Re: Brothers Karamazov

Jim writes:
<< Translating a foreign language is never an excuse for writing bad
English. [. . .] you don't really gain anything at all by sticking so
closely to the structure of the native language. English has its own
structures for communicating emphasis and those, I think, should be followed
instead. [. . .] I will admit that it's conceivable that _sometimes_ badly
written English (relatively) may communicate more of the "meaning" (however
we choose to define that) than a smooth English translation of the same
sentence. But overall, I don't think this is the case. >>

My point throughout was merely that, though English does have its own
structures for communicating emphasis (and other subtleties), it is often
the case that those structures differ substantially enough from those in
some distant language that something or other that is present in the distant
language simply and plainly won't be shoved into conventional English. In
such cases getting that subtlety is usually impossible without the
original -- though SOMETHING of the sense of it can sometimes be expressed
in funny but still sensible English.

The translator of, say, Russian into English, often finds himself in the
position of needing to decide whether in some specific case he will betray
the Russian or the English. If he's worth his salt he usually can carefully
control the degree to which he betrays each, and can strike some compromise.
Now, I sure as Hell have no wish to sit down with a translation of a
beautiful piece of literature into English produced by a translator who
consistently betrayed English, and to read it alone for my entertainment and
leisure on a nice afternoon. Neither would I recommend that others do this.
But I hear you as saying (by "never an excuse. . . .", "don't really gain
anything at all. . . ." and such language) that the translator's first
commitment is to the language he's translating into, and that translations
that don't evidence this are generally poor: I mean only to respond to this
by saying that I'm reluctant to agree, that under certain circumstances and
for certain specific ends, such betrayals of English can be worthwhile.

I hate relying on translations myself, but where I'm reading something I
care much about and I must rely on translation, I try to keep my eye on two
of them. Maybe I'll read the book through twice, maybe I'll go back and
forth, maybe I'll do most of the actual reading in one, pausing to refer to
passages in the other where something catches my eye or seems suspicious to
me. (In my spare time I'm currently putting into HTML two parallel
translations I've prepared of the Gospel of John, one very literal to the
point of being difficult and the other fluid and more highly "prepared" --
it's a fun project because HTML allows one quite a bit of easy control over
layout and appearance, and even popup notes!)

My point, really, was that those difficult translations CAN serve a purpose
and that they are sometimes valuable. If you're only buying one
translation, I recommend not buying the more difficult one. But if you care
about the book and want to spend some time getting closer to it, and you
won't be studying the original, I recommend reading multiple translations
INCLUDING difficult ones.

-robbie
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Received on Wed Apr 16 19:54:16 2003