>or Italian or German, or any of a dozen other languages, and walk into your 
>local bookstore, you will find translations of a fair sampling of most of 
>the important books written around the world. You will find what is being 
>imagined in China, what stories are being told in Korea, how the novel is 
>being reinvented in Spain and the Scandinavian countries. But if you live 
>in England you will find no such abundance. When we checked through our 
>original list of 120 contestants, we found that we had to disqualify writer 
>after writer, not on grounds of quality or stature, but because they were 
>not generally available in English translation. Frequently they had been 
>translated back in the 80s or 90s, but the publisher had allowed the 
>translations to go out of print. So we were unable to consider, for 
>example, Peter Handke or Michel Tournier or Christoph Ransmayr or Antonio 
>Lobo Antunes or Rachid Boudjedra or Fernando Vallejo - and so on. No doubt 
>publishers have difficulties of their own to struggle with. But to an 
>outsider the British publishing industry can seem like a conspiracy intent 
>on depriving English-speaking readers of the majority of the good books 
>written in languages other than their own. Alberto Manguel is surely right 
>to point out that the same laxity, fifty or sixty years ago, would have 
>meant, for the English reader, no Kafka, no Camus, no Calvino, no Borges. 
>The judges hope that the advent of the Man Booker International Prize will 
>encourage British publishers to reverse this trend. No other single outcome 
>could, in our view, matter more.
>
>Bekah
>Blessed are the translators for they shall know style.
>
>At 4:59 PM +0300 10/14/06, Ya Sam wrote:
>>That is why I prefer to read in the original and will keep trying to get 
>>the reading knowledge of as many languages as possible. A bad translator 
>>can butcher the text and disfigure it beyond recognition. LD is a very 
>>dense text, rich in vocabulary and cerainly requires an expert translator. 
>>There is a good article on translation by Norfolk himself in which he says 
>>the following:
>>
>>"A writer-in-translation is as isolated as a general in his bunker trying 
>>simultaneously to direct a war on twenty or more fronts. The dispatches 
>>come through (or fail to) but, reduced as they are to their bare 
>>essentials, it is hard to know how the conflict as a whole is going."
>>
>>http://www.barcelonareview.com/20/e_ln.htm
>>
>>
>>
>>>From: Otto <ottosell at googlemail.com>
>>>To: "Ya Sam" <takoitov at hotmail.com>
>>>CC: pynchon-l at waste.org
>>>Subject: Re: What are you reading
>>>Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2006 15:34:27 +0200
>>>
>>>Critical review about the flawed (?) German translation of Norfolk's 
>>>book:
>>>
>>>Stetige Bumser im Rücken
>>>Die Qualität einer Übersetzung läßt sich durchaus beurteilen
>>>Von Dieter E. Zimmer (Nabokov specialist)
>>>DIE ZEIT/Feuilleton,
>>>Nr.6, 5.Februar 1993, S.56
>>>http://tinyurl.com/ynaywt
>>>
>>>Eleven literary translators had written an open letter to the
>>>publisher. Their demand was to the destroy the books and that there
>>>should be a new translation. The publisher answered by threatening to
>>>sue them.
>>>
>>>"At the mention of pork the place erupts."
>>>"Bei der Nennung des Schweins explodiert der Platz."
>>>
>>>-- but you simply cannot say that in German, and "center of gravity"
>>>isn't "Mittelpunkt des Schwergewichtes".
>>>
>>>Nevertheless, there's a 60-pages "Journal of the Translator" at the
>>>end of the book which is quite helpful for the historical background
>>>of the novel.
>>>
>>>Otto
>>>
>>>2006/10/10, Ya Sam <takoitov at hotmail.com>:
>>>>  >"Barbarus hic ego sum
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Exactly what I feel while reading this book. Norfolk did his homework 
>>>>well.
>>>>Very informative as well, i.e. I didn't know that the Romans had the 
>>>>goddess
>>>>of sewers.
>>>>
>>>
>>
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