literary translation. A few snippets from the article:
In discussing translation, you often find yourself looking for
metaphors, as if translation can't quite be itself and nothing else.
Even 400 years ago, the men who translated the King James Bible into
the common language of the people relied heavily on metaphor.
Translation it is that openeth the window, to let in the light; that
breaketh the shell, that we may eat the kernel; that putteth aside
the curtain, that we may look into the most Holy place; that removeth
the cover of the well, that we may come by the water.
(From the preface "The Translators to the Reader")
In more recent times, practitioners of the art have talked in terms
of "transplanting" - taking something living from one soil and
setting it in another - or, more prosaically, "importing foreign
goods". Others have compared it to a musical or theatrical
performance, with the translator as conductor or stage director,
working with the original score or script. Umberto Eco, in an image
that will strike a chord with those working at the sharp end,
describes translation as "a process of negotiation" - a three-way
transaction "with the ghost of a distant author, with the disturbing
presence of the foreign text, and with the phantom of the reader".
Anthea Bell (who has given us Max Sebald, ETA Hoffmann and Asterix
the Gaul in English) has plumped for a different image: the
translator as tightrope walker. And when you read her translations,
you can sense her cool nerve, her skill and courage during what is
sometimes a precarious balancing act that could go wrong at any
moment. Bell has also talked of "spinning an illusion", the illusion
being that the reader is reading the real thing - that is to say, the
author's original work, not some imitation of it. This is the ideal:
that the translated work should read as easily as the original, while
still remaining true to the author's vision and the spirit of the
writing. Yet this is no easy task, particularly between languages
that belong to different groups.
Translation is sometimes thought of as an imitative process, but in
fact it is much more inventive and imaginative. Quite often there is
no exact equivalence between languages, and sometimes English simply
cannot tolerate certain aspects of the original, at least not without
irony or some other modifying factor. Humour is a notoriously
difficult area - what is funny in one language can look simply inept
or embarrassing in another. Puns, double entendres, malapropisms,
indeed any kind of wordplay - these are all hard to transport safely.
Certain languages are also much richer in sound than our own. In
Japanese, the sound of a word often imitates its meaning, but this
(so I am told) goes way beyond the onomatopoeic miaows, cuckoos and
kerplunks that we have in English. In Japanese, practically the whole
of the natural world - the changing seasons, the different kinds of
rain and wind, the clouds, the sun and the stars - are all
represented by sound. Thus hyu-hyu is a light wind, pyu-pyu blows a
bit stronger and byu-byu stronger still. The English translator is
able to get round this with the help of breezes and gales, but the
music is lost. More strikingly still, the Japanese also use sound
patterns to express their emotional lives: they smile niko-niko, they
weep shiku-shiku and they retch muka-muka. Even the best translators
will struggle to render this subtlety into English.
In Russian, the problems are different. It is such a dense,
elliptical language that sometimes what is only implied in a tightly
packed phrase has to be made more explicit in a longer English
sentence. A single verb in Russian can be a complete sentence,
telling us not only who is doing it, and whether the doer is male or
female, but also whether the activity has been completed or is still
going on. In Anna Karenina, Prince Oblonsky says to a dinner guest:
Prikazhetye, krasnovo? - meaning (literally) "Order, red?" From the
word endings, we know that Oblonsky is asking: "Will you give me the
order to pour out some red wine for you?" This is usually translated
as "Will you have some red wine?" - conveying the sense, but in no
way matching or retaining the ellipsis.
...
Translators are often naturally diffident, used to being in the
background. In many cases, they have colluded in their own
invisibility - I certainly did at one time. They often display a
sense of uncertainty, perhaps because what they do is in some sense
provisional. Translation is a process; even when the work is done, it
is never finished. Translators know they must never overwhelm or
compete with the author, but they know, too, that the author's whole
identity is bound up with the way the words are placed on the page.
Literary translation, when it is done well, is also therefore a
supreme act of empathy...
Jennie Erdal, "Let there be light," The Guardian, Saturday April 28,
2007
http://books.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329795379-110738,00.html
