The translator and the genius

[Taomeow]

It seldom happens that a work of genius is translated by another genius, and that's the source of all our troubles when reading/contemplating/dabbling in translating works of genius written in another language.

 

It seldom happens, even, that a work of genius translated by another genius comes out as a work of genius! Mostly, it doesn't! I know many examples of very mediocre translated poetry that is considered work of genius in the original, done by poets who are considered geniuses in their own original work.

 

It seldom happens, moreover, that even a work of genius translated by the genius himself/herself who happens to be considered a genius in his work in TWO languages is as good as the original! Case in point: Vladimir Nabokov. A classic of two literatures, he used to be my inspiration (hehe... many moons ago), so I read most of what he wrote in Russian, most of what he wrote in English, and all the works he wrote in English and translated into Russian and all the works he wrote in Russian and translated into English himself. Whoa! He can't be as good as himself when he's a translator, regardless of which of the two languages whose castles he's the king of (forget "proficiency...") is the source language. In every case, he winds up writing a rather different book, a good one -- but not as good as his own original!

 

However, doing stuff of this nature has taught him how to be a very, very good translator. So what does he do with "You are old, Father William, the young man said, and..." and so on?.. Whoa! He translates it as "Tell me, Uncle, it's not for nothing that..." and so on. What is going on?.. Why is he doing this?..

 

Because he is a genius, and that's why he doesn't translate by studying a dictionary and then reciting it like a learned parrot. No. He translates with his whole cultural background of profundity and expanse, and he's at home in this vast kingdom and therefore he translates out of this freedom born of competence and ease. He is not looking for the most precise word -- a useless endeavor, because "when complexity strikes, meaningful definitions lose precision and precise definitions lose meaning," as the father of the mathematical theory of fuzzy logic once pronounced, to my delight. He is looking for the most precise impact on the reader's comprehension, he is phasing in the reader's own cultural scope for this, he is stepping out of himself and looking at the line he's translating through the eyes of a person who -- for all practical purposes -- can't tell Father William from chopped liver, because Father William is not part of his own cultural background.

 

Does this reader, this person, need to know who Father William is so as to understand what the poem is about? Nope... he needs to experience what the native reader experiences when reading this line. The native reader immediately recognizes the style and knows what to expect (and that's how this particular poem, a parody of this particular style, works and gets to be funny -- funnier than if it were to stand on its own without harking back to a literary tradition it makes fun of): many a didactic poem starts out with a young naive protagonist coming to a wise old man for this or that kind of input, elucidation, advice, tale-telling, etc. -- whereupon the old man launches a didactic monologue or tells the story which the author uses this particular literary device in order to tell, and so forth.

 

So... In English, "You are old, Father William, the young man said" will be recognized by a native speaker as a doorway into this particular literary device. Whereas in Russian, we have our own didactic poems stylistically identical to this one, built with the use of the same tools, and one of them happens to be famous enough to be immediately recognized by any native Russian speaker, and it goes, "Tell me, Uncle, it's not for nothing that..." Voila! That's how the very first line in Nabokov's translation sets the right mood, the mood of parody, which would be totally lost if he dutifully replicated the dictionary and translated "precisely" the useless-in-Russian old Father William, robbing the readers of the delight of recognition and anticipation.

 

What I'm driving at is,

 

Laozi himself couldn't translate his work into English without doing stuff like that, without doing it this way! Doing it this way is the single most difficult thing in the world for a writing genius to do. But doing it any other way is a waste of time.

 

The "idea," the "flavor," the "my take" -- that's fine, I can live with reading a work of genius in the translation and knowing that the translation gets me as far as it can and no farther. But belittling another translator for failing to look up exactly this and being clueless as to the precise meaning of that is seldom warranted, since the actual difference between a very precise translation by a learned parrot and a very inspired one by a free-flowing imperfect, imprecise, talented and spirited translator is perhaps a mere 5% improvement in the latter over the barren, dry, bureacratic accounting of the former. The spirited translation is actually going to take one closer than the bureacratic one (for something like a "cultural background" and "literary taste" and "historic perspective" and the rest of what goes into "comprehension" are nothing if not fuzzy-logical), but not close enough, never close enough... unless we're dealing with a unique situation of a translator's genius surpassing that of the author while including it in its entirety.

 

And now the poem I used to illustrate my point...

 

This poem from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Chapter V became far more popular than the poem it was parodying, The Old Man's Comforts and How He Gained Them by Robert Southey.

"You are old, Father William," the young man said,

"And your hair has become very white;

And yet you incessantly stand on your head—

Do you think, at your age, it is right?"

 

"In my youth," Father William replied to his son,

"I feared it might injure the brain;

But now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,

Why, I do it again and again."

 

 

 

"You are old," said the youth, "As I mentioned before,

And have grown most uncommonly fat;

Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door—

Pray, what is the reason of that?"

 

"In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,

"I kept all my limbs very supple

By the use of this ointment—one shilling the box—

Allow me to sell you a couple?"

 

 

 

"You are old," said the youth, "And your jaws are too weak

For anything tougher than suet;

Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak—

Pray, how did you manage to do it?"

 

"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law,

And argued each case with my wife;

And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw,

Has lasted the rest of my life."

 

 

 

"You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose

That your eye was as steady as ever;

Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose—

What made you so awfully clever?"

 

"I have answered three questions, and that is enough,"

Said his father; "don't give yourself airs!

Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?

Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs!"

[TheSongsofDistantEarth]

Wow, brilliant insights, Taomeow!

[majc]

Wow Taomeow... That's a cool post.

 

Does this reader, this person, need to know who Father William is so as to understand what the poem is about? Nope... he needs to experience what the native reader experiences when reading this line. The native reader immediately recognizes the style and knows what to expect.

Yeah. I think evoke is the key (English) word here, right? The wording chosen by an author evokes a particular (re)cognition in the reader. Depending on the cultural/historical/geographical/linguistic background of the reader, the same string of symbols will evoke different associations.

 

An author can't account for this huge variety in reader backgrounds. So, in being universal, it's up to him or her to use examples which are unmistakably basic to all readers - regardless of what language they have primarily learned to speak - and to make the context of what they're expressing so simple that it crosses all these same boundaries too.

 

This is what I think (the) Laozi achieved using the tools/language available at the time. The TTC happens to have been expressed in Chinese characters 2,500 years ago. But China, Chinese characters, and 2,500 years ago are all arbitrary factors to that-which-inspires-such-expression. I see no reason why the same inspiration couldn't strike someone in pretty much any domain.

 

 

What I'm driving at is,

 

Laozi himself couldn't translate his work into English without doing stuff like that, without doing it this way! Doing it this way is the single most difficult thing in the world for a writing genius to do.

Another good point. He probably wouldn't today though if he was born here - by now he probably would've been diagnosed with ADHD, dyselecxtria, and some sort of motivational disorder, and be regularly ingesting some bizarre cocktail of medication instead.

 

I guess my point is that if the starting point is an entirely different cultural and technological background, the same considerations might be more effectively evoked by the use of an entirely different cultural and technological medium of expression...

 

Perhaps an internet!

Edited January 3, 2011 by majc

[majc]

Yeah, what would the TTC read if translated into txt? 2 b red on ur cell?

Not quite what I had in mind... but good luck with that! I lk 4wd 2 rding it wn ur dn.

[phore]

d way S an Mt vessel; itz uzd, bt nvr filD. O, unfathomable source of 10 K fings! Blunt d sharpness, Untangle d knot, Soften d glare, Merge W dust. O, hidN deep bt evr presnt! I duno frm whence it cums. itz d 4father of d gods.

[Taomeow]

Thank you, TheSongsofDistantEarth

and majc

and Rainbow_vein

and phore,

and you crack me up!

[rene]

Bumped - just because it's so excellent. (-:

Edited July 24, 2013 by rene

[Stosh]

The spirited translation is actually going to take one closer than the bureacratic one (for something like a "cultural background" and "literary taste" and "historic perspective" and the rest of what goes into "comprehension" are nothing if not fuzzy-logical), but not close enough, never close enough... unless we're dealing with a unique situation of a translator's genius surpassing that of the author while including it in its entirety.

And now the poem I used to illustrate my point...

 

Popular yes , work of genius? Not so much.

The original has a message ,and the parody does not (that I can see)

The feel is entirely changed and it retains little of the original

except for the repetitive rhythm , its just a confusion.

"Carroll"s presentation of light hearted nonsense , panders,

rather than suggesting something enlightening.

Was Johnny Carson's show genius ?, or did it just have a comfortable feel

sloppy jokes , Ed McMahon , etc that people wanted for late night.

 

Its interesting as a 'blast from the past' though.

 

It seldom happens, even, that a work of genius translated by another genius comes out as a work of genius!

 

This however, makes sense ,because genius isnt obedient.

 

If however an idiot translates the work of genius , I dont figure it comes out much better

whether they speak the lingo natively or not.

 

Laozi himself couldn't translate his work into English without doing stuff like that, without doing it this way!

 

Maybe true also ,

words have connotations associated with them ,

not every language has the same set connotations,

and therefore if writing is done in an intentionally ambiguous manner

(goes for Shakespeare as well ), any word choices are going to fall short in translation.

Picking one translation to english from ancient chinese is just not likely to do the work justice

without a syncretic view.

If thats your point ,I agree wholeheartedly

Very nice!

Edited August 1, 2013 by Stosh

[exorcist_1699]

I myself do quite a lot of translation jobs between Chinese ( more precisely speaking Classical Chinese ) and English , a little between Japanese and Chinese , so I know the difficulties of them well. It is especially true when talking about the Taoist alchemical stuff for there is always an issue of whether we , the Chinese Taoists, should translate them as clear as possible .

 

Literally speaking , as a translator, it is his responsibility to the readers to make things as clear as possible ; however, many Taoist texts are hidden with keys leading to eternal life , which should not be explicated too clearly unless we do not mind nourish several immortal Stalins or Hilters more in this world ...

Edited August 6, 2013 by exorcist_1699