In Translation

Windows & Mirrors for All

“In matters of translation there are some exactitudes which are the equivalent of infidelities.”

Composer and pianist Franz Liszt, on transcribing orchestral works to the piano

Think about some of your favorite novels of all time. Were they all first written in English? Perhaps you found the Napoleonic wars in War and Peace more gripping than the American Civil War in Gone with the Wind, or the human truths in Greek tragedies more profound than Arthur Miller or Edward Albee. There is a bountiful world of literature out there that was not originally penned in English.

This winter I dipped my toes into a fascinating and dense little book by the eminent translator Edith Grossman, Why Translation Matters. It is not in the Ramsey County library system, but they cheerfully sourced it for me by ILL. In addition to in-depth exploration of the oft-overlooked nuances of good translation, she delves into why we need to read the literature of other cultures.

As Liszt tells us, good translation is not note for note or word for word. We know that in many languages What’s your name? is more literally What do they call you? and the complexity increases exponentially from there. Translating great writing is a monumental task. It requires deep knowledge of both languages and both cultures. It requires close, critical reading. The translator must look at the class of the language in the dialogue, the flow of the words, the style of the author and much more. Grossman admits that with great literature, a great translator must herself be an excellent writer.

Some of her discussion is quite abstract and esoteric, but whenever I got bogged down in arcana, an idea would capture me. For example, consider the human mind. Babies think before they have language. Those little human sponges absorb information and meaning in their world without the words our adult minds use to “think.” When Grossman quoted Mexican Nobelist Octavio Paz who said “When we learn to speak, we are learning to translate,” I almost gasped with recognition. Indeed, the human brain is not innately wired to speak English or Russian or Hebrew or any of the thousands of languages devised by humanity. We all have to learn to translate our interior lives to words. Perhaps that is why we love certain books and writers so deeply. They capture, connect and express what we may only inarticulably feel.

Translation also matters because, as framed by Andre Dubus III, “We are, of course, a country of immigrants. We come from the very cultures we no longer seem to know.” In today’s interconnected and interdependent world, we cannot afford to indulge in “the luxury of being provincial.” [Dubus, also] We are, as a country woefully ignorant about the rest of the world, a condition which is sad, but even more, dangerous. Works in translation, both fiction and nonfiction, can be a window, a toehold, a path to increasing understanding. “The free, essential exchange of literary ideas, insights, and intuitions—a basic reciprocity of thought facilitated and enhanced by the translation of works from other cultures—is a decisively significant, even defining phenomenon.” [Grossman, p. 52] And she notes that “Oppressive regimes have an incontestable penchant for dominating, corrupting, and stultifying language.” [p. 53] They recognize the power of the written word and seek to hobble it.

Read On! Read widely!