I’m still alive!
The group presentation is done and posted to the class for viewing and discussion. Yay!
I’ve been slogging through some reading for the week. Here is an example of some of the particularly horrid writing that appears in academic articles:
Context has in many ways been the most central second wave concept. Yet it has in many ways been a concept that many talked about but most failed to define in a way that has been useful to HCI.
This is on page three of an eight page article. If I had a drinking game going and had to drink for every time “many” showed up or the author repeated the same word more than three times in one to two consecutive sentences I would be totally wasted by now and probably passed out by the time I got to page six.
Now I just have a ten page paper to write by Sunday night that was just assigned on Monday. I’ll be so glad when this class is done and very likely close to catatonic even without drinking.
Reading for fun has been on the train only. Although I’ve managed to squeeze in an article or a book review here and there. Like this review about a book by Edith Grossman Why Translation Matters. Grossman, as you probably know is the frabjous translator of Don Quixote, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and a host of others.
The book sounds like it is a mixed bag but I want to read it anyway. I think Grossman is a brilliant translator and the issues of translation are fascinating ones to me. I think a translator not only has to be good at translating but a good writer and reader as well. We rely on them to give us in our own language the story, the style, the beauty and essence of the original. No easy task.
The review mentions one of Grossman’s complaints about translators names so often not even appearing on the cover of the book because supposedly the publishers are afraid it will scare away readers. I’ve always wondered about that. I want the translator to get cover credit. I want to know if a book has been translated because I purposely look for books in translation sometimes. Unless you know the name of a specific author, without the translator’s name on the cover too it is pretty difficult to tell where the book was originally written.
My library doesn’t have Grossman’s book yet. But then, maybe this is one to own.
Yay for being alive! It’s better than the alternative, even if it does mean that yes, you have to work your way through some truly awful articles. I did a business degree and many of my classmates developed a drinking game around the use of the word “synergy”. They were pretty well sauced for all four years.
Good luck with your paper!
I’m glad that group thing is done, and I hope the paper goes well. Boo to your teacher for assigning the thing so late!
Wow, that excerpt is almost reminiscent of Gertrude Stein in its compulsive-seeming repetitions. I’m sorry you’re having to wade through that! Totally with you on the fascination of translation issues.
I’m glad to see you! But no wonder you’ve been away if you have had to read such life-sapping prose. I’m very intrigued by the book about translation. I think if translator’s names appeared, we would soon come to recognise the good ones and it would be an additional draw, rather than a distraction.
And good luck with the rest of your work!
I will click through to Grossman’s article right away, translation being a subject close to my own heart! Just ten minutes ago I got an email from one of my favorite publishers, advertising their upcoming titles and one of them was being touted as a “new, revised translation”…I got really excited because it was a book I’ve read and I know the older translation which was done by one of my absolute favorite translators…but I’ve always been curious about many of his choices and was very interested to see who had done the new one…so I click their link and then I couldn’t find it anywhere! No listing of the translator’s name anywhere on the product page! Grrrr! I finally found it by blowing up the cover image. So atleast the translator will get credit on the cover…but in tiny tiny type.
Although, to be fair, things are much better than they were say thirty years ago when the only place the translator was mentioned was on the copyright page.
Wow, she really rips into Grossman. I’d still like to read the book…
I always wondered too about why translators are not given more obvious credit. They deserve it–for good or for ill. I can’t see how a translation can be viewed as anything other than a revision of the work. After reading several books in Spanish that I’d already read in English, I wanted to learn more languages for the sole purpose of reading great works in the original. Top of my list? French and Russian. I’m working on French but haven’t even attempted Russian.
Agh an essay due in a week, what a crazy schedule. After its over you should engage in a drinking game with more fun, but still bad, writing.
Translation must be so hard, especially with all the stick translaters get from readers and critics for not picking exactly the right variation on a foreign word. How many times have you heard reviewers say ‘maybe the translation is why I didn’t enjoy this as much as I hoped’, bet that drives translaters mad.
Stephanie:
If you really get into the translation “wars,” I think you would find David Remnick’s article especially pertinent.
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/11/07/051107fa_fact_remnick
Richard
Sheesh – I didn’t even understand the snippet you quoted. Way too esoteric for me. I would definitely suffer from MEGO (my eyes glaze over). And you had to go through 8 pages? I can see how it would lead one to drink.
It’s so hard to have to be so strict about your fun reading time!! I am currently staying up WAY past my bedtime breezing through the entire Strangers In Paradise collection… addicting. good job on hanging in there!
I’ve always wondered why people freak out over translated books. I look for them and bet many others would too. Maybe publishers have a terrible misperception over this. And a translator should definitely get credit on the cover! Glad to hear your group project is done. You’re getting close to the end of the semester surely!
Claire, LOL I love the synergy drinking game! Buzzwords are a hoot, especially business ones.
Dorothy, thanks! The prof actually asked for feedback in the class discussion and we gave it to, nicely of course
Emily, ha! you’re right about the Gertrude Stein quality to it. Maybe if I had made that connection it wouldn’t have been so painful to read.
Litlove, you’d think publishers would realize that people might by a book for the translator. I mean look at how Robert Fagles’ translations got so much acclaim. Silly publishers.
Verbivore, I thought of you while I was reading the article. She does sort of rip into Grossman but I still want to read the book too. I like Grossman and want to read for myself what she has to say. Yes, I guess tiny print on the cover is better than only appearing on the copyright page. Hopefully that print will start to get bigger!
andalucy, you are hardcore! Learning a language just so you can read a book in the original. I admire that!
Jodie, translating is very much a craft. It is unfortunate too, as you say, when someone blames the translation as being bad instead of considering that maybe it is the original that wasn’t so good.
Richard, thanks for the link! That looks like a fun article.
Grad, that’s ok, I didn’t understand it either
Daphne, I’ve not heard of Strangers in Paradise before so I am looking forward to you posting about it!
Danielle, I’ve always wondered the same thing. Maybe since there have been a few books in translation making the bestseller lists publishers will start to change their ways.