There’s a very interesting piece on the Guardian website about translators being often overlooked. I’ve often wondered this myself, particularly when reading Tolstoy or Pushkin. Can I say I’ve ever really read Tolstoy? I’ve actually read Louise and Aylmer Maude. As a non-Russian speaker (Okay, I can manage “Hello, my name is Peter, how are you?” but then I get terribly lost and end up at “Goodbye” startlingly quickly.) how am I to know what a person’s writing style is like when it was written in another language with different grammatic conventions, nuances and styles. The work of the translator is to bring all those together in a translation that is both accurate to the original text but also faithful to the spirit of the work. I can’t even begin to imagine how such a feat is achieved. It’s impossible to under estimate how much we owe to good translation.
Currently Reading…
Solar - Ian McEwan
Stendhal - Scarlet and Black
Currently Listening…
Regina Spektor - Begin to Hope
Nicole Atkins - Neptune City
Ooh, this is a really interesting subject. I’ve been in quite a few Lorcà plays over the years, and never really *got* them. They always seemed so ridiculously florid and overwritten. However, friends of mine who read Spanish say that, in the original language, it’s absolutely gorgeous stuff. The language of flowers makes sense and is utterly appropriate. It’s not just the language itself, but how the people that speak that language behave. We Brits are far more reserved than, for instance, Spaniards or Italians, and what seems perfectly normal to them seems ridiculously overstated to us.
Yes, I agree – a while ago Penguin sent me a book of Portugese poetry to review and I found it very hard going because things just don’t neccesarily work when the language is changed. Your point about what seems normal is very good aswell, the way we use language in different countries is influence by social things as well as syntax and grammar. Even the way English and Americans use English in different ways can leave the same words with very different effect so it must be amplified a lot when the languages and the cultures are so different.
(Of course being a TEFL you would know all of this stuff!)
It is nice to see that our work is appreciated!Translation is a challenge, especially when trying to express the delicacies of poetry, the rithm of rhyme…but is also gratifying when you feel you have achieved beauty ^^
Hirondelle, it must be very challenging indeed with poetry. I have no comprehension of how difficult it must be to maintain rhythm and rhyme but I am glad that it is such a rewarding process.