As AI read this, I recalled these words from the preface to the King James Bible, 'From the Translators to the Reader':
"The King's speech, which he uttereth in Parliament, being translated into French, Dutch, Italian, and Latin, is still the King's speech, though it be not interpreted by every Translator with the like grace, nor peradventure so fitly for phrase, nor so expressly for sense, everywhere."
It reminded me of how my excellent Russian literature professor in university, who was Latvian, was always very particular about the translations we used.
The Dracula story is really interesting, I recently bought that to reread.
My one experience of reading two different translations of the same book is Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.
The first edition I read was translated by Gregory Hays.
Then I read the edition by Robin Waterfield after hearing him on a podcast and I preferred it. His annotations are very good as well.
Yes, I was excited when you posted a while back that Dracula was on your “to read” list. I have not read it since high school.
I really like wha I have heard from Waterfield during various podcast interviews.
I think he has been good at pointing out what the pop Stoicism movement seemingly tends to downplay about the philosophy, the theology/cosmology aspect as well the fate/determinism beliefs.
Have tried a few of the Pevear-Volokhonsky translations (Dostoevsky & Tolstoy), and maybe they are more accurate, but I have to say I find Garnett and others more readable; Morson probably has a point. For me the same goes when putting Andrew Hurley's translations of Borges up against the earlier work of Norman Thomas di Giovanni.
If memory serves, one of Simenon's early translators (Saintsbury, I think) presumably played fast and loose not only with the translation from French to English, but with some of the stories themselves and Simenon broke with him when he found out about it.
There's an essay by Samuel Delany (think it's in his book The Jewel-Hinged Jaw) where he talks about assigning a book in one of his classes; the students tell him it's dull and unreadable. The book is The Romance of Leonardo Da Vinci by Dmitri Merezhkovsky, which Delany had read years ago and found wonderful; the translation available for purchase at the time he taught his class made all the difference -- when he compared copies of the two, he agreed with his students.
I’ve tried reading the P&V Bros K and C&P and quit both times. Probably my fault, but I found many passages to be quite stodgy. Fascinating on Simenon.
The feel of Old English poetry (like Beowulf) changes radically with each contemporary English translator. Burton Raffel’s and Charles Kennedy’s translations sound nothing like Seamus Heaney’s or Kevin Crossley-Holland’s and neither like my current favorite, RM Liuzza’s.
Fascinating article; thanks. Translating was always and of necessity (😉🤣) an interpretation personal to me. I always tried to feel what the author was conveying and flow with that, but sometimes the words or phrases didn't exist in English, or didn't make sense, and so I had to tread my own bit of that path.
I hope people will get a sense of the value of literary translators from this, because they will be increasingly rarer. All the non-literary translation I used to do has dried up due to AI - businesses don't care about nuance when they can get something 'for free' - and I suspect that many lesser publishers will go down the same route.
George Steiner summarizes pages of his own writing about the impossibility if translation (in Real Presences) by saying that Bottom the Weaver being turned into an ass by the fairy Puck in Midsummernight's Dream is as good as translation ever gets. And that translation is from English into English.
I appreciate this Joel. I have expressed to my Honduran husband that I would like to try my hand at translating some of Ramon Amador Amaya's books into English. They are books that his teacher, Prof Trinnie read to his class when they were children and helped my husband feel more anchored and less alone. There is the feeling though, from my husband and apparently from the author previously, that some things are just so central to the cultural context in which they occur that a translation would not have any true interest or value to a reader in another cultural context. I imagine that is one of the key challenges of translating sense and feeling that exists within and beyond the words themselves.
I just realized that I have not read a single Stephen King book in English. I went through my King phase while living in Finland and read the books in a Swedish translation.
Currently I’m listening to the second book in The Three-Body Problem series and often wonder how the translator tackled certain descriptions.
My Burmese is even worse than my Russian, but probably better than my Icelandic 😉, nonetheless, I forgot to mention Tim Parks’ excellent translation work when you asked previously. Everyone seems to be reading The Prince again and his translation is particularly good imho. All the best, John.
That Dracula bit was new to me and fascinating. Concerns over the quality of translation are certainly valid, but I think the common reader only cares if the translation is readable and true to the spirit of the original. A lot of times, specialist arguments are only interesting to other specialists. Enjoyed this essay very much.
I think that’s basically right. You don’t want to discover a translator has somehow done violence to the original, but the passibility of the translation is on a sliding scale from there.
I bring a very jaundiced view to these debates, but after years of translation, I honestly think that fidelity is the last refuge of the scoundrel. Every time you get someone claiming to be more faithful or more literal in their translation, you have to ask, why are they making this claim? And the answer is always, they're making it defensively, because someone has pointed out that their translation makes no sense.
The first thing you notice is that the claimed "fidelity" or "literalness" is always about words. Never fidelity to tone, or literal reproduction of rhythm, or faithful attention to how many layers of meaning are going on... There's a great lack of insight into literature in this "fidelity". It's more like a kind of philology of the text.
The second thing you notice is that the claims of accuracy are almost always strikingly wrong. Those criticisms of the Russian translators at the linked article by Morson are really trenchant. Just because a word's primary dictionary equivalent in English is X, that doesn't mean that the word means X in that context in the work of literature!
All of which shows what a nonsense this whole discourse is. It's all about trying to take the wrong road in a translation. I used to deliver trainings where I'd draw two paths between source text (the work in its original language) and target text: one leading straight from text to text, the other taking a detour through the brain of the translator. Then I'd cut the "shorter" route, because there is no path from text to text. That's not translation, it's just word juggling. The only way is to fully absorb the source text into your brain, and then reproduce it in the target language...
Alright, rant over. Thank you for a very interesting post!
Well, I'm just glad Jesus spoke in King James English.
LOL, forsooth!
As AI read this, I recalled these words from the preface to the King James Bible, 'From the Translators to the Reader':
"The King's speech, which he uttereth in Parliament, being translated into French, Dutch, Italian, and Latin, is still the King's speech, though it be not interpreted by every Translator with the like grace, nor peradventure so fitly for phrase, nor so expressly for sense, everywhere."
I just now realized that autocorrect changed I to AI. Ominous...
It made me mentally read your comment in the Queen's English of fifty years ago... 🤣🤣
Fantastic. Thanks for sharing that.
Great piece.
It reminded me of how my excellent Russian literature professor in university, who was Latvian, was always very particular about the translations we used.
The Dracula story is really interesting, I recently bought that to reread.
My one experience of reading two different translations of the same book is Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.
The first edition I read was translated by Gregory Hays.
Then I read the edition by Robin Waterfield after hearing him on a podcast and I preferred it. His annotations are very good as well.
I’ll be reading Dracula this October. First time for me. I’ve heard great things about Waterfield generally. I loved reading his Phaedrus.
Yes, I was excited when you posted a while back that Dracula was on your “to read” list. I have not read it since high school.
I really like wha I have heard from Waterfield during various podcast interviews.
I think he has been good at pointing out what the pop Stoicism movement seemingly tends to downplay about the philosophy, the theology/cosmology aspect as well the fate/determinism beliefs.
He’s a hero of mine. He often makes me want to read the translation more than the original!
Have tried a few of the Pevear-Volokhonsky translations (Dostoevsky & Tolstoy), and maybe they are more accurate, but I have to say I find Garnett and others more readable; Morson probably has a point. For me the same goes when putting Andrew Hurley's translations of Borges up against the earlier work of Norman Thomas di Giovanni.
If memory serves, one of Simenon's early translators (Saintsbury, I think) presumably played fast and loose not only with the translation from French to English, but with some of the stories themselves and Simenon broke with him when he found out about it.
There's an essay by Samuel Delany (think it's in his book The Jewel-Hinged Jaw) where he talks about assigning a book in one of his classes; the students tell him it's dull and unreadable. The book is The Romance of Leonardo Da Vinci by Dmitri Merezhkovsky, which Delany had read years ago and found wonderful; the translation available for purchase at the time he taught his class made all the difference -- when he compared copies of the two, he agreed with his students.
I’ve tried reading the P&V Bros K and C&P and quit both times. Probably my fault, but I found many passages to be quite stodgy. Fascinating on Simenon.
The feel of Old English poetry (like Beowulf) changes radically with each contemporary English translator. Burton Raffel’s and Charles Kennedy’s translations sound nothing like Seamus Heaney’s or Kevin Crossley-Holland’s and neither like my current favorite, RM Liuzza’s.
Fascinating article; thanks. Translating was always and of necessity (😉🤣) an interpretation personal to me. I always tried to feel what the author was conveying and flow with that, but sometimes the words or phrases didn't exist in English, or didn't make sense, and so I had to tread my own bit of that path.
I hope people will get a sense of the value of literary translators from this, because they will be increasingly rarer. All the non-literary translation I used to do has dried up due to AI - businesses don't care about nuance when they can get something 'for free' - and I suspect that many lesser publishers will go down the same route.
George Steiner summarizes pages of his own writing about the impossibility if translation (in Real Presences) by saying that Bottom the Weaver being turned into an ass by the fairy Puck in Midsummernight's Dream is as good as translation ever gets. And that translation is from English into English.
LOL. In Charles William’s Descent into Hell, the playwright says the only way to summarize his work is to just read it :)
Well, that puts our AI tools at a disadvantage.
I think "Peter Stanhope" is one if the greatest names a fictional character can be blessed with.
I appreciate this Joel. I have expressed to my Honduran husband that I would like to try my hand at translating some of Ramon Amador Amaya's books into English. They are books that his teacher, Prof Trinnie read to his class when they were children and helped my husband feel more anchored and less alone. There is the feeling though, from my husband and apparently from the author previously, that some things are just so central to the cultural context in which they occur that a translation would not have any true interest or value to a reader in another cultural context. I imagine that is one of the key challenges of translating sense and feeling that exists within and beyond the words themselves.
I just realized that I have not read a single Stephen King book in English. I went through my King phase while living in Finland and read the books in a Swedish translation.
Currently I’m listening to the second book in The Three-Body Problem series and often wonder how the translator tackled certain descriptions.
That’s fabulous and kind of funny. What a cool piece of personal trivia.
Fascinating essay, thank you.
My Burmese is even worse than my Russian, but probably better than my Icelandic 😉, nonetheless, I forgot to mention Tim Parks’ excellent translation work when you asked previously. Everyone seems to be reading The Prince again and his translation is particularly good imho. All the best, John.
I’ll have to check that out. The only copy I have of the Prince is a much older translation.
The translator’s note contains such gems as: “Surprised and disappointed by The Prince's failure, Machiavelli went back to womanizing.”
Tim Parks is also well worth reading in his own right.
Haha!
That Dracula bit was new to me and fascinating. Concerns over the quality of translation are certainly valid, but I think the common reader only cares if the translation is readable and true to the spirit of the original. A lot of times, specialist arguments are only interesting to other specialists. Enjoyed this essay very much.
I think that’s basically right. You don’t want to discover a translator has somehow done violence to the original, but the passibility of the translation is on a sliding scale from there.
Good point. It does matter to some readers that the translation doesn't do damage to the original.
I bring a very jaundiced view to these debates, but after years of translation, I honestly think that fidelity is the last refuge of the scoundrel. Every time you get someone claiming to be more faithful or more literal in their translation, you have to ask, why are they making this claim? And the answer is always, they're making it defensively, because someone has pointed out that their translation makes no sense.
The first thing you notice is that the claimed "fidelity" or "literalness" is always about words. Never fidelity to tone, or literal reproduction of rhythm, or faithful attention to how many layers of meaning are going on... There's a great lack of insight into literature in this "fidelity". It's more like a kind of philology of the text.
The second thing you notice is that the claims of accuracy are almost always strikingly wrong. Those criticisms of the Russian translators at the linked article by Morson are really trenchant. Just because a word's primary dictionary equivalent in English is X, that doesn't mean that the word means X in that context in the work of literature!
All of which shows what a nonsense this whole discourse is. It's all about trying to take the wrong road in a translation. I used to deliver trainings where I'd draw two paths between source text (the work in its original language) and target text: one leading straight from text to text, the other taking a detour through the brain of the translator. Then I'd cut the "shorter" route, because there is no path from text to text. That's not translation, it's just word juggling. The only way is to fully absorb the source text into your brain, and then reproduce it in the target language...
Alright, rant over. Thank you for a very interesting post!
The English translations of the Adventures of Tintin are so much funnier than the original French.