Thoughts on translations or the ramblings of a madman

[sparkchaser]

When you head off to buy a book that's been translated into your language, what do you look for in the translation you want to buy?

Is getting the story right most important or is it more important to tell the story the way the author intended?

Ulysses can be told without the complexity of the allegory and symbolism and still tell the story. Likewise, all the elements that make Ulysses the book that it is could be included in all the clumsy complexity it would almost certainly be if translated into Spanish or German.


Is the depth of vocabulary important?

Years ago, a summer intern from France told me to read The Horseman on the Roof by Jean Giono. So I bought it and I soon grew weary of it's description of the heat wave impacted area. Everything was white. The white rocks. The white tree. The white sun. Apparently when it's hot and dry everything turns white or perhaps the translator liked the word white. (Mental note: get Thomas or HermoineWeasley to check the original French text.)

I never did finish that book.


Is remaining true to the original structure important? I suspect this is more important to poetry than other forms. If it rhymed in the original text, should the translation rhyme as well?

Take, for example, The Cat in the Hat. We all know this story.

English:

The sun did not shine.
It was too wet to play.
So we sat in the house
On that col, cold, wet day.

Spanish:

El sol no brillaba.
Estaba demasiado mojado para jugar.
Asi es que nos sentamos adentro de la casa.
todo aquel frio, frio, dia mojado.

It's a literal translation to be sure but look what it did to the flow. And no rhymes! Does this mean you can't have a poem rhyme in one language and have it rhyme in another and have it still keep the meaning of the original? Or does this just represent a poor translation?

Here's the Latin version:

Imber totum diem fluit
Urceatim semper pluit.
Taedet intus nos manere:
Numquam potest sol splendere.

It rhymes! But does it still mean the same thing as the original English? Reviews I have found say yes. Why does the Latin version rhyme while the Spanish version does not? My guess is that the Latin version was a 'let's see if we can do it' type of exercise whereas the Spanish version as more of a 'you know, if we made a Spanish version of Cat in the Hat we could make more money' type of venture. One was a labor of love and the other not.


What about meter? Yes, I'm talking about you Mr. Shakespeare. Mr. Iambic Pentameter. Is it possible to keep the intended meaning of the lines without butchering them in the name of iambic pentameter?

Double double toil and trouble
Fire burn and cauldron bubble

Can be translated into Spanish any number of ways:

Doble, doble trabajo y problemas
El fuego arde y la caldera hierve.

dobe, doble trabajo y problemas
el fuego arde y hierve la caldera

Labor de pena, pena y penuria fea
arde el fuego, la caldera borbotea

The above are "unofficial" translations. I wasn't able to find text of a Spanish version of Macbeth so I'm naturally interested in what the version high school and college students in Spain read has to say.

What about other tricks of the poet like alliteration, homonyms, and even onomatopoeia? Must those be preserved?

It was alliteration that got the ol' thinker thinking last night as I read a review for a New Verse Translation of Beowulf which said, in part:

Heaney claims that when he began his translation it all too often seemed "like trying to bring down a megalith with a toy hammer." The poem's challenges are many: its strong four-stress line, heavy alliteration, and profusion of kennings could have been daunting. (The sea is, among other things, "the whale-road," the sun is "the world's candle," and Beowulf's third opponent is a "vile sky-winger." When it came to over-the-top compound phrases, the temptations must have been endless, but for the most part, Heaney smiles, he "called a sword a sword.")

I suppose that then opens up the prose translation vs. verse translation can of worms. While reading a bit about that subject, I found this treasure trove of information regarding translations problems in Beowulf as well as other great works.

I've rambled enough for one post. What are your thoughts and musings on translations?

 

[Peder]

Sparky,
This is going to be a truly anemic response to your in depth cosiderations.

There is only once I ever got interested in the quality of the translation when there were several available. If there is only one translation available, then (for me) there is little choice but to take it or leave it.

However, Marcel Proust's mammoth novel Remembrance of Times Past exists on the shelf at my Borders in three translations. Speaking from dim memory now, so individual details might not be quite right: There is the original Scott Moncrieff translation which is almost the 'standard' that everyone knows and loves who has read the work. There is a very carefully updated and redone translation, which I believe is now the careful and accurate translation from the carefully updated and authoritative/official French "Pleiad" version of the original work. And recently there is a third re-translation project under way, under Lydia Davis, for reissue of all the volumes in an English more amenable to contemporary audiences in the Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition.

It turns out that once I had occasion to compare those translations with special reference to ease of reading and absence of obscure archaisms, etc. before deciding which one to buy. They clearly had three different translation objectives and the Lydia Davis for modern audiences sounds like it might be an abomination to begin with.

Well, it may astound you, as it did me, that I couldn't find any differences among all three. Not on the first page, and not on the page with the famous madeleine scene! Maybe I found one word different. Further than that I did not explore, partly because the paginations were slightly different and it was difficult tracking across all three volumes without a table to work at. But partly also because I just didn't see any difference that was worth the effort.

So I unhesitatingly picked the Lydia Davis version of Swann's Way, the first volume, even though, if you read the critical commentaries, you will be told that I am missing all the splendors of Scott Moncrieff's beautiful old language and phrasings. Well, I don't think so!

Perhaps an expert can and will correct my impressions, and I would be very glad to see such detailed commentary/correction. For the present, though, Lydia Davis just reads perfectly clearly and I don't see that anything has been lost.

 

[Peder]

In the cold light of morning, I myself have trouble believing that what I posted is correct. It sounds so improbable. So, I'll be traveling over to Borders this morning to double check my recollection and then following up here with what I find -- perhaps with a hugely emabrrassed red face. I hope there is an adequate smilie for it if need be.

 

[Peder]

In the cold light of morning, I myself have trouble believing that what I posted is correct. It sounds so improbable. So, I'll be traveling over to Borders this morning to double check my recollection and then following up here with what I find -- perhaps with a hugely emabrrassed red face. I hope there is an adequate smilie for it if need be.

Well, win some. lose some!

There were no copies of Swann's Way on the shelf at borders for comparing translations. But there were copies and editions of later volumes of In Search of Lost Time that permitted the pair of two-way comparisons that follow.

The Guermantes Way
Here are the opening lines of the Vintage edition of The Guermantes Way, translated by Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin from the definitive French Pleiade edition of 1954.

The twittering of the birds at daybreak sounded insipid to Francoise. Every word uttered by the maids upstairs made her jump; disturbed by all their running about, she kept asking herself what they could be doing. In other words we had moved.

The same lines, as translated by Mark Treharne for the Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition, are:

The early-morning twitter of the birds sounded tame to Francoise. Every word from the maids quarters made her jump; their every footstep bothered her, and she was constantly wondering what they were doing. All this was because we had moved.

Sodom and Gomorrah
Comparing now the opening lines of Sodom and Gomorrah, we have the Modern Library translation by Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, revised by D.J. Enright, based on the second Pleiade edition (1987-89):

The reader will remember that, well before going that day (the day on which the Princesse de Guermantes' reception was to be held) to pay the Duke and Duchess the visit I have just described, I had kept watch for their return and in the course of my vigil had made a discovery which concerned M. de Charlus in particular but was in itself so important that I have until now, until the moment when I could give it the prominence and treat it with the fullness it demanded, postponed giving an account of it.

Translated by John Sturrock, again for the Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition, the same lines read:

As we know, well before going that day (the day when the Princesse de Guermantes' soirée was taking place) to pay the call on the Duc and Duchesse that I have just recounted, I had been watching out for their return and had, in the course of my vigil, made a discovery, involving M. de Charlus in particular, but so significant in itself that up until now, when I am able to give it the position it requires, I have put off reporting it.

There are enough differences to suggest that the great similarities for Swann's Way that I suggested in my original post were not as similar as I recalled. On the other hand it still seems to me that the translations are so similar that it hardly matters to me which one I choose for reading in English. The readers here can decide for themselves.

[And I hope that no errors of transcription have crept in, although that too is always possible. :sad: ]

 

[Robert]

I have a copy of Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain translated H. T. Lowe-Porter. I was looking it over and I noticed seven or eight pages that are in french. I had to reserve a copy translated by John E. Woods at the library because he translated the French to English.

I have two copies of Don Quixote. The first is the Oxford World's Classics translated by Charles Jarvis and the other is a copy from the Franklin Library translated by J.M. Cohen that I picked up in a box of books at an auction.
The first line in chapter 1 of the Jarvis' translation reads "In a village of La Mancha, the name of whcih I purposely omit, there lived not long ago, one of those gentlemen, who usually keep a lance upon a rack, an old target, a lean horse, and a greyhound for coursing." The first line in chapter 1 of Cohen's translation reads "In a certain village in La Mancha, which I do not wish to name, there lived not long ago a gentleman-one of those who have always a lance in the rack, an ancient shield, a lean hack and a greyhoud for coursing."
The information is the same in each, but I like the flow better in Cohen's translation.

The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky was very different then the copy that I now own translated by Constance Garnett. Constance Garnett also translated by copy of Anna Karenina. Garnett's translation was not only easier to read, but it specifically mentioned the name of the illness that Prince Myshkin suffered from. Note to self: must finish reading this book.

I try to avoid abridged translations, but regretted that decision when I read Walter James Miller & Fredericks Paul Walter's translation of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

 

[Peder]

I'll agree with you there, on preferring Cohen to Jarvis.

 

[pontalba]

I have two copies of A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov. One is translated by a person that is not credited [unfortunately], but it is a trade sized paperback from hardpress.net. The other is a translation by Vladimir and Dmitri Nabokov.
Below I will list comparisons of the same sentences. The unknown translator I have labled GG for its rather generic gray/green cover. The other VN for you-know-who.
GG p.3
"All the luggage I had in my cart consisted of one small portmanteau half filled with traveling-notes on Georgia; of these the greater part has been lost, fortunately for you; but the port-manteau itself and the rest of its contents have remained intact, fortunately for me."

VN p. 17
"All the luggage in my small springless carriage consisted of one valise stuffed half-full of notes on my travels in Georgia. The greater part of them, luckily for you, has been lost; while the valise with its other contents.luckily for me, remains safe."
==========

Where VN will say "mountain tribesmen were crowding noisily about", / GG will have "mountaineers were gathered there in a noisy crowd"
==========

Here is the song he has memorized, or as in GG's version:

"I have retained that song in my memory, word for word:"

"At their own free will
They seem to wander
O'er the green sea yonder,
Those ships, as still
They are onward going.
With white sails flowing.
And among those ships
My eye can mark
My own dear barque:
By two oars guided
(All unprovided
With sails) it slips.
The storm-wind raves:
And the old ships--see!
With wings spread free,
Over the waves
They scatter and flee!
The sea I will hail
With obeisance deep:
"Thou base one, hark!
Thou must not fail
My little barque
From harm to keep!"
For lo! 'tis bearing
Most precious gear,
And brave and daring
The arms that steer
Within the dark
My little barque."

Now VN's version of same...

"I memorized that song, word for word:"

"Over the free franchise
of the green sea
good ships keep going,
white-sailed.

Among those good ships
is my own small boat,
a boat unrigged,
two-oared.

Let a storm run riot:
the old ships
will lift their wings
and scatter over the sea.

To the sea I shall bow
very low:
"You, bad sea, do not touch
my small boat.

My small boat carries
costly things;
it is guided through the dark night
by a bold daredevil."
==========

This is at the end of Book !! re Maksim Maksimych...
GG p.53.
We took a rather cold farewell of each other. The kind-hearted Maksim Maksimych had be-come the obstinate, cantankerous staff-captain!

VN p. 66
We parted rather drily. My good Maksim Maksimych had turned int a stubborn and grumpy junior captain!
==========
same page end of page...

GG:
I departed--alone.

VN:
I drove off alone.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Personally I consider VN's far superior. To me it is fuller, smoother, and exhibits more of a sense of humor and the true situations. It is however possible that I am slightly prejudiced.

 

[Peder]

Hi Pontalba,
It looks like the unnamed GG has done his best to stick to a/the rhyme scheme at the expense of sounding stilted, and VN has definitely come off better by giving free rein to his literary flair and reimagining the scene into nicely descriptive words and stanzas. Yes, indeed, VN by far!

 

[pontalba]

....and if I ever get to both copies of War and Peace I have in the stack, I can compare them! Maybe this decade sometime...whoops, it's '08 half over already, maybe next decade?

 

[HermioneWeasley]

Personally, I just...don't read translations. Somehow, I have enough books to occupy me in 3 languages to wait until I learn some others...I'm working on Spanish, Latin and ancient Greek now. It just feels that a translation isn't what the author actually wrote, so I can't stand reading them.

And I'll see if I can find a good translation of that Jean Giono book for you.

 

[sparkchaser]

Thanks peder and pontalba for posting up your examples. It goes a long way to help illustrate my ramblings.

Is there a publisher or publishers whose body of work regarding translations is considered superior?

Personally, I just...don't read translations. Somehow, I have enough books to occupy me in 3 languages to wait until I learn some others...I'm working on Spanish, Latin and ancient Greek now. It just feels that a translation isn't what the author actually wrote, so I can't stand reading them.

Ancient Greek? Hardcore!

And I'll see if I can find a good translation of that Jean Giono book for you.

Before you go through the trouble to do that, is the book work reading?

 

[HermioneWeasley]

Before you go through the trouble to do that, is the book work reading?

I haven't actually read it, but I'll read the first chapter or so and see which translation is best.

 

[sparkchaser]

I haven't actually read it, but I'll read the first chapter or so and see which translation is best.

Thanks. You rock.

 

[Zolipara]

Personally, I just...don't read translations. Somehow, I have enough books to occupy me in 3 languages to wait until I learn some others...I'm working on Spanish, Latin and ancient Greek now. It just feels that a translation isn't what the author actually wrote, so I can't stand reading them.

And I'll see if I can find a good translation of that Jean Giono book for you.

I understand the idea behind this. But to really get the nuances you need to know the language very well. Are you capable of learning ancient greek to the level where you can pick out the "problems" with the translated one? No offense intended but i wonder if you are fooling yourself to support an idea rather than getting an actual benefit from reading the books in their original language.

I have read books in languages i dont know that well but i dont think i would get less out of reading a translation of the same book.

 

[Libra]

The past Greek novels I have read , have not moved me. I have decided after some searching to try out some more serious Greek writers then the Harlequin written, money making, write a quick book authors, that I have recieved from family.

I was thinking maybe trying the English translation then changed my mind. I ordered it in Greek because I want to read it as the author meant it.

 

[HermioneWeasley]

I have two copies of A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov. One is translated by a person that is not credited [unfortunately], but it is a trade sized paperback from hardpress.net. The other is a translation by Vladimir and Dmitri Nabokov.
Below I will list comparisons of the same sentences. The unknown translator I have labled GG for its rather generic gray/green cover. The other VN for you-know-who.
GG p.3
"All the luggage I had in my cart consisted of one small portmanteau half filled with traveling-notes on Georgia; of these the greater part has been lost, fortunately for you; but the port-manteau itself and the rest of its contents have remained intact, fortunately for me."

VN p. 17
"All the luggage in my small springless carriage consisted of one valise stuffed half-full of notes on my travels in Georgia. The greater part of them, luckily for you, has been lost; while the valise with its other contents.luckily for me, remains safe."
==========

Where VN will say "mountain tribesmen were crowding noisily about", / GG will have "mountaineers were gathered there in a noisy crowd"
==========

Here is the song he has memorized, or as in GG's version:

"I have retained that song in my memory, word for word:"

"At their own free will
They seem to wander
O'er the green sea yonder,
Those ships, as still
They are onward going.
With white sails flowing.
And among those ships
My eye can mark
My own dear barque:
By two oars guided
(All unprovided
With sails) it slips.
The storm-wind raves:
And the old ships--see!
With wings spread free,
Over the waves
They scatter and flee!
The sea I will hail
With obeisance deep:
"Thou base one, hark!
Thou must not fail
My little barque
From harm to keep!"
For lo! 'tis bearing
Most precious gear,
And brave and daring
The arms that steer
Within the dark
My little barque."

Now VN's version of same...

"I memorized that song, word for word:"

"Over the free franchise
of the green sea
good ships keep going,
white-sailed.

Among those good ships
is my own small boat,
a boat unrigged,
two-oared.

Let a storm run riot:
the old ships
will lift their wings
and scatter over the sea.

To the sea I shall bow
very low:
"You, bad sea, do not touch
my small boat.

My small boat carries
costly things;
it is guided through the dark night
by a bold daredevil."
==========

This is at the end of Book !! re Maksim Maksimych...
GG p.53.
We took a rather cold farewell of each other. The kind-hearted Maksim Maksimych had be-come the obstinate, cantankerous staff-captain!

VN p. 66
We parted rather drily. My good Maksim Maksimych had turned int a stubborn and grumpy junior captain!
==========
same page end of page...

GG:
I departed--alone.

VN:
I drove off alone.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Personally I consider VN's far superior. To me it is fuller, smoother, and exhibits more of a sense of humor and the true situations. It is however possible that I am slightly prejudiced.

Sorry to quote such a huge post - don't have the time to edit right now. I'm actually reading this book right now, so it jumped out at me that you mentioned it. In the original Russian for me, of course, although the VN translation doesn't sound half bad.

 

[beer good]

I understand the idea behind this. But to really get the nuances you need to know the language very well. Are you capable of learning ancient greek to the level where you can pick out the "problems" with the translated one? No offense intended but i wonder if you are fooling yourself to support an idea rather than getting an actual benefit from reading the books in their original language.

I have read books in languages i dont know that well but i dont think i would get less out of reading a translation of the same book.

This is an excellent point that you don't hear often enough. Personally I do prefer reading something in the original language, but only when I'm fluent enough in that language to feel like I have a sporting chance of taking it all in. If I'm going to have to read it with a dictionary and a book of grammar rules nearby, it'll just take me out of the story - not to mention that I'll probably miss out on a lot of nuances, idioms, cultural references etc that I'm unfamiliar with. In that case, a good translation is definitely preferable unless you want to miss out on some really great literature. (Hell, even today I wouldn't have been able to read half of my favourite authors if I didn't read translations.)

As to what makes a good translation... tricky question. Obviously not a word-for-word translation; you just need to put a text through babelfish and back again to see why that doesn't work. Translating someone else's text is an enormous responsibility and a very difficult task - and it doesn't help that there are publishers and translators out there who don't realise or care about that, especially in genre and children's/YA literature. (Apparently, in the French translation of Pippi Longstocking, she's well-mannered and always defers to her elders.) The job of the translator is not just to transcribe but to re-create - to understand the original text in all its nuances, and then find a way to turn the same text into a completely different one that is still somehow identical to the original both when it comes to content and tone. We don't read fiction merely to absorb information; we want to hear the author's voice, we want to believe in the text, and so the translator has to preserve the atmosphere and feel of the original. That's difficult, but far from impossible if the translator knows what (s)he's doing. And I'd rather take a chance on a translator than miss out on writers like Dostoevsky, Eco or Kafka.

BTW, I thought this article was excellent. Recommended to anyone who wants to know what the translating process is like.

 

[tjaa]

Good points, beer good.

I prefer reading a book in the original language, but that only works in English and French (sometimes), and of course in German.
As I'm doing a training as translator in English I try to translate as literally as possible, but in some cases this is not possible. In addition, the most important thing is not to translate literally but to turn it into another language in the same style.
As beer good said.
I think it's better to read an original text instead of a translation if you're really understand most of the words. For me it's important not only to get the context but also the style, grammar and the expressions because that it what makes the book. If I don't understand this I prefer reading a translated version instead of the original.

If I read a translation (which is not that unusual) I look the different versions up in the internet, I look for information in book forums and so on. Sometimes I read the German book or watch the movie first and then I read it in English/French, that's much easier and I see the differences.

My best example: Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. I tried to read it but it was really difficult for me and so I decided to watch the movie first, just to get the context. Maybe later I will read a German translation and then the English original. I really couldn't enjoy reading the English book because I missed so much words and phrases. But one day I want to be able to read it

 

[Robert]

Some of us have only two choices. We can suffer with translations or we can do without. I believe I'll go with translations.

 

[HermioneWeasley]

Well, obviously I only read the original if I know the language very well, and I think that at some point I will pick up some great lit in languages I don't know. However, being so young, i want to give myself a chance to learn those languages first before trying translations.

Interestingly enough, I myself am interested in being a translator. Tjaa - any insight or suggestions?