Re: new southamerican fish

Thanks for the good response, Maria. I think you misunderstood me a bit
-- I didn't mean to say that GGM's characters were "parrots." I was
referring to the parrot episode in the first chapter of _Love in the
Time of Cholera_. It was a literal parrot. My point was that
descriptive language is easier to translate than the specific
inflections/habits of individual speech ... an opinion that's the
product of my own limited forays into translation from Spanish to
English. GGM's books are rich in description while _Catcher_ is more
distinct as a piece of writing, in English, by Holden's voice. I don't
see GGM's characters as having really distinct voices, but then they're
never made to speak that much at a time (I haven't read him in Spanish
either, though). _Catcher_ is a continual monolog by Holden.

There's no doubt in my mind that Holden's attitudes and feelings can
resonate with people across the world, but I don't think any translation
can really capture his voice. At best, it'd be Holden speaking Spanish
with a New York accent. That's probably good enough, but not quite
Holden.

That's why I said works like Raymond Carver's could be translated with
little loss -- his writing is more like a camera lens than a speaking
voice. The meaning is translated by the imagery, and little is lost in
translation when describing physical objects, people, and their
characteristics.

Jim
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Received on Fri Dec 5 22:29:20 2003