the choices of a translator
You only imagine that you have read the Bible, or Les Miserables, or Anna Karenina. In fact, you've read translations of all these things. (Unless you've read them in the original, in which case I apologize.)
The weird thing is to see how much one translation can differ from another. If you're translating a German novel, after all, you can say:
You can sometimes tell, then, what kind of translation experience you're going to have when you look at the title of a work. Is it done by a details person? A sweeping popularizer? A modernist? A conservative?
Just think of Marcel Proust's most recognizable title: Á la Recherche du Temps Perdu. You know, the one that starts with him taking a whiff of a . . . biscuit? madeleine? Which? No matter: in English there are two popular titles for it: In Search of Lost Time and Remembrance of Things Past.
Chew on that one for a moment: even before you open the book, you know which translator you're getting. "In Search of Lost Time" is a direct translation of the words. You can expect a meticulous word-for-word translation. "Remembrance of Things Past," on the other hand, is a quote from the opening lines of Shakespeare's thirtieth Sonnet: "When to the sessions of sweet silent thought / I summon up remembrance of things past . . . ." You can then expect a translation that translates ideas and images rather than just terms. "The little man in my eye" becomes "the apple of my eye," because the former term has no meaning for English speakers and the latter one is a common term. (The little man is, of course, the reflection of the beloved other, so close as to see a reflection in a pupil. "Pupil" itself comes from the Latin word for a little person, giving us, in a pun of grammar, our word for both schoolkids and the part of the eye that reflects the beloved in miniature.)
I was just reading an article by a person who mentioned the book, calling it by its "Remembrance" title, and I immediately knew more about the article's author.
"Herr Kaufmann left his house and walked down Ulmstrasse to get his favorite wurst."At some point along the way, most of us would say "that's enough translation; any more would be entering into the realm of the absurd." Furthermore, when we read a German novel, we might want to get a taste of Germanness, and so we might actually prefer street names and food names that sound exotic — though it's likely that the original author never intended for the work to sound exotic to his or her readers.
or:
"Herr Kaufmann left his house and walked down Ulmstrasse to get his favorite sausage."
or:
"Mr. Kaufmann left his house and walked down Ulmstrasse to get his favorite sausage."
or:
"Mr. Kaufmann left his house and walked down Elm Street to get his favorite sausage."
or:
"Mr. Sellers left his house and walked down Elm Street to get his favorite sausage."
You can sometimes tell, then, what kind of translation experience you're going to have when you look at the title of a work. Is it done by a details person? A sweeping popularizer? A modernist? A conservative?
Just think of Marcel Proust's most recognizable title: Á la Recherche du Temps Perdu. You know, the one that starts with him taking a whiff of a . . . biscuit? madeleine? Which? No matter: in English there are two popular titles for it: In Search of Lost Time and Remembrance of Things Past.
Chew on that one for a moment: even before you open the book, you know which translator you're getting. "In Search of Lost Time" is a direct translation of the words. You can expect a meticulous word-for-word translation. "Remembrance of Things Past," on the other hand, is a quote from the opening lines of Shakespeare's thirtieth Sonnet: "When to the sessions of sweet silent thought / I summon up remembrance of things past . . . ." You can then expect a translation that translates ideas and images rather than just terms. "The little man in my eye" becomes "the apple of my eye," because the former term has no meaning for English speakers and the latter one is a common term. (The little man is, of course, the reflection of the beloved other, so close as to see a reflection in a pupil. "Pupil" itself comes from the Latin word for a little person, giving us, in a pun of grammar, our word for both schoolkids and the part of the eye that reflects the beloved in miniature.)
I was just reading an article by a person who mentioned the book, calling it by its "Remembrance" title, and I immediately knew more about the article's author.
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