Gail Armstrong recounts a variety of interactions between authors and translators, ranging from open hostility to endless love. (The former, of course, makes for better reading.) She opens with this classic quote: "When told by a reader that his stories read better in French, James Thurber replied, 'Yes, I tend to lose something in the original.'" I recommend the whole entry. And I have to say that if I, like Alan Bennett, were to receive these queries from my translator:
‘For a long time I used to go to bed early.’ This Proust quote, where?I would tell the publisher to find another translator.
Ivy-Compton-Burnett: who or what is that?
My favorite anecdote from my own professional career is when I had to use all my powers of persuasion to change a proposed Spanish translation of Christmas disease as "enfermedad de Navidad." (The disease was named for Stephen Christmas, who suffered from it.)
Posted by languagehat at March 27, 2004 02:23 PMSo what did you have them change it to?
Posted by: Semantic Compositions at March 27, 2004 06:43 PMEnfermedad de Christmas.
Posted by: language hat at March 27, 2004 10:00 PMIvy-Compton-Burnett *does* sound like a rare disease of the urinary tract.
Nobody knows anything anymore. (I know, I know, preaching to the pope).
Posted by: commonbeauty at March 29, 2004 10:22 AM