Subject: Re: Sergeant Rilko
From: Louise Z. Brooks (invertedforest@angelfire.com)
Date: Sun Mar 05 2000 - 18:17:22 EST
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.
And no, I just don't trust the narrator any more than I trust an editor of Shakespeare. Did you know that in no place does it say `The gravediggers throw up a skull' in any original text of `Hamlet'? In each and every one it says `The gravediggers throw up a spade.' But the tradition of certain interpretations puts so much pressure on an editor that you'll never see this fact mentioned in a modern edition.
Another good reason to read `Pale Fire', really ;)
--- Louise Z. Brooks "Invention my dear friends is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation and 2% butterscotch ripple." - Willy Wonka>I don't think translation would affect a reader response reading at all >(depends on what kind you were doing), but I don't think you can refer to >authorial intention without a knowledge of the language in which he was >writing. Biblical hermeneutics tends to focus on authorial intent as the >basis of textual meaning, but rather insists on studying the texts in the >original languages and knowing the history surrounding the writing of the >text, as well as knowledge of either the life of the author or the life of >the community (as far as can be had). > >What I do with Rilke is just appreciate the English and trust the translator >:)
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