Interview with Elfriede Jelinek on her translation of GR

[Kai Frederik Lorentzen]

Looking for something completely different, I came across this interview:

http://books.google.de/books?id=aZ3sWTxXznEC&pg=PA191&lpg=PA191&dq=pynchon+j%C3%BCnger&source=bl&ots=WI4885f0P-&sig=Jf8OfWaXREaPaYDbt-eC9_pTTps&hl=de&sa=X&ei=YuX4Ufn-BMbDtQa2m4DYCA&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=pynchon%20j%C3%BCnger&f=false

(For the start go to page 189; the pages 194, 195 and 199 are not shown.)

Here are some samples in ad-hoc translation:

"It was overwhelming, and out of literary enthusiasm, without knowing 
what this actually means, I worked eight till ten hours on it [the 
German GR-translation] every day over a period of three years."

"And since he never was in Germany, he also reproduced the typos, f.e. 
'Siemens-Schuchert' instead of 'Siemens-Schuckert'. Exactly the same 
typo was in a book on Siemens someone bought for me as a present second 
hand on Times Square. Such things are very fascinating. Like detective 
work."

"Later, during the translation process, I contacted a former officer 
from the OSS who could explain to me a lot of things related to secret 
services and, of course, also weapon technology."

"Translating belongs to the most difficult things of all; it will never 
be completely taken over by computers."