new southamerican fish

Hello, everyone.
This is my first post, although I have been hidden in the shadows, reading
your posts for a while. I subscribed in september, I think and was a bit
puzzled reading posts about opressed conservative academics, wondering if I
had made any mistake in my subscription or if you were already tired of
discussing only four books. Anyway, it was fun, but I was anxious to read
your salinger related posts. After a while, they showed up, but I still wish
there were more traffic on the list.
First of all I would like to apologize for my poor english and I kindly ask
you to forgive any mistakes you may find. I am an spanish native speaker, I
am from Uruguay and struggle to read and write in english. I enjoy very much
translation realted issues regarding literature. I've read Salinger both in
english and spanish. The differences between translations made in Argentina
and in Spain are remarkable, but both are full of mistakes. I don't know if
translators have attention problems, but even easy to translate sentences
are f***ed up. Here's an example:

"Boy, I rang that doorbell fast when I got to old Spencer's house. I was
really frozen."
"¡Jo! ¡No me di prisa ni nada a tocar el timbre de la puerta en cuanto
llegué a la casa de Spencer! Estaba completamente helado." (I didn't ring
the doorbell fast, or anything, when I got to Spencer's house. I was really
frozen)

So, you mus't conclude that Holden is quite stupid, or has some reason for
delaying the bell ringing. Some may consider that the mistake is big but
rather unimportant. I don't think so. As you may remember, Holden was
freezing in the hill to get some kind of good-bye feeling as he was leaving
Pencey. As soon as he got the feeling (remembering a football game in front
of the academic building) he ran like hell to Mr. Spencer's house. In
english, it make perfect sense that Holden rang the bell fast, as he was
frozen and urged to say good-bye to Spencer while his good-bye feeling still
last. For spanish readers, Holden run and then wait, as if he is further
delaying the visit or not very sure about it.

Well, I don't want to bother you with this issues. If anybody on the list is
interested in translation related issues, here´s a link to a paper regarding
the translation of The Catcher... into finnish:
http://rosetta.helsinki.fi/gradut/anteroi.pdf
It's very interesting as it deals with the issue of transations vs.
versions. Also, it focuses in the need to create new words to translate
Holden manner of speaking. I have found that many of the issues raised in
this paper apply also for spanish translations. Enjoy.

I wish to say good luck to Cecilia in her readings. I'm sorry but I'm afraid
I won't be able to attend... I have a very good excuse, though.
Best.
María

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Received on Tue Dec 2 19:05:01 2003