transparency in translation

J

Joel Stewart

Joel Stewart
had a conversation with a kiwi friend tonight who's a linguist...he's fluent in japanese and has spent several years translating. tonight he tells me of 3 versions he's done of a recent translation of a Japanese novel:

1- straight word for word

2 - freethinking poetic interpretation

3 - ??? (sorry i was focusing on the cigar smoke and single malt)...something in between i guess

nevertheless, the upshot i got was this -a translater of languages is faced with a multitude of options and dilemmas...constructive and moral

do i stay pure and go for word for word? or do i filter the nuance and verbal gesture for the reader in their own language?

this made me think of the concept of transparency in winemaking....

......i didn't get very far, except well i thought that all winemakers must interpret
 
Joel, this is an interesting issue. I'm a translator, so of course, my ears perked up.

I have been told (best compliment ever) that a translation I did was "like a glove turned inside-out."

On the other hand, there are writers who want to be improved by translation; I had a horrible falling-out with a Comp Lit prof who hated my very faithful translation because he wanted it to be more sexy and smooth.

In France, they tend to standardize things to French rhetoric.

Then there's Nabokov, who translated Pushkin's Onegin and had volumes of endnotes to accompany the text. Unreadable text, but faithful to the sense of the words, down to the tiniest button.

Try reading different translations of Dante! Hoo.

I have to say I'm more on the Nabokov side (but I'm somewhat of a literalist). Not to the point of awkward readability, but still: if the writer turns a hobbled phrase, why smooth it out?

Anyway, not sure what this has to do with wine, but glad I got to spout.

ETA: Awkward readability = terroir. Smooth rhetoric = new oak.
 
I think of terroir more in musical terms, and some of the producers with whom I've discussed the issue agree. The terroir is a piece of music and the producer is the performer of the music.
 
originally posted by Claude Kolm:
I think of terroir more in musical terms, and some of the producers with whom I've discussed the issue agree. The terroir is a piece of music and the producer is the performer of the music.
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thus, interpretation
 
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:

In France, they tend to standardize things to French rhetoric.

Then there's Nabokov, who translated Pushkin's Onegin and had volumes of endnotes to accompany the text. Unreadable text, but faithful to the sense of the words, down to the tiniest button.

Try reading different translations of Dante! Hoo.
Click to expand...

Amazing that you'd have views on this topic, Sharon. [insert appropriate emoticon here] I think that where these issues tend to come to a head is in the translation of epic poetry, such as the works of Dante, Homer, Virgil, etc. The translator has to choose between literality of translation and maintaining meter and wordplay as much as is possible. As a less-than-fluent fan of Latin American literature, I encounter this dilemma a lot (and, like a trusted importer, I cleave to Edith Grossman's texts) and it's very instructive to compare different translations of the same work, as I've done with Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. Turning again to Edith Grossman, from a 2003 talk she gave at a PEN celebration of Garca Marquez's work:

Fidelity is surely our highest aim, but a translation is not made with tracing paper. It is an act of critical interpretation. Let me insist on the obvious: Languages trail immense, individual histories behind them, and no two languages, with all their accretions of tradition and culture, ever dovetail perfectly. They can be linked by translation, as a photograph can link movement and stasis, but it is disingenuous to assume that either translation or photography, or acting for that matter, are representational in any narrow sense of the term. Fidelity is our noble purpose, but it does not have much, if anything, to do with what is called literal meaning. A translation can be faithful to tone and intention, to meaning. It can rarely be faithful to words or syntax, for these are peculiar to specific languages and are not transferable.

That sounds a lot like some winemaking philosophies I admire.

Mark Lipton
 
In practical terms, the so-called "word for word" translation/interpretation approach rarely works at any level other than, occasionally, that of individual words or very simple syntactic units. Most translation/interpretation (technical usage of the term implied) is "interpretation". A circumstance that also gave birth to this well-known adage: "traduttore-traditore".
 
originally posted by Joel Stewart:
originally posted by Claude Kolm:
I think of terroir more in musical terms, and some of the producers with whom I've discussed the issue agree. The terroir is a piece of music and the producer is the performer of the music.
Click to expand...

thus, interpretation
Click to expand...

I am not really a music expert, but my understanding has always been that both more "literal" and more "liberal" renditions of a score are frequently possible.
 
There's an old sexist saw that may not even be right about translation:

Translations are like women: the beautiful ones aren't faithful and the faithful ones aren't beautiful.

I more nearly value faithfulness, but even translating things for friends (and not being a professional), it quickly became clear that literal translation was literally impossible. If you don't think so, just check out babelfish. You're always making choices about how to get idioms, expressions and even words that don't have the same referential spread in one language as they do in another, from one language to another. This means of course that you are always making interpretive choices in excess of faithfulness. None of that means, though, you can't make good interpretive choices or bad ones and that you can't produce translations that get something of a text into another language. I expect that you lose more in the case of poetry than in the case of prose and more in the case of lyric poetry than epic poetry and that there are probably poets who really are almost untranslateable.
 
jazz artists in the 50's-60's, like Miles, were assessed based on their own renditions of pop tunes.... "Autumn Leaves" for example....not a great one i admit, but...

interpretation is everything in jazz...and yet, not all interpretations taste good. Miles tastes so much better than Kenny G

on the other hand...not sure miles would make a wine worth drinking...(am sure he'd have other better substances on hand..)
 
I have worked with translators recently (into Italian, a language I can speak but cannot write acceptably) and there are tonal issues that are easy to lose. When you write in one language you assume a reader has certain understanding of how certain words in a particular order will sound (though readers often get very different things than an author might have intended). To really capture this in another linguistic culture is certainly an art form. Sometimes I wonder if winemakers who "reveal" terroir are actually seeing possibilities their neighbors cannot imagine.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
There's an old sexist saw that may not even be right about translation:

Translations are like women: the beautiful ones aren't faithful and the faithful ones aren't beautiful.

I more nearly value faithfulness, but even translating things for friends (and not being a professional), it quickly became clear that literal translation was literally impossible. If you don't think so, just check out babelfish. You're always making choices about how to get idioms, expressions and even words that don't have the same referential spread in one language as they do in another, from one language to another. This means of course that you are always making interpretive choices in excess of faithfulness. None of that means, though, you can't make good interpretive choices or bad ones and that you can't produce translations that get something of a text into another language. I expect that you lose more in the case of poetry than in the case of prose and more in the case of lyric poetry than epic poetry and that there are probably poets who really are almost untranslateable.
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Not entirely sure about the bit about women, but I subscribe to the rest.
Poets who are almost untranslatable: try Paul Celan.
 
originally posted by MLipton:
The translator has to choose between literality of translation and maintaining meter and wordplay as much as is possible. As a less-than-fluent fan of Latin American literature, I encounter this dilemma a lot (and, like a trusted importer, I cleave to Edith Grossman's texts) and it's very instructive to compare different translations of the same work, as I've done with Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. Turning again to Edith Grossman, from a 2003 talk she gave at a PEN celebration of Garca Marquez's work:
Click to expand...

Mark- Interesting that Grossman's quote is from a celebration of Garcia-Marquez's work, as I've never really liked what she did with his books. Compared to Gregory Rabassa's translations of Gabo's earlier works, Grossman's translations lack the rhythm and tone that should have been there. I find most of her efforts well intentioned but ultimately lacking in a sense of literary musicality, whereas Rabassa's translations really captured the feel. Garcia-Marquez once wrote to Rabassa that "100 Years of Solitude" read better in its English translation than the book did in its original Spanish.

If you enjoy Latin American fiction, you're probably already familiar with most of his translations but if not, you should track down copies of "Macho Camacho's Beat" by Sanchez, Vargas Llosa's "Conversation in the Cathedral" or any of the Julio Cortzar books that Rabassa translated in order to experience what I believe is the highest level of the translator's art. You'd also probably enjoy If This Be Treason , Rabassa's memoir covering the authors whose writing he's translated. He addresses all of the issues Jonathan brings up and does it with a great sense of humor.

-Eden (psst....wanna buy a hardcover first edition of Donoso's "The Boom in Spanish American Fiction" with red binding and in its original glassine jacket?)
 
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
Joel, this is an interesting issue. I'm a translator, so of course, my ears perked up.

I have been told (best compliment ever) that a translation I did was "like a glove turned inside-out."
Click to expand...

great compliment!

originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
On the other hand, there are writers who want to be improved by translation; I had a horrible falling-out with a Comp Lit prof who hated my very faithful translation because he wanted it to be more sexy and smooth.
Click to expand...

improved by translation sounds a bit like the title i wanted to use for that movie...too much oak for me

originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
In France, they tend to standardize things to French rhetoric.
Click to expand...

i've been reading...well trying to read...a treatise on Botticelli this last week. seems a direct, word for word translation.....boy does it (initially) turn me off to the original author.....then i think to myself, wait a minute...the author might be windy, but holy crap...the translator could have turned down the fan a notch

originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
Try reading different translations of Dante! Hoo.I have to say I'm more on the Nabokov side (but I'm somewhat of a literalist). Not to the point of awkward readability, but still: if the writer turns a hobbled phrase, why smooth it out?
Click to expand...

i wonder about translating difficult grapes, like dylan and tom waits too......or dylan thomas, for that matter
 
originally posted by Eden Mylunsch: You'd also probably enjoy If This Be Treason , Rabassa's memoir covering the authors whose writing he's translated. He addresses all of the issues Jonathan brings up and does it with a great sense of humor.
Click to expand...

looks like a great read!
 
In Italian they have a great saying about this. "Traditor, Tradutor" -- the translator is a traitor.

My current extra-curricular project is learning enough Japanese to be able to get around in case we manage to travel there. I have to say that if you started with English and tried to think up the most completely upside-down answer to English that you could possibly come up with, it would be Japanese. Prepositions come at the end of the phrase (postpositions), the verb is at the end of every sentence, and they often manage to arrange things so that the verb can be "IS" (desu). "Ticket, desired is."

I'm sort of starting to comprehend the beauty of the language but in nearly every way it is completely exasperating. Thank goodness for language lesson podcasts.

I suppose this has as much to do with wine as Nigori Sak...

This weekend we went up to New England, and had stunning weather. In the car, Louise and I read each other stories -- "In a Grove" and "Rashomon" by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, translated very nicely by Takashi Kojima. Exquisite little crystalline short stories, to go with the exquisite crystalline weather and the gold and red glow of the leaves. If you don't know who THE ULFULS are you need to find out. Try "Tsugihagi Bugiugi" on YouTube. And don't forget Nicholas D. Wolfwood.

Irrelevantly

Frank

PS even more irrelevantly, I saw Lang Lang play Chopin yesterday, and I think it was probably just about the greatest concert I have ever seen. What a genius!
 
Keene NH and Saxtons River VT

Louise's Aunt had her 90th birthday party and then we did some genealogy stuff for a friend.

You can see the amazing light - weather - foliage here:

Keene

F
 
I just came back yesterday from the better part of five months in Quechee, VT, so I've definitely seen the colors. Best year in, well, years.

If you get up that way again, let me know. We're there a lot.
 
originally posted by Frank Deis:
In Italian they have a great saying about this. "Traditor, Tradutor" -- the translator is a traitor.

My current extra-curricular project is learning enough Japanese to be able to get around in case we manage to travel there. I have to say that if you started with English and tried to think up the most completely upside-down answer to English that you could possibly come up with, it would be Japanese. Prepositions come at the end of the phrase (postpositions), the verb is at the end of every sentence, and they often manage to arrange things so that the verb can be "IS" (desu). "Ticket, desired is."

I'm sort of starting to comprehend the beauty of the language but in nearly every way it is completely exasperating. Thank goodness for language lesson podcasts.

I suppose this has as much to do with wine as Nigori Sak...

This weekend we went up to New England, and had stunning weather. In the car, Louise and I read each other stories -- "In a Grove" and "Rashomon" by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, translated very nicely by Takashi Kojima. Exquisite little crystalline short stories, to go with the exquisite crystalline weather and the gold and red glow of the leaves. If you don't know who THE ULFULS are you need to find out. Try "Tsugihagi Bugiugi" on YouTube. And don't forget Nicholas D. Wolfwood.

Irrelevantly

Frank

PS even more irrelevantly, I saw Lang Lang play Chopin yesterday, and I think it was probably just about the greatest concert I have ever seen. What a genius!
Click to expand...

studying japanese from afar would be tough i think, but it will no doubt give you a bit of a leg up whenever you make it over here. despite the upside down grammar points (which i hear are similar to spanish, tho don't quote me on that...or if you do, quote me in another language...) nihongo in the spoken form is pretty easy to pick up on the basics, if you were ever to spend a couple of months here.

i've enjoyed reading murakami but now that i think of it...he may have written at least some of his books in english himself...
 
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