Paul Kroll's paper on the sinologist as translator hits upon what I find to be the fundamental problem in translating poetry, that being whether to translate for the purpose of "imparting information or in the hope of giving pleasure". To me, the most interesting feature of this paper was the discussion of a need for balance, between creating a literal translation or one that strays too far from the original. Particularly I enjoyed the passage in which Kroll critiques those who have their own strong tenents on translation, that within a large enough body of their work they are more likely than not to have broken their own rules, something that I am also forced to admit I do, despite my own thoughts on what constitutes a proper translation. It was also nice to read someone who so openly points out that much of translation criticism is done with an air of superiority, blankly pointing out flaws with no intent to do anything other than that.
Impostures I found was interesting, that is really the only word I feel like I can use with any degree of sincerity. It was difficult to read, and I often wish I had a glossary until I got to the end and found out there was in fact a glossary, except the glossary was about the length of the entire passage. I'd be very interested in hearing about what sort of mindset you'd have to be in to be able to translate something like this, and resist the urge to just explain, like in the piece by Murakami we were supposed to retranslate; the striped shirt being explained in the English translation as being the Hanshin Tigers shirt. The way the accent is in the English also makes for some reason think of Westerns and cowboys.
Steven
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