Reflections 3/21

     I loved Michael Cooperson's talk! He seemed so timid and unconfident in his work, but I think he did an amazing job. I loved that he focused more on the process of translation, because I've been quite curious, but understand that it's different for everyone. I love the quote that he ended with, about non-translatable works truly just being able to be translated in an infinite number of ways.

    When Kundera admitted to spending more time reading and supervising his translations than writing, it not only reinforced my opinion that "fidelity" to an original is not only unnecessary but actually a hindrance. In the case of the English translation and domestication of his novel Zert, I understand Kundera's protest. But the fixation on "sniffing out" the "unfaithfulness" of translations that have existed for years seems unproductive. Kundera probably could've written other novels if she hadn't been so concerned with re-translating her own works, and adding her own modifications that other translators clearly couldn't.

    Nabokov and Pertzoff's translation relationship seems much more effective, and perhaps this comes from Nabokov having experience translating work that wasn't his own. Reading their letters was so cool. It's easy to render someone like Nabokov as more of a legend than a person, but reading that he was "interested in a library position" was just so wholesome. It humanized him in my eyes and was fun to read.

    My favorite part from the Juliet Winters Carpenter interview was that she used other novels to finesse her style in the translation of A True Novel. She mentions Wuthering Heights (which the plot is loosely based on), The Tales of Genji, and The Great Gatsby. These callbacks reminded me of Michael Cooperson's talk, and how he used Jane Eyre, Edgar Allan Poe, and The Odyssey (among many others) to finesse the style he was trying to copy in his translations. It's so interesting how much prose goes into translation beyond the original text-- not only to copy a style, but transformative works that influence a language, which years down the road influence a translation into that language... the amount of works that go into a translation is honestly infinite. 

Sarah