2/22 Reflections

 On readings

    After Tracy's talk on Friday about how she had a duet with Yi Wei, I can't help but feel that the sentiment resonates throughout the two works translated by Karen Emmerich. What was immediately noticeable to me was how despite both Landscape with Dog and What's Left of the Night were written and translated by the same people, the way they read could have almost convinced me that they were translated by two different people entirely, or at written by two different people, although they both do share a common theme in their exploration of human relationships. 

    In Landscape with Dog, there is in my memory, one instance where something is "not translated," which is on page 26 where Ugo is grunting. Compared to the other text, where there is much French, which I assume was French in the original text, along with retaining some Frenchisms (?), like the use of monsieur. While both are certainly pieces focused on the people in the story, the language used in Landscape with Dog is  much more forward, and while both stories paint a vivid picture of the environment the characters find themselves in, the way they accomplish this is so vastly different between the two that it's hard for me to believe that they're the same author-translator pair. This, along with the various translations of poems in What's Left of the Night make me very interested in the original piece, and the thought processes between the author and translator 

On talk

    Tracy was kind enough to oblige me with an answer to a question that I had ever since I read the Red Wall as to how she was able to reach the method she eventually did. She replied that her solution was one that she reached out of looking for a concrete form that would work in English, and I'm not sure it's the sort of answer I would ever be able to find myself. Nonetheless, it was a very enlightening response that I hope I'll be able to keep in mind as I continue to translate in the future. Something that also was very surprising to hear was just how open she was to there being other translations of Yi Wei's poems, I had assumed that she would not be so receptive to the idea. Overall it seemed to me that rather than the meaning of the words and the patterns that they had in the original text, Tracy was much more focused on what Alejandro so often refers to as the music of the words, and I hope that that is something I will be able to emulate in the future. 

Steven