In this post, I want to revisit something I am frequently preoccupied with, namely, the reading of literature in translation, for me, in English. Many times when discussing something I have read in English translation with a person who can read the source language, I encounter comments like “Well, that’s not what it says in the original,” or “There is no English language word equivalent of x,” where x represents a word in the book’s source language. Whenever I hear these sorts of comments, I ask myself three questions. First, are these critics saying the translator of this work was such a dunderhead they, that is, the translator, did not get the author’s point? Second, are they saying the translator cannot express in English an idea in a foreign language for which there is no word in English? Think of words like nibbāna, satori, or seppuku. Third and last, how do they know what they tell me is true, especially if English is their second language, or the author’s original is a language they have learned as an English speaker?
When people utter such comments about reading a book in translation, I suspect they have a poor understanding of the essence of translation. And their words are, at best, naive and, at worst, pretentious. I want to clarify why I think this and encourage readers of works in translation to continue reading them in the language they understand and not to feel that their experience is aesthetically inferior. I suggest not wasting precious time learning the original language unless you are ten or younger because your time will be better spent reading.
Let me begin by quoting from Michael Cunningham’s introduction to Michael Henry Heim’s translation of Thomas Mann’s novella Death in Venice. Cunningham is an American novelist; he writes in English. He won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1999. His works have been translated into several languages, including Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. That Cunningham has been translated into many languages and frequently worked with translators is relevant to my quoting him.
All novels are translations, even in their original languages. This has been revealed to me over time, as I’ve worked with the various dedicated (and inevitably under-paid) people who have agreed to translate my own books. When I started working with translators, I couldn’t help noticing that many of the problems that vexed them—questions of nuance, resonance, and tone, as well as the rhythms of the sentences themselves—were familiar to me. I’d worried over the same things when I wrote the book in the first place. It dawned on me, gradually, that I was a translator, too. I had taken the raw material of the book in question and translated it into language.
Mann, Thomas. Death in Venice. HarperCollins. Introduction by Michael Cunningham. Kindle Edition.
Let’s reread that first sentence: “All novels are translations, even in their original languages.” Counter-intuitive, no? Cunningham doesn’t say some, many, most, a few; he says all. Now, burn that idea into the brain cells. What’s it mean? Everything we read is a translation, even if we read it in the language in which it was initially written. Whoa! How can this be true? What is a translation of; what is its source? Time to return to Mr. Cunningham’s introduction:
A novel in its earliest form, before it begins to be rendered into language, is a cloud of sorts that hovers over the writer’s head, a mystery born with clues to its own meanings but also, at its heart, insoluble….A great book is probably, by definition, too complex and layered, too intricately alive, to be translated once and for all.
In a later post, I want to say more about my understanding of the “cloud that hovers over the writer’s head.” But that’s for another time. For now, let’s look at the three questions I opened with.
First, are these critics saying the translator of this work was such a dunderhead they, that is, the translator, did not get the author’s point? Often, even the most gifted writers may not fully understand what they want to say or how best to communicate it. This simple idea opens up two unique possibilities for translators. One is that the author’s trail of crumbs to their book’s main point can be tracked by a translator who gets it, and two, the translator may express the idea in the target language better than the author in the source language. Not always, but sometimes. Often enough. In his book, The Shadow of a Great Rock: A Literary Appreciation of the King James Bible, the late Harold Bloom makes the following extraordinary statement.
I keep the Hebrew and Greek texts in mind throughout my discussions in this book, if only to meditate upon the many places where the English version surpasses the original and those where it comes short.
Bloom, Harold. The Shadow of a Great Rock: A Literary Appreciation of the King James Bible (pp. 4-5). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.
Appreciate the force of Bloom’s statement, his meditation on “the many places where the English version surpasses the original.” Surpasses, mind you! This statement fully acknowledges the possibility of a translation beating an original in communicating an idea. Bloom was no fool; he read both Hebrew and Greek fluently.
Second, are they saying the translator cannot express in English an idea in a foreign language for which there is no word in English? Please understand me. I’m not saying there is always a one-to-one word correspondence. There isn’t. And the idea in the source language may have no corresponding concept in the target language, yet. But if you cannot tell me, in however many English words it takes, what nibbāna means in English, I am tempted to think you don’t know what it means in Pali. You can do this if you are fluent in both languages; if you are confused, you can’t.
Third and last, how do they know what they tell me is true, especially if English is their second language, or the author’s original is a language they have learned as an English speaker? It is possible that the translator is simply wrong, that they put what is not explicitly or implicitly in the source text into English. Let’s face it; some translators are better than others. But we need to draw a distinction here. The difference is between mistakes made by a translator (honest mistakes or purposeful ones) and differences in understanding what the source text means. Some Victorian translations of classic works modify a phrase to bring it into a more morally acceptable phraseology. That’s not a translation. That’s editing. And there is a big difference between the two tasks.
The bottom line is that if you are monolingual and an avid reader, you will need a translation to read foreign-language books. So what? There is no reason to apologize. The author, the translator, and you are engaged in a great literary adventure. I heartily recommend The Oxford Guide to Literature in English Translation by Peter France if you want to read non-English books in the best available translation.
A final point: nothing I have written here suggests that you not read a book in its original language if you can, even if it’s not your mother tongue. On the contrary, do so. And if the book is worth it, read every translation in languages you understand. Doing so will enhance your understanding of the book; each will present the book from a slightly different perspective. But remember that every version you read is a translation, even the original. They are all tokens of the book’s type. The original has no prima facie precedence over any of them.
All the best,
Gershon
Gershon Ben-Avraham 