Re: Sergeant Rilko


Subject: Re: Sergeant Rilko
AntiUtopia@aol.com
Date: Sun Mar 05 2000 - 19:57:04 EST


In a message dated 3/5/00 6:18:12 PM Eastern Standard Time,
invertedforest@angelfire.com writes:

<< How could it not? When a great novel is a symphony made of words, how
could a different choice and timbre of words not make the experience of
reading it substantially if not wholly different? The reason I heard cited
that Boll's translation of The Catcher in the Rye was inferior was that he
could not translate Holden's characteristic American inflections in German.
When that is so integral to our understanding and appreciation of Holden, it
seems nearly impossible for a work of art to truly leap between states like
that and remain intact. >>

Right, Holden's speech patterns are untranslatable. But is the "meaning" of
Catcher in the Rye dependent upon that reproduction? What Boll would need to
do would be to reproduce, in German, a similar effect. Not so much the same
cadence, but rather make it clear we're dealing with an adolescent,
solipsist, speaker -- and one that uses what would probably be street talk
for late 1940s **Germany.**

I think translation in this case is translating a Code more than anything --
the code for adolescent, the code for solipsism, the code for perception.
Reproducing the exact cadences would actually be misleading, if it were
possible. But reproducing the code...creating a German equivalent to
Holden...that would be doable, perhaps.

Jim

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