To invent under constraint, I’m curious what could be said about translation using words that begin with c. Creativity (first a consummate reader, the translator is also an adroit writer, his inventions tethered to, derived from, and always harkening back to the source text). Confidence (because if the translator doesn’t believe he can produce a sound translation, the most likely outcome is that he will not). Commitment (because to hear Cooperson talk about that strata of revisions and to read how Carpenter and Mizumura labored over every word is to suppose translation is as much a show of talent as a feat of persistence). And finally collaboration (a c word correlative with the last).
I’d be amongst the first to plant a theoretical flag in the domain of Roland Barthes and to suggest that the death of the author entails, a priori, the ousting of authorial authority. How many translators in how many languages have brought a question to the venerated personage of the author, only to hear, “I didn’t mean it that way, but now that you say it, you’re absolutely right”? An author is the best writer but perhaps not the best reader of his work. Once a text leaves his desk, it enters a web of associations whose gamut no writer, however perspicacious, can foresee. One of the most careful readers a text will ever enjoy, a translator is thus uniquely positioned to detect the depth and nuances of a text, one of the persons best qualified to maximize the meanings which transcend authorial design.
In theory. And I say “in theory” because economic and personal interests quickly complicate any metaphysical web of associations. As Vanderschelden points out, in contrast to the evolution of literary theory, an author can veto or authorize a translation (e.g., Kundera) in accordance with how he’d like his work to be perpetuated or perceived. The model, although it feels like an anachronism, underpins the mercantile construct surrounding translation. Unless the death of the author signifies literally the death of the author, for a translator working on a modern text, the author is inevitably in the room, able to say yea or nay. That is, collaboration is implicit in the structure of contemporaneous translation.
The practical expression of this tacit collaboration hinges upon a multitude of factors. The author’s command of the target language (Kundera could never micromanaged a translation into Zulu), the translator’s fluency in the source culture (not just the language), the preoccupations and personalities of writer and translator (Nabokov seems to prefer an amanuensis to a translator, Sotiropolous was generous with her time but exacting in her methods, Yi Lei gave Tracy Smith great latitude)—these are some of the determinants shaping the nature and degree of the collaboration between author and translator.
Personally, as a land mammal loth to speak, I would be discombobulated by direct collaboration. While I hope to enjoy a positive rapport with (if not the friendship of) the writers I one day translate, to ask for clarification and to discuss textual choices, I’m speaking to revisions. The generative process, for me, calls for hermetic concentration, that I immerse myself completely and without competing priorities in the field of the text in order to hear its tone and to catch its rhythm. My first draft, in the best of circumstances, is a product of this elusive flow, and I suspect that the author’s physical presence would stifle my creativity in favor of the author’s own.
In closing, despite the weight of the author’s veto and the swiftness with which it may fall, it’s befitting to recall that, in the end, both parties want the same thing: the best possible text in the target language. Differences of opinion about what constitutes that text—and how to achieve it—arise later. I’d expected Cooperson to burnish his lingual tour de force, but rather than a translator quick to shine his merits, we heard one willing to air the frequency with which he asked for help and to credit (even financially) those who gave it. Humility is another trait characterizing the translator. Although obviously, the word doesn’t begin with c.
-Josh
No comments:
Post a Comment