April 15th, 2010 / 1:30 pm
Snippets
Snippets
Blake Butler—
Wish I read French so I could buy these books, even if I already have some of them in English: éditions è®e. Also, been thinking about the act of translating, and how much one might do without a speaking knowledge of the language: how effective could you be just using sound and dictionaries and ideas?
Stephen Mitchell does this often, I think– for instance, he doesn’t read Akkadian, but wrote what he calls “a new English version” of Gilgamesh. Although I don’t know anything about Akkadian, it reads well to me. He researched heavily, read a bunch of translations side-to-side, and what came out is definitely better than the stilted, letter-over-spirit older translations I’ve read.
So, to answer the question, I think Mitchell suceeds. (Although historians might disagree?) Sparse, image-driven, with the wonderful understated gravity so often expected from epics.
Stephen Mitchell does this often, I think– for instance, he doesn’t read Akkadian, but wrote what he calls “a new English version” of Gilgamesh. Although I don’t know anything about Akkadian, it reads well to me. He researched heavily, read a bunch of translations side-to-side, and what came out is definitely better than the stilted, letter-over-spirit older translations I’ve read.
So, to answer the question, I think Mitchell suceeds. (Although historians might disagree?) Sparse, image-driven, with the wonderful understated gravity so often expected from epics.
lydia davis explored this right? from i remember reading things in noon issue #? though she was being more deliberately finding lostnesses and not intending to be clear but finding new arts in misses ich is its own party, but the clarity party down the road needs spokers of language partners.
lydia davis explored this right? from i remember reading things in noon issue #? though she was being more deliberately finding lostnesses and not intending to be clear but finding new arts in misses ich is its own party, but the clarity party down the road needs spokers of language partners.
editions ére are wonderful, relentlessly.
As for translation, it is something that is rewarding no matter how bad you are in the original language, but the point being, as JScap suggests, is that sometimes you’ll end up with a ‘version’ rather than a translation. Semantics merely maybe, but there’s obligations with the words & intentions of the writer.
Without translation we don’t have literature, so check it out!
Thanks for the reminder of ere.
editions ére are wonderful, relentlessly.
As for translation, it is something that is rewarding no matter how bad you are in the original language, but the point being, as JScap suggests, is that sometimes you’ll end up with a ‘version’ rather than a translation. Semantics merely maybe, but there’s obligations with the words & intentions of the writer.
Without translation we don’t have literature, so check it out!
Thanks for the reminder of ere.
a nice post on ted berrigan’s transliterations of giuseppe ungaretti:
http://isola-di-rifiuti.blogspot.com/2007/06/berrigans-ungaretti.html
a nice post on ted berrigan’s transliterations of giuseppe ungaretti:
http://isola-di-rifiuti.blogspot.com/2007/06/berrigans-ungaretti.html
Though it would mostly depend on the dictionary (and the text you want to translate), the results would probably be pretty poor if you consider deviant uses of words, neologisms or slang. But not even that.
An example from ze Deutsch: “das ist mir wurst” or “das ist mir wurscht”
direct translation: “that is to me sausage”
meaning: “who cares?”
translation from the best German online dictionary (leo): “I couldn’t give a hang” (do we really say that in America?)
sonically, the challenge is to recognize the emphasis on the end of the German (to hear how ze Germans say this sentence is to know that they really don’t care, really, really) and to approximate that in English -i.e. to find the appropriate gesture that makes sense in English that still has the oomph. I think that’s tricky even if you know the language and in all likelihood trickier if you don’t.
Think about puns. Or homophones. How can you translate these associations which can often be vital? This is not something a dictionary can tell you.
It would also seem very tricky with languages like French where context can change the meaning of certain phrases. (I had a good example written somewhere, but can’t find it right now… will have to pick a French person’s brain)
But I think it’d be interesting to see two pieces of translation next to one another. Any takers?
Though it would mostly depend on the dictionary (and the text you want to translate), the results would probably be pretty poor if you consider deviant uses of words, neologisms or slang. But not even that.
An example from ze Deutsch: “das ist mir wurst” or “das ist mir wurscht”
direct translation: “that is to me sausage”
meaning: “who cares?”
translation from the best German online dictionary (leo): “I couldn’t give a hang” (do we really say that in America?)
sonically, the challenge is to recognize the emphasis on the end of the German (to hear how ze Germans say this sentence is to know that they really don’t care, really, really) and to approximate that in English -i.e. to find the appropriate gesture that makes sense in English that still has the oomph. I think that’s tricky even if you know the language and in all likelihood trickier if you don’t.
Think about puns. Or homophones. How can you translate these associations which can often be vital? This is not something a dictionary can tell you.
It would also seem very tricky with languages like French where context can change the meaning of certain phrases. (I had a good example written somewhere, but can’t find it right now… will have to pick a French person’s brain)
But I think it’d be interesting to see two pieces of translation next to one another. Any takers?
Translation can be a really complicated thing. Anything is possible so I do think something interesting could happen just using sound/dictionaries/ideas but I also know that there are cultural nuances that will be completely missing from such an endeavor. I speak a couple languages and when I read translations and then compare them to the original texts, I am often staggered by just how inadequate the English translation is. I very much understand where the sentiment that translation is impossible, comes from.
Translation can be a really complicated thing. Anything is possible so I do think something interesting could happen just using sound/dictionaries/ideas but I also know that there are cultural nuances that will be completely missing from such an endeavor. I speak a couple languages and when I read translations and then compare them to the original texts, I am often staggered by just how inadequate the English translation is. I very much understand where the sentiment that translation is impossible, comes from.
Blake,
regarding your last question I direct you to the inimitable Harry Mathews:
http://books.google.com/books?id=1l19dQFf40EC&pg=PA56&lpg=PA56&dq=Harry+mathews+:case+of+the+preserving+maltese&source=bl&ots=PpxM5gnS8d&sig=v1gX4AV90mJ0jlnPQp5ewOBa-yQ&hl=en&ei=8lXHS4HfO8OC8gb_5fHuCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CBEQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false
The essay I had in mind starts at page 67… Google books is an evil Succubus, but what can one do?
Also of interest: the Keats essay about the three levels of cognition produced by a non-translated poem. I forget the title of that one, though. Any help?
Blake,
regarding your last question I direct you to the inimitable Harry Mathews:
http://books.google.com/books?id=1l19dQFf40EC&pg=PA56&lpg=PA56&dq=Harry+mathews+:case+of+the+preserving+maltese&source=bl&ots=PpxM5gnS8d&sig=v1gX4AV90mJ0jlnPQp5ewOBa-yQ&hl=en&ei=8lXHS4HfO8OC8gb_5fHuCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CBEQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false
The essay I had in mind starts at page 67… Google books is an evil Succubus, but what can one do?
Also of interest: the Keats essay about the three levels of cognition produced by a non-translated poem. I forget the title of that one, though. Any help?
I could give a shit.
I could give a shit.
Which is to say, good post about the difficulties in translation.
Which is to say, good post about the difficulties in translation.
Yeah– Mathews has talked about the act of translation as almost an Oulipian game, which I find fantasy. Since I’m a fully confessed Francophile when it comes to lit, I have considered translating without fully knowing the language– it seems like a worthy pursuit, almost like more of a collaboration than a translation. There’s tons of stuff I’ve encountered scouring back issues of journals (especially in the 70s when for a brief moment French lit almost made it through [and at that point it was really almost redundant to say “French experimental lit” because as Sontag points out in her preface to the English translation of Barthes’s Writing Degree Zero, the majority of French writing had moved beyond what in the US is still “commercial fiction ]) and even, for instance, the Review of Contemporary Literature dedicated to “New French Fiction” that came out in 1989, where that’s fucking amazing stuff that I can find absolutely NO other translations of (for instance, Mathieu Benezet’s “Us These Photographs, No” is one of the absolute most amazing things I have encoutnered in years, but from what I can figure out absolutely NOTHING other than this ten page story is available in English), and even if it’s only for my own sake, I’d like to try to just work through some of the texts. I’ve thought about taking on “rewriting” Tony Duvert’s Voyageur just because it seems like it would fit so well with my praxis, but I haven’t attempted anything yet.
Yeah– Mathews has talked about the act of translation as almost an Oulipian game, which I find fantasy. Since I’m a fully confessed Francophile when it comes to lit, I have considered translating without fully knowing the language– it seems like a worthy pursuit, almost like more of a collaboration than a translation. There’s tons of stuff I’ve encountered scouring back issues of journals (especially in the 70s when for a brief moment French lit almost made it through [and at that point it was really almost redundant to say “French experimental lit” because as Sontag points out in her preface to the English translation of Barthes’s Writing Degree Zero, the majority of French writing had moved beyond what in the US is still “commercial fiction ]) and even, for instance, the Review of Contemporary Literature dedicated to “New French Fiction” that came out in 1989, where that’s fucking amazing stuff that I can find absolutely NO other translations of (for instance, Mathieu Benezet’s “Us These Photographs, No” is one of the absolute most amazing things I have encoutnered in years, but from what I can figure out absolutely NOTHING other than this ten page story is available in English), and even if it’s only for my own sake, I’d like to try to just work through some of the texts. I’ve thought about taking on “rewriting” Tony Duvert’s Voyageur just because it seems like it would fit so well with my praxis, but I haven’t attempted anything yet.
:(
but that doesn’t work. ‘i could give a shit,’ or ‘…a rat’s ass’ or whatever else comes to mind enters the domain of Vulgar (maybe this is more our fault than the possibility of translation… dunno). the German isn’t vulgar. it doesn’t even hint at the vulgar (which, now that I think about it, is really interesting since ze Germanz use ‘scheisse’ all_the_time…). it’s actually kind of absurd. and it’s always funny to hear kids say it.
there’s another saying with cheese, but we’ll have to save that for another day.
and glad you enjoyed it.
:)
:(
but that doesn’t work. ‘i could give a shit,’ or ‘…a rat’s ass’ or whatever else comes to mind enters the domain of Vulgar (maybe this is more our fault than the possibility of translation… dunno). the German isn’t vulgar. it doesn’t even hint at the vulgar (which, now that I think about it, is really interesting since ze Germanz use ‘scheisse’ all_the_time…). it’s actually kind of absurd. and it’s always funny to hear kids say it.
there’s another saying with cheese, but we’ll have to save that for another day.
and glad you enjoyed it.
:)
I think it depends, but it seems like translation is extraordinarily difficult anyhow and especially the more dissimilar the two languages are. Su Tong and Mo Yan and a bunch of other Chinese writers, for example, basically only trust this one guy to do all their translations because he’s the only writer with such a command of both the spoken and written language and Chinese idioms and culture and all that sort of thing. Spanish to English, though, might be easier. (Though I don’t really know–I’m way too dumb at languages to translate anything.)
I think it depends, but it seems like translation is extraordinarily difficult anyhow and especially the more dissimilar the two languages are. Su Tong and Mo Yan and a bunch of other Chinese writers, for example, basically only trust this one guy to do all their translations because he’s the only writer with such a command of both the spoken and written language and Chinese idioms and culture and all that sort of thing. Spanish to English, though, might be easier. (Though I don’t really know–I’m way too dumb at languages to translate anything.)
I am shocked Blake doesn’t read (and write) French.
I am shocked Blake doesn’t read (and write) French.
M.M– ‘Oulipian Game’ is a loaded term, and one that I don’t particularly have time to address right now; but I think to suggest that Mathew’s is anything less than ‘deadly serious’ about the art (and paradox) of translation is misleading.
M.M– ‘Oulipian Game’ is a loaded term, and one that I don’t particularly have time to address right now; but I think to suggest that Mathew’s is anything less than ‘deadly serious’ about the art (and paradox) of translation is misleading.
“Merde a la treizieme puissance” (“shit to the 13th power”) is an authentic French curse, I think.
“Merde a la treizieme puissance” (“shit to the 13th power”) is an authentic French curse, I think.
another one in German that I like is Wolke 7. We say, of course, Cloud 9. Why the Germans don’t trust themselves to go that far, I don’t know.
If you didn’t know the language/culture, you might easily translate it to Cloud 7, thus creating something inaccurate.
btw, has anyone seen Wolke 9 by Andreas Dresen? If you can find it and the subtitles, he’s really grand.
another one in German that I like is Wolke 7. We say, of course, Cloud 9. Why the Germans don’t trust themselves to go that far, I don’t know.
If you didn’t know the language/culture, you might easily translate it to Cloud 7, thus creating something inaccurate.
btw, has anyone seen Wolke 9 by Andreas Dresen? If you can find it and the subtitles, he’s really grand.
Oh I don’t mean to suggest that Mathew’s is anything less than deadly serious. I don’t personally think that just become something can be considered a “game” means it should be taken any less serious. Play does things with literature that are in no way demeaning to literature.
Oh I don’t mean to suggest that Mathew’s is anything less than deadly serious. I don’t personally think that just become something can be considered a “game” means it should be taken any less serious. Play does things with literature that are in no way demeaning to literature.
you might want to check out the novel “translated accounts” by james kelman.
you might want to check out the novel “translated accounts” by james kelman.
why did i change my comment info? above was me obviously, oh god was i drunk commenting again augh
why did i change my comment info? above was me obviously, oh god was i drunk commenting again augh