Classics in Translation

Upon seeing newly refurbished translations of literary classics, including Doctor Zhivago and Madame Bovary, Alex Beam in The Boston Globe says: "Oh, come on. We have been imbibing 'Bovary,’' 'Zhivago,' 'War and Peace,’ and a host of other classics quite peaceably for decades. Is it possible that the lust for lucre, rather than the luster of literary merit, drives this rush to push new/old product onto the shelves?"

I see Beam's concern, even though the question seems reductive in the extreme, especially since the column's headline ("Lost in Translation"--yawn) highlights the obvious reality that translated stories are different than the original stories, and that each translation is in turn different from the others. Moreover, what are the stakes here? Even if a classic title is translated anew with no real purpose beyond the "lust for lucre," what is lost? So there's another version of  Doctor Zhivago out there. So the publicity incites more people to read the new version, and maybe the new version isn't as good as older translations. I ask as a person who cares passionately about good writing, in translation and otherwise: So what?

All the same, I found this interesting:

Over in the classics aisle, there is a Homeric struggle being waged over Virgil’s “Aeneid,’’ which was ably translated into modern English by writers such as Allen Mandelbaum and Robert Fitzgerald decades ago. That’s not an argument you would hear from Stanley Lombardo (“Aeneid,’’ 2005), G.B. Cobbold (2005), the late Robert Fagles (2006), Frederick Ahl (2007), or Sarah Ruden (2008). Each one can claim a special distinction: Lombardo is not only a classics professor but also a well-regarded poet; Cornell professor Ahl translated in Virgil’s original hexameter; and so on.

Harvard professor Richard Thomas, who uses Lombardo’s book in his Aeneid course, says there haven’t been so many “Aeneid’’ translations since the middle of the 19th century. “T. S. Eliot said poems should be retranslated every 50 years,’’ he notes, “so perhaps this is the time.’’

Who needs these books? “There is a certain market for them,’’ Thomas says, “although I think the impetus here is coming from the individual translators.’’ ...

... David Ferry ... has spent the past four years of his life working on the “Aeneid.’’ “My reason for working on this translation is very simple,’’ Ferry e-mailed me. “I’m in love with it and with Virgil, and also in love with the experience of translating in verse. I’ve translated the rest of Virgil, and I’m crazy about those works. So how could I not be trying this one ..."

I love that love of the work is a primary spark for translators--but it occurs to me that given such a dearth of world literature in translation, and of people skilled enough to render it into quality English, there is indeed something lost when translations of a single work multiply, while others in the same language remain untouched.

It's worth noting, by the way, that the phrase "ably translated" appears twice in Beam's short column, reminding me of Edith Grossman's complaint that in book reviews of translated literature, the only mention of the translator is typically in this pseudo-educated phrase, as The National Post describes:

Grossman has no easy answer to another thorny issue — book reviewers ignoring the work of translators in books they criticize, or using pat phrases, such as “ably translated,” to weasel out of their ignorance. “Even if it is unrealistic to wish that every reviewer of a translated book were at least bilingual, it is not unreasonable to require a substantive and intelligent acknowledgement of the reality of the translation,” she writes. She laments that very few reviewers “have devised an intelligent way to review both the original and the translation within the space limits imposed by the publication.”

Open Letters Monthly expands on the point:

Finally, woe to the reviewer who describes Grossman’s work in a single adverb: “This book, ably translated by Edith Grossman…” or the even more despicable “seamlessly.” What these reviewers have in common (in addition to a dismissive attitude toward a translator’s contributions to a text) is the implied belief that an ideal translation of a work—an agglomeration of every “correct” translation choice into a Platonic form—exists somewhere out there in the ether. A translator, then, must simply follow the path to it without making a misstep anywhere along the way. You can see why Grossman doesn’t find this idea very appealing. But the critical tendency to casually dismiss the role of the translator is indicative of a deeper nervousness critics and readers share in the presence of a translation. The conception is that there is something pure about the original state of a book that can only be muddied or diluted when touched by extra hands. Reading translations obliges you to think much more about the behind-the-scenes process of working with words, and to grant a nuanced notion of authorship, both of which can seem uncomfortably at odds with the romantic notion of an isolated genius, scribbling away in her garret alone.

Meanwhile, speaking of classics in translation, Publisher's Weekly has a piece about Dalkey Archive and its (many) translation series', such as the Hebrew Literature Series that launched this year. The press even has a pitch on its website "for partners in any country to initiate several Literature Series," which will lead to an arrangement for Dalkey to publish about two books a year from one language or country over three to ten years. While perhaps a little haphazard, the model has brought us books by Flann O'Brien (John F. Byrne Literature Series), Gilbert Sorrentino (Lannan Selections), Suzanne Jill Levine (Scholarly Series), Llorenç Villalonga (Catalan Literature Series), and Andrej Blatnik (Slovenian Literature Series), among many others.

Collectively, the series model is an enthusiastic effort to ferret out the next great classics for English readers in a way that, according to Dalkey associate director Martin Riker, reveals an overarching literary story that better reaches readers and reviewers:

Not only has the series idea allowed Dalkey to get more traction in the way of features—the series gives journalists a topic/event to cover instead of simply a book—but Riker thinks it also makes it easier to publicize each successive title. "With a series, you don't have to reinvent the wheel every time you publish a book," he explained. "You can get to know the constituencies [you're working with]," making it easier to both manage a book's press and set up author events.

Dalkey is now planning to do about 10 series every year, each featuring two to four books. ... its third title in the Hebrew Literature Series, Life on Sandpaper by Yoram Kaniuk, is scheduled for February 2011.