Post from Jiayi

 

Last Friday, we had Greek author Ersi Sotiropoulos and her translator, professor Karen Emmerich from Princeton University come and speak to us about their work together. It is impressive to be able to hear the two of them together, and one can tell from the way they interact that their synergy is amazing and their ideologies about translating the same. In the rare chance of having both the author and the translator present, I wanted to ask them about word choices. I picked the “perfect pleasure” and “absolute sensual pleasure” to ask for further elaboration on how minutely different words in Greek are carried over to English. It turns out that they liked the translations in English, as they check back with the Greek original, nodding and verbally agreeing that it is indeed accurate. I think this interaction reflects their translation style pretty accurately: they want to preserve the original text and carry over the cultural aspects and elements of Greece to the English language as fine as possible. This is very different from what Tracy has done. It is admittedly a whole different story translating poetry than prose, but I noticed one very crucial difference between these pairs that I am comparing listening to Ersi and Karen’s talk. Both Ersi and Karen speak both Greek and English–there is no communication blockade. When you learn a language, you also are naturally exposed to their culture. Thus, Ersi has a decent amount of knowledge of how certain English words sound in various english speaking worlds, while Karen, being a professor of comparative literature who also studied Greek literature extensively, knows the importance of certain Greek elements in Ersi’s work and thus has more reverence for Ersi’s intricate placement of words and objects in Greek and more loyalty to carry them over to English. On the flip side, not only Tracy doesn’t speak Chinese, Yi Lei also doesn’t understand English. What is lost isn’t just the direct communication between the author and translator on the surface level of the language, but Tracy doesn’t know the cultural significance of certain Chinese elements in the flow of that poem, and Yi Lei doesn’t know the connotation of certain words in English. When explaining the cultural effect of words, Tracy and Yi Lei might have run into Tracy over-stigmatizing how certain words from Chinese culture sound in English, and Yi Lei downplaying how much the word means in the flow of her poem, direly wanting her poems to be translated and published in English. Listening to Ersi and Karen’s talk made me realize that the translator really should speak the language they translate from and that it is ideal for the author to know to a certain extent the target language where their work is being translated to.

Readings: 

I have so much to say in response to the articles we read today. An overarching theme that I am reflecting on is really the “meaning” of translation and the “evaluation criteria” of translation. First of all, Charles Yun talked in his article about the “gains” of translation. 

Moreover, the “gains” of Smith’s effort, clearly a labor of love, have so far greatly outweighed any “losses”: Readers and critics have enjoyed the work immensely, South Korea has been placed on the world’s literary map, sales of both the original and the English version have exploded, and interest in Korean literary translation has soared. 

Well, what is considered “gain” in translation? In my opinion, not just blindly an award or bringing the original author to a larger, more global audience with perfectly English literature sounding proses, but that introducing the author’s writing while preserving the authentic voice written in another language. Otherwise, what is the point of reading foreign literature? Several articles brought up the point that modifications to a certain extent didn’t prevent English readers from enjoying the book. If all English readers want is to read more splendid English prose, why don’t they just read more English literature then? What is the point, then, of translating in the first place if you domesticate cultural elements, language convention, and writing style? A couple of other quotes also astonished me. To list a few: 

“[L]ike ‘Cathay,’ it has morphed into a ‘new creation.’” 

Again, is something that morphed into a ‘new creation’ translation? If so, to what extent can we tolerate alteration? 

“Another translator could have produced a more accurate version, but I find it extremely doubtful that anyone could have matched the virtuosity of Smith’s work. As a first-time effort, Smith’s translation is still a stunning achievement.”

A stunning achievement from what standard? Maybe she is a stunning writer, but I think a stunning translator should be otherly judged. 

“Sometimes you have to block off “one eye” just to focus on the target language.”

“For me, I can still admire the translation. I just have to keep one eye closed.”

My response to this is: just go read more English literature then if you’re not ready to expose yourself to an authentic writing style carried over to English from Korean. 

Smith herself also tried to explain away her critiques quite a bit in her article. I am going to respond to a few quotes that really blew me away (in a not necessarily positive way). 

One of the biggest critiques of Smith’s translation is her “poetic, embellished prose” in English. She counters those critiques by pointing out that Han Kang’s original writings in Korean is also “poetic”, 

And Han Kang’s Korean readers have always singled out her “poetic” style. A 2011 article introduces her as having “received attention for her lyrical style and detailed structuring”; a 2017 article in the Kyunghyang Shinmun comments that Han’s fiction “resembles poetry,” 

Nice try. I am not at all convinced. Poetry resemblance does not equate to florid, flamboyant construction of sentences and paragraphs. Poetry could be plain, simple, and powerful. It is quite unbecoming of a translator to be ignorant of the wide variety of poetry styles and use “resembles poetry” to explain away her disloyal addition of florid content in her English prose. 

Connecting back to my reaction to Yun’s article, what is the criterion of a good translation? And what do we translate for? Smith pens that it is important to take into consideration the following. 

What styles are used by this author’s contemporaries? What’s the mainstream? What tends to garner praise, get labeled “modern,” “original,” “experimental,” or even just “literary”? 

I’m glad to have brought the work of a brilliant writer to an international audience, in sufficiently faithful a way for a qualitatively, if not quantitatively, similar reception. 

Well… I guess it depends on different ideologies of translation. In my opinion, if you have intentions of garnering praise and pleasing an international audience too much in the back of your mind, your translation cannot steer too clear from hyper-domestication.

Last but not least, Smith also stated, 

“[C]hange is not betrayal.”

This is a bold generalized sentence. There must be a degree to tolerable change. Otherwise, there would be no difference between translation of writing and new creation of writing.