Reflections 02/28

 When it comes to the book "The Vegetarian", I believe when the question cannot be properly answered and results into back-and-forth exchanges of equally valid perspectives without any resolution on the horizon, then the question is simply not posed right. In my opinion, a useful, reasonable and worth-the-time question is the one that leads to integration of angles into a complex multidimensional figure that represents subtleties and nuances of a concept that is full of energy of creation. The question about whether or not translation should be faithful to the original does not seem to be of that kind because it presumes reality in which only one of the perspectives merits to survive. I.e. it comes down to "Did that book need to be translated faithfully or with greater liberty?" "Is it the original or the translation that deserves the prize?". This "either or" feels quite meaningless to me because attempts to answer such questions do not expand our understanding of certain concepts and mostly come down to personal preferences and assertions of certain routes of thinking. I think one of the articles pointed it out correctly that the actual issue with the book is that it is stylistically incoherent - and some of these incoherencies get attributed to the translator and some - to the author. Moreover, the readers didn't seem to have an issue with stylistic unsoundness and that is also telling, to me - it is precisely this translation that "peppered" a story with fancy words that weren't there and that didn't feel suitable to the context that actually brought the book acclaim among English speaking audience. Yet, the book won the prize and criticizing literary tastes of the public would be unethical. At the same time, the "straightjacket" of stamps like "Splendid" and "Breathtaking" on the cover of every bestseller reveal the aimlessness of the market. The market exists just to exist, as long as stuff sells, it's all good. Why is it important that "The Vegetarian" got translated in a way that attracted attention in the West? Because it introduced Korean literature to the market. So what? That question does not get answered. There are over 200 countries in the world and many more cultures, countless books and works, and why for example literature need to be attached to a culture or a country in the first place and not be considered shared heritage of humanity as a whole? Why do people prefer reading works in translation rather than learning more languages (an average human has the capacity to speak fluently ~7 languages)? Why do people prefer to buy what they know already sells well, what some magazine called "a must read" or what won an international prize? What does sell well and what makes for a good book? Is it what is interesting to read and is entertaining? (after all, the translation was so successful because it changed the dry and unembellished style of the original) Why is this and that entertaining and why is it important for something to feel attention-catching? What catches the attention nowadays and why? Where does the reader want to progress toward, if anywhere? What are the consequences of the market and the reader having no direction? Answering this would involve deep reflections on the current culture and its nature, on the habits and mindset of a modern consumer, their source and their impact. 

"Ideologically, it champions the individual (woman) against an oppressive society (about which we know nothing, except that it seems “worse” than our own)" - this sentence made me think a lot, too. I see a skewed preference in the Western bookstores toward "foreignness = struggle", and in a large sense I get an impression that this fuels the Western identity, and in the case of the US, it provides a neat contrast with the American dream narrative. Just as how questions over the validity of the translation of "The Vegetarian" distract from asking more helpful questions related to its success, the works about "different cultures struggle" distract from taking a closer look on the culture of one's own - this doesn't mean that works in translation are bound to serve this purpose, yet I believe they are used that way today to a rather great extent. Instead of being seen as treasure chests where art gives frame to experience from which we can extract insight, they often become colorful faraway objects to point finger to - and if it's not colorful, it gets lost and blended with the surroundings in the distance. 

The talk on Friday and the fact that "What is left of the Night" is a fictional imagining of the real person's thoughts - the way some translations can be called "fictional" when they stray too far from the original - reminded me of the phenomenon of the many "inspired by" books written by the Soviet authors, where what was initially supposed to be a translation of The Wizard of Oz inspired seven books about that magical world, with intense action and intricate storylines, sort of like Lord of the Rings. One question I wish I asked on Friday but did not because it occurred to me only later is whether or not the translator should be able to write texts in the language from which they translate - so that they can perhaps "feel" it better by feeling it actively rather than passively. 

-Ksenia