Mouse or Rat? Translation as Negotiation has been sitting on my unread hardback shelf for a couple of years, waiting for just the right moment. When I read the blurb I was fascinated - I have a (strictly amateur) interest in words, linguistics and semantics, and found the idea of an exploration of how translators' decision making affected the process a really interesting idea.
The book is based on a series of lectures by Eco, a semiotician and novelist (among other occupations), and are a collection of interlocking essays regarding different aspects of translation, including an examination of what it is precisely that we mean by 'translation'. Eco draws heavily on translations of hos own work.
Clearly it is more than just substitution of words, as he demonstrates using Babelfish, an online translating service that doesn't (and can't) take levels of meaning into account. Similarly the translator needs to take into account the cultures of the original text and the translation, substituting idioms and geography, and the fact that terms often have no analogue (for example the German concept of Schadenfreude has no English version, and "the joy one feels at anothers' misfortune" doesn't just slip itself into a sentence). In contrast, Italian has only one word (nipote) for grandchild, niece or nephew, but the concepts of grandchild, niece and nephew exist in Italian culture despite there being no linguistically-unique word for each. Which brings us to the difficulties of domesticising the text, not to mention issues with archaic or historical texts.
Eco gives examples from poetry (where he discusses the merits of retaining metre at the expense of text versus the truest sense of the poem but sacrificing the rhythm), his own works (and compares the job translators into different languages did), and literature. The title of the book comes from translations of Shakespeare's Hamlet - in English, when Hamlet hears Polonious rustling behind the arras he cries "A rat!" but in Italian it is "A mouse!", and for good reason.
The blurb claims that this book is accessible to everyone but, though what I understood was interesting, I did not find it particularly easy to follow. To get the most out of this book, the reader needs to be conversant with Eco's fiction (at the very least with The Name of the Rose and The Island of the Day Before), and read at least two of the following: English, Italian, German and Latin. In addition there were many terms with which I was wholly unacquainted (on p. 146 alone there were alexandrines, hemistichs and hendecasyllables) but with which Eco clearly expects his reader to be familiar.
In previous discussions about literary imagery, Lynn has often expressed the belief that authors have not inserted the layers of meaning that English literature teachers find. This is clearly not the case with Eco, who discusses at length the directions he has given translators of his work, and their explanations of their decisions - word play, jokes, obscure literary allusions and "rich intertextual references". Rarely have I felt as ill-educated and thick-headed as I did when reading this book.
One thing I found particularly interesting (and accessible!) - Eco's discussion about cultural interpretation of colour, or chromatic responses. It has been suggested that the ancient Greeks did not distinguish between blue and yellow, while some believe that Latin-speakers did not separate blue and green, or possibly red and yellow (including the yellow-grey mud of the Tiber river).
I'm sure this text is invaluable for the erudite, multilingual, well-read linguist. I certainly got something out of it, but for the most part it was hard going and not particularly rewarding. It may go on my shelves, but purely as a prop, because I doubt I'll be referring to it, or rereading it, again. - Alex
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